Flam News

Enjoy the pic of me and the secret blogger. I may look like a total dork, but she's very smiley and looking forward to seeing her grandparents!

Anyway, I'm still sick. I thought I was better on Friday morning, so I went into work... where I probably infected everyone within five feet. Not my most responsible moment as an employee. By the time I headed home, I knew Shabbos would be tough.

And it was. My nose got so red from the tissues (yes, the kind with lotion) that I needed to put lanolin on it. The package said it was for nursing mothers, which made me feel really macho. At least Rachelle and HH seem to be on the upswing, and since my SDV seems to be a day or two behind theirs, I have a bit of hope that Yom Kippur won't be a rapid series of banging-chest, blowing-nose, banging chest, blowing-nose...

In better news, I'm thrilled to see Uncle Barry and Aunt Leesa here! Very cool. I don't know what to say about Rachelle -- she seems to be a bit scared of this whole idea. Cham, encourage her, okay? G'mar tov, everyone!

Remember, or for those of you who are just tuning in, Uncle Dan was my late Uncle Dan, Grampa Sidney's younger brother. He was 3 years younger that G.(about). He looked like Clark Gable.

G. saved Uncle Danny's life 3 times.

1) Apparently on the farm there was a very big ditch with water. I'm thinking it was a well. (OMG I've just blanked on all the details. Dad, fill them in on the comments, please). Somehow Danny fell into the ditch and Grampa heard the splash of all things. He ran to get Grampa Morris who came dashing out from whereever he was to pull D. out of the ditch. G. remembers GM shaking the water out of him, literally.

2) When they were about 10 and 7 they walked over to Montrose Beach (Do you know where that is, Linda?). This was before the city put up big boulders. The rocks.

Anyway, so Uncle Dan has a beach ball and the two of them are swimming. If you know Lake Michigan then you know how the current and the waves can feel like an ocean sometimes. The current pulled Danny out from shore and kept on pulling.

Danny shouts, "Should I let go of the beach ball?"

G. "No, hand onto it. I'm coming."

And he swam out and grabbed U.D. and did an ersatz side stroke to get the two of them to shore. (See, Sim, and you bothered taking Life Guard lessons for nothing).

3). They're in a car, I think Dad's 22, Dan's 19. Danny's cruising along, having a good time. A BIG TRUCK is about to greet them at the intersection and Danny's clueless. Grampa does the shout to save the day.

There you have it.

Oh, one more. How G. learned to swim.
The big guys threw him into the pool. He swam.

Gmar tov again, and Good Shabbas, Mom (Ema if you're Yoni) I HAVE TO STOP THIS!!!

Alright, what's going on here? First, look at this kid's name.

Then, take a gander at his brother.

I'm scared.

We're all under the weather -- me, Rachelle, and HH. This morning I actually called in sick, and I still feel just as miserable tonight. I just hope it doesn't last until Yom Kippur.

In better news, my blog about Buba is now on the front page of starwars.com (along with my joke from yesterday).

HH is still crawling away, so we set up the playpen... which she rightfully views as a jail cell.

Hi new family members. The posts below were written with only Mark and Linda's kids as an audience, so they might be a little confusing.

Definitions:
Buba is Sarah Lorber
Grampa, or "G" is Sidney Lorber
David Mann is my cousin Geri Lorber Mann's son.

Hope that helps. Please post and let us in on the news!

Well, one of the good things about Grampa having been in the hospital (not that it was good that he was in there in the first place, he HATED that he couldn't tee off), but I had the opportunity, my second, to drive him and Buba home from Glenbrook, a very non-descript hospital, b-t-w.

Let's introduce David Mann at this point. He's Buba and Grampa's great nephew, meaning the son of one of my first cousins, Geri (married to Mark) Mann and an intern (resident?) in dermatology. I guess he was doing an Internal Medicine rotation now at Glenbrook. He saw a captive audience in Grampa and came to G's room to pump him for his history. See, G's brother, your Great Uncle Dan, passed away at 42 (?) or was it 47. I think the first.

Now David is Uncle Dan's grandson, so of course he wanted to interview G, his late grandfather's brother. He had never met his grandfather. David's first choice in medicine had been psychiatry, but he changed his mind when he realized he loved skin. He didn't say it quite that way. But he loved learning dermatology.

As you know, I haven't spoken to any of my Uncle Dan's 4 daughters in years. At one point I threw out an olive branch and had a terrific, friendly, sweet lunch with Geri Mann, David's mother, but that was it. I told her the ball was in her court, since I'd made the first contact, and didn't get the ball back. I didn't push it since there was so much bad feeling between G. and the Lorber family.

All Grampa wants in life is appreciation. You guys know that. He's really a very low maintainance guy in that way. Really in every way.

So the L girls didn't know that about G and now no one talks. But here comes David Mann.

So I've got G. and B.(Buba) in the car and Glenbrook Hosp is about a 20 minute drive. I drove slowly (although you'd never know it if you heard B. in the back seat-sorry, Mom, it's true).

I asked G about his night with David Mann and G was very excited to tell me the whole story. David asked him about the family rift (cut-off, to be technical) and G told him his side: I supported them for 25 years and they didn't appreciate me.

I don't think he sugar coated it very much.

I asked, Didn't he want stories about his grandfather?

Well, yes, he did. And I told him that Danny was a nice guy, a smart guy. He was my brother. And he looked like Clark Gable. Which he did.

What else? I told him about the three times I saved my brother's life.
(I'll post these another day, I've GOT to daven!).

What else? Nothing else, really.

Buba: You didn't tell him anything except that you saved his life?

Me: Stop, Mom

Me: Tell me about grampa and gramma. Tell me about their marriage. How did he treat her.

Long pause.

G: He was, I can't get the right word (long pause).

Buba (back seat): Dominant.

G: Right. He was dominant. His word was the last word.

Buba: You hear?

Me: What else?

G: He ruled the house.

Me: Did he rule you?

G: He tried.

Me: THAT'S WHERE I GET IT.

Buba: Get what?

Me: That don't tell me what to do thing. And my stubbornness.

Buba: You're stubborn?

Me: Well, yeah. Not so much, maybe. I don't know (I'm confused, uncertain. I wanted him to say something but he didn't).

Now what I should have asked was: Are the stories true? The Milwaukee girls tell me Grampa Morris(his father) used to chase you around the farm in Poland with a belt. But he had just come from a surgical procedure and we were rounding Niles Center Road.

Me Instead: Tell me more about you and Uncle Dan.

G: Once a guy was picking on him and I cracked the guy in the jaw. He never did that again.

It was nice.

Have a good day, kids. Love to you all.

I know you guys get them, but these are for Buba, or anyone else in the family who is interested in what's going on with our dear boy.

From Sim, 9-22-06
It rained lightly this morning, first I've seen of that magical sky water
in the holy land. Everybody's happy when it rains here but technically it
is the sunny season, and rain is sort of a curse. So, I'm thinking one of
two options. Either its an omen for the start of a curseful year, G-d
forbid, or its a fulfillment of that phrase that Safta always says
"Tichleh Shana V'killelotehah, Tachel Shana uVirchoteha," which makes it
sound like it's gonna be a good year. Nothing in Israel is just wind
massing bits of precipitation off the sea into clouds that eventually
dissipate into water, especially when you have a second seder chavrusa
who has a plan to slowly but surely make you into a chasid.

In other news, I'm getting at least one meal from my musar Rabbi's family
(Guy speaks about three words of English, so it's a lot of fun), and
that's exciting. Tonight's we proclaim G-d as King, so that's scary. This
week has been a lot of slichos and a little sleep. Otherwise, nothing too new, except the
year. I'd like to hear more about these turtles though, such as how many
and what names they possess. Oh, and if someone would like to explain
Korta, I'd be much obliged.
Hope everyone pardons my offenses. Otherwise
Ktiva Vechatima Tova,
Sim

9-25-06
Happy Tof Shin Samech Zayin everyone!
Today I'm finding out the hard way why we always wake up before a fast
although i did have my fill of pizza last night so I'm doing all right.
Rosh Hashana was interesting- we had a serious chazzan for most of the
prayers. For Vechol Maminim alone, he had four different tunes on the
first day (an order of 1,2,3,4,2,1) and five on the second (1,2,3,4,5,1).
He also had backup singers chanting during unesaneh tokef. The word Hayom
was, according to my count, recited 28 times for each line in Hayom
Teamtzeinu. Oh, and the Baal Tokea's Tekiah Gedola was 22 seconds long.
(Apparently one year he managed 33). The food was pretty good, ended
up eating all my meals here. They had almost every Siman possible, except
the sheep's head and turtles. The davening wasn't so long, (6.5 hrs the
first day, about seven the second). I'm excited for Yom Kippur. For the
record, my calling resulted in me being the first one to know about Yoni's
foot, though if i had known if you were up at three I could've called
then. Well, I gotta go- ppl want the computer and I had like seventy
emails to write. Have an easy fast,
-Sim
9-26-06
So the Chief Rabbi of Israel paid us a visit today.
Today was KBY's annual Yom Kippur War memorial day so it turned out very
different than usual. The basic idea was that all the learning we did
today was in honor of KBY's fallen in the war. After Mincha we went to the
Beis Hakvaros on the kibbutz to pay our respects. We had a few minutes of
second seder until the speeches started. The first was by our Mashgiach.
In hebrew. The second was by random guy who I think was in the war. In
hebrew. Mid second speech the speaker announced that the Rishon Letzion
(Chief Rabbi/ KBY Alumnus) had arrived. He dresses so cool. Those Sefardim
got seriously awesome garb. So he spoke afterwards. In hebrew.
Unfortunately the constant barage of Hebrew did not allow me to get so
much of the speeches, but just seeing the RL is pretty cool. Not much else
right now. Gotta catch some zees,
-Sim

There IS one, peeps. And they have found us! A lovely young cousin-- my second, yours once removed (I guess)-- named David Mann has found your Uncle David and has successfully charmed a relationship! A BRIDGE to the other side.

So last night I was in Glenbrook Hospital visiting Grampa, who is fast becoming a nurse fave. In walked this young man who looked just like my cousin Geri. Geri lived with us for about a year while her mom was in the middle of White Flight from the South Side. We were very close and then very not close (sigh).

I'll update you all as the story develops.

And yes, I've wasted WAY too much time blogging today, in case you want to know.

Have a great day. Mom

I actually wrote a real blog (not the usual joke) about Buba -- here's the link.

And yes, I made up the punchline. The rest is true, though.

The news by me is that I made it through the second round of interviews with Ron Herman and it's now down to me and one other candidate. Just when I thought I could leave it in Hashem's hands, I've got to do one more project to try and prove my worth. So that's what I'll be spending today and probably tomorrow on - ugh. At least the assignments are kind of fun.

Elan asked me about the birds and the bees the other night, which I'll probably use as a blog today.

I'm having my mezuzahs checked tomorrow, just to be sure.

And I moved furniture around in my apartment and changed the knobs on dressers and it makes ALL the difference. Seems much bigger and fresher. Highly recommend.

Here are the boys at this moment (watching a morning dose of Dora):

I think you guys would enjoy this post on my experience at the ball park with Aba, Barry and Alex.

Lessons from a Family Therapist

Just got a new haircut today. A labmate described it as "Macho Argentinian." Still have no cellphone.

Giving a talk this coming saturday night at our dept. retreat!
beno

It's a pleasure to be here.

One... two... three.

Hi everybody! Yaaaaaaaaaay!

Well, I'm in. I might as well post.
Margo's nightmare in the ER (she didn't mention the hospital by name, for some reason) was hilarious and fishandfamily.com continues to entertain to the point of tears . . . but really, that's pretty much par for the course in ER's. I'm sure PM can confirm that sometimes the support personnel being who they are and the crush of patients at any given time can transform urgent and emergent care into a blur of community psychodrama and suffering. It infuriates me when I work without so much as a bladder break (and, of course, I'm terrified to take a drink of water), while the redundant support personnel saunter into the lunch room for a half-hour repast, leaving unregistered patients in the waiting area and undone xrays in the treatment rooms. And it's equally infuriating when people bring inappropriate, inexplicable, and incurable flotsam (like that, Lin?) to the ER or ICC, which is designed to treat well-defined acute pathology such as -- sprained ankles! We docs love sprained ankles! They're varied enough to be interesting, there's always a defined protocol for treatment, and the patient almost always feels better before our eyes. I'd take a sprained ankle in before a knife-wounded low-life anyday.
They really blew it with Yoni.
What was that hospital's name . . . ?

Listen, It's just a thought, well, it's more than a thought, it's a, uh, an enactment.

I'm having trouble following our gmails. They're long, there's a lot of clicking and finding. Let's try a blog. Polsky's did it and it's really nice. No one but immed fam bothers them. 'cept me.

Anything private, we put in email.

But we have our news, face it.

Like Aba took our ailing Altima to the J and someone stole a hubcap. He replaced it. 45 bucks.

Last night someone took his replacement.

I suggested he get a new one, park at the J, and write a note that says,

Here, take it you sick puppy. I'm GIVING it to you.

CHATIVAH V'CHATIMAH L'TOVA!

LF (see, we can just be our initials, or we can find new nicknames, IT'S OUR BLOG!