battling through winter
Hard to believe – I’m now getting out summer clothes to pack for Mexico, leaving in five days. Fresh snow outside, minus two with the wind chill, and I’m looking in disbelief at little tops and sandals. Glad to report, my class at the San Miguel conference is all but sold out – there’s one spot left. And this despite it being at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, after a big fiesta Saturday night! Welcome, writers.
A word about the Aura Hotel, which as I said is a bare bones but clean and reasonably-priced hotel in a superb location, at least, if you want to be near Times Square – I hit the roof when I saw on my Visa bill the huge sum they’d charged me and wrote to them in high dudgeon. It turned out, part of that was the security charge, which they took off next day. But even so, there were seven separate taxes on top of the room charge for each night; they should warn us about that. So it was not as reasonable as I’d thought, not to mention the thermostat of my room stuck at 63. But for me, a mere brief walk back in the cold and dark from the theatre and the Century Club – priceless.
The hideous news continues to pour out. We thought the monster had hit rock bottom quite a while ago, but he was only getting started. The sheer inhumanity, not just of him but of his entire band, is hard to fathom; I think we on the other side are all simply bewildered, finding it impossible to process. My ex’s daughter in Washington, who’s a figure skater, lost a dear friend in that tragic plane crash, only to hear her president blame DEI and Biden. It tears the gut.
And this stupid Ontario election, that crook versus three centre-left parties battling each other to ensure a Con victory … heartbreaking also.
Teaching twice this week, sheer pleasure. Going to the Y, not so sheer a pleasure as my creaky old bod heaves around, but I’m there. Plowing through the to-do list – today, looking fruitlessly for comfortable slip-on shoes for travel, only to find most stores do not stock over a size 10 for women. I of course take a 10 ½. I’m now looking at men’s shoes, which are usually too hefty for my dainty self. The curse of the big-footed woman! But I’m not my mother, who took size 13. Now, that was a curse.
And another treat – I called Rogers a few weeks ago because I didn’t get MSNBC and thought a little Rachel Maddow is a necessity these days. After a long chat, the Rogers guy set me up with a new cable package at less than I’m paying now, with more channels including Rachel – whom I hardly watch, it turns out, because I just can’t bear it. However, I just got the first Rogers bill after the change and it’s enormous, more than double what I usually pay. So today, another long wait on hold and battle with the behemoth.
First world problems.
Cousin Ted just sent the photo, below, taken maybe 25 years ago. After my grandfather’s brother Bill’s funeral, we went to the cemetery, and Leo, the youngest brother, (Cousin Ted’s father), said his parents were also buried there, we should try to find their gravestones. We scattered to search, and I was the one who shouted, Here they are! Yetta and Jacob, immigrants from a shtetl near Minsk, who raised 7 children, including Bill, Leo, daughter Belle, and my grandfather Mike, in a small cold water tenement flat on the Lower East Side. Here’s Lola – Belle’s daughter – me, Becky – Lola’s granddaughter whom I just had lunch with at Balthazar in NYC and who lives on the Lower East Side a block from where her grandmother grew up – another relative, and Leo. Invisible here behind Leo is my beloved Uncle Edgar, the world bridge champion.
Family. Roots. Remembrance.
The post battling through winter appeared first on Beth Kaplan.
