Losing My Religion

Years ago, there was a Counting Crows song where the lapsed Jewish singer songwriter Adam Duritz said he "wants to be someone who believes." That truly resonated with me. It still does.

Wifey and I went to our rich neighbors' house at the invitation of our rabbi friend Yossi. It was one of their holidays: the 110th birthday of their cherished leader, the Rebbe. We gathered and a rabbi from Boca sang with a guitar accompaniment -- songs he had written about Judaism and the Rebbe.

The rabbi had a nice enough voice, and the songs were a mix of Al Stewart tunes and power ballads. The young guitarist was fine. But the lyrics were all, well, about their brand of Judaism -- praising the dead Rebbe, and singing about how he still lives, even though he died in the early 90s...

There was a guilty pleasure for a jerk like me, though. Chasids don't allow women to sing in public in front of men -- too sexually stimulating. So it was a rare night where some of the wigged ladies were softly mouthing the lyrics as a the rabbi did his James Taylor. I'm happy to report I was not overcome with lust...but I realized it WAS the first time I saw Chasid ladies sing in public.

On the way home, Wifey remarked how it reminded her of Christian music -- the hip kind. Every once in awhile she'll hear a nice folk or rock tune, and get into it, and then realize the lyrics are about Jesus! And she gets all annoyed and turns it off. Obviously, last night's rabbi has the same desire -- to get baby boomers to hear the message. He even referenced a Doors song...

And then I came home and checked FaceBook (tm). My friend Julie posted photos showing that some Born Again types had parked in front of Palmetto Middle School to hand out bibles to students as they walked in. And we're in Pinecrest -- upscale, cosmpopolitan Pinecrest -- not Oklahoma or Alabama!

Most of the comments echoed my thoughts -- keep your damn religion to yourself, and especially don't try to ram in down other kids' throats, but a few of Julie's friends lauded the effort. One poster, who I recognized as the daughter of a crooked judge who was de-benched years ago for taking bribes, has apparently become an evangelical Christian although she was raised a Jew. She said it was a great thing -- that back in the day when God was in the schools, there were no metal detectors, or violence, or other modern unpleasantness. But there WERE really really bad judges, I wanted to snarkily remind her -- like your POS father...

My Rabbi and his wife are just like Mormons --unfailingly upbeat and optimistic. They invited us to their community seder. We went to that once -- 5 hours of listening to the story, and bad food and cranky kids. I politely declined, but we WILL be at a seder, such as it is -- my friend Stuart's house, who promises heavy on the food and drinking, and light on the "message."

I truly wish I believed. But from deep in my heart, or soul, I guess, my father's teaching keeps bubbling up -- that it's all soo much bullshit, designed to separate the feeble minded from their money.

Maybe I need to drink more this coming Purim, and look skyward...

Mr. Smart Guy

So Dr. Barry got some faculty passes to see the Alan Lightman lecture, and Dr. Dave and I met him at Titanic for drinks and dinner first. You can't go listen to a brilliant theoretical physicist sober.

After a spirited dinner discussion where these long time medical men essentially gave the obituary for Obamacare, based upon the obvious Supreme Court questioning over the past few days, we headed off to the UM Business School Storer Auditorium for the lecture.

Alan Brightman is a rare mix of scientist and humanist. He's written best selling novels, and award winning science papers. The room was packed, and he spoke softly in his lilting Southern accent. It turns out he's a Southern Jew, from Memphis, and he recounted his early childhood, where he built model rockets to someday beat the Russians and Sputnik, and composed a poem about his dead grandfather, which made his grandmother cry.

He realized then the power of words: mere black marks on paper could cause intense emotion.

He spoke about the search for truth and beauty in both science and art, and the ways each discipline goes about its work. He advised the students to do what you can't NOT do in life --which is passion, which is what makes life worth living.

It turns out that a UM Physics Professor was one of Lightman's CalTech classmates, and that fellow introduced Alan. Lightman comes to Miami yearly, for our great culture, and best book fair, each November. The rest of the year he teaches at MIT, or writes ocean side in Maine.

The three of us left when the questions started. Dr. Barry spends countless hours in meetings listening to people who love the sound of their own voices, and, sure enough, the first question was an elderly man telling the brilliant speaker how well read on Einstein he was...

Barry had taken the train from JMH, so I drove him back, and then enjoyed a thoughful, quiet drive home. I reflected on the nature of the cosmos, and subatomic particles, and James Joyce (Lightman referred to the great Joyce story "The Dead"). I also wondered why I don't get more sex...

And the culture week continues today! My old friend Dr. Kenny is off today, and asked me to join him on South Beach to see the new Fiennes movie "Coriolanus." We're going to have lunch at a trendy restaurant, probably Yardbird, and then go see a gladiator movie together. Obviously, we are MOST secure in our masculine heterosexuality...

Kenny and I used to see Shakespearean plays together in high school. I remember driving up to NY Tech to see one. It's funny how things come around again...

Speaking of culture, we were to be on a plane to Paris this Sunday, but it is not meant to be. No problem, really. There's plenty to do here.

Send Not To Know...

What a nightmarish time for our dear friend Elizabeth. Her father died last Saturday, while she was visiting him in his Kendall condo. He was attended by hospice nurses there, and it was expected, and in a way it was a relief that she didn't have to return from Orlando for his funeral.

At his funeral Monday, we saw Elizabeth's mother, who looked great. She had some cardiac issues, and had a pacemaker, but was glowing. We complemented her, and she told Wifey how she still looked so pretty, just as she remembered Wifey from the 70s...

Elizabeth went home Tuesday, and called us Wednesday for a carpet cleaner referral for her Mom. Her mother didn't answer the phone Wednesday night, and Thursday Elizabeth asked her father's newly minted widow to check things out.

The lady was lying dead on her bed. She was 78. Apparently the defibrillator didn't work in time...

So yesterday Elizabeth came back, as did her sister Ruby, who had decamped to Vail to grieve her father's death. The two sisters hastily planned another funeral.

The viewing is tonight, at the same funeral home on Bird Road, near Tropical Chinese, where we visited just 6 days before. She's in her mid 50s now, but still tough to become an orphan...

I just got off the phone with an old friend, who shared with me a recent trip to "doobie land." She hadn't gotten high in awhile, and was glad she took the opportunity a few days ago.

I plan to visit martini land myself tonight, ahead of this too soon sad affair.

Tomorrow I plan to attend the Deering Estate Seafood Festival, with some friends. Poor Wifey is still dealing with the back issues, and isn't up to leaving the house too often.

I need to celebrate a bit. There's been too much sadness for my taste in the air.

Windy March

So Spring has sprung in Miami, and we were deprived of a winter this year. We usually get several cold spells. This past season I think we had a total of 4 nights where the temps dipped into the 50s...

My trusty fire pit and chimnea got little use. Now that April is nearly here, it's time to put the canvas cover on and wait for next year...

But, we were compensated...March has been beautiful. Each day brought delightful breezes from the East. This past week, we hosted our friend Elizabeth, and we enjoyed some fine conversation and drinkable wine on our front porch...with no biting bugs, or sweaty humidity.

I'm sure the summer heat isn't too far off. The Marlins open in their new retractable roof stadium in a couple of weeks, and it'll be nice if the roof stays open.

I'm a partial season ticket owner, with several other friends. I promised my 2 season opener seats to Dr. Barry and his boy Scott, since I was supposed to be in Paris that night. Now, Paris isn't in the cards, so I may just amble over to the park and scalp myself a ticket -- just to be there.

I was at the opening of Joe Robbie Stadium -- the Fins played New England in an exhibition. I knew right away the stadium lacked soul, and I was right. The Fins haven't been really good since they moved in. On the other hand, I also went to the inaguaral Marlins game there, and the Fish won 2 World Series Championships in their short history...

I was at the opening game at the old Miami Arena, and it's now a pile of rubble. I went to the first Heat game at the AAA, too, and find that I couldn't care less now how the Heat does.

So I guess I'll continue my streak, and head to the baseball park.

Maybe it will be a nice breezy night...

Bad Lottery

My sisters and I share an exquisitely black sense of humor, especially when it comes to issues of death and dying.

We inherited it from my Dad. When he moved into his condo in Delray, and heard an ambulance pass, he'd exclaim "New unit for sale!" It was his way of dealing with the intimation of his own mortality, of course, a whistling past the graveyard.

He died in my arms, while my mother watched pathetically. He was my closest friend as well as my father, and the fact that I had to deal with that event taught me, 4 days before I turned 21, a crucial lesson: life's not fair. It SHOULDN'T have been that way! His death should have come at least 20 years later, after he met my wife and children, and imparted his love and wisdom upon them, and his death should have been dignified, in a bed surrounded by loving family, instead of in some random barber's chair in a strip mall in Delray...

So maybe my mother will be luckier. We always joke that she is one of the luckiest folks we know, and maybe she'll have a nicer death.

My sister and I use our black humor each time we open her condo door for our alternating weekly visits. Will Trudy or I find her gone? Which one of us will "win" the ghoulish lottery?

Mom's caregiver Louise visits her three times per week, so mathematically it should be her find...or, Sunny could follow the sadder path, and require a hospital or nursing home, where the end will come.

I discussed this with my friend Mike the other day. His beloved father Ed, one of my life's mentors, also died too young, in his 60s. His Mom fought and eventually lost to lung cancer in her early 80s. Mike's take: "Your mother might outilve YOU!"

He's right, of course. Though that would truly be unfair.

Sanctuary

Wifey and I were always on the same page about our home: no matter where we lived, we wanted it to be a welcoming place --THE house among the Ds friends where the friends always gather.

It's pretty easy for us, as neither of us care too much about our stuff. Last week, while helping a friend with an estate sale, I marvelled at her collection of wine glasses, many of which cost her upwards of $100. Wifey and I still have the wine glasses we bought our first year together at Mr. Pottery -- I think the set of 30 cost about $50. As they break (as did 2 martini glasses during a crazier than standard party we hosted last month), we laugh. If I found $500 worth of broken glass on my patio, I think my chuckles would have been less apparent...

Anyway, we've been hosting our old friend Elizabeth lately. She always stays with us when she visits from Orlando, even though her sister and parents have 3 apartments in Miami. She tells us she always feels so welcome and restful here. We're proud of that.

I've known Elizabeth nearly 30 years, and never met her father. He died Saturday, at 83. The viewing was last night, and the interment (he wants a mausoleum) is today. Elizabeth put together a picture collage of her Dad, in our dining room. There were probably 50 photos of him -- one of which showed Elizabeth and her sister. His role as a father was not an essential element of who he was.

Still, Elizabeth and her sister Ruby loved him, and cared for him over the years.

And last night, Wifey and I went out to Tropical Chinese, and then to the viewing at the funeral home next door. The place was packed with visitors for Carlos. It was classic Miami: Cubans and Jews. Ruby's long time boyfriend Harris is Miami Beach born and bred, and many of the couple's friends, who now live in Grove Isle, were there.

I spotted the Cuban priest chatting with a 90 year old Jewish gaming matriarch, who I had met at UM functions...

So Elizabeth's Dad's life surely mattered to many. He just lived it very differently than I live mine.

My post mortem snapshots would be ALL, I hope, about my family and friends. Maybe one tiny one could show me in a suit as a lawyer -- no more than that!

Anyway, back to the house thing. So Elizabeth, Wifey, and I put in a good amount of porch sitting time. The night her Dad passed, I poured Elizabeth some wine, and we spoke of life, and her family.

She comes and goes at her leisure, like she lives here. And that makes me proud and happy.

Back to the Blues

We have the coolest family doctor there is. Dr. Dave, who has been a friend over 20 years, is a true renaissance man. He loves to fish, sample fine wine and bourbon, eat like a gourmand, and listen to all kinds of music.

Last night, he took me along to a blues show at the local community radio station: WDNA. Some years ago they bought a building on Coral Way, East of the Gables, and now host live shows there monthly. Dr. Dave picked me up along with his youngest Shira, who, while I was barely looking, changed from a little blonde grade schooler to a UF Engineering grad, who has just started her first real job working for the Hialeah Water Department. As a rare gringa in Hialeah, this will surely give her great tales to tell, not necessarily involving engineering.

We also fetched her boyfriend Craig, home from his 2L year at Georgia. He plans to intern this summer at the Dade PD's office. He's a fine young man -- I pointed out to Dr. Dave on the drive over to the event that we're old and in the way -- our kids are taking over the town. He agreed...

Anyway, we had a great meal at an ITalian place next to the studio called Portobello, owned by a Russian/Argentine named Vladimir. The food was delicious --salmon ravioli, friend garbanzo beans, and the best bruschetta I've had since I visited the Amalfi Coast.

Then it was on to the studio, for a show featuring Jesse Gilmore, a huge man with a booming bass voice, who played a mean guitar, and Nicole Starling, a lady I remember as a member of Little Nikki and the Slicks, from the early 80s. She's no longer little (she must be my age now) but still has a fine voice, and amazing ability on the fiddle.

The show was great, and featured young musicians as well. A tiny young man took the stage, with a trumpet nearly his size, and blew like a young Marsalis. Then an 18 year old, handsome fellow played piano and sang like John Legend. I think he gets lots of girls...

I had forgotten how much I loved the Blues. I first fell in love at Tobacco Road, in 1982. I was a college senior, going through the worst year of my life. My girlfriend broke my heart, in only the way a 21 year old's heart can be broken, and worse, my father died. I slept walked through my life at the time, but then went to the Road and drank several stingers, and the Fat Chance Blues Band (later Iko Iko) played, and the crying guitar strains, and simple lyrics of loss and misery, resonated with me.

You can't get the Blues unless you have heartache, but if the two come together in your life, you feel alive in your pain, and know that human existence is, after all, about exquisite suffering.

Last night the singers sang songs I never heard before, but I knew them. "I'm gonna ring a little bell...in YOUR ear..." And, "No matter how much you hurt me, baby, I will love you forever..."

My aging back hurt from sitting, so I stood in the back, and started swaying to the beat. A woman was next to me, probably about 10 years my senior, also swaying to the music. She had long hair, parted in the middle, like she had stepped out of 1972. The hair had been blonde, but was now gray. She wore glasses. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. We had a connection, for that moment -- with no words between us, we understood each other. There had been disappointments, but they were soothed with the Blues...

I came home with Dr. Dave, Shira, and Craig, to find a white Benz in the driveway. Sure enough, our friend Elizabeth had come down, to see her father probably for the last time, as he was put in hospice. Wifey was suffering from recurring back pain. The Blues understands.

Dr. Dave has cured my family of many ills. By taking me along last night, he gave some comfort to my soul.

Au Revoir, Paris

So Wifey said she had a dream about celebrating our 25 year anniversary: just the two of us in Paris. I told her that if we went to France, I also wanted to visit Normandy, and tour the beaches where my father was NOT killed during WW II (but for a stroke of amazing luck, he might well have been, and then this blog would be blank space).

I booked the airfare and she booked the hotels and tours, and we were set to leave on April Fool's Day. The old English major in me can't resist symbolism, and anyone foolish enough to stay married so long ought to pay homage to that holiday, I figured.

And then, alas, Wifey's bad back reared its head. We thought she had fully recovered from the crippling times she had some years ago, but you can't really ever be cured of a bad back any more than you can be cured of, say, alcoholism; it's always there, dormant, and flares up.

She went to a PT, who told her to continue with therapy, but to not walk for more than 10 minute periods of time, for the next month or so. Being in Paris and Normandy requires walking more than 10 minute periods, of course.

I called American Airlines, and told them about this, and would they waive the normal cancellation fees. The agent checked the records, saw that I was a Gold Member with nearly 1.5 million miles, and the least they could do was refund all the fare money, and wish Wifey a speedy recovery. Ha! As if! They charged us $500 per ticket cancellation, and told us we'd have to use the remaining credit by the end of the year or lose it forever.

We thought the hotels were non refundable, too, but it turned out there are relatively small fees involved. So the bottom line is it cost a total of about $2000 to NOT go to Paris...

As Tony S says, what are ya gonna do?

Wifey already seems to be on the mend, fortunately. I have some business trips I can use the credits on, and Wifey wants to go visit her best friend in Atlanta soon (you don't have to walk for periods greater than 10 minutes in Atlanta).

And there's plenty of fun stuff going on here, like the rapid decline of my father in law into an Alzheimer's fog, which Wifey, as his only child, must deal with.

I plan to heartily celebrate St. Paddy's Day, right here in Miami. Ireland is on the same continent as France...

Where Have All the Grandparents Gone?

So yesterday was designated visit the grandparents day for the Ds. D1 is off to Vegas this am for her Spring Break, and D2 is headed back to Gville as her Break is ending. Ah, Spring Break...what a fine time to be young...

Wifey begged off, as her hip was bothering her, and our great neighbor Santi, who happens to be a rheumatologist, injected her bursa and told her to stay off the joint for awhile.

So off D2 and I went, to Brickell to fetch D1, and then to Delray where we met Ancient Mom and my sister and brother in law for some deli sandwiches and reunion talk.

My Mom was in good spirits, addled a bit as usual, but unfailingly pleasant and hilarious. We ran into my cousin Jeff, and his stepmother, and my Mom allowed as how she never liked the lady, since "she replaced my sister." Later on, back at her condo, the girls asked my mother about meeting my father. They were 15. Then came talk of her mother in law, Jenny. "Fuck her!" my Mom said. "I did. I outlived her!" Ah, Grandma Sunny...the D2 nearly peed their pants.

Then it was South to my in laws, and a decidedly LESS pleasant experience. My father in law's decline is precipitous. I last saw him about 2 months ago, and since then his Alzheimer's has progressed noticeably, despite the drug Aracept he takes to slow its progress. He never got our of bed, and was wearing old long underwear. He only gets out an hour or two per day.

Their condo, which Wifey and I own, looks awful. Both of these folks were impeccable housekeepers -- there was even a funny/sad tale 10 years ago about my father in law's constant floor washing leading to a tumble my mother in law took...but no more.

The A/C was on the blink, and I called to schedule a repair appointment. In the mean time, I opened windows, to let the lovely lake breeze in. My mother in law shrieked to close them --she couldn't close them after I left.

My father in law just kept lamenting over and over how Wifey had abandoned him, and she was his only hope. I tried to explain that she was just out of commission for a short time -- she would soon resume her task of scheduling appointments for him, ordering medical equipment, and keeping the condo in repair -- but he wasn't getting it.

So I thought I had it rough with my mother. Ha. As D1 noted, she's like a pleasant spirit -- floating around us -- but happy and pleasant. My in laws -- MUCH more here, in our face, demanding, and miserable.

My cousin Jeff hadn't seen his aunt (my mother) in quite some time. His mother Lorraine, my mom's closest sister, died young, before she was 70. "Oh God," Jeff noted --"that's what would have happened to my mother?"

I answered with my tremendous grasp of the obvious: it seems folks die too young or too old -- it rarely seems like the right time.

We headed back to Brickell, and parked. The Ds and I went into the Irish Pub that is in D1's building's first floor. It was packed with young folks, on a charity pub crawl. No one seemed older than 30. It was a welcome reprieve from God's Waiting Room.

I ordered a Guiness, and the exotic looking waitress, of unclear ethnicity, brought me 2 pints. I drank them both. I toasted the Ds, and their youth, and their lives spread out happy and wide ahead of them.

Old folks don't live in Miami anymore, except in pockets, like Aventura, or the Latin ones who still live in Hialeah and Little Havana.

The Northeastern retirees head to Boca, and Delray, and Boynton. Young folks migrate to Miami Dade.

And we have 3 to care for -- a duty and responsibility --but not a pleasant one.

The Noble Putz

I used to love the refrain "Oh, Magoo, you've done it again!" And so it goes for Dr. Barry...

Without going into detail, the Herald showed a photo of a grateful mother and her beaming child, along with a surgeon who "saved her life." No mention of Barry.

But Barry was the true hero, the one who advocated for this little girl and is truly the reason she is alive and hugging her mother and cracking wise...

And he gets no mention in the article.

Ah, Barry. He toils for less money than he's worth, and taking no credit for his holy tasks.

The Torah teaches that a person who saves a single life saves the whole world. Barry has rescued many worlds...

His father Sy, may he rest in peace, was a hard boiled New York guy, who owned a store in a crappy Queens neighborhood and sold out and moved to South Florida after a few robberies and threats on his life. He was justly proud of his only son, but also pointed out what a putz he was for not being more selfish.

Our fathers know us best.

And so I'll buy Barry dinner, and toast him, and he'll smirk and ask why I have so much free time, and it's no big deal, and if were such a big shot, then how come he works at a hospital where the A/C broke down last weekend, and some of the Haitian American nurses remarked that even the hospitals in Port Au Prince have A/C, etc...

But he save the world, and keeps doing it.

And I knew him back when...

Stuff

So our neighbor and friend Diane's big estate sale was the big event this past weekend. Wifey worked for her the forst day, and the Ds visited.

Yesterday, Wifey begged off; we hosted D2's boyfriend Josh's wonderful parents for brunch. The "meet the parents" went swimmingly, as we knew it would. Somehow, with a fine son like Josh, we sort of knew what the parents would be like...

Josh's Mom is a Queens native, like I am, and we were at the U just a year apart. We realized we must have passed each other around Lake Osceola hundreds of times, and never met. She later became best friends with one of my old friends, Debbie, who hosted Barry, Eric, Mark, and me the first time we traveled to Gainesville, in '82 I think. The Gators beat the Canes that weekend.

Josh's Dad has a more exotic background: his Mom is Cuban, and his father is, as we say locally, a Jew=ban. He was born in Queens, too, but lived in Cuba, Venezuela, and, finally, Miami.

We all chatted like we had known each other for years, and then Wifey invited them over to Diane's sale. Like I said -- it was THE event this weekend.

After our guests left, Wifey went back over, and I followed, with some wine. We realized it was probably our final Sunday cocktail hour.

Another fine neighbor and friend, Jody, as also over. Jody is Wifey's role model for parenting adult kids. She has 5, each wildy succesful, and great people. Jody is always on the phone, coordinating some activity or another. Her oldest son John, who went to UF and Cornell Law, and then clerked for two federal judges in Boston, is moving back to the 305 to take a job in Diane's office: the US Attorney's office. His father Bob started his career there, too.

John is a terrific young fellow, who paid his law school tuition with money he earned as an international fashion model. And despite all he has going for him, he's humble and charming. No wonder Wifey wants to learn from Jody...

Anyway, about the stuff. The whole episode just solidified my DISLIKE for it. You pay tons of money for crystal and glasses and knick knacks, and it gets sold years later for pennies on the dollar. Or worse, you pay to store it for years, and then your kids have to get rid of it when you die!

Diane luckily sold a lot. She made enough money to decorate her new place -- with MORE stuff!

It always seemed to me the Buddhists had the right idea: your possesions own you more than the other way around...

D1 enjoys fine things, but at least she uses and enjoys them -- especially clothes. D2 is more like I am. When she graduated high school, I wanted to buy her a nice watch, and she resisted. Finally, we bought her a Michelle, for I think, about $600. She wears it, but would probably prefer not to have to watch her watch, as it were...

As I left the sale on Saturday, before its opening, there were already about 20 folks waiting to go in. They literally grabbed me and started asking questions about what Diane had. Two well dressed older ladies demanded to know what Limoges pieces there were. I had no idea.

One guy, about my age, whose Mercedes SUV was parked blocking my mailbox, also peppered me with interrogatories... I told him I knew nothing about collectibles -- I was a mere civilian friend of the sale holder. He said, accusatorily, "Well what do YOU collect?"

I told him nothing. He shot back "Well why NOT?" The guy was truly angry and incredulous, that I wasn't part of his whole scene. I told him that I just collected memories, and they were all in my head.

He looked at me like an Evangelical Christian looks at a non believer...

We had a party a few weeks ago, and it got a bit more crazy than usual. I found 2 broken martini glasses by the pool. Wifey and I had bought them for, I think, $5 each. I laughed to myself, and enjoyed the memory of how they were broken.

Somehow, if they were Waterford, and I paid $100 for each of them, I wouldn't have found it that funny...

Ch Ch Ch Changes in the 'Hood

We're losing our good friend and neighbor Diane. She sold her house, which is due to close next week, and today is her big estate sale.

Wifey is over there already, helping to handle the folks who are going to come and hopefully buy, some Waterford, and Baker Furniture, and Henredon, etc...Diane has fine taste is stuff...

Diane and her husband Charlie moved in about 8 years ago. Charlie chases ambulances like I do, and Diane is a federal prosecutor. At the time, Diane's boy Garrett moved in, too, but would leave soon after for college. We all became close friends -- enjoying dinners together, as well as talks by our firepits, and a few adult beverages.

Shortly after arriving, Diane and Charlie put on a wedding for Diane's daughter which was, by a factor of 10, at least, the most extravagant affair we had ever attended. It was during Christmas week at Vizcaya, and the party rivalled anything any of us had ever seen on tv or in the movies. Crystal champagne flowed like water, for example.

For a few years, Diane and Charlie and Wifey and I organized progressive New Year's Eve dinners, with some of our other neighbor friends, like Jeff and Lili, and Mark and Anne. We'd go fro mhouse to house for different courses, and the champagne flowed, and we all enjoyed each other's empty nester or near empty nester statuses (except for Jeff and Lili, who started late and are still very much in the parenting business).

Well, two years ago Diane and Charlie split up, and Charlie moved to the Grove. We figured that Diane wouldn't stay in the huge house by herself. At first, she thought about another house, but Wifey and another close friend, Cindy, used their persuasive qualities, and it looks like Diane will be moving to a gorgeous condo, very close by. So that's the good news.

Diane has amazingly large amounts on her plate, between these moves, and her kids, and her job. And like me, she has an ancient mother, although she's fortunate in that HER mother agreed to move to an ALF in Indiana, so she knows the lady is safe and secure and not alone...


Diane is midwest sweet, although still a very strong woman. It's good she'll still be close, but we'll still miss her smiling face next door.

The new owner is, apparently, a chiropractor who hit it big with a bunch of injury clinics. Who knows? Maybe we'll end up doing some business together...

D2 is sleeping the wondrous sleep of Spring Break. D1 is due over in awhile -- the three of us plan to bike over to the old Parrot Jungle, where the Village is holding their Taste of Pinecrest. I like my parrot grilled, with a little mango chutney...

Adios, Your Honor

I attended a funeral today, of a wonderful lady who died much too young. Judge Maxine Cohen Lando was memorialized at Temple Bet Shira, across from Palmetto High. The place was packed -- literally every seat was taken. I think there were about 1500 attendees.

Maxine was raised in Miami, and went to Gables High. She had a boyfriend named Michael, but her parents made her break off their relationship, on account of his FTBJ (failure to be Jewish). She went off to college in Michigan, and then back to the U for law school, and married a CPA and had 2 daughters, who are now in their late 20s. Max divorced the CPA, and, through the wonders of Facebook (tm) she reconnected with Michael and married him. Alas, he would also die young, just last year.

Maxine became a Circuit Judge in 1995, and my partner Paul and I got to know her well in the early 2000s when she presided over a tragic case we handled. The case involved a fire in Hialeah, where a young girl was killed, and her brother terribly burned. We sued the owner of the apartment building for various fire safety violations, and the case was hard fought.

Judge Maxine moved the case well, and then ordered us all to mediate with the former Chief Judge Gerry Wetherington, who did a great job of getting the case settled.

Paul and I were so impressed with her, we held a fundraiser to help her retain her office. Back in the day, we used to claim that we put the "fun" in fundraiser, and we did. The party was a grand one, with a pianist playing show tunes, and great food and drink.

Max raised a good amount of money, and along with the other contributions, scared away political opponents and stayed in office.

I had heard that she had taken ill last year, with bile duct cancer, the rare disease that also claimed former Dolphin player and announcer Jim Mandich. Maxine died less than a year after her diagnosis.

The funeral today was quite an event. More than 20 judges, current and retired, attended, along with the Miami Dade mayor and some County Commissioners.

Maxines friends and sisters spoke, along with the Chief Judge Joel Brown. Her daughters spoke, too, battling emotion to share with us all how great a mother Maxine was, and how she insisted the 2 girls become best friends, to support each other "after she was gone."

Of course, this message resonated with me, as my primary goal with the Ds was the same. As they're now 23 and 20, and best friends despite their many differences, it gives me such joy to proclaim mission accomplished.

Judge Maxine founded the Domestic Violence Court, which has been copied nationally. She was an opera singer. She was a student of the arts, and religion.

She was, to borrow from Tom Wolfe, a woman in full.

A wise man back at the U, the long time Chair of the English Department, gave me advice about life, back in 1982. "David," he said, "in culture and friends, be as a giraffe -- take only from the tops of trees, leave the lower parts to others."

Judge Maxine Cohen Lando was someone I knew, but not well enough. She elevated those around her, and is sorely missed.