goljerp

On Saturday Joy and I felt a bit under the weather, and davened remotely (although I did a bit of gaming afterwards, as I felt better). Sunday Joy was feeling worse, I was OK. Monday Joy felt bad enough that she took a sick day (as a teacher, taking a sick day is more work than not, and she rarely takes one for herself.) Yesterday she felt 80%, so went back to school (masked); I had a low-grade fever in the morning but went in to work (masked). Last night we were both coughing so I moved out to the couch in the office around 1:15am so Joy could get some sleep. JD seems to be fine. (Covid tests: negative for me on Saturday, negative for Joy on Monday). I should probably test myself again. I'm going to try to work remotely today... but I feel pretty crappy for first thing in the morning.

So, JD applied early action to a bunch of colleges.
( Trigger warning: college application process )

So my friend who entered hospice? Died last night. About a month after starting hospice, which is actually what was predicted. The alias I used for her back in my LJ days was "Robin", because she was a huge fan of birds, in addition to being a wonderful person in tons of ways.

I am glad I emailed her (and glad that she saw my email) after hearing of her entering hospice.

Her memory will be a blessing, but f*** it's hard anyhow. I'm going to see about shlepping to her funeral in Queens, not sure if I'll be able to make it.

So I just saw Merrily we roll along on broadway. For the first time, not the first time, years too late and just on time.

For the first time (for me) on Broadway. Years too late because my Dad bought tickets for the original broadway run (it closed, famously, after only a few post-preview performances, long before our tickets), but just on time because, well, who knows what will happen.

Not the first time, because I did see a couple of off-broadway productions.

So, this production. Every production makes choices; it feels like this one tried to make Frank a bit less of a shmuck, and his life at the end (beginning) of the show not as much of a wreck. I don't feel up to consulting Finishing the Hat for the alternate versions of songs, but I did notice that at the beginning, they made the decision to have Frank's movie a success (in other versions, the first reviews are good, but later ones aren't, so he's really screwed). You can take Mary's less than positive comments as another sign of her imminent crashing.

Radcliffe has a decent voice; in-context he's not supposed to be the belter; after all, he's the writer, not the composer. So that worked. Groff has an excellent voice, although it felt like he didn't have too many solos. And Mendez was replaced by her understudy tonight.

I enjoyed the show. The music is great, and although I still will say that if you think too hard about it, it's depressing (the people who are just meeting and full of optimism at the start end up divorced, drunk, and... well, Radcliffe's Charlie is OK at the end, with a prize winning play and several kids (and still married to his original wife).

So, now of course I want to call up all my old friends and reconnect, so that's good, right? Not gonna, because it's late and they probably want to sleep right now, and I should be going to sleep soon also.

And I'd like to think that Sondheim would be happy that the production is getting a good run on Broadway, finally. (Hey, maybe a revival of Anyone can Whistle next? I wrote a paper about it in college; it had even fewer performances during its original run than Merrily...)

11/9: flu shot
11/2 (? Around then?) had a rather dark "floaty" in my right eye. It's still there, but I've gotten more used to it, and hopefully it will go away soon.

This is pretty boring, but I figured if I put it here, I might actually find this, as opposed to a note I jot down somewhere.

There is a poem which does not, to my knowledge exist, but I want it.

The problem is that it's a very specific poem, and of the two people whom I think could do a good job of it whom I know even slightly, I don't feel like I could ask either to do it.

One is my ex-wife. Now, it's not that we're on bad terms or anything, it's just that I don't think that I can really ask her to write this poem.

The other is an author whom I've met in person once, and who I used to write to on LJ, but whose email I don't have, and who really probably has other things that they're doing (which, ya know, pay a lot more than my silly poem idea).

Because this really is very, very niche and probably only of interest to a very, very small subset of people.

So since I've tantalized you enough with why it's not going to be written, probably, here is the idea: a tragic love poem with the speaker (a tree) lamenting its lost love (giant sloths). Like I said, not a general interest poem.

The sad thing is that this is not actually fantasy. Well, maybe just a bit. I mean, if you ignore the anthromophizing and all. And maybe it wasn't giant sloths. But still

There is a tree, known as the hedge apple (or Osage Orange, or... lots of other names, but scientific name is Maclura pomifera ) which is kinda strange. It's a North American tree, and it has these big yellow-green fruits (a bit bigger than a tennis ball, maybe softball size), which are basically ignored by most animals that are around today. Makes no sense at all. The point of fruits is that animals should eat them and spread the seeds, so that new trees can grow elsewhere. These fruits just pile up under their parent trees pretty much. There are theories that there used to be a giant sloth (or Mammoth, or... something) which would eat the fruits and disperse the seeds, but which went exinct in North America after the last ice age. But the tree somehow hung on, and so now it's still making these crazy big fruits which while appealing to the giant sloths, are ignored by most other animals nowadays (squirrels will sometimes eat the seeds, but that doesn't really help the tree spread its seeds). Now, we know that there were giant sloths, and mammoths, and other large animals in North America before the last ice age, but nobody's found one with hedge apples in its gut or poop or anything.

But the idea of the poem is that the tree is mourning its partner, its love: the giant sloth which used to love its beautiful large fruits, and now doesn't seem interested. Was it something the tree did? Are not its fruits large and green-orange and lovely?

The story isn't a total tragedy, as these trees were actually rather useful to humans: they made nifty hedges, which before the time of barbed wire was really a thing, and their wood is good for bows and stuff, and they're somewhat decorative, so humans have spread them all over North America (there are some in Central Park and some in Morningside Park, which is how I met them). But still, where oh where are those sloths?

So, the big Jewish holidays are now over for the fall. Rosh Hashannah was pretty good this year, Yom Kippur kinda wet, and the beginning of Sukkot was good. I managed to make kiddush in 4 different sukkahs on the first 4 meals of Sukkot, and to play games in 2 sukkahs for a nice amount of time (it wasn't too windy on the rooftop sukkah, and Carcassonne worked out pretty well). The weather was OK on the first day of sukkot by the afternoon, and amazingly nice the second day. I didn't get a chance to help construct, as I have in past years, the sukkah of my friend who lives near my shul, due to rain the first couple of times that they were going to build it (and I could help out). Joy and I also hung out a lot with a new grad student who's just started going to our shul. (I lured them into gaming, heh heh). Alas, I must confess that after the chag, I only went inside a sukkah one more time during Sukkot: The JTS Sukkah wasn't open to the public apparently (I need to talk to Shuly next fall to see if we could be an exception; there was one time Arnie (previous JTS Chancellor) told the guard to let me into a sukkah - advantage to occasionally davening in the minyan where the Chancellor also davens.) Also, I wasn't able to find other sukkahs that were convenient to my work, not that I was really trying. I did eat in a sukkah on Shemini Atzeret evening, which was nice, and so I wasn't at all prepared for the events of Shemini Atzeret day. There's a JTS student who I'm friendly with whose partner is in the IDF; he just got back from a year in Israel, and he was really really trying his best to hold it together. Yesterday he spent most of the day hugging one of the little plush Torahs they took out for the kids. Oh, and another kick in the guts (file under: F*ck cancer): A long-time shul friend who has been fighting ovarian cancer thought she would need to go on hospice. (I didn't see her Friday post saying that it looked like not yet until yesterday evening). And another meloncholy layer on Simchat Torah was the fact that I have so many memories of Vivian and Simchat Torah. I don't think I wrote about it when she died very suddenly this past summer.[1] She always loved dancing, and on Simchat Torah she would bring out her high kicks and always be so happy.

Hope that y'all are well, and doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

Edited to add:
[1] Wow, I didn't look at the entry right before this one, did I? Also, as an update to that one: I did call $Friend, but they were in Hawaii with other friends, so didn't talk very long. This was before the horrible fire.

Here We Are, the show Sondheim was working on when he died (he'd been working on it for a while) is going to be produced in NYC September 2023, as I'd mentioned previously.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on July 20th. If you become a member of The Shed, you can buy tickets early. I decided to go for the $10 membership (it's a charity, so deductible), so I'll be getting my tickets, hopefully, on July 19th. ($100 membership can buy tickets on the 18th, but I don't think that it's worth it to pay $90 more to have an extra day to buy tickets... especially since I don't know how much they'll be, or indeed when exactly the performances will be.)

Wrote this as a comment; decided to post it here too. 2024 eclipse is less than a year away!

I am aware that I got very, very, very lucky for the 2017 eclipse. See, I'd planned to go to Yellowstone in 2016, but wasn't able to find hotels in the park when we were free for a vacation because it was only 8 months in advance, so we rescheduled for 2017, and I just happened to book a flight/hotel room in Jackson Hole Wyoming for the day before we were going to Yellowstone... and that just happened to be the day of the eclipse, which oh yeah was going to be total in Jackon. It was amazing. The traffic before (and after) the eclipse wasn't that bad for us - but I have cousins who live in Chicago, and who travelled for the eclipse... and they ended up getting home really late. As in 3am after the eclipse, due to traffic. To be quite honest, for us the start of the eclipse was interesting, and it was cool seeing the bites out of the sun get larger and larger... but, well, xkcd had it right: https://xkcd.com/1880/ - total eclipse was so amazing that afterwards we didn't wait for the partial eclipse to finish before driving to Yellowstone. My wife Joy spent a lot of time finding reputable sellers of eclipse glasses beforehand, although they were giving them away in Jackson on the day of. I second the warning that the time of totality will go by faster than you think it will. Unless you're interested in the camera tech, it might not be worth it trying to take pictures - these are not typical conditions; being aware of the moment and taking it all in was about as much as I could deal with. Depending where you are, it may be good to have an extra warmth layer for the eclipse - the temperature drop was noticable in Wyoming even when it was partial. (Your eye won't notice a difference, but there is less light and it may get cool - it was wacky seeing the automatic headlights turn on in the cars)

So my Dad is back in the hospital again. Probably the same infection? I'm going to do a quick visit in a bit more than a week - I've got some PTO that's expiring; I'd hoped to use it on Passover prep, but I think sneaking in a visit before Passover is worth it. Hopefully he'll be home then, but if not, well, I can visit him in the hospital.

Anonymous comments are still turned off due to the spammers - you didn't see them, because I was screening anonymous comments, but it bugged me to have 150+ screened comments.