I believe we’ve located the menorah. It’s been in our storage unit since we moved. We will probably light all the candles on the last night. I’ve been told, ‘You’re a good Jew.” This was at a time when I was at a gathering at my sister’s house. A friend of hers was having some difficulty with her digital camera, so I sprung into action. Afterwards, she said to me,”You’re a good Jew.” I think she was some high-ranking official at my sister’s synagogue. I was just helping someone out, and there she was slapping a label on it. When we finally get around to lighting the candles, I’ll be doing it more for the enjoyment of the children and my wife than anything else. If that makes me a good Jew, so be it. I’m just trying to celebrate.

Here’s a follow-up to the birthday festivities…

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The dream gift was originally intended for Ava: safety scissors shaped like a cute, friendly, innocuous beast which she could use for her endless arts-and-crafts projects, such as cutting up important government documents, credit card bills, bank notifications, etc. while her parents would guzzle cheap rot-gut whiskey and whine and laugh about the great old times when worry would kill you quicker than anything. Nikki took Gia out into the world on a quest for such treasure as would bring the light of glee into the eyes of our now-two-year-old, a quest which would end up in the bowels of holiday weekend shopping hell.

The beacon appeared towards the end of the excursion, and it is pictured here in all its packaged brilliance. What better offering to your innocent daughter than a friendly, inoffensively colored mallard to assist you with your paper shredding, chopping and older sister-threatening daily chores, particularly when it boasts ‘Shark Sounds when you cut!’ and one can only hope ‘Here’s to Swimmin’ with Bowed-Legged Women!’

The question remains, as we are compelled to ‘Also look for the Duck Scissors’ on the rear of the packaging, is whether the Shark Scissors quack. I might have to hunt down a pair.

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So we’ve gone and done it. I should say, my wife did it, for the third time, this past Halloween. It was once again an awe-inspiring experience participating in the delivery of our third daughter.

There’s an interesting video over here at CNN which caught my attention. It’s titled “Little Baby, Big Stress”. It has some interesting suggestions on how to manage stress once a baby is born.

One particularly amusing concept is scheduling a date once a week with your spouse. It might be nice to live in some parallel universe where there were people nearby whom we could trust to watch our children so we could indulge in such activities. As it stands, we’re more or less on our own. We did have some family in town for a couple of weeks, during which time the offer was extended for us to go out to dinner or something, just the two of us. We opted to stay home and relax. At least, that was the plan. As for me, I was physically incapable of relaxing, sleeping, eating, or thinking coherently. When the pediatrician gave us an A-plus, said baby’s doing great and that he had no advice for us since we seemed to be doing everything right, I was speechless. Had I attempted to say anything, it would probably have been unintelligible nonsense, my parenting privileges would no doubt have been stripped from me immediately, and my wife and baby would have been sent home with a police escort. It would have been a strait jacket for yours truly.

We nearly boycotted Thanksgiving, but I decided to take advantage of the fact that, dare I say it, I was beginning to feel human again. So I cooked a turkey, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, the works. I stared at our third perfect little girl. I reminded myself of how lucky we are. My wife reminded me of how lucky we are. I think I’m even starting to feel lucky. It’s one thing to intellectualize it or hear it said over and over, but it’s another thing entirely to feel it. I admit that I’m very selfish that way. I have this need to feel good about things, to enjoy life, to have a good time whenever and wherever possible. I don’t want my daughters seeing their father reduced to a neurotic mess of a human being and thinking that’s what they have to look forward to when they get older and accumulate responsibilities.

Life is good right now, despite the string of recent and current events which are providing endless entertainment for my family, friends and coworkers.

Just up and relocated the entire family to the Capital District. That would be the region surrounding the capitol of New York State. Most non-New Yorkers have no clue as to what that means. Most non-New Yorkers, including many who have visited the state, consider New York to encompass the four block radius surrounding St. Mark’s Place in Greenwich Village. That would be located on Manhattan Island. That’s right, Manhattan is an island. So is Long Island. Queens is a borough. New York City has five of them (boroughs, that is). Queens, and Brooklyn (another borough) for that matter, both are part of Long Island, though neither Queens-ites nor Brooklynites seem to grasp or admit that. I grew up in Queens, which is not necessarily relevant, depending on who happens to be reading this.

Now we’re in a renovated textile mill, supposedly the largest textile mill in the world, which has been converted into loft apartments. My one-way commute has been reduced from 40 miles to 4.5 miles. The kids are loving it so far. The architecture around here is fascinating. Supposedly, real estate around these parts hasn’t suffered quite as much of a blow as elsewhere. Still, there are those back on Long Island who rolled their eyes at me when I told them we were moving… UPSTATE. We are now ‘upstaters.’ The key phrases regarding Upstate New York vs. ‘Downstate’ are “your money will go so much farther,” “such an easier pace,” and “what about when it snows?” Right now we’ll just go ahead and enjoy the autumn weather.

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