A Word on Winning

As impossible as it may sound to sports fans, but the Washington Nationals are in first place at the All-Star break. Yup. Hard to believe and yet for those of us who have followed the team since their resurrection in DC we knew that good things were stirring and it was just a matter of patience and very timely nudges to concoct the superlative formula.

I know you think I am being premature, after all the only title the team has won is entirely in the minds of their fans. Should they lose ground the records book will not reflect on the promising season only the personal wins and achievements of the boys of the Washington Summer of 2012. Yet, in my mind they are winners.

They have won my admiration, and my admiration doesn't come cheap. I am not saying the Nats come cheap either but they are a team that seems to thrive on building their roster and their character and not just purchasing it. Had they only drafted free agents to fill in the baseball cavities then I would not have gulped down the Kool Aide but I would have hung to the rear. After all I am not really a Nationals fan. Yes I admit it, I am still a Washington Senators fan. For me coming over East Capitol into the gut of DC to see the concrete fins of the old sweat box of a stadium was baseball in the nation's capital. I even insisted in taking my kids to see the Nats play at RFK before they moved into the new stadium which is a lovely addition to the DC skyline.

Yes, the 2012 Nats win there too. Standing atop the upper deck in the ball park I point out the landmarks of DC one by one as well as more familial sites like the Navy Yard were my father used to work in the early days of NOAA. The stadium is well equipped for family outings, easy to get to, and prices are reasonable. Except for the enormous preying mantis that confronted my wife, the crowd at the ballpark are friendly.

But baseball is more than ball parks and location, baseball is talent and finesse, strategy, and bravado. Watching Ryan Zimmerman during the first years he was in DC was like watching how a cell is formed around a nucleus. Zimmerman was and is the backbone...what is now referred to as a franchise player. Acquiring Strasburg and Harper and bringing up Ian Desmond and a cast of thousands for me is like enjoying a display of nuclear fission. Power up baby, the Nats are going long. Mix in some clowning and aggressive moves on the base paths and you have resurrected baseball from the depths that it stunk and have breathed life into a new type of DC sports pride.

To me the most uplifting part is not the winning, but the consummation of promise fulfilled. They said get Stephen Strasburg the "Phenom", they did and he is. They said get Harper the "Phenom" and they did and he is. They said hold Zimmerman to a pitch count and they did and Zimmerman came back in aces. That is talent but even more so, that is character.

But you know what? The fun is just getting started. I know the season is barely half over, but I am already looking forward to the wondrous evolving revolving Nationals show. If they keep going and growing I will never tire of this. It's nice to be winning too!

Engbrew or Hebrish

[Originally published in 2002 for the Society for Technical Communicators -Israel Chapter]

I just recently returned from a trip to the US, my place of birth. I hadn't been there in seven years. I was traveling with a fair amount of apprehension, since my wife and I were traveling with our four boys (age 5 and under), all of whom were convinced they were going to pilot the plane themselves. Once the sedatives kicked in, we had a good time seeing family, doing fun things, and squishing bugs. One of the nicest comments about our children made to us in the form of a question which was asked by more than one person was, "Do you always tie up your children with packing tape?"… No, really, people actually asked us," Do they speak Hebrew?" I was amazed, of course: "After Pokemanese, Hebrew is their Mother tongue". This got me thinking about how lousy my English really is.

While I was in the States, my father was invited to a party at the Israel Embassy, both in honor of several families planning to make Aliyah and in honor of others scheduled to volunteer their time in Israel. Now, I don't go to too many embassy parties, but this one seemed to lack a certain amount of excitement one associates with embassy parties and Washington sex scandals. One of the honorees was a young woman scheduled to make Aliyah and hoping to become a technical writer [1] in Israel. I introduced myself to her after the party and we started to talk shop. She asked me, "How well do you need to know Hebrew, to be a technical writer in Israel?" It took me a few minutes to decide how to formulate my response without seeming too erudite, but the answer was clear: you can be a technical writer with minimal Hebrew skills, but you are severely limited. Without getting into the Zionist aspect of knowing Hebrew, the developers I have come into contact with, by and large, prefer not to speak to technical writers at all. In fact, they tend to cringe and flee at the sight of a writer armed with legal yellow pads and sticky notes. When they do have to speak with writers, however, they prefer to speak in their native tongue (usually Russian or some hybrid of C++ combined with vague, guttural sounds) or Hebrew.

Preserving my English, however, that was a task I did not plan for. I speak to my kids in English (not what they call "English" in England, of course, but the US brand -- see www.wewonthewar.com). It isn't easy to speak correct English in Israel. After a while, certain Hebrew phrases creep into our daily language. First, there are all kinds of words that I learned in "the movement" that have become "English", such as chadar ochel. Most parents say, "Bobby, Tiffany, let's go to the chadar ochel", while I implore my children ,"&*%$ and *$%, move your ass to the dining room." Note the calming effect of the use of "dining room".

Most of us fall into the trap when we begin using commonly accepted Yiddish idioms and expressions like, "The chutzpah of using the word datum in a sentence", or, "She really knows her kishkes." The next step integrates Hebrew idiomatic scraps that have collected on many sidewalks and bathroom walls, such as, "Recompile the help file? Kfotzh li!" or making stupid jokes about your yearning for "Zion".

But ai-sham, down the line, we start to integrate Ivrit into our daily language. Bli la sim lev, we are using more and more Ivrit and our English goes kaka. Excuse me, I mean kaput.

So, if you want to maintain strong English skills while living in Israel, practice speaking and writing English correctly, even if it seems exaggerated. Ra-uh Huzhartem!
                                                                                                                                       
[1] A technical communicator communicates to others that they are "not a technical writer and watch out if you call me one". A technical writer works for a living.

Maybe the Mayan's Were Right?

Special Edition!
(Note the bold print)

I know you have been as worried about this week's big news as much, if not more, as I have been worried. I have been so worried, (How worried are you?) that not only did I sell my Facebook stock, draft a new will, added new entries to the bucket list, but I also secured cryogenic treatment for me and my cat. Cat you say?

No, I am not referring to Mitt Romney, the MLB draft, or Lebron James, but to the Bart Jansen's tribute to his cat Orville whom he (and I am not making this up) turned into a helicopter after he (Orville not Bart) was killed by a car.

We can understand this behavior in two ways:
1. Okay, he is Dutch and that explains just about every weird behavior from turning your deceased feline into a predator drone to eating french fries with pindasaus (a creative sauce made from the insides of a dead cats intestines - or some other products).

2. The other way to explain the captivating cat copter is, "What the f*** are you thinking Bart OMG Jansen? Your cat is erased off the planet by a speeding Hyundai your first thought is...hey let's take him for a spin around the living room...hmmm but how to make it easier?"

Okay...calm down, it isn't as if he was a crowned prince who threw a toilet to celebrate his Queen's birthday. What the hell is going on over there in Holland. Next they are going to start a new tourist indurstry for bed & break up.

Perhaps in retrospect, flying your cat over your ex's toilet is not so bad. I am trying to imagine what is next but all I can do is gag up a hair ball.

And speaking of gagging up hair balls, every time I see a rodent now I can only imagine what size beer container might fit inside it's carcass. Now technically this is not news or Dutch, but I bet they had the Dutch in mind when they brewed this idea up.

Do we go too far in immortalizing our pets? Turning them into helicopters or attractive beverage dispensers is only the tip of the iceberg. Just wait until someone wants to turn good old Fluffy into a reading lamp or  Spot into a hood ornament. It is just a matter of time.

Perhaps the Mayan's were right and that the end of the world is now. I think technology has hit its peak when we take the time to transform dead animals into knick knacks. Bring on Armageddon baby. Let us all just cash in our collective Facebook stock together and join that great social network in the sky when all we have to show are stuffed quadrupeds.

Since you are as concerned with this nonsense as I am, lets spread the news. Lets get the word out that we don't want to see former snakes turned into golf club warmers or or passed fish into tinkle toys, or Jocko the ex-parrot stuffed as a back-scratcher. Let our pets rest in peace. Spread the word by land and sea, and air...I hear their is a helicopter once named Orville for hire.

Dancing Baby

So he turned twelve and now I have to say goodbye. I have to say goodbye to scavenger hunts and obstacle courses, to cakes doused with candies and pin the tail on the donkey. My baby celebrated his "twelfth night" with a disco. The gods can be cruel sometimes but this was about as low as one goes. I guess his education is not complete. Doesn't he know disco sucks? Not only did he want a dance party and not only did he want to invite ....girls..(yuk Cooties) ...but he did. He invited girls, he had a dance party...and guess what? He danced!

What happened to staying up all night decorating a cake because your four year old wants a Winnie-the-Pooh driving a John Deere tractor cake or a cake with flags from all around the world...or the one shaped like Zaboo from Zaboomafoo. What happened to endless breathes of balloon blowing and stashes of prizes for booty at the end of the party, gift bags, and funny hats?

I am sure someone out there can relate to this rant, maybe? I mean couldn't they all just run into the bushes and do what ever teenagers do and then come back for cake and ice cream? Okay we had cake and we saved on the ice cream which just would have been a mess but that is not the point. Who is the party for anyway? What did my son ask us to supply him with? A stick and a bottle. Sure we helped find someone with musical taste (aka not his parents) to mix a playlist or what ever you do with a playlist and we supplied ample amounts of liquid refreshments and pretzels that looked like a fleet of trucks ran over them but he really "needed" a bottle and a stick. What was he going to hold up a liquor store for fun?

Okay, the stick was for limbo dancing which when you are twelve (and a boy) is a lot easier because you are closer to the ground. For us old foggies limbo dancing is like trying to put on socks in the morning...something is going to cramp. My wife so innocently asked what the ominous bottle was for. My youngest just rolled his eyes as if he had the dumbest parents in the world.

What happened? Did she forget about playing spin-the-bottle in Junior High? That evil game that has become a passage of rite for kids for years? Did she forget the time she was locked in a closet for seven minutes in hell (or heaven) with some pimply faced geek (Ta Da). We forgot all this stuff and yet wow.

So he has grown up way cooler than I ever was or will be. He danced, he laughed...he had a good time with his school friends and he never seemed fazed by anything. He has the moves, really he looked like he was having great fun and it is very nice to see that. It was also nice to see how many nice friends he has in his class.

So I will miss the cake decorating and the dress up in costume and resign to the dress up to look sharp and making playlists. He is still my baby....and look at him dance!

Exercise Your Spirits

How long has it been since you looked in your lover's eyes and rediscovered the spark that ignited when you "knew"? There are times when that feeling seems completely absent in my life and I am worried that we "out grow" the ability to be ...for lack of a better word..."enchanted". I often look at my kids and think how jealous I am having many of their "firsts" still ahead of them. Remember your first crush/love? Just sit back and try and recapture the feeling the first time you looked at another and your heart was firing on all pistons. In my case I never even said a word to the girl but that didn't matter. It wasn't being with that girl that was important, it was just the fact of being in love and knowing that you have it in your heart to have that strong a feeling was so..so enchanting and mystifying.

A quick retreat to the Goo Goo and I see enchanted is defined as "great charm and fascination", it is also a movie with Amy Adams and Susan Sarandon (no relation to the cling wrap). The definition leaves me less than enchanted. There is an odd combination of charm, wonder and suddenness that really describes the feeling I am driving at. I am sure you know it too. I suppose we can best describe the feeling in terms of human experience. For example, I felt that way the first time I touched the skin of a dolphin or when canoeing down the south fork of the Potomac having a bald eagle swoop over our craft as both the eagle and I looked for a good fishing spot. Sometimes the same experience at a different time has charm like powers. I probably made a face the first time I tasted coq au vin but when I was twelve it was the most marvelous dish I had tasted next to my mother's marinated chuck steaks. You might think this feeling is trivial but to me it seems basic and well...healthy. There are probably special hormones created at these times that are fundamental for a healthy life.

How long has it been since you looked at a bird with simple amazement as it flapped its wings and rose to take on the breeze and challenge the sky? We have the time. I know we have the time. I regularly look up at the moon or study the changing mountains here in the desert but I rarely marvel at them. Am I just too jaded? I would like to think we can't out grown those feelings. Sometime when I look at "older" people, I wonder if I am seeing the real them or if this is just what is left after the life has slowly drained from them. I guess I also wonder if I am going to be the kind of retiree that complains about nearly everything and examines things rather than appreciating them. Will any of my patience be left when I am seeing the other side of life? As if I have any patience to begin with.

When do we lose that abilty to marvel at the simple. It isn't just a case of stopping and smelling the roses either. I feel my generation is so lucky in that the amount of "free" time we have to stop and enjoy life is good and plenty. Sure that dosen't inherently mean that we use that time to "appreciate life". That was what was so cool about being twelve (or whatever) you didn't have to stop life to turn the masonary work on the sidewalk into a playground, a fantasy game, or an easel to bleed your creativity upon.

So, is this just an age thing? or can be turn back the emotional clock and recapture the ability to wonder with amazement? I am afraid it isn't just a matter of yoga and meditation although not far from those practices. I think it is a skill. Just like other skills, if we do not exercise that skill, train and properly hone the talent we lose it it gradually even if we excelled at it when we were younger. So what do we do? First we have to decide that we want to be enchanted. This is a big step and one that is too easily overlooked. At times I feel like I am done with being enchanted. Let's just live and forget the crap, but then too much time goes by and the feeling of life becomes hollow. We must experience to nourish the soul. So, having gotten here we have to consciously decide to practice our wonder and amazement. I am no expert but I suggest that new experiences are the most important spark in developing these feelings and fortifying the ability to recreate them. Even the word virgin pulls triggers in our subconscious that are powerful. We have to trod in virgin territory and savor each step. Place yourself in many marvelous situations and consciously lead our mind down the positive. Arts, sports, social activities wherever you can find it. Be greedy with your desire to experience and never feel like it is enough. As we develop we have to construct and use a language of positiveness and enrich it with charming amulets of syntax (I always liked that word syntax..especially the syn part). The language we infuse in our lives is the language of our feelings. It isn't necessary to express feelings with other people but to describe to ourselves how we are and what kind of spiritual progress we are making.

So let's do it. Lets go out into the world and marvel, wonder and be enchanted. Recently a friend of mine was describing a situation with a family member calling her progress a small miracle. Do you know the what the difference between a small miracle and a large miracle is?

Nothing.

See you after your next miraculous enchantment.

Seder - the tradition of being well red

It is interesting to note that the holiday with the most restrictions and religious legal demands also leaves room for a huge range of tradition and variation. Have you ever wondered if your holiday traditions run specific to your own family?

I remember the first time we did Passover seder with a family whose tradition it was to use Romaine lettuce for Maror. I thought this was the most weird and exotic thing. I mean after all, doesn't everybody use the horseradish for Maror? It was only at this time did I realize that many of the rituals I had learned were actually traditions that took centuries to develop and evolve. Not only would I find out that there is more than one way to skin a "Maror" but that often "my" traditions were in the minority. So why was this seder different from all other seders?

Passover demands many things from its followers. Not only do we have to rid leavened products from our diet but from our homes and every thing we come in contact with. We are not even allowed to own products that might become leavened. Typically one will start cleaning the house a few weeks before the holiday but the end game from house to house is similar, but come seder night each table can look distinctly different.

Just look at the Haroseth on the table. This food is meant to remind us of the hardship of slavery, perhaps symbolic of the mortar that held the bricks together and yet is usually a sweet dish. It may have apples, honey, dates, prune juice, cinnamon, walnuts, raisins or other dried fruits. Haroseth is one of the main guests on our seder plate and yet a myriad of traditions as to what this dish is and to what is symbolizes.

One of the main complications in traditions comes from the tradition of some to not eat certain foods which are not outright forbidden but have been removed from the "fly list" by years and years of practice. This becomes an issue when inviting other people over, but if we can remember that each person's tradition can be mutually honored than a solution will present itself.

I can't help think about the future of our traditions. What of the traditions that we have now will my children take with them and what rituals will they adopt along the way. Adopting and inventing are two things that come hard for me even though intellectually I believe it is good. My life partner and I have similar Passover traditions so we have less tension around holiday ritual, but perhaps those tensions are used to expand our horizons, like me and the Romaine lettuce which I now find out has a very substantial following and even stronger Halachic background. I can't go back on my radish for Karpas though. I draw the line at having the radish to dip in salt water.

For me the seder is complete when I see the radish because I can hear my father (even when he is doing his seder far away in his home) say with an ironic voice. "... and now we will eat the radish...a green vegetable...(laugh laugh)...borei pri HaAdomah". My father always says the word Adomah with a Yiddish accent. It was only later in life when my Hebrew was a bit better that I understood the double-entendre...since Adomah (meaning the earth but also the color red) accurately describes the color of the radish too.

Next year in Jerusalem! (with lots of radishes)

Forget It

It is Passover time. It is spring and that means chocolate covered food products, odd shaped bread, budding romances, and sharing your home with friends and family, but before we can get to all that we need to prepare. Yup time to clean out the old in preparation for the new.

One theory goes that when most homes were heated using coal, by the end of the winter the grime needed to be cleaned out of the system. Spring afforded the first opportunity to open the windows and sweep the chimney. If you were already sweeping out the chimney you had to move everything outside (or cover it). This prompted a whole series of cleaning issues and so the cleaning would go on ad nauseum until the end of spring.

My theory goes farther back. I like to believe that our holiday cycle is tied with agrarian roots. Since wheat was a major stabilizer for the home unit the wheat cycle dictated many holiday practices. At the end of the winter, families would clean out their granary before harvesting the new. The importance can not be downplayed. Old grain will spoil and jeopardize the new harvest so thorough cleaning is a matter of feast or famish. Clearing out the old created a temporary excess of food. This late winter excess was now "use it or loose it". So people partied. Sort of a last hurah before the harvest. After all the status of the crops was already determined, time to party. This is the carnival season. Once the goodies are consumed you are left with only the bare minimum to scrape through until the grain is processed, this would be the period of austerity, Passover, Lent etc.

In the Passover ritual we are focused on leavened and unleavened bread. It is well documented that the ancient Egyptians mastered the arts of yeast in bread and beer. The Egyptians were advanced in many sciences and food production was no exception. Leavened breads became a symbol of the dynasty while anything not Egyptian was unleavened. If on the passover holiday we are emphasising our not Egyptian qualities no better way to embody the message but by forbiddening yeasted products.

I want to know if we can clear out the chametz we have in our minds, get rid of our spiritual chametz, detox the chametz completly out of the system. Can we dislodge those stuck chametzadik memories and stubborn qualities from our mind, or can we filter out so that essentially the memories do not exist.
I always wondered about meditation as a way to control these thoughts. I know that some people use yoga or meditation and such but I had one bad experience with meditation and I can't imagine trying again. I won't go into the details but lets just say it involved a certain mention of JC (who is not my father!).

I find it rather funny that about a month before Passover (from Purim on, perhaps) bread ceases to be bread but it is seen as chametz. I wonder if we end up eating more of it (to make up for what we will be denied) or less of it (in psychic preperation for the unleavened hoiday)? There also seem to be a few weirdos that think it is some kind of a mitzva to not eat bread before Passover starts. Guess what? It is no mitzva. So essen mine kinder. I don't know how many of you feel this way, but after we have cleaned and scrubbed and burned and rid our selves of chametz, the first crumbs of matza that "soil" the kitchen counter are like holy water on the altar. We need a little mess in our lives, even if it is K4P.

In the end, this time period, is all about cleaning. Interestingly we do not focus on the spiritual cleaning. We reserve the spiritual cleaning for after the summer, before we return to the fields to plant. That is when we need divine intervention the most. The Passover season is saying thanks for the intervention that we have been gifted with. Now we have to grab a dust buster and get cracking. So enough blogging and more cleaning. Oh, by the way, don't forget to empty your recycle bin and sent items etc. Don' t focus on the past. Move on to the future.

Chag Sameach - Happy Holiday

BTW:
In the next Blog I will be asking you about your holiday memories. If you have any you want to share with me I might include them in the blog!