More than just a memory

"Hey Zalmy, We're here in California for a bit, could you take some photos of our family hanging out with their cousins, aunts and uncles and Grandparents? Nothing really posed, we just want memories of our summers here"

Ummm, yes. Of course.

Sandra is from Huntington Beach, and she knew my family quite well while I was growing up (and we still keep in touch here and there). Years later Estee (my wife) worked for her husband in New York (before we were married). It's a small world (I love that sentence, as if we had another world to compare it to). They really are a special family.

They now live somewhere on the other side of the Country, but they always come for a bit in the summer. Her sister and family do the same. It's always special when they get together here with her parents (it was also his birthday), and they wanted memories of their summers here. Not pretty pictures in a park, rather something that they could look at years later and really remember the wonderful summers.

I dig that. It's what I would want for my family.

Mendel's Upshindig

Thank G-d for mother in laws.

There is no punch line (though if you have one, I'd love to hear it).

My poor boys get called girls all the time. It's the hair. There is an ancient Jewish custom (as most are. Besides gefilta fish and Manischevitz.) that we let a boy's hair grow until he turns three. At which stage we have a little shindig (called an Upshernish or Upshern) where we cut his hair; he starts wearing "the garb" (kippah, and tzitzis (those fringe thingies); officially start teaching him Torah, and the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of Judaism; and we start enforcing (to a degree) the Mitzvos (commandments).

Mendel was turning three but we weren't planning on having a party. While it would have been nice, it would just have been an added stress on our time and budget. And for all these Jewish stuff we always prefer small affair + good vibes, over large affair + stress/bad vibes.

In steps my mother in law (actually, I think she called). Knowing that Zevi did have a nice party, she didn't want Mendel to be left out, so she offered to pretty much arrange the whole thing herself (with the help of her family).

Food, decorations, preparations, setting up (well, I helped a bit with the setting up part).

(I remember thinking then how hot it was (high 70's with a nice breeze). Ha! Flash forward two months and Florida has officially moved in with us.)

Yeah, she rocks.

As it turned out his birthday was on a Friday, and Fridays just aren't good party days (unless,, of course, you don't want guests, which was the original plan). So we went to the store sometime that week and picked out some kippahs (none of which Estee approved of) and a few pair of tzitzis. On Friday we had a small haircuttage ceremony at home (i.e. we all cut a bit). And on Sunday we had the main event, where we all shmoozed, ate, cut the little dude's hair, gave tours of our garden, I even said a short speech, and good times were had by all. After which Estee chopped off the rest of his hair (except of course his peyos (sidelocks. Which is one of the major aspects of the Upshernish in the first place. To teach the mini-dude about not chopping off the peyos).

I thank G-d almost every day for our backyard. And for Estee's bread. But that's another story.

Here's how it all went down:

Interested in having me document your Upshernish/party/shindig? Send me an email and we'll talk details

Rachel + Yitzie // Los Angeles, CA

I have typers bock. It's a rare yet harsh malady where although one may have much to say, or even write, those tiny muscles in fingers refuse to translate the impulses sent by the brain into action. Instead somehow I end up in front of the fridge, wondering how long I've been there for.

So I grab a beer (or, if there isn't one in the fridge, I storm away fuming), head back to my computer and type with my toes. Yes, this blog was typed with my toes.

I also used seven cameras for this wedding. Seven. Why? That is a very, very good question. My back and shoulders would like to know the same.

Rachel and her family were part of our community since, well, I can't remember when we didn't know each other. It's amazing to see people grow up into truly unique and special people. Yitzi was always grown up. He may have been a child once but we only met a few months before the wedding, so I have no proof. I do know that he is über smart, witty, and kind. Not a bad combo. There's a lot to tell about this beautiful wedding, with beautiful friends, and beautiful families, but I'll let the photos tell the story.

Enjoy.

Backyard Wildlife

Berkowitzs and Animals. We go together like meat and potatoes. Like sauerkraut and beer. Like steak and beer. Like a cheese sandwich and beer. Like sushi and beer. There's a tangent somewhere here but I'm not sure where it leads. Growing up we've had many an animal roaming our backyards.

Cats: Hutzie. Mitzi. Molly. Jiblet. Callie. Rocky. Dumdum.

Hutzi was the original. The dude. The one who started it all. I don't really remember him besides for her playing with these huge locust looking things.

Mitzi and Jiblet were kittens we found in Israel. Devorah Leah and I spent three months with our mother in the summer of I have no clue when. I was eight and if I was bored enough I'd do the math. Anyways, Mitzi we found somewhere with a hurt leh. She was like 2 weeks or so. Cute as anything. Jiblet we found a week or two later. Ugly little thing with big ears. I'm not sure what happened to the cats after we left, but for some reason DL thinks someone ate them.

Don't remember Molly. Just the name.

Callie was a stray kittne we smuggled home from school one day. There were always a bunch of cats running around the place and Levi F. was always finding homes for them. Now he's making beer in Israel. We knew our father wouldn;t let us take her home so we put her in my backpack. We were coughing very loudly the whole way home. If I remember correctly my father guessed something was up, pretended to be angry but let us keep her. He always put on a show of not caring for the animals, but we knew he did.

He once stopped traffic on a busy street to make sure a crossing tortoise would make it. Afterwards he said he just did it so he wouldn't hear the crunch.

We had a boarder sleeping in our house. She saw Callie run away when we were leaving to school but she didn't say anything, as she didn't want to be late. I still don't really forgive her. Callie was a crazy cat though. If we would have taken her to the vet she definitely would have had some Riddlin prescribed.

Rocky was awesome. He was a stray who hurt his leg and was crying by our back door so, we fed him. His leg got better but he kept on coming to the door with one leg up and whimpering. Smart thing. He lived indoors and out and guarded DL fiercely. We used to go on walks and he used to follow. Just like a dog. But unlike a dog, he was quite able of controlling his bladder. Eventually we took him to New York with us. When my first neice was born he allowed her to pull his tail poke him and do all sorts of kid stuff. But he grew old, got cancer and had to be put to sleep. Shame.

Dumdum was hands down the stupidest most neurotic animal we've ever had. Don't know how or why, but I came home from 9th grade to this whimpering weird looking cat. When my mother moved to Israel, somehow DL convinced my father to take care of her. If I'm not mistaken she's still alive, living at David's house.

Birds: We had two cockatoos. They could hum the whole Shalom Aleichem with us. I think a cat got them (not ours). We also had two baby hummingbirds that their parents abandoned (stupid druggies). Those things are so tiny. And cute. We fed them a some sort of sugar water mixture from an eyedropper. There was no internet back then so I think we actually had to do some real research. The next day we were taking a walk around the block (DL, my father, and I) and we saw this real pretty dove just sitting on the sidewalk. It wouldn't move when we came closer. Afraid a cat would get it we planted it in a nearby tree. On the way back we realized that cats climb trees. So we took the bird home. Now we had these two baby hummingbirds and this relatively giant dove hanging out in our living room. Well, the dove flew way the next day and we took the hummingbirds to some bird sanctuary.

Duck. Yes we had a duck. Those big white ones. I had just turned three and he followed us home from Shul one Shabbos. The next morning we took him back, but he just followed us home again. I was terrified of that thing. Yossi used to chase him around the yard, and he would chase me. If you're thinking of getting a pet duck, don't.

Rabbits: We started with two. Kushy and Pepper. You could guess what happened next. We ended with over one hundred rabbits. Kushy was a big black rabbit who used to prowl along the walls and chase the cats away. Really. Rabbits have this thing of finding interesting places to have their babies. I remember one time we were all sitting down by our Shabbos table for when my father just bursts out laughing. There's this rabbit schlepping my mothers shabbos robe across the dining room. Working quite hard. She looked at all of us laughing at her and then just kept on going. We eventually sold them all to a Korean restaurant (joke. I have no clue what eventually happened to them).

We also had a tortoise, tarantula, toad, turtles, and whole bunch of different fish.

Nowadays all we got are kids. I honestly have no desire for pets, but my kids might. A horse would rock. Seriously. It's in the works (I had too much to dream last night).

Here's our backyard wildlife. A baby bird was just hopping around our backyard. The kids kept on running to the garden to pick out worms and insects for it to eat. I told the kids to chew them up and regurgitate them into the birdies mouth. They refused. Other than that we got the usual plethora of beetles, bugs, flying creatures, worms, and the occasional dragon.

Geekspeak: All shot with the Mamiya RZ67, 110mm 2.8 lens (mostly stopped down to 5.6 or so), and Portra 400.

Zevi + Sandwich

This happened yesterday. Zevi: I want a sandwich with:

• two breads. One on top and one on bottom (thanks for clarifying that. And that would be my wife's homemade sourdough bread)
• Avocado
• Block of cheese (as opposed to shredded)
• Mustard
• Ketchup (he'll grow out of this one)
• Purple onions (later changed his mind to white one)
• Purple sauerkraut (I like the green one also, but we mommy only made the purple one)
• Tomatos (we didn't have any ripe ones so he chose cucumbers, also from the garden)

Thank G-d he didn't ask for a beer.

Now all this would be merely really cool, just for the fact that he's eating A. Real food. B. Really healthy food. But if you read my last post (if you haven't please do so now. I'll wait), you'll realize why I find it hilarious and scary at the same time.

Proof:

Rachel + Andrew (+ Neville)

Back in yeshiva when I was either very bored or very tired (the latter happened a good deal more than the former) I used to press really hard on my eyelids. Until I saw stars. Or comets, kaleidoscopes, and spinning rocks. And they were all moving. Sometimes coming at me. Sometimes going away. I don't recall the actual point of this exercise but it's a memory nonetheless (and frankly, one of my more disturbing ones).

Memories (I spelled that wrong and Mr. iPad thought it should be "mom Orion's". Go figure.) are a hard thing to capture. But it generally is a good thing to try. Somehow with either words, a song, maybe a smell, a food, or a photo. Or possibly a combination.

(There is a cockroach running around. Not cool. What is it about them that inspire such disgust?)

The thing is memories aren't really of events they're more of how said events made us feel. We don't see life, we experience it (hopefully). And that's what needs capturing. It's why not all photos or songs are created equal. Some can even make you remember things that never happened. They'll pull on some strings deep down. Maybe bring a sigh or a tear. There's a bit of magic and alchemy involved.

It's something I've been trying to think about for a bit now. To think of the eventual resting place of a photograph. What do I want it to say. What emotion(s) needs to be hidden in there. Somewhere. Somehow.

I'm writing this at a ridiculous hour of the night/early morning. The hour of the drive by chuckage of rolled up papers that no one reads. Some time between wine and coffee. Steak and bagel. So if there is a seeming lack of connection between the content of this wordy mess and the memories recorded below, I plead insanity, lack of caffeine, too much caffeine, and an overabundance of alcohol abstinence.

We started at home with some milk, cookies, and a slightly aged (ahem) wine. We then moved on to dog food (well Neville did at least). Onto a favorite bar/restaurant for some more wine, beer, and coffee (water is for the meek). Followed by a walk around town, past the magazine stand, across some streets, and finally down the intergalactic sidewalk. 'twas wonderful.