LIS The overturning of Roe v Wade has overturned me. And US.
A core group of radical reactionaries* including Vladimir, Samuel, Mitch, a couple of Steves, and the Federalist Society** (and their clones) have a powerful grip on our country.
These dangerous snakes and their slimy minions are dragging our country backwards, pitting US against each other and crushing Our Democracy by:
1. Decimating our right to vote by gerrymandering, intimidation and other dirty tricks. Some states are using The Big Lie as an excuse to create new election rules and regulations that will diminish and constrict our votes and could dangerously manipulate the results of our elections. How can we possibly hold on to our Democracy and make changes for the good when our votes may not even count?
2. Making US vulnerable to mass shootings. They do not care if we get shot—particularly in public. They vehemently protect the unborn as they hunt down, prosecute and imprison pregnant women. They crush programs that might protect and nurture our born children who have no right to life and randomly get gunned down. I once had a photo of an aborted fetus shoved in my face. Can you imagine what born children blown to bits with a military style weapon must look like? Automatic Kalashnikovs are legal. Abortions are illegal.
3. Controlling and denying our privacy and reproductive rights by overturning Roe v Wade. In the late 1960s, when I and my friends were juicy and vulnerable, abortion was illegal. Back alley abortions were real. And rapists, abusers and molesters were rarely held accountable for their crimes. The burden of proof was on us—the sluts. By any standard, we were second class citizens. That was 50 years ago. And now. What are we now? No woman should ever be forced to have an unwanted child.
This is only the beginning. Our marital, gender, and environmental rights are now under threat.
Truth bomb:
The only power we have left is our VOTE. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO SKIP THE 2022 MID-TERM ELECTIONS. The outcome of the 2022 elections will decide the future of elections in our country. Will everyone’s vote count or will we lose our vote to officials who can overturn elections?
Truth Bomb:
Thank you Hilary Clinton for making the word “deplorable” a noun.
Truth Bomb:
Thank you Liz Cheney.
Truth Bomb:
Senator Manchin, you’re only a legend in your own mind.
I wrote the following poem in 2020. It was inspired by a spoken word piece I had written in 2016 for the IN MY BODY musical. I am working on another version.
My body belongs to me And because it does No one has the right to violate me Or you Or denigrate the color of our skin Or what’s inside our skin Or my heshewetheythem Or yours Or the shape of our body Or our disability Or our rainbow Or those we choose to love Or our right to choose. No one! Not you there bully Or you hiding in the corner Or you wearing a mask or not. YES I/we see you Nervously giggling (or weeping) Because it finally occurred to you The person you voted for Is THE BIG LIE! Who doesn’t care a wit about you Or the likes of you Or your inalienable rights. Bang! I see the barrel of your gun And it’s back firing Because every BODY knows Who the real fake news is And because my body belongs to me!
*political extremists who are dedicated to moving our country backwards
**right wing extremist judicial idealogues who are packing our Courts with reactionary judges and justices so as to bypass Congress and legislate from the Bench
Shadows derive from light And dark Nature's cosmic choreography A dance Gliding oh (just) so intimately They drift Momentarily together Then depart.
PAT: My sister, Lis, a great patron of the arts for all of her life, has the uncanny eye and deep inner wisdom to see what is inside of a shadow. She takes shadow pictures and calls them “Shadow Play”.
This is a shadow of my sister. I can even see her glasses that sport a reflection of her inner glow.
A shadow of a hand that has dipped into so many sinks full of dishes. Soft with interesting little lines and wrinkles. And the shadow – what do you see?
Beautiful Hand
Reaching for the light
Trees on a Leaf
Black Lace
Heart Cracked Open
To me this picture is the most startling and profound of her Shadow Play. It almost looks like a benevolent god looking down on a city of angels, a city filled with shadow and light. It is astounding, comforting to me somehow amidst these turbulent times we live in. All seems like shadows now. Our world is cracked wide open. Yet perhaps it needed to crack wide open so we can see how very vulnerable we are.
And so we pray
The Shadow and the Gift A Celtic Prayer - Macrina Wiederkehr
Wide eyes and excited I see the gifts I used to stumble over. Praying with the shadow I have come to understand it. Leading me into its secret it has shown me that it doesn't like. Quietly, it proclaims the existence of something deeper, something real. Study the shadow and you will find the gift. with eyes wide open you can see through the shadow, all the way through to a deeper truth. Yes, even shadows can make you wise once you've discovered how to look. For every shadow hides a gift. and because of that I love shadows.
LIS I’m tuning into Marvin Gaye Radio on Pandora and taking an enormous breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Qigong breathing.
Krista Tippett* interviewed children’s author Kate DiCamillo. They talked about telling children the truth rather than sugar coating, white lying, or straight-out lying.
So, how do we tell our kids the truth and somehow make it bearable?
I’ve been parenting for nearly forty six years and at this moment my brain is exhausted from trying and failing to come up with an answer, any answer, to this question.
The unbearable truth is—we are facing too many unbearable truths.
Our brains are fried. Our hearts are crushed but…
Thirty five or so years ago, I read we adults should only answer the specific questions our kids ask. No more. No less. The idea is don’t volunteer answers to questions our kids don’t ask. Many experts still espouse this.
I seriously tried using this theory as part of my parenting style. I frequently failed at it.
Today my forty something daughter asked me if she should tell her nine year old daughter about the massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
Mind you; we were talking about my precious grand kid. A child of my child. Of course, my first inclination was to hold dear to, “Wait until she asks you about it.”
So I did. So I said it.
We continued to speak and weep and even scream about Uvalde.
It didn’t take me long after the call to have regrets, to realize my best advice to my daughter should have been beseeching her to broach the subject of Uvalde with her daughter.
I share with you below a few of the exhausted(tive) random and stream of consciousness thoughts crossing my brain and heart since the call with my daughter.
Chew hard on my thoughts. Then swallow or spit.
We cannot trust (or expect) social media, the TV or a babysitter to convey horrifying truths to our kids.
What better precedent is there than sharing the most difficult truths—with our children— always with love, integrity and respect?
Our kids are strong and smart. Most of them already have parent bullshit detectors, which, by the way, will serve them well in developing critical thinking skills. Nine is not too young to start! Or even six or seven. You decide when the time is right but please don’t wait too long.
I was lucky. My kids were already in their twenties when September 11, 2001 happened. I rarely had to share awful truths with them when they were little kids—and so many awful truths so close together—the Covid pandemic, mass murders, corruption at all levels of government, book burnings, a divided country, attacks on voting rights…
Our children have the right and the need to learn truths—the good—the bad and, yes, the ugly—about American history and about the new histories we are making each day.
And the whys too.
We are all beneficiaries and victims of our vast technologies—sometimes what seems true one minute mutates into something different in minute two. If we only focus on truth one, we will miss truth two or three…
Encourage kids to ask questions—no matter how annoying some of these questions will be. Help kids dig into the questions they ask. Give them positive reinforcement for their questions. The better kids get at asking questions, the better they can get at figuring out truth. And the less likely it is they will become victims of conspiracy theories, political manipulation, two bit con-artists or worse.
My daughter believes she has inherited the worry gene. She’s absolutely terrified she has passed the gene on to her children. Every body worries. It’s normal to worry. Worry makes us think twice. Measure twice. Cut once.
Grieving is also okay.
Open our kids’ eyes to the freedom and to the power of making choices. Discuss why the right to make choices is not an entitlement. It’s a precious gift and a serious responsibility.
Our choices will have consequences.
Try your best to be fair, kind and respectful to your kids. Expect them to be fair, kind and respectful to you and others.
It’s not all doom and gloom. There must be some good stuff happening. Right?
Of course there is!
*Host of ON BEING. Check her out on public radio.
And…I have Ukraine in me.
My dad’s dad was born in Kiev circa 1890. His name was Morris Ernest. I’m convinced Ernest was not his original surname. I suspect he borrowed it when he came to the United States. But it stuck. If you asked him where he was from he would say Kiev in Russia. Pressed, he would say, “It’s all Russia!” He was a man of short stature, a furniture maker with powerful hands, quick temper and a booming voice. As a boy, he had been a member of a traveling children’s choir. Every time he set eyes on Pat and me he pinched our cheeks—making marks which took hours to fade away. He said the harder he pinched, the more he loved us.
He absolutely adored us.
PS I just got a hold of the book White Bird by RJ Palacio.
LIS Rooted in traditional Jewish ritual, the counting of the Omer happens during the time between Passover and Shavuot—between slavery and redemption. In 2022, from April 16 to June 4, Rabbi Pat counts the Omer in her own unique and special way. Each evening she writes a reflection. She offers blessings and prayers. She shares sage wisdoms. And sometimes she ends with an exercise in mindfulness or meditation.
Pat is writing a book which will include her Omers. She will keep you (us) “posted.”
Yesod she b’Tiferet
Foundation within Harmony
Reflections
PAT We have all had challenging situations in our lives. Change is so difficult and sometimes it feels like our whole world is changing before our very eyes. This certainly throws us off center and we lose our balance. We are constantly adjusting to our life changes. In the physical world we find so many changes to deal with all throughout our lives. In our world of feelings, the most difficult time is when we lose a loved one and find ourselves on a roller coaster of emotions in coping with our grief. In the world of thought, each time something changes within our everyday world, like a new co-worker arrives on the scene, or moving to a new city or a new love comes into our lives, we react, change and then come to a new sense of balance. In order to stay on a “Balance Beam” a gymnast must constantly readjust and make sometimes infinitesimal moves to maintain her balance. In our spiritual world we ask God for our life’s purpose and our longing for the balance and harmony we seek.
Yesod she b’Tiferet is the strength of our inner foundation that is necessary to maintain our balance. We need to find our center. Any physical therapist would tell you that it through strengthening our core that our bodies can find balance. It is through this center column of our bodies that we find foundation and then the ability to maintain balance and harmony within our world no matter what happens. Find your center, maintain your balance and help keep your world a place of harmony.
Today is twenty days, which is two weeks and six days of the Omer.
Wisdom
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; …
Kohelet 3:1-8
“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” ―Franz Kafka
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Frankl
Shalom Meditation
Relax in a chair. Unfold your legs. Begin to breathe slowly inhaling and exhaling. Observe your breath. Each time your mind jumps to thoughts of things you have to do, or worries of the day, let them go and gently bring your attention back to your breath. Now, imagine the word SHALOM in your mind’s eye. Say it to yourself several times.
Shalom
Shaaaa…….lommmmmm.
Let Shalom envelope you with love and calmness.
Shaaaa…..lommmmmmm.
Feel all the parts of yourself come together in your heart space and breathe in Shalom. You are safe. You are balanced and you are loved.
Resting in Flight. 1947. Oil on canvas. Collection of Pat and Ray Hickman.
LIS When I set out to write this, my goal was to reflect upon how Jennings Tofel influenced my life. Instead, it seems to be more stream of consciousness about my mother’s influence with a few sprinkles of other family members and then Jennings Tofel—kinda where you’d put the cherry. In fact, Shirley and Jennings inspired my curiosity about and passion for art. So, we’ll see where this ends up and how you and I feel about it.
I cannot write about Jennings Tofel without writing about my mom, Shirley Tofel Ernest. Her influence so much informed who I am today. It’s generally accepted most of us turn out to be a combination of the environment we grew up in plus our genetic pre-disposition. Growing up close to Manhattan, and also the ocean, provided plenty of opportunities for nurturing, and Shirley was the queen of nurture. She dragged Pat and me to libraries, museums, plays, musicals, galleries, high teas, and French restaurants. We did picnics and fed ducks, looked up at the trees and the sky–counted clouds, counted stars, counted waves. She would recite poems like “Trees” by Rudyard Kipling, “the Swing” by Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody.” We wrote haikus and limericks.
Shirley owned her share of art posters and as many original paintings as she could muster, including two by Jennings Tofel. I discovered a pile of Shirley’s poems after she died. She befriended people like Uncle Jennings and “Gay Cousin Larry,” because they were “others” and she was determined we would understand, respect and accept diversity. She devoured books. And she read the New York Times every day. She cooked, cleaned, taught 5th grade in a public school in Rockville Centre, NY and was never too tired or angry to give and receive hugs. After our dad passed away, she got progressively mean and grumpy but that’s fodder for another blog.
Uncle Jennings was her uncle. He was Shirley’s dad’s brother. I think I may have heard or read Papa George and Uncle Jennings were half-brothers. Nana Eva told us Uncle Jennings’ disabilities resulted from being pushed off a roof during the Nazi pogroms in Eastern Europe. Research seems to indicate he accidently fell off the roof when he was a kid and his numerous broken bones were never set properly. The bottom line is George and Jennings shared genes. Gentle George married Eva the Pepper Pot and owned an Army/Navy store in Poughkeepsie, called Terry’s. He was a lousy businessman. He loved to read and smoke cheap cigars. Jennings married Pearl and became an artist and writer who lived in New York and Paris. He had patrons.
In the early 20th Century, if you were an artist and you lived in New York City (or Paris) you were a Bohemian. I was told bohemian meant “ne’er-do-well,” which was one of Nana Eva’s favorite expressions, along with “I’ll been there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail” and “Girls! Keep your pants on.” I could never figure out either of these. I think the pants she referred to were underpants. Recently I learned the “lamb’s tail” expression derived from the Manhattan Project? Eva definitely was the bomb.
Anyway, Shirley argued (to no avail) that being a bit of a bohemian is a good thing. It meant you are unique and unconventional. And creative. Right?
Whatever the rest of the family thought about Jennings, to me he was a hunched over disfigured little man who created strange paintings with mystical, colorful, bizarre, twisted, entangled human and animal figures. Expressionist. Grotesque. I was terrified. I was fascinated. In 1958, when Shirley asked him to sketch Pat and me, my nine-year-old self figured we would come out green and orange and looking like half girls/half monkeys. I refused to smile. Neither would Pat. I suspect Uncle Jennings saw in Pat and me two scaredy cat brats. Methinks we both came out looking like kids from the Village of the Damned.
Truth is nothing can compete with being sketched into art by a family member who wrote poetry and essays and who made paintings for a living. The session with our semi-famous Great Uncle had a lasting effect on our lives. Shirley made it all happen. Uncle Jennings passed away in 1959.
I think Tofel’s paintings depict a subjective reality of himself. In “Essays in Intimacy” from the 1927 The American Caravan, he writes, “there is no distance between me and the things I behold.”
What was The American Caravan you ask? I had to weave it into this blog. It’s a name dropping thing. So get ready! I bought a copy of the book for seven bucks from an Amazon bookseller and trembled when I first touched it. The editors of this 843 page 1927 anthology hoped the book would affirm the health of young American literature. It contained short pieces written by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Paul Green, J. Brooks Atkinson, Witter Bynner, Morley Callaghan, Hart Crane, Babette Deutsch, John Dos Passos, Eugene O’Neil, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams and JENNINGS TOFEL. The authors agreed they would share equally in the profits and had no expectations there would be any. Definitely Commies. Laugh out loud. I am dumbstruck by this book. It will take me months to finish reading it but I will.
I figure I have inherited a smattering of genetic particles from Uncle Jennings by way of Papa George and Shirley. I know this because there’s a bohemian inside me forever trying to push me out of her way. And I am wild about art. I am not a maker of visual art like Uncle Jennings was, but I and art live with each other. And I try my best to make art with my words. I write poetry. Most of my poems and the artworks who live with me are curious. My favorite people are “others.” In fact, I want them to rub off on me.
So. After nearly 73 years, what have I gleaned from these art nurturings and inspirations?
Ministering Angel. 1952. Oil on canvas. Collection of Lis and Mike Kalogris.
1. It’s never too late to start making or collecting art. There are affordable and wonderful art works to be found at art fairs, at open studios and at art school student exhibitions. Online art sites are overflowing with worthy and inexpensive art works. I googled “Jennings Tofel” and discovered many of his works are available to buy online. He was exceedingly prolific. Remember. Looking is free.
2. Find the bohemian or whatever else is bottled up inside you and set it free.
3. Never be intimidated by artists, crafters, artisans, collectors, gallerists.
4. There’s no rule that says you must love the artist if you love the work.
5. Artists need to earn a living. Where are the patrons?
6. And speaking of living, methinks art is high on the list of living essentials. By living essentials I mean things like breathing, eating, loving, smiling, dancing.
7. Art and craft are virtually the same thing. This is my opinion. Check out the ACC craft shows, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, Long’s Park Art Festival and others all over the country and beyond. Bring your kids and grandkids. You don’t have to buy anything except an admission ticket.
8. Art is not really décor. Really. Art is not décor. Fire a decorator who is all about matching a painting to a sofa or vice versa. Only buy art you love even if you have no idea where it might land. You will find a spot for it. Live with art. Move it. Take note of the light and shadows playing on your artworks. Find art for your garden or terrace. My brilliant friend Eileen introduced me to the notion of a residential sculpture garden. After that, there were no holds barred for me. Cate, my Garden Angel, hacked, planted, arranged, trimmed all my crazy ideas and hers into what we called, the End of the Beginning Garden.
9. Write some words every day. Every single day. Bathe. Brush your teeth. Breathe. Write some words. Sketching, sculpting, weaving, quilting, painting, etching, photographing, composing, etc. also work if words won’t.
10. Photography is art!
PS “No one is alone, truly, no one is alone.” Stephen Sondheim 1930-2021
PPS Pat (Norg) is turning 70 on December 26, 2021. Happy birthday to my darling sister!
Moses and the Burning Bush. 1947. Oil on canvas. Collection of Kate and Frank Cipriano.
PAT The following is a reprint of an article I wrote, entitled, “How My Uncle, A Painter, Inspired My American Jewish Dream” which appeared in Reform Judaism.org on July 7, 2016.
I was 6 years old when my mother took my sister and me to our great Uncle Jennings’ studio by the ocean, where he drew a portrait of me. He said he saw something in my eyes that spoke of a deep soul. He died the next year, but I will never forget him.
Uncle Jennings was my Papa George’s brother, and I remember once asking my Nana Eva about him. She said he was “a Bohemian,” and the family didn’t really associate too much with him because they thought what he did was frivolous.
In my view, though, what Uncle Jennings did was anything but frivolous.
Jennings Tofel was born on October 18, 1891 in the town of Tomashev, in the province of Lodz, in central Poland. His father, Yosif Toflexicz was the town’s best ladies tailor. Jennings’ paternal grandfather, Reb Heshka, was the son of an eminent scholar, a dayan (judge of a rabbinic court) who, absorbed in his own scholarly pursuits, had neglected Heshka’s education. When Yehudah (Jennings’ Hebrew name) was born, his father imagined that his son would take up the mantel of a long family line of distinguished rabbis and men of learning.
But as a young boy of 7, Jennings had a terrible accident and broke his back. It was never set properly, and that fixed the course of his life – a life of pain and deformity. He moved to America when he was 14 years old, and in time, he entered college at the City College of New York. It was during that time that his artistic talent was recognized, and he started to paint. As a result, what originally appeared to be a curse was seen as a blessing, for the gift that emerged from his fingertips was truly extraordinary.
Jennings was an Expressionist painter. As Arthur Granick, a friend and avid collector of his works, once wrote,
“At one time Expressionism was considered, and often angrily dismissed, as ‘typically Teutonic’ or even ‘typically Jewish.’ But it is interesting to recall that the majority of immigrant artists either were full-fledged Expressionists or could, at least at some point in their career, be considered Expressionists.”
Jennings was influenced by the cry of anguish reflected in the works of Edvard Munch, a Norwegian artist of an earlier generation, who displayed the knowledge of the kinds of tortures invented by men for other men.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Jennings was a part of a group of talented men and women who formed an enclave within American art, a sort of equivalent to the Ecole Juive in Paris. These immigrants brought with them from the old country the Yiddish language, Jewish legend and lore, and art. Uncle Jennings was one of the best-known among this group of unknowns (the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased one of his pictures in 1932), and he became a protégé of American photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
Jennings’ essays “Form in Painting” and “Expression” for the Societe Anonyme were among the precursors to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and he also wrote numerous essays on art in Yiddish for Jewish publications; his written collections are now housed at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Today, his paintings are part of the Hirshhorn Collection, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, among others.
Uncle Jennings’ pictures are truly haunting. His figures are often distorted, like his own body. He used brilliant large swaths of color on the canvas. Many of his pictures portray biblical themes. When you see his paintings you never forget them.
Flight. 1947. Oil on canvas. Collection of Ali and Chris McCloud.
A portrait of that little 6-year-old girl sits in my home study. A soulful child, she was inspired by a strange little man to follow her dreams and express her passion and connection to her people. I look at it often and find that it, and the other paintings of Jennings Tofel that hang in my home, continue to inspire me and connect me to my own family’s history and the history of the American Jewish Diaspora. More than that, it reminds me constantly of the ongoing journey of that 6-year-old and her role in the journey of her people.
Additional Note: We credit most of our details about Jennings Tofel’s life to the incredible book, Jennings Tofel, published in 1976 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. We also acknowledge Anne Granick, Nina Abrams, Joan and Judy Reifler and the importance of word of mouth, legends and personal memories.
LIS I have a lot of marriage cred. And a lot of laugh and weep—a lot for better or worse. And also courage.
Mike and Lis January 25, 1970
Life is difficult, delicious and complicated. But so worth it. Marriage is the same.
My husband is the most intelligent and caring person I know. He’s a critical thinker and teller of truths.
I Used To Be Important—a reality poem I wrote in honor of the former, the present, the fiddlers and forevers.
I used to be important Is this because everyone told me I was? And now they don’t bother because I’m not as rich as I could have been Or as tall or fit And there’s a pause between brain and mouth And it takes me longer to cut my food.
Once I was the youngest in the room. Now I am the oldest And if the truth be known Today I am alone in my home office In a friggin’ Zoom room full of fiddlers. This is because I’m vulnerable And also I falter in step.
Some of them are listening. Some are trying to figure out How I came to be so important Back then (and even now) Concluding it must have been easier. Most just fiddle with their equipment And attempt to look through me.
Perhaps the concept of seeing through me Awakens the sub of their conscience To the reality of what important might be How to grab it and hold it And put it all together So the brain can work beyond the body Filling the Zoom room with the answers.
My husband coaches C-level executives on board relations, acquisition management, business policy and business ethics.
Random Musings:
Mike and I grew up in Oceanside on the south shore of Long Island in New York. We first met in 7th grade. By that time, his parents were no longer living together. His dad was Greek—a rogue and easy to love. His mother was of Lithuanian descent and Catholic. She was into sin in a big way, especially the sins of Mike’s dad—real and imagined. The first time I met her she was burning my future father-in-law’s possessions in a bonfire in the back yard. Mike had two sisters and three brothers. He was the youngest brother. His parents and two of his brothers have since passed away. His younger sister is now a brother.
Little Mikey between two of his big bros.
When Mike was 10 he prepared to be confirmed in the Catholic Church. This is how he tells the story of the demise of his Catholicism. So the priest asked each boy a question. If you answered incorrectly you were banished to a separate row for failures and you were likely to be held back. Mike’s question was a “what if” about getting shot down and imprisoned in Korea. “What if your captors demanded you give up your religion; would you give up your religion Mikey?” the priest asked. “Oh no,” said Mikey. “But what if they tortured you?” asked the priest. “Well. If they tortured me,” Mikey paused. He looked at the miserable kids sitting in losers’ row. He thought about getting ridiculed by his brothers. Mikey lied. “I would rather die, Father, then give up my religion.” And so Mike was confirmed but from that day forth he was no longer committed. This made it much easier for me to convince him to convert to Judaism so we could be married in Temple Avodah. His conversion is the only thing in our marriage we both have regrets about because we have come to believe religion is a sacred gift—you receive this gift or you don’t, but it must never be the result of coercion or blackmail.
When we were kids, we hung out at Nathan’s in the old Roadside Rest on Long Beach Road—eating hotdogs that snapped and the most amazing fries ever! Often at dusk we sat on a bench on the Boardwalk in Long Beach, all salty and sandy, watching the planes land at Idlewild Airport (soon to be renamed Kennedy). JFK. We believed nothing could be worse than 1963. We were wrong.
Nathan’s Famous Roadside Rest.
Mike wanted to be an actor. In high school he played Harry Beaton in Brigadoon. His flips and leaps were quite astonishing. Instead he became a CEO. Interesting—the choices we make.
From the late 1980s until 2008, Mike served as a CEO in the telecommunications industry. He empowered his employees to make decisions; his company had a no lay-offs policy, a dependent care program, paid family leave, and full company paid healthcare benefits.
Young CEO Days.
In May of 2006, on a beautiful top down kinda day a guy from the UK, driving on the wrong side of the road, hit my darling Mike and our son (in law) Frank head on. Kaboom! Frank and Mike are two miracle Humpty Dumpties who got put back together again and who were the recipients of a second chance at life.
Years passed and in 2016, Mike started to limp just a little. His body parts were aching just a bit. He upped his martinis but his body deterioration continued until early 2020 when he began to lose the ability to use his arms and hands and walking became too painful for him to bear. He started falling. On March 9, 2020, he was admitted to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia for tests and had major spinal surgery on March 11, exactly two days before Philadelphia and the rest of our country shut down because of Corona.
So. My darling Mike is glued together with so many rods and screws and plates, plus layers of honor, integrity, kindness, generosity, a bit of grit mixed with plenty of spit for mortar, and more than his share of pain.
Thank goodness for eternal optimism, Motrin, deep breathing, Moon Valley Organics Muscle Rub, kids, grandkids, porches, Duvel, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, steak, swordfish and bagels*.
Each day, my MANO gets better.
Better.
Mike believes music is more important than lyrics. I vehemently disagree.
He listens to Diana Krall, Sydney Bechet and Errol Garner. He loves the songs of Leonard Cohen.
Mike is very comfortable living with art. It’s a good thing he is.
Every Sunday at 10AM Mike watches Eddie Muller and Noir Alley on TCM. Monday through Friday at 9AM he watches Perry Mason on MeTV. He sometimes watches Morning Joe which I call Morning Joke. He uses the Hallmark Channel to fall asleep to.
Mikeisms:
If the boat misses the dock, is it the dock’s fault? In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Recipe for rabbit stew is to first catch a rabbit. That’s about as useful as tits on a boar. Put the candle back. There is no such thing as an adjusted actual. If the neighbors peek, they do so at their own peril. When I get out of bed it takes 35 minutes for my body to join me. Pain is my friend. I do not believe in self-limitation. Outwit yourself and everyone else.
And then this very zen one:
If a tree falls in the woods and your spouse isn’t there to hear it, is it still your fault?
Mike believes in the creation. Here’s how it goes. God created the red herring. If man freezes a red herring and then eats it his penis falls off. And this is how women were created. The end.
Moreisms:
My nickname for Mike is MANO.
Martinis don’t ease pain. Marijuana ain’t Nirvana. Opioids make living dead.
Once you have PTSD (or whatever they’re calling it now) it never goes away. You learn to cope but there is no cure. What I just wrote is not science; it’s my opinion.
There is a cure for yellow jockey shorts. Buy black ones.
Remember. We all started out wearing diapers and drooling and most of us will end up wearing diapers and drooling.
Today, January 25, 2022, is our anniversary. Mike and I have been married for 52 years.
*We get our bagels from Hot Bagels in Somers Point, NJ. When it comes to bagels, we have sampled the best of the best, and Hot Bagels’ bagels stand up to all of them. Their jalapeño cream cheese is to die for. And it’s so spicy you just might kick the bucket.
And some other Biddy Notes from LIS:
1. I’m not always the voice of doom.
2. NORG promises she will get to her Spouse blog and it will be hysterically funny because her spouse is one of the funniest people on this planet. FUNNIEST.
3. I’m sure you’ve already figured out our blog is one big/little experiment. It turns out we need to be more flexible with blogging than we ever could have imagined. Easy to blame it on our collective depression from two years of Covid but it’s also about politics, other medical issues, family difficulties and the unexpected twists and turns lives take. For everyone. So. We’ve decided to post randomly—as we can, when we can—together and individually. We’ll keep you posted (lol) @giddybiddiesblog on Instagram.
4. I screwed up our last blog (Next…) mostly because I’m demented when it comes to technology. Oh. You can read Next… but you can’t make comments under it. I suggest you comment about Next… in the same place you comment about Spouse. That’s a heck of a lot easier than me trying to fix the error I made.
LIS AND PAT Our great uncle, Jennings Tofel, was an Expressionist painter, essayist and poet. He was born in 1891 and died in 1959, one year after he drew our portraits. He was drenched in the culture of his time. We honor him with our profile picture (avatar) and plan to devote at least one blog to him and his works. BTW, we don’t look like very giddy kiddies in these drawings because our motha forced us to have them done. We were furious. She was right.
Are you kidding? There’s nothing new that’s fit to print? 500 million plus blog writers believe there’s plenty of new stuff left to print. And we agree. The challenge is getting people to read what we print. The competition is fierce.
Over the years, we two Giddy Biddies, have picked up a ginormous sticky bucket of fresh perceptions, new insights, sage advice, unique perspectives and maybe even a few new truths regarding a lot of the stuff everyone else has already written about. And all we are asking is give our sticky, overflowing bucket a chance.
So how did we come up with the brilliant name Giddy Biddies? Simple. Giddy is about the incessant out of control laughing we’ve been doing every time we’re together since Uncle Jennings sketched us. And Biddies is about our combined 142 years of life on earth.
And why now? Having survived the Covid Plague (so far) it occurred to us if we’re gonna share our wisdoms with the likes of you, we had better hurry up and get it done because who would have thunk, shit happens, life is short, a bird in hand, here today gone tomorrow, reality bites, etc.
And so we begin. This first post should give you a sense of who we are, our blogability and some of the topics we intend to write about. We’ve decided the best way to introduce ourselves is by writing to each other about each other.
Pat and Lis AKA The Giddy Biddies circa 2016
LIS writes to Norg*, Yes! Just by being born, you disrupted my perfect little two and a half years old world. I probably did try to flush you down the bassinet (Shirley’s story**). I definitely forced you to be Prince whenever we played Prince and Princess. And it’s true after we watched Peter Pan with Mary Martin I tried to fly you off Mom and Dad’s canopy bed. These incidents, my darling sister, and others far more challenging, demonstrate how you have managed to overcome rivalry, control and much worse to become patient, loving, cultured, spiritual and even mystical. Yes. Mom and Dad were focused on your gorgeous singing voice with no clue about your brilliant mind. Indeed you sang some serious opera but there was and is so much more to the multi-faceted person you have always been. Your life, so far, has taken you on a serendipitous path through growing up on Long Island, motherhood, divorce, marrying the same guy twice, gender discrimination, anti-semitism, living in Manhattan, living in New Jersey, living in Texas, living in Maryland, living in Florida, studying and embracing the Torah, considering Omer and Kabbalah, becoming a Cantor and then a Rabbi, standing up for diversity and human rights, overcoming cancer, aging gracefully, writing beautifully, eating too much pasta and ice cream—always determined, fearless and undaunted. And through all of it you have retained your extraordinary wit and sense of humor. When we’re together I laugh so hard I pee through my Poise pads. I always wear two when I’m with you! You are my best friend. You are exceedingly kind and compassionate. You listen. You hear. You are always available for me–no matter. I adore you.
*Norg is the nickname we Giddy Biddies have called each other since 1960ish–likely derived from the love sounds we made when we petted our Collie dog. The Norg name has absolutely nothing to do with the 1987 character Shumi Norg, Garden Master of Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy FFVIII.
**Shirley’s story is about LIS pulling out the drain plug on PAT’s bassinet. The story was repeated ad nauseam by Shirley Tofel Ernest, our mother, who passed away in 2010. She was a retired teacher who read the New York Times from cover to cover every day. She loved the feel of the newsprint. She was a closet poet who worshipped Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She believed in Ecology and Women’s rights. She had great passion for the Arts. We miss her terribly.
PAT writes to Norg. In the beginning I called you Bibbabi because I couldn’t pronounce Elisabeth. Later we started calling each other Norg. But we continue to say it in a special Norg voice – Noooooooorg! — kind of nasal and very silly –with our lips pursed. Laughter. I remember the long drives we took in the family car from Long Island to Poughkeepsie to visit our relatives. We were in the back seat giggling about who knows what when all of a sudden a large hand attached to a long arm would swat at us from the driver’s seat–our dad, Charlie, who gave us laughter, silliness, and our sweet tooth. Oh. He had a dark side but he was giddy. Remember the time we fought over who would get the one remaining Entenmann’s donut? Like tigers! Of course, he won. Then he gleefully bit into it and it was hard as a rock—stale!! We laughed so hard it hurt!
Growing up, you were an incredibly kind and loving big sister. Your friends were my friends. I was thrilled to get your hand-me-downs. And smart – oh so smart. I had the voice; you had the smarts. And, from the time I was 9, you had an amazing boyfriend. However, mom and dad thought you were too young to date and also he was Catholic. So he would come over when they went out and I stood lookout on our wraparound balcony. As soon as their car pulled into the driveway, I would signal and Mike would escape via the other side of the balcony!! It was all very dramatic–like Romeo and Juliet. Finally, his parents and ours got together and proposed marriage. You were both 20 years old when you got married. And you’re still together!
I most admire your generosity and creative genius – your spirit pours into everything. You have been a patron of the arts for years and your beautiful home and End of the Beginning Garden in a forest in Pennsylvania was a paradise of strange and wonderful sculptures, paintings, and whimsical objects. Over the years, it became a haven for me from my turbulent life—a retreat center with a babbling brook and endless wonders to explore in the surrounding woods. The house personified you. There was even a little cottage you built for artists to stay in and be inspired.
Your love for the Arts and your advocacy for women’s body rights resulted in a collaborative musical theatre work called, “In My Body.” which you produced in Philadelphia in 2016. I think it was and still is a most imaginative and heart-rending expression of your inner soul. I shared the opening night with you and still marvel at the exquisite poetry of your heart. Everything you do is filled with your unique touch.
Aging and health issues motivated you and Mike to move to a smaller home in New Jersey between the ocean and the bay. This home is filled with curated objects from over 50 years of collecting—all coming together with your very special eye. Your photography of sunrises and sunsets and your shadow pictures are mystical and mysterious.
You have always been there for me. You are generous, filled with loving kindness and compassion. You are brilliant, funny, beautiful and matchless – truly your own person. From the beginning of our little kid giddiness to the moments we share now with each other and soon with our dear readers—I treasure the opportunity to join with you in this innovative and hopefully entertaining Blog—our Giddy Biddies Blog!
I was supposed to retire in 2021, but my congregation asked me to stay on for one more year. So, we Giddy Biddies are going to start off by writing one blog a monthish. And just so you don’t forget us in between blogs, we’ll post frequent giddy biddy bits of our wisdoms on Instagram @giddybiddiesblog and maybe Facebook too. Once I retire, our goal is to blog more often.
A few of the topics we may blog about, in no particular order, are: Crones. Am I my mother? Becoming sage. Opera. Old men. Collecting art. Love. The Cat Room. Long Island. Letting go. Well-rounded. Disabled. Poise pads. Marriage. God. Downsizing. Self-care. Dancing. Giving counsel. Poetry. Being a sexual being. Mystical. Curvy. Weed. Rights. Corona. The Omer. Prunes. Aging. Collaboration. My body belongs to me. Kids. Boobs. Remember these three words. Liberal arts. Prayer. Meditation. Qigong. Vaccines. Moving towards retirement. Husbands. Religion, Race, Nationality. Food. Giving. Amoral. Style. Producers. Gardens. Dropping body parts. Balance. Strength and Grace. Music. Grandkids. Laughter. Daughters. Kabbalah. Wrinkles. Genderful. Movies. Sons-in-law. A Woman of Valor. Regrets. Being rich. I used to be important. I’ll never buy another. The Golden Years.
giddybiddiesblog.com 