Dave, Retiree Extraordinaire

I don't write a lot about Dave because I know he doesn't really love that kind of attention. I know he's not super comfortable with being in the spotlight.

But I'm going to shine a light on him, just for a moment. Just for a blog post. If I may.

This is a guy who taught eighth graders for thirty years and loved every year, for god's sake. I know there are other people who taught eighth graders for thirty years. But I triple-dog dare you to find me one who loved all thirty years, right up to retirement. I mean, come on! Who does that?

Dave did.

He retired and proceeded to enjoy his new status as pensioner as much as he had enjoyed his teaching. We reveled in his retirement for about a year before crappy circumstances took over, and all the sudden our carefree "go see baseball stadiums" became "go see doctors". In these past three years of crazy shit-hits-the-fan crap, he's more than earned himself a Nobel Prize for Outstanding Human Being, an award which, in my humble opinion, should be created for the sole purpose of bestowing it upon Dave, a husband beyond par and imagination. The award should then be immediately retired, as the Nobel committee will not find ever again an equal or more worthy recipient.

I could go on and on and on regarding the millions of ways in which Dave, when faced with this unexpected crisis, rose (and continues to rise) to the occasion. But I'm not going to dwell on that  because I can hear you all (four of you) yelling, "More about Dave, not about the crappy shit!" as you read this, and rightfully so. Back to Dave.

So Dave was an amazing educator, yes, but he's also, it turns out, an outstanding and keen learner. He taught himself, from scratch, how to cut dovetails. And he practiced and practiced cutting dovetails. He made boxes. Dozens and dozens of boxes. Until he could dovetail so well that he could build furniture using dovetails as the joinery instead of nails. Not just any furniture. Beautiful furniture. Nicer-than-you-can-buy-in-a-store furniture, that will last longer. Pictures don't do them justice. He basically taught himself into becoming a professional-quality furniture maker.

But wait. There's more. You can only build so many dressers and tables and credenzas (I, for the record, can build exactly zero of any of these) before you need a new challenge (if you're Dave).

Chairs! Dave decides to learn to build chairs. Which means he also has to learn to become more than proficient with a lathe and a shave horse (look it up--not at all what you're thinking, I guarantee it). Not only does he teach himself how to use these tools, he actually makes one of them! This is a shave horse. Dave made one of these...

to help him learn to make this......

This is the first chair Dave made. THE FIRST ONE! Go ahead. Click and zoom. It's phenomenal. It's beautiful. Again, it's his FIRST chair.

It's not often you find someone who wants to learn something new and difficult, and who can simultaneously teach it to himself while actually absorbing and learning it. Think about that. It brings to mind a snake eating its tail as it tries to feed itself (just as a note, I am someone who really really does not like snakes or snake imagery but truly, it's the best representation of what I was trying to say about teaching and learning a skill at the same time so I'm using the metaphor even though I now do not want to read this paragraph ever again).

I am constantly astounded at Dave's ability to methodically, patiently, painstakingly, passionately build his skills (ha! pun unintended but wow! that worked out nicely). He is inspiring.

Follow with me here as I connect a few dots...

(POINT A)
Our kids are now adults, out in the world being grown-ups with jobs and rent and car payments and all the attendant responsibilities of being independent. It pains me to say it, but they "head home" after they "visit here". But that was the goal, right? I'm not complaining. I'm proud of them. But our opportunities for parenting, for setting good examples, for influencing our kids, are (rightfully) limited at this point.

(POINT B)
I think that one of our big goals as parents, what we really wanted for our kids as they grew up and went out into the world, was for them to have a never-ending passion for learning (whatever they wanted to learn), to always be curious about something, to always want to grow.

I think that Dave is the straight line between POINT A and POINT B in our family. Dave pursues learning every day in some way, he is endlessly curious, he is unafraid to grow and change, and our kids notice. As an example:

When Steven was home recently, he showed Dave a drawing of a bookcase that he wanted Dave to make. Dave saw an opportunity to hang out with Steven, and taught him to dovetail. Steven had never done anything like that before (also, it turns out, Steven is great at it!). The dovetailing lesson sparked an interest in helping with the bookcase project. And the two of them embarked upon a weeks-long build together, which produced this beauty:

I don't want to exhaust the geometry metaphor here, but sometimes POINT A and POINT B are just lone points, existing in isolation on the family graph. It is no small feat to connect the points, and I am so grateful for Dave's approach to life, for his inspiring example. For his strong geometry skills.

Damn It!

Damn it!

I just read this great piece in the Washington Post travel section. This young, intrepid reporter decided to show up to the airport twelve hours early for her flight, just to hang out in the airport for a day and write about the experience.

Swear to god I've thought of doing that and writing that (though I would not qualify as a young, intrepid reporter--more like a slightly doddering, indefatigably plucky wannabe travel blogger).

I know that my experience in an airport for twelve hours would be different from hers, but it still takes the novelty out of the execution. Which means now I am forced to come up with a new construct under which I can pretend I have a uniquely compelling need to blog something that requires me to travel to a location that I have always wanted to visit. Or have never thought to visit.

So my new travel blog idea is to pick a random city (in the US... for now) and just go there for two days. No research. No reservations. No contacts. Just a flat-out adventure with no preconceptions and no schedule.

To add to the fun (because this DOES sound fun to me!), I will impose a (loose) budget on myself so that it doesn't turn into Kim's Wild Spending Spree (which would be a fun tv show if I could get some network to agree to back it).

You might be thinking that this sounds a lot like that travel show that used to be on the Food Network-- "Rachel Ray: $40 a Day", where she went to a big city and spent an entire day, eating and being a tourist, for under $40, which was the whole goal of the show. My idea is not that. Yes, I'll have a budget (I mean, I'll really try to have a budget--no hard promises on my success keeping to it), but that would not be the focus of the travel. This would be more "Kim Explores". The  focal point would be figuring out what to do--talking to people, checking out suggestions, making decisions on the fly.

The thought of going somewhere completely unfamiliar and winging it sounds electrifyingly heady to me. Making decisions in the moment based completely on my own initiative, with no input from TripAdvisor or Hotels.com, with no pre-paid tickets to events or locations, with no agenda guiding my moves... uncharted territory for me, the consummate planner.  Which is what makes it a thrilling prospect.

I could start small. I could drive a few hours and I'm sure I'd end up somewhere interesting that I've never been. I could spend a day there--just the day--and give this unplanned madness a go and see what happens. Then it's an Amtrak. Then it's a Southwest flight. Then it's-- you can see where this is going... a trip to Italy (transparency is a virtue; I think it's in the Bible somewhere), to some tiny town too small to make the travel books.

But just the right size for me to explore :)

Dinner with Ed and Kelly

I realized after I named this post that I misnamed it. It really should be called "Dinner with Ed and Kelly and Dorian and a Lot of High School Kids and Their Parents and All the Patients Staying at Hope Lodge". But that seemed a bit unwieldy, so I'm sticking with my original moniker. I am, however, going to be sure to cover all who were in attendance, not just our dining companions Ed and Kelly.

Let me set the scene for you. It's the first week of December in New York City. Freakin' brrrrr. It is cold outside, with a capital C. It is the week of the annual lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza. It is also the week Dave and I are in NYC for my radiation treatment.

We were staying at Hope Lodge, which is run by the American Cancer Society. It's like a no-frills hotel for patients of MSKCC who are undergoing treatment. Except, it turns out, there are frills.

One of the big frills is that there are lots of groups (businesses, non-profits, clubs, social groups, etc...) who volunteer to cook and serve dinner to the patients at Hope Lodge so that they don't have to cook for themselves. I could just get lost in that one sentence for many, many paragraphs. People give up their valuable time during what is billed as the most joyful and busiest season of the year to come to a building filled with people who are, among other things, depressed, angry, nauseous, scared, exhausted, homesick, frustrated, unwell, appetite-challenged... you get the idea. These volunteers come to cook. And to serve. Which is such an intimate thing to do for people. Especially for people who are missing home during the holidays. It's very generous of spirit.

OK so dinner! It was Tuesday night, the night before the Rockefeller Tree Lighting, and our Hope Lodge schedule said that dinner would be cooked, served, and provided that night by Dorian's Seafood Market. But not just that. It also indicated that it was a special evening, with an annual tree lighting ceremony. How festive! There was ZERO chance that Dave and I were going to brave the elements (and the crowds) the next night to go to Rockefeller Plaza at 9pm, so this was going to be as close as we came to a tree lighting.

I will add in at this point that I wasn't initially 100% in on going to this dinner. Or any of these dinners. I had a picture in my head not just of what it would be like to sit at dinner with dozens of sick people, but also to have to talk with dozens of sick people. It meant mentally allowing for the fact that I belonged here, with these people. Tough stuff. But it did sound like it could, potentially, be not horrible. How's that for optimism?

Dinner started at 6pm. Dave and I wandered down to the large kitchen/dining area around 5pm just to scope out the situation and found a bustling hive of activity. In the middle of it was Dorian, a petite blond woman in her 40's who was a bundle of energy. She introduced herself and we ended up chatting for a solid fifteen minutes, during which time she told us about the seafood market she owns, how she came to serve this dinner every year for the past dozen years, and what was on the menu for that night. I'm going to concentrate first on what was for dinner, because this was no seat-of-your-pants half-assed effort. This was a gourmet dinner, made with great love by a grateful daughter.

Dorian and her crew, which consisted of her teenage kids and many of their friends as well as the kids' parents, had prepared poached salmon with cucumbers and fresh dill sauce, steamed green beans with butter, two types of green salad (caesar as well as kale-based), homemade rolls, pasta, shrimp with cocktail sauce, and this amazing fresh avocado salad. And dessert--coffee, cookies, and homemade cannoli. This was all freshly prepared. For us. It was beautiful and delicious. Here is a picture of what the poached salmon with cucumbers looked like; the cucumber were sliced paper thin and made to look like scales:

The high school kids took our drink orders (sparkling water? still water? juice? coffee?) and brought us refills. One young woman played Christmas carols on the piano throughout the entire dinner, and seemed genuinely embarrassed when we all clapped for her. The parents generously dished up the food with big smiles and did all of the cleanup with equal enthusiasm.

We spent the evening at a table with Ed and Kelly, who I introduced in an earlier post. For someone who was dreading having to talk to other people during this dinner, I had a great time. We did talk medical stuff, but only for a bit. Then we moved on to where to find great Korean food nearby, what our kids were all up to, what we were looking forward to in the coming year, and at some point the restaurant Hooters came into the conversation, for reasons that now escape me. But I do remember making some sort of "known for their hot breasts as well as their wings" comment and Ed repeatedly telling me how funny I was. When the dessert plate arrived at our table we all tried various cookies and Ed had to convince Kelly to try one of the almond-flavored cookies, which turned out to be an amusing exchange as she resisted and he prodded and we laughed. They were just a typical couple, squabbling over typical things. It made me really happy in that moment, to be able to sit with a few people and have a fun, normal conversation in a place that did not necessarily lend itself to any of that.

After dinner, Dorian told the dining room about her eighty-plus year old mother, who years ago had been diagnosed with stage 4 oral cancer. Memorial Sloan Kettering had treated her. And she now works for Dorian at her fish market, still going strong. This dinner and tree lighting, Dorian told us all, started as her way to give back in gratitude.

Dorian plugged in the lights, the tree lit up, and so did the room. It was like holiday spirit burst its way through a door and filled a room that might have just as easily have locked it out.

It was a lovely evening. I'm so glad we went.

What to Watch

We have a lot of choices of what to watch.

I remember when I was younger (wow, I sound old). There were four channels: ABC, NBC, CBS, and KQED. Turning to any of the other channels on the dial (that we had to turn to change channels) would only elicit a fuzzy snow, accompanied by an inexplicable hissing noise.

We now have hundreds, HUNDREDS! of channels from which to choose.

And I have some recommendations as to what you should, and should not, watch.

Watch awards shows, but only pay attention when people who win seem genuinely, truly surprised that they won. If you sense actual humility, pay attention. It's lovely. Heartwarming. It will bring a tear to your eye.

Watch the very last story on the national news. It's always about someone who has done something wonderful for someone else. It's never, ever about politics.

Watch BBC television. Specifically cop/mystery shows. The Brits are not afraid to kill off main characters without a second thought. The writing is top notch, the actors are fantastic but largely unknown (to us), and the stories are thought-provoking and intriguing. You will not find CSI London on BBC TV. The Brits are also not opposed to a limited story. If all they have is a spectacular one or two-season arc, they will end it after one or two seasons, future profits be damned. Marcella, Dr. Foster, The Five as examples.

Also watch BBC comedies. Anything by Phoebe-Waller Bridge should be must-see TV if you appreciate brilliant, ground-breaking writing. Additional bonus: I have yet to hear a laugh-track on any British-born show. Ever. They don't need one. What's funny is funny. You shouldn't have to be nudged to laugh.

Conversely, here's what you probably should not watch: anything you fondly remember from your youth. The Brady Bunch does not hold up. It breaks my heart to say that. And don't think that me saying that means I won't watch it. I absolutely will. But it does not hold up and I'm always just a teeny bit ashamed of myself after I watch it. Along the same lines, don't revisit The Love Boat, Dallas, Melrose Place, Family Ties, The Cosby Show (for so, so many reasons), or The Facts of Life. Just don't. You'll be so disappointed that the people who filled your youth were in fact such awful, terrible over-actors. Do not rewatch any ABC After School Special. Kristy McNichol was not all she was cracked up to be. And Rick Springfield was WAAAAY too old to be in one of those, by the way, and we all knew it.

I think perhaps the exception to the rule of what NOT to revisit might be cartoons. Bug Bunny never gets old. Morocco Mole and Secret Squirrel will still make you smile. You'll sing along with the Speed Racer theme song (Go Speed Racer, Go!) and you'll still want to be Trixie or Racer X. No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to figure out why six-year-old Spritle had a pet chimpanzee and why your parents would not consider getting you one.

And as you reminisce, you'll be amazed at the constructs of some of your most beloved childhood cartoons, and wonder how anyone came up with the ideas for them in the first place. A few examples:

1. A penguin and a walrus are problem-solving together. When they can't figure something out, they consult a human being, Professor Whoopee, who usually has to search an overstuffed closet, the contents of which always fall out when he opens the door, for some prop to help him explain the answer.
Who pitched that idea? More importantly, who listened to the pitch and thought, "Wow, that's a GREAT idea!" I mean, it actually was a great idea, but who actually recognized that it was a great idea? I know I wouldn't have if I were a TV exec in the 1960's.

2. A pop group consisting of four anthropomorphic animals (Bingo, Fleegle, Drooper and Snorky) host a variety of cartoons, songs and skits.
I took that right off of Wikipedia. Bonus points to you if you can sing the entire theme song.
Sorry. That'll eat at you all day until you finally google it.

3. H.R. Pufnstuf is the story of Jimmy, a boy with a talking golden flute, whose adventure begins when he climbs into an abandoned sailboat on the shore of a lake. But it is Witchiepoo’s trick to capture the boy to get his magic flute.  He and the flute are rescued by a kindly dragon named H.R. Pufnstuf on Living Island where almost everything talks.  All would be happy, – what with dancing trees, singing frogs and a lollipop that owns a candy store– if it wasn’t for that mean ol’ Witchiepoo who keeps coming after the flute.

Honestly, while I can, in fact, sing you the entire theme song from HR Puffnstuf, I would not have remembered any of the actual plot. But now that I am reminded of Jimmy and the golden flute, I can  hear the voice of the flute in my head--quite annoying and high-pitched as I recall. But probably not something that bothered me when I was four.
I was thinking that, again, this is just a weird pitch to make for a children's show but now that I'm re-reading it, it sounds suspiciously close to the Wizard of Oz. Did Sid and Marty Kroft ever get sued?

I got a little off on a tangent there, sorry. And I'm realizing that there's no reason why I should be recommending what you watch or don't watch on television. We each like what we like. What entertains me might horrify you (I will watch anything with Timothy Olyphant, even if he kills copious numbers of people violently). What thrills you might bore me (never, ever going to watch any iteration of The Bachelor).

I'm going to finish this off with a recommendation, even though I just said there's no reason I should be doing this. But I'm doubling down on my very first suggestion in this post.
The Golden Globes are this weekend. (Don't watch the red carpet crap. People are mean.)
But watch the acceptance speeches. This is the first awards show of the season (I think) and some of the people who win will be genuinely surprised and give rambling, funny, humble, grateful acceptance speeches.
Watch that.
It never gets old. And it always holds up.

Grandpa's Mystery Box

This is an old 8mm film projector. I do not have one of these, though I do remember the one my dad used to set up on our dining room table, with the projection aimed onto the sliding kitchen door, to show us home movies. Good stuff. I also do not have any old home movies.

What I do have are six (SIX!) metal canisters that once held home movies. So to recap--I have neither a projector nor any actual movies. Just empty canisters.

These canisters have sat in my cupboard for years now, untouched. Shocker, I know. In my mind, when I saw them, I thought they might make clever gift boxing. I don't know why I thought that. They are round, about 1/2 an inch thick with a diameter of about six inches. What on earth did I think was going to fit into one of these canisters? I have no idea.

It's my fault that I have these useless items. Several years ago, I raised my hand in response to a question, asked by my dad, during the annual Rathjen Christmas tradition known as "The Mystery Box"**: Did anyone want the film canisters? And up went my hand, much to my husband's chagrin, and antithetical to every word Dave has ever uttered to me regarding responding to my dad's proclivity toward unloading sentimental (mostly to my dad), useless (for the most part) items dredged up from the depths of ... everywhere. Literally. From closets. From the garbage garage. From storage. From boxes. From bookshelves. From desks. From file cabinets.

The Mystery Box: I actually find the whole concept endearing. So here it is, all laid out.

This is the box. Nothing fancy going on here. I think he's used the same box for the past six or seven years.

My dad gathers items throughout the year into this box. These items run soup to nuts (literally--you could find expired cans of soup in the box, though they would likely be from an old MRI from my dad's army days--you think I'm kidding but I'm not). The box has contained, over the years, among other things: old drivers' licenses, expired passports, plastic plates from when my brothers and I were still eating in highchairs, fifty-five year old artifacts from Liberia and Turkey, books in Russian and German, old physics-themed t-shirts from my dad's teaching days, a Turkish bong (what were my parents DOING in Turkey?), a scalpel (again, not kidding), a serving tray, drawings made by my dad during the war when he was six years old (quite the impressive artist, he was able to draw very convincing battle scenes as well as swastikas), a hand drill, an inlaid music box, authentic Russian military pins (these just add to the myth of my dad at one point being a CIA operative), a George Washington picture, a patriotic pencil holder, small metal animal figures... the list goes on. In fact, as my nephew reminded me, there is an actual list of what goes into the box each year that my dad maintains on a spreadsheet.
Retirement brings lots of imaginative ways to occupy your time.

Anyway, on Rathjen Christmas, after stockings have been opened, my dad makes the anticipated entrance into the room and talks a little bit about what's in the box (WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?!--that was just for Olivia and Dave). He always tells us that no one has to take anything if they don't want to, and he also always lets us know that if we find something that we think is better suited to someone else, or we want something that someone else has, we can always trade. And we can take as much as we want.

It is at this point that (my) Dave and Jill always give each other knowing looks, silently communicating their solidarity in not wanting anything from this box to make its way into their homes. The picture below is a candid. This really happens. I'm not making it up.

Kids (and some adults) then get up and rifle through the box. It used to be that everyone would, one at a time (and some under duress) reach in without looking and pull something out, but it has evolved into whoever wants to just gets up and looks into the box to explore its contents, claiming anything of interest.

This year my dad outdid himself. He putt into the box a book that he and my mom tried (and I emphasize the word tried, because in no way did they succeed) to read to us kids when we were younger. The book is called Where Did I Come From  and it covers exactly what you think, but not likely in the way you are imagining. Below is a sampling of the mild hysteria that ensued as  grandkids attempted a read-aloud.

Nobody likely ended up taking this book home. That is not an indication of any sort of failure on anyone's part. Because it's not about what's in the box and whether anyone wants any of it. I mean it is a little bit. But not really. It's more about what happens when the box is opened. It's about the anticipation and the reactions. And the stories and the laughter. And the discussions and the interactions. And the memories and the tradition.

The whole Mystery Box is a living metaphor. It's as if we reach into my dad's brain and pull out a detail for him to reveal or a story for him to tell. It's an amazingly creative way for him to share his past (or at least what the CIA will let him divulge).

And that is the real magic of the Mystery Box.

** It turns out that different family members have different names for the Mystery Box tradition. Below is a sampling of responses I received when I asked what everyone calls it:
Me: Grandpa's Surprise Box
Dave: Grandpa's Box of Shit
Olivia: Mystery Grab Box
Mark: Mystery Box
Steven: Grab Bag
Jill: the Crap Box
Emma: the Box