Playlist meme

Put your MP3 player on shuffle, write down a random line or two of the first twenty-five songs that come up, and then have people ( you, my dear readers, are supposed to do this part for me) guess which songs they are. When you guess a song right, I will put the artist and title next to it with your name!

So...

1. September's coming soon.
2. Fog out my daylight, torture my night,/Feels like I'm falling, far out of sight
3. Will you be a friend of mine, I will be a friend to you
4. Someone sent an angel to watch over me/ Someone sent an angel too beautiful to see
5. Went to school and I was very nervous/No one knew me, no one knew me
6. All I want is You to know/how much, how much/I love you
7. I'd rather be a forest than a street/Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
8. How many roads mus a man walk down / Before you call him a man?
9. A mezők útját járom én/ a gyárak súlyát hordom én
10. Love was when I loved you/One true time I hold to
11. Looking for sins we haven't yet sinned.
12. This is the way that we love,/Like its forever,/Then live the rest of our life,/But not together
13. Énekeljük el azt, hogy vége/nem járunk többet ki rétre
14. Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along/When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
15. You won't get a fight here, no ma'am/Say I'm a goldbrick, a good-off, no good
16. Esah Einay el he-harim/ may-ayin yavo ezri
17. That's me in the corner/That's me in the spotlight
18. Friday afternoon Shabbat is close/Coming from Heaven up above
19. Idehívott az élet/Itt ér utól a végzet
20. It's been a long time/And my time is finally near
21. They say mother earth is breathing/With each wave that finds the shor
22. To right the un-rightable wrong/To love, pure and chaste from afar
23. should i bend over?/should i look older?/just to be put on the shelf?
24. saw your face in the crowd/I call out your name/You don't hear a sound
25. Vasárnap reggel a templomban tömeg/van aki fiatal és van egy csomó öreg

Argh the way life is

I have two half-written entries about Tu B'Shvat and a challenge Ramona posted. I have two mostly written recipes waiting to be posted. But I'm not posting any of them today. 

Couple weeks ago my dad officially announced that he is retiring, handing the company over to my elder brother S and moving to Eilat to be closer to my grandparents and his wife's parents, as my grandpa's health is declining rapidly. He will help out with the other family business part time and enjoy being a stay-at-home dad while his wife will go back to work. His last day will be the last day of the school year. The official hand-over began a week ago.

The thing is, as much as I adore and love S, we simply can't work together. It has been proven over and over again, and I know it won't change. Currently I directly report to my dad, and, nominally, my other brother C on some topics. S taking dad's place and me directly reporting to him means disaster for business, as we would be constantly fighting. It would mean disaster to our recently patched up relationship as well. Due to the handover already in progress, we already had our clashes. It's not going well, and it will be just going downwards as time passes.

The only thing I could reasonably do was to offer my resignation for the same date as my dad's final day of work. Resignation was accepted, "immediately relieving [me] of some of [my] duties", namely the much hated [big Japanese electronics company] project.

So now the job hunt begins.

NCIS Los Angeles 113: Dom's apartment looks 98% like Efi's. Weird.

Convesations with my sons Vol. 6: History

I'm a real Irishman, at least when it comes to eating potatoes. Potatoes are incorporated into most every meal. Seriously. I put potatoes in my scrambled eggs. Seriously.

The other week we ran out of potatoes on Friday, so Friday dinner, all of Shabbat and part of Sunday we had no potatoes. Rice, pasta, vegetables, salads yes; potatoes no.

Sunday when dinner still didn't include potatoes Craig remarked with a sour face: "I now know what the Great Potato Famine means."

Growing family

So. Kevin. Got. News. From. That. Unnamed. Country. In. The. Caucasian Mountains.

Actually he got news a couple days ago. This time from people who match children with prospective parents.

Yes. We knew that even though we normally don't fit requirements, we were approved for adoption (thanks to my MIL, who has really been becoming great... no, honest! She has been accepting the boundaries we set and lets us be without being controlling and the passive aggressiveness  is totally manageable).

It's boy-girl twins, who were 9 months old at registration (around 10 or 11 months now). The boy is suspected to have some hearing loss in one ear (not sure about that) and they are black. As far as MIL was able to find out, their mom is Russian / local ethnicity with possibly one Jewish parent (yes, Jew is considered an ethnicity there) and dad is Russian / Togoan. They had been offered to couples both domestic and foreign and were not accepted. You see, people don't come to this country to adopt biracial children.

Oh,  no I never mentioned that MIL is in country now and has been for the last 2 months or so with work. She has really been a tremendous help in this process, and we'd be lost without her at this point. I think getting into this adoption together really helped smooth the relationship between Kevin's family and us. I'm most grateful for that!

The twins shall be known as Ezra and Shiri from now on in our family. If all goes well, with a trip to the US to handle Israeli immigration, they should be home sometime in July the latest. Yes, we are changing their first names (their original names are long, complicated and no one ever called them that - caregivers volunteered to MIL to call them by their new names), keeping their original language nicknames as middle names and they are getting a hyphenated last name. Because of this last bit, it was kind of important that their first names are not a gazillion syllables.

Yes, we will convert them. Officially. With mikveh and all. They'll officially be Jewish. However, anyone who was converted as a child can easily "unconvert" as an adult by officially stating they do not wish to be Jews. That simple.

And now because I will no longer simply have 3 Jewish boys, the title of the blog will be changing soon. KosherKola.com already points to this blog. Please bookmark it: as soon as P is officially ours the current URL will be discontinued.

The name thing

Every other question I get concerning P's adoption is, "So, will you change his name?"

Yes. No. Yes.

So basically what will happen is that he is getting his birth first name back. Same spelling, even. He didn't have a middle name, so we are keeping the middle name he got from his previous family, which he quite likes. Except we change the spelling of it from Joel to Yoel, to fit both the Hungarian and local pronunciation. And, of course, he is getting Kevin's official, very Irish sounding last name.

P has always referred to him by his original, Hungarian name, even though it was strongly discouraged by his previous family. It was wisest, in my opinion, to give it legally back to him.

Worship is not just for Sunday

The other day I was reading Christine's blog, when I ran into the following video:

As many of you know, even though I'm Jewish, I love good Christian music: I love music that is about faith. I found the tune grow onto me, and as I was just talking to one of my Hungarian friend, we agreed that the song was quite good. I said - and please don't stop reading at this point that I found the video a tad creepy. Upon being asked why, I asked her, "Just picture someone doing this in the middle of Oktogon." Oktogon is a major intersection in Budapest. She did agree that would be creepy. Most people would assume that he was crazy, some would stare, most would try to ignore him, shaking their head. Someone might even call police.

The only reason for that is that we are so not used to one's public display of faith. Just think about it... what do you do when you feel overcome by the greatness of G-d in the middle of the grocery store? Do you ever let that happen to yourself?

Saying grace at dinner is wonderful, giving thanks for the food that was provided and asking for the blessing of G-d on it, but do you say grace over your morning cereal? Or do you bow your head over the meal you grab at McDonald's, the food court or any public place? Do you take a minute to pray with your toddler when you hand her some Cheerios to keep her quiet in the waiting room? Or is the blessing uttered when you just take a bite of a cereal bar, or grab a cookie from the cookie jar? Do we remember to always be grateful and express that gratefulness, no matter where we are or how small our meal seems to be?

It is said a good Jew utters at least 100 blessings every day. It is not only routine, it is really trying to always focus on G-d. Humans tend to need the reminders of the words they repeat, even if they truly desire to be real disciples.

Do we dare to publicly embrace our faith, even if we risk ridicule from those, who don't believe? Are we ready to be persecuted for our G-d? Are we ready to praise and worship when things go awfully wrong? Are we ready to accept the fact, that no matter how great Michael Card's El Shaddai sounds, we can't lift G-d high, because He is already the highest?

Are we willing to publicly praise and worship in any random place without the goal to convert others, only because we do feel that G-d is awesome, G-d is mighty?

Do I measure up? No, really, I'm not all that great of a Jew. I am far from the 100 blessings, I am far from keeping all th mitzvot, I am far from living my faith. I'm the first to admit that.

The Boy's Bible

Thursday I was making sure the kids' backpacks were ready for school Sunday morning (they didn't have lessons on Friday), and as I was checking if the right books were in there, I came across the Boy's Bible on the shelf. The parting gift from P's previous family, the one that P threw in the recycle bin. I put it out to the shelf all visible next to his other books he brought over from the M's. It stayed there all day Friday and early today. P had seen it, he even moved books around it.

Then the M's called today - I really should start going all ultra orthodox and turn all phones off on the Shabbat - saying that I and A (P's biological half sisters) wanted to talk to him. Kevin reluctantly let them, but after a while P went completely quiet and after a while he hung up.

This afternoon as the boys left for a birthday party - one of their cousins just turned 10 - P wanted to make sure that he was coming home for sure. While Mr M is trying to help by easing the transition, somehow, unintentionally, he appears threatening in P's view. He gets stressed when I check my email and when the land line rings.

While they were gone I once again found the Boy's Bible discarded.  This time it was among the old newspapers. Once again I rescued it. I feel like P is doing it to feel like he has some control over the relationship with his previous family. I am not really sure how to make it easier for him, or for our whole family. I'm not sure once again about what I should do with the Bible either... Oh well.

Avatar, Sherlock Homes, and coffee part 2

OMH (Oh My HaShem for those of you who don't speak Craigese), Avatar was brilliant! Went to see it on Sunday while the kids were at school.

The plot is not that original, but I do love the political message in it... even if it's somewhat anti military. But oh so positive!

Sherlock...was seen today. And I have tickets to see it again tomorrow. I loved both!

My coffee maker makes me happy. I love my espresso!

"Firsts"

One thing I'll be really grateful forever is the beautiful, really lovingly made scrapbook and the over 1200 selected photos P's previous family gave us of the 14 months he lived with them. P also seems to have a great many photos from the 5 years he spent in the group home in Hungary, as well as a handful of baby photos from the infant home. P's two biological half sisters still live with the family, so we all intend to keep in touch on a level that all the children feel comfortable with.

This evening after showers and before bed P pulled out the scrapbook and set down with Kevin and I to look through it. I believe the mom made this scrapbook in the last several weeks as they were deciding to disrupt, because the scrapbook is not about their family, really: it's about P.

P's first visit to the Zoo.

P's first time in a restaurant.

P's first Christmas.

P's first time to the cinema.

P's first birthday party.

P's first this, P's first that.

It seems it's all P's firsts.

Except... they weren't.

To be honest, most of them weren't his first anything. P says that they used to go to the Zoo in Budapest and the wildlife park in the city where he lived "aaaaall the time", and that while they only went for Sunday early afternoon shows at the movies, they regularly went to the puppet theatre, the children's theatre and even to the  opera, which P found boooooooooooooooooooring. I don't blame him, if I were a 6-year-old not-yet-reading Hungarian kid dragged to an Italian opera in the original language...yeah, I'd find it boring, too. He also told of birthday parties with his school friends at the group home and McDonald's, and so on, and so on.

"They never cared about what was before," he said. And I completely understood.

P has been very open about his life in Hungary. He hardly ever talks about the last 14 months, but he talks about his friends and caregivers and "home siblings" and classmates and neighbours all the time. He mostly talks about them to the boys, as they swap stories of their lives in Hungary, but he lets us hear it, and today, after two weeks, he purposefully sought us out to share. Which was a first.

Oh yes, we do have less shiny bright moments. Like when whatever we ask of him, his first response is always no - even if he is already starting to do what he was asked. Or when he purposefully uses meat dishes for dairy or vica versa. He is seriously testing his limits at times, but he is doing well in our crazy but pretty well structured days. We are all about structure for the kids, though the pillars of the day are modified over time to accommodate their needs.

Happy Birthday, Efi!

Efi, for more than 20 years, was the youngest child in the family, making him have a unique position: he is 20 years younger than his eldest brother, and 20 years older than his youngest brother. It was only with the birth of Yaron not quite two years ago that he ceased to be the youngest. He is one of those few siblings I have that I actually have a history with. Despite the 6 year-age-difference between us, he and I became very close in the last 4 or so years, and we live close enough to each other to spend a lot of time together.

Today is Efi's birthday. With my kids at school, but he and I being off work, we spent most of the day together, doing nothing special just being silly: eating sour gummi worms and drinking coke while playing stupid games on the Playstation, watching the Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle - basically behaving like 9-year-old kids. We had a lot of fun.

I love that I have someone I can do this with, that we can play together. I love that I can walk with him to synagogue in the evening and we can pray together. I love that I have my brothers, and I am especially grateful for my goofy baby brother.

Happy 22nd, Efi!

Does Stephen Colbert have daughters?

Because if he does, I want my sons to marry them. Seriously.

That man is made of Awesome.

Roman Catholic Awesome. :-D Seriously, Colbert - the real Colbert, not the persona he plays in the Colbert report is made of all kinds of Awesome. Roman Catholic Democrat Awesome. And you know what makes him way way better than President Kennedy? He doesn't seem to be cheating on his wife.

Colbert made a commercial for the Hungarian edition of Comedy Central. They totally should have named that bridge after him. Megyeri-híd is such a stupid name. Actually I know quite a few people who refer to it as the Stephen Colbert-híd. Seriously, Colbert rocks.

Do I agree with all his politics? No. Do I agree with most of it? Yes. Do I think that human stupidity and ignorance are fair game to be made fun of, especially if it's people who are in positions where we expect people to be wiser and better than us. Yes, I love satire. I love how self righteous and arrogant conservatives take the Colbert Report seriously. I love how some of my wonderful conservative friends just shake their heads and do laugh at what's really funny. I love them for being true to their values.

I am now watching Colbert online, waiting for my usual Thursday night dose of [scrubs]. My kids are in bed, the two older ones reading in bed, the twins fast asleep. Tomorrow is my baby brother's 22nd birthday. Tomorrow at Sunset the Shabbat begins. And if you want to do something good for the Shabbat....

Grab This Button

Avatar, Sherlock Homes, and coffee

I got tickets for the above mentioned films.

And I have a pot of excellent coffee.

That's all. Resume 2010.

Netanya

Wow, what a day! Starting with my ancient coffee maker breaking, continuing with a most boring meeting at work, it turned out to be a whole lot better once it was time for me to go to Netanya. There is something really exciting going on in Netanya, whic involves Jewish renewalism. Oh yes, so very excited about all that! So that is why I was sent to Netanya. I met with a group of lovely people, and then, all of a sudden, it hit me that IKEA was in Netanya, so I went in... and spent my paycheck.

Now we do have everything we need to move the two elder boys into their own bedroom to sleep - so they can stay awake longer than the twins - as well as a desk for P so he can do his homework. I also bought a few things for storage, some extras for the apartment and a new chalk board thingy for the boys, and most importantly: a new coffee maker. It's too late to try now, but I'll be sure to give an update on it tomorrow morning!

I almost let them ruin my Shabbat

I have been debating with myself whether I should write this entry, because I didn't want to think much about the incident this morning. Now, hours after Havdalah, when the Shabbat is over and we are once again back to the regular weekdays, I feel like I have to write down what was bothering me, only for my own peace of mind.

From my own experience of when my adoptive parents decided to dissolve my adoption, I knew that disruption could involve control issues and power games. Those of you, who have been following my blogs know that now, over ten years later, my adoptive mother is still trying to extend some control over my life.

This morning P's previous parents came over, bringing the rest of his stuff along. It was just mom and dad, and while P was reluctant to come out to see them, they kind of pressured Kevin into calling the boys out. Dad delivered a short sermon about continuing to walk in the footsteps of Christ. (A good thought for Christians: It's not enough to walk where he walked, it's important to live as he lived.) As a parting gift P was given a Boy's Bible (NIV). Then Dad said he'd like to give a father's blessing to P.

I have to admit that blew it for me completely. In my home it is a weekly tradition as the Shabbat comes in that a father's blessing is given to each of the boys after we light the candles and do kiddush (or, in the summer, after we get home from Kabbalat Shabbat). It is an age old Jewish tradition, one that even my totally assimilated great-grandfather kept, one that my secular atheist borther keeps. It's a very important tradition for me, for my family.

Ye'simcha Elohim ke-Ephraim ve'chi-Menashe.

It being the second Shabbat P was spending with us we knew he had no idea what a father's blessing was - he had never received one, nor had he ever seen his dad give one. So the suggestion that P should receive one from the man who just effectively told the child he was not his parent any more felt like a slap in the face.  I felt like one of the most sacred acts between parents and chldren in the home was mocked. I am sure it wasn't their intention. I am sure they meant well. I am also surre they were tring to control something they had no business doing.

The blessing never happened. P pulled away from dad and excused himself, while Kevin, pointing out that we needed to be at the synagogue in less than an hour and the kids still had the PJs on, asked the parents to leave. Which they did.

Yes, we did go to synagogue. Yes, we had to deal with a grumpy and tearful child. Yes, we are Jews, and yes, any child we'll raise will get to celebrate Jewish holidays, worship on the Shabbat and learn Torah. No, none of them will be forced to convert (if we adopt toddlers they might get to be converted before they can make that decision for themselves), but they will be part of a Jewish family. So P came to synagogue, where he did get to participate with everyone else in singing, reciting prayers and listening to Torah readings. P was sitting with his new brothers and cousins, and by the time we had kiddush he seemed fine.

Tonight as the boys were getting ready for bed, Kevin went to get the trash from their bathroom. Inside the trash can he found the new Boys Bible. As it was neither wet nor particularly dirty, he got it out and put it away for now. I'm not 100% sure what we should do with it, though.

I'm angry with myself for letting this morning's events be heavy on my mind all day. There are two great commandments regarding the Shabbat: to sanctify it and to enjoy it. I did miserably with the second one, because I let others have control over me. And now I have to wait 6 more days before we can light the Shabbat candles again.