Life of Spud

I’m at the doctor’s office right now. I awoke this morning with a very sore throat and lots of… well, let’s just say that I have my suspicions that I might have strep/bronchitis. So, after trudging through this morning’s activities, I returned to the hotel and immediately headed to the local clinic. It’s just down the block, but Renee walked me over to keep me company (and, I suspect, to satisfy some of her motherly needs). So as I sit in the waiting room with nothing to read (because everything is in German), it gives me a good opportunity to write my blog summery of today’s events: We started the day at a park on the east side of Berlin whose main attraction is the war memorial built by the communists after WWII. Of course, it says nothing of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and instead focuses on the victory of the Soviets over the Nazis (the message is that the Soviets were forced into a war they would have preferred to avoid, and ultimately their victory was one of freedom...

I’m a little behind on this whole blog thing, but here’s the latest from my trip: Monday, June 30, 2008 We arrived at the hotel at about 9 am. Neil and Dvora wanted to take a rest, but since I had slept of the plane, I was raring to go. After freshening up, I headed down to have a bite to eat and then tried to track people down. I started with Eileen (because she had come into the city a few days earlier) and caught her as she was leaving for some sight-seeing. While we had a quick coffee we bumped into Leslie and the three of us set out for an adventure. Our intention was to head over to the Museum of “Checkpoint Charlie”, which was the border crossing between East and West during the Cold War-era. Eileen got us there successfully by guiding us to the bus stop, helping us buy tickets and letting us know when to get off the bus. When we got there we decided to scout the area around the museum before heading inside. It was a real tourist-y bit, with a fee for everything (have your...

I just arrived at the Excelsior Hotel in Berlin for the start of this trip. On my way, though, I blogged offline for a bit, so I'm going to paste those entries here. I will update it at the end. Travel 6/29/08 It’s so hard to say goodbye… but I just did that to my wife and daughters and now I’m at the BWI airport. And of course, the experience has been “an experience” already. First off, I got pulled aside for a “random” security check. It seems like every time I travel alone I get pulled aside for these security checks. I don’t think I can complain about racial profiling, but it does feed into my general paranoia that my youthful looks cause me more harm than they do me good. As I was going through security I noticed that the air-conditioning had mysteriously ceased. I wrote this off to some weird security measure necessary for properly screening bags and assumed that the AC would reappear on the “other side”. But no, I was sadly mistaken. Turns out, the air-conditioning...

Enticing title, for once, eh? Those subjects pretty much sum up the day, though. Of course, the day started with me taking the 2 and 5/12 year-old to camp. And, of course, she was really excited all morning and in the car ride over. And, of course, she ran ahead of me to get to the front door quickly. And, of course, she cried when it was time for me to go. At least we have a routine. The next move was home to prepare for our trip to the post office to get the baby's passport. The last time we had gone through this process was in Palo Alto, when we had a less-than-memorable experience... Although we remember it quite clearly: The long line, even longer wait and the bureaucratic organized chaos that seemed imported from somewhere in Asia. So I wasn't looking too forward to this date. And I guess that sometimes you fear your fear into happening, because we went to the Post Office with what I thought were all of the documents necessary and, Lo and behold, the birth certificate wa...

Yesterday was a wash. I awoke to continuing back problems. After dropping Elana at camp I headed over to Patient First to get some medication to soothe my ailing back. While I do have a primary physician, I don't really like him because he thinks that all of my physical ailments are stress-related. It's not that he's necessarily wrong; it's more the manner in which he dismisses my symptoms. Like I think that my stomach problems are caused by some weird Asian virus that somehow managed to track me down on a flight from Paris to Tel Aviv and he sits there and listens to my theory and then scoffs and says, "it's stress". And then he charges $55 for the visit, which doesn't exactly ease the stress. So it was off to the clinic to get some meds. They prescribed a muscle-relaxant, some ibuprofen and a painkiller. I took the muscle-relaxant and some ibuprofen around noon, and that was pretty much it for the rest of the day because that knocked me out! I think ...

Yesterday was Elana's first day of camp. She has been going to the same babysitter for almost two years and she was getting a bit too old and active for the place, so we decided to sign her up for one of Pikesville's many backyard camps. These camps are run by local H.S./Seminary girls, out of their parents' homes. They're not always the most professional endeavors, but the price is right. We were really nervous about how Elana would handle the first day of camp. We had talked it up a lot for about a month before she actually went and bought her many new things especially for the experience (new bathing suit, swimming diapers, a backpack, sunglasses...), but we were unsure how she would handle the adjustment. I took her to the camp for her first day. She was talking excitedly the whole way there, but when we got to the front door she refused to walk over the threshold and the fear in her eyes was palpable. I ended up staying for 20 minutes to get her a little oriented a...

Once again things have been moving too fast for me, so I haven't blogged in a while. This blog is an update. Four weeks ago we welcomed another little girl into our family. She was born at 7:29 am and weighed in at 8 lbs. 3 oz. We named her Ariella.

I'd like to start off this post with "Happy Mothers Day" wishes to my wife, mom and sister and sisters-in-law. I hope the day is an enjoyable and relaxing one. On Friday I realized that I had yet to buy anything for my wife to mark the special day. So I stopped by Target to buy a card and a gift. I already had an idea of what I was going to get for her, so I was in and out in less than 15 minutes with both a gift and a card (I have a philosophy of not spending more than 5 minutes looking for greeting cards - you're either meant to find it, or you're not). But later in the day, when my wife got home from work, she showed me that her sister had sent her a card with earrings attached to the inside of the card. And when I read the card I was disappointed to find that IT WAS THE EXACT SAME CARD that I had so carefully selected just a few hours earlier. Sheesh. Of course, when my wife saw that something was wrong, I had to tell her about it. We both shared a good laugh...

I just got off the phone with my brother-in-law who asked me about my blog. He was concerned that I had not blogged in many months (since January?) and encouraged me to do so again. And so, here we are. I wo'nt bore you with details of the last five months. Instead I'll let you know of more recent highlights and future expectations. My wife - God bless her soul, my wife is only a couple of weeks away from her due date. We've been trying to get prepared for the baby but, compared to last time, we just can't seem to focus well on what needs to get done. I guess we figure that we're prepared (in terms of stuff) because we already had one baby, so how much more do we need for the second one. I hope that our optimism has some foundation. I personally cannot remember anything from those prenatal classes that we took in preparing for Baby # 1. What I do remember from the previous experience only makes me more nervous for the current expectation (lack of sleep, dealing with...

My wife called me this morning at 8:45 am (about 10 minutes before class) to tell me that our babysitter hurt her back and could not watch our daughter for the day. She also told me that she had an all-morning meeting at her job, so she couldn't take her in with her to her place of work. ( Side note: Normally my cell phone does not work in the school building, but every once in a while my wife manages to get through to me and every time it seems to be something important/pressing ) Thinking on my feet, I made some calculations and decided that she should drop my daughter off at the school and I would watch her for the day. I only had two classes to teach and I already knew that my first-period class was going to be working on an in-class assignment (which would give me some time to plan for my third-period class). I informed my class (freshmen) that she would be coming in warned them that, under no circumstances should they look at or talk to my daughter while she was in the classr...

So my daughter turned 2 last Thursday. Her birthday happened to coincide with the Leafs' (Toronto's NHL hockey team) visit to Washington to take on the Caps, so I took it as a sign from G-d that she should go to the game. My wife thought I was nuts for wanting to take her (the game was an hour away and started at 7 pm) but she doesn't really get what it means to be a Leafs fan (get them while they're young, because if they're too old they'll be smart enough to cheer for a team that has some hope in hell at winning the Stanley Cup - and then they're lost forever). "My guy" who works for the Caps hooked me up with four tickets (eight rows from the ice) and a VIP parking pass, and we invited the Bierers and their almost-2 year-old and headed south. And even though the Leafs lost, it was a positive overall experience. There's so much that goes on at a hockey game (loud music, flashing lights, videos and - yes - hockey) that it was the perfect stim...

This is my first blog of the new year. Lots has happened since the last entry. Winter break came and went, we paid a visit to the family in Toronto, I (basically) finished my "synagogue project" and school has resumed and we're back in full swing. Here's a more detailed recap of the last couple of weeks: I was really looking forward to winter break. With it being a Jewish leap year, we don't get another break (Pesach) for a long, long time. Unfortunately, plans fell apart pretty quickly. First, my little brother and his family were supposed to come down to Baltimore for the first part of the break. Unfortunately that plan never came to fruition because, the night before they were supposed to leave, they couldn't find their passports. I mention this only because my brother was worried that I would. In reality, though, I had a ton of work waiting for me with this project that I had to complete for a program that I attended in the summer. Most of my vacation was ...