Worthy Assembly:
Apr. 18th, 2013 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThat refers, in the present time, to you, oh reader of this journal. I'll get back to the town-crying in a minute, but first I have to explain the term.
It highlights the first chapter of Carl Reiner's 2011 memoir I Remember Me, and comes from a speech that he gave in 1937 but only rediscovered in his father's original handwriting earlier in 2011 after the granddaughter of his parents' longtime neighbors came across a copy of it. It turned out to be a speech- the speech- that the neighbor's grandfather, and Carl, and Carl's brother, had all given on the occasion of their respective bar mitzvah ceremonies. Carl's father was the author, and his words and handwriting (which you can view here in its context, thanks to it being within the preview section of the Google e-book) brought back a ton of memories for him, and a touching connection to faith and family for me.
These, anyway, are the words that Carl, his brother and his neighbor shared with their fairly small minyans over 75 years ago:
How cool is that? Unlike today, when every memory is videographed and tweeted, Carl just happened to have this talisman of his tallit preserved for him by someone he hadn't seen in years. The closest we came to this type of experience was in the 90s, when we were invited back to Rochester for the wedding of two friends in the church we were married in. They wound up using our vows, never knowing that they were ours (we'd been given bulletins from previous weddings to select samples from, but the whole process had been computerized and anonymized by that time).
We were lucky that day to be part of THAT Worthy Assembly- and I cannot go on without thanking so many of you for being part of mine.
----
I got many kind responses to my hesitating, not-quite-an-anniversary post from the other day. They were affirming, and meaningful, and individually and collectively have helped give me the spirit to continue on this journey of words.
So thank you for reading, even if you didn't respond, but especially if you did.
----
I end this post with happy-for-now news from the aminal kingdom. Tasha did well at the vet. Her tumor does not appear to be the source of her nighttime distress- it's no bigger than it was a year ago, and while there was evidence of some recent wounding to it, the even more recent evidence was of its healing.Other than the one seizure she had three months ago, there's nothing pathological to suggest that her noctural 'noyances are tied to the tumor. It may be an onset of elderly confusion about time of day and such, but hellz, I've got a bit of that already and I'm way younger in dog years. She hasn't lost weight, seems generally happy and alert, and cripes, she's as beautiful as the day a 9-month-ish puppy came into our home in 2001.
The kids were thrilled to hear this news. Cameron was so upset when Emily passed on the worst-case possibilities to him last night, he cried. This turn for the better comes as quite a relief to him as much as to any of us.
The weather's finally turned warmer, and with that will come more walkies, which we'll try to undertake and time so she's less bored during the day and more tired in the wee hours of the night.
Because today, as for many future days in our prayers, she is not a man, but damn she is a dog. OUR dog.
It highlights the first chapter of Carl Reiner's 2011 memoir I Remember Me, and comes from a speech that he gave in 1937 but only rediscovered in his father's original handwriting earlier in 2011 after the granddaughter of his parents' longtime neighbors came across a copy of it. It turned out to be a speech- the speech- that the neighbor's grandfather, and Carl, and Carl's brother, had all given on the occasion of their respective bar mitzvah ceremonies. Carl's father was the author, and his words and handwriting (which you can view here in its context, thanks to it being within the preview section of the Google e-book) brought back a ton of memories for him, and a touching connection to faith and family for me.
These, anyway, are the words that Carl, his brother and his neighbor shared with their fairly small minyans over 75 years ago:
How cool is that? Unlike today, when every memory is videographed and tweeted, Carl just happened to have this talisman of his tallit preserved for him by someone he hadn't seen in years. The closest we came to this type of experience was in the 90s, when we were invited back to Rochester for the wedding of two friends in the church we were married in. They wound up using our vows, never knowing that they were ours (we'd been given bulletins from previous weddings to select samples from, but the whole process had been computerized and anonymized by that time).
We were lucky that day to be part of THAT Worthy Assembly- and I cannot go on without thanking so many of you for being part of mine.
----
I got many kind responses to my hesitating, not-quite-an-anniversary post from the other day. They were affirming, and meaningful, and individually and collectively have helped give me the spirit to continue on this journey of words.
So thank you for reading, even if you didn't respond, but especially if you did.
----
I end this post with happy-for-now news from the aminal kingdom. Tasha did well at the vet. Her tumor does not appear to be the source of her nighttime distress- it's no bigger than it was a year ago, and while there was evidence of some recent wounding to it, the even more recent evidence was of its healing.Other than the one seizure she had three months ago, there's nothing pathological to suggest that her noctural 'noyances are tied to the tumor. It may be an onset of elderly confusion about time of day and such, but hellz, I've got a bit of that already and I'm way younger in dog years. She hasn't lost weight, seems generally happy and alert, and cripes, she's as beautiful as the day a 9-month-ish puppy came into our home in 2001.
The kids were thrilled to hear this news. Cameron was so upset when Emily passed on the worst-case possibilities to him last night, he cried. This turn for the better comes as quite a relief to him as much as to any of us.
The weather's finally turned warmer, and with that will come more walkies, which we'll try to undertake and time so she's less bored during the day and more tired in the wee hours of the night.
Because today, as for many future days in our prayers, she is not a man, but damn she is a dog. OUR dog.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 02:03 am (UTC)I love looking at memorabilia... it's always interesting to see what survived and what it means to people.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 03:51 am (UTC)