Remembering the Bar Mitzvah Week... Thursday, June 24

I'm a bit bummed that I didn't blog every night during the bar mitzvah festivities. A lot seemed to be going on, and everything went so well and beautifully and meaningfully and full of joyful tears. They started arriving on Wednesday, the 23rd... Auntie Em and Uncle Doug, Grandpa Jack, and then on Thursday the 24th, Aunt Sylvia and cousin Kenny, cousin Helaine and Ari and their kids, Aunt Susan and cousin Ruth, Aunt Joan and cousin Lynnie, and Helena, and of course Uncle Louis and cousin Josh, Grandpa Stan and Grandma Peggy were already here.... Thursday night was really special. We had everyone over to our house for dinner. There was a spectacular double rainbow or was that on Wednesday night? I thought I took some pictures of that, but I couldn't find any on my camera. I wasn't taking a lot of pictures, but I did take a few of the people that night. Besides the wonderful meal and the wonderful people Jackie surprised me. I was sitting in the living room talking to Auntie Em when all of a sudden I see Jackie pulling out Micah's tallit to show everybody and I look at Auntie Em and say, that's weird, I wonder what she's doing. At first she presents and shows everybody Micah's tallit which we tied the tzittzit to a couple of nights before. She shows them grandma Pearl's batik star and tells the story of how Micah had asked if he could have something that Grandma Pearl had made on his tallit. Aunt Susan had offered to buy him a tallit from Israel and he had this idea and Aunt Susan ran with it... the story is in the siddur from his bar mitzvah, the book that took me a good month to put together... if anyone wants one who missed the bar mitzvah, let me know, we had a bunch left over, anyhow to get back to our story. Jackie shows everybody Micah's beautiful tallit with one of my mom's stars and then she starts talking about how in this process I kept saying that I didn't have a tallit of my own and then my Dad, Stan said the same thing and so Jackie got thinking and she got another one of my mom's jewish stars, stars that she had quilted before she had died, but had never used for anything, no one remembers what she was going to do with them, she had made a few of them, so Jackie commandeered a second star for me and had Susan Schorr our tallit maker make a special tallit for me and a special tallit to Grandpa Stan from Micah on his bar mitzvah and she's telling everybody this and I'm sitting there in total shock, completely surprised, tears streaming down my face... as I get up and try it on... my wife.... how did I get so lucky...

there's just so much meaning in all this, I'm not sure I'm explaining it all, but my mother was a quilter, and it was really all Micah's idea to begin with, and it started with Aunt Susan's generosity, and the tying of the tzittzit (the fringes) by Micah, Jackie and I, And all the family there for the surprise presentation...

and then at 5:30 in the morning I look out at the driveway and there is a van that looks like our van, but it can't be... and then I see a little girl wandering up the stairs and look who's here! Look who drove through the night and showed up early! Ella, Cassie and Nolan!!!

...and then that morning Micah and I tied tzittzit on my tallit and grandpa's tallit.

Day at Hebgen and the Sarms Goodbye Party

And so the weekend was totally packed with busyness and fun. Saturday morning we hung around the house, I tried to do some Israel trip planning while Jackie packed the car with camping stuff and it was off to Hebgen Lake for the rest of the day, Saturday night and all day Sunday.

Spontaneously Jackie had the idea of kayaking from Baker's Hole to part of the way to Rainbow Point so I dropped Jackie and Howie off with the kayak and watched them begin their kayak down the Madison River on their way to the Madison Arm of Hebgen Lake... Micah and I drove to Rainbow Point, found our gang of friends, the Sheas, the Houses, and the Perrys. Micah and I set up our tent next to the Shea camper, hung out by the lake for a little while and then we all went back to hang out by the campsite....

As the clock ticked away and there was still no word from Jackie I figured I better go drive over to Horsebutte and see if I could find them paddling away on the lake. Curly decided he better go with me because he knew his way around the lake and the roads, when we got there I figured we would see them right away, but there was no sign of anyone on the lake. I called my buddy Dan to see if he had any ideas where she might have gone thinking of the last time we went paddling down the Madison River to Hebgen. Curly then decided the best thing to do was try to find her on the boat. We went back to the campsite to tell everyone what we were doing, Joe joined us and we drove over to the boat, on the way I got a text... "We are stranded on a desert island." I called her, she had pulled over on a sandbar to call me, she was fine, and somehow she still thought she was going to paddle all the way to Rainbow Point. And so we went out in the boat and drove over to the Madison Arm and Joe spotted her in the middle of the lake, we almost drove right by her. The lake was like glass, it was still light out, but it was getting dark. Howie and Jackie were safe and sound and on the boat. Curly drove us over to Horsebutte. It was amazing how far she had paddled. Back at the campsite everyone was happy and relieved and there was still food!

The next day Curly took the boys out wakeboarding and skiing and we just hung out at the lake and had a very fun and relaxing day. I even read a story or two from Stories from Jerusalem by David Shahar, translations from the hebrew of stories from Jerusalem in the 1930's.

Monday night was a goodbye - see you later - barbecue for our very good friends Victor and Stephanie and their kids Xela and Isabella. They are heading down to Venezuela for Victor's work and Big Sky is going to miss them, but they promise they will be back! In the meantime we all hope to visit them there!

My picture of Stan and Jackie on Margy and Jim's porch

Stan tries to take one of Jackie and I...
Second try is much better...

The beautiful sky...

almost midnight. everyone asleep. andrew still out, hanging out with his summer girl. I was spinning all day. Started the day getting ideas for planning my trip to Israel... talked to the rabbi for an hour who gave me lots of good ideas, probably because I'm very receptive, but I'm spinning, too many ideas, too many things to do to see, and I keep forgetting this is supposed to be a vacation... after talking to the rabbi for an hour, I then spoke to my friend David who said he would pick me up at the airport, but the hotel I booked for the first few nights was too far away from his home, but it would work. We talked for at least 30 minutes I'm not sure about what, but really I need to take a chill pill and relax. Before I knew it I was still at home, had so much more e-mails to write, things to look into, but I needed to get to work. Howie woke up, but was needing time towake up. I headed to work. I got to work and jumped right in, I'm never happy at work, just busy, doing work that should be getting done by everyone else, but in my mind no one communicates and no one helps the other, it's a bit frustrating. If I didn't jump in and do the work I do, it would still get done, (slower less efficiently, but still done) and still nothing extra seems to get done, I have ideas I tell them what I want to do, but no one, but me ever makes things happen...am I shutting them down somehow? ugh... so I worked, putting boxes of produce away, helping with the Boar's Head delivery, helping, then I had to take Stan to his physical therapy appointment, which went well, wondering if his back hurts from the exercises he's been doing... then at 3 it was back at work, for almost 3 more hours, which was mostly because one of the credit card machines went down, which was because of an earlier power surge, which was because an ordering machine which uses the phone line, which connects to the fax machine, needed to be reset, but took me forever to figure out because who can remember all the things that are connected to different things that use the same phone line. The fax machine kept saying that the telephone extension was in use, but I couldn't figure out why, so I reset everything that I thought was connected to the phone line, but I forgot the denso machine which was connected to the phone line through the fax machine. A little complicated and crazy, but it took me like an hour to figure it out and I could easily have gone home without knowing about it because it appeared that my employees were trying to keep it a secret from me... (sounds like Andrew is home I hear car doors slamming, but no Andrew?) Anyhow it took me an hour and a couple of phone calls to the phone company, but I figured it out. Frustrating mostly because things like that are usually just up to me, no one else is either capable, or cares enough or willing to take on these trouble shooting projects...makes me feel needed I guess...

Andrew is home, pulling into the driveway, garage door opening, don't know what those car door noises were.

Anyhow I got home around 6 pm and we had dinner at Jim and Margy's. Jackie and I, Micah and Howie and Grandpa Stan. It was a great meal, great company, great conversation. Dad told me a story I never heard before, that when he was about 15 he introduced his best friend Bobby Buckley who he has known since he was 5 years old to Bobby's future wife. Arden was a cheerleader and he knew her because he knew everybody because he knew everybody because he was a smart ass, he had such a cute smile as he told me all this. Bobby wanted to meet her so he told Bobby he would introduce them and he did and the rest his history. Dad and Bobby have now known each other for over 75 years...

The night before, Thursday night we had an awesome meal with our good friends Debra and Ken and Ken's mom Helen who must be close to 90, still very much with it, vibrant and mentally totally with it. We had a blast talking religion, politics and spirituality. Ken had a very spiritual experience at Micah's Bar Mitzvah and had some questions that I don't think we answered, but we definitely puzzled over. Such is life...

At Jim and Margy's we took a few pictures of the sky and Stan tried to take a couple of pictures of Jackie and I. It was very cute.... I will put these on as soon as my battery is done charging...

A bit of the conversation over the last couple of nights at dinner has been about Micah's bar mitzvah and how it turned out so great. Jim even said, God must really like Micah, if you just go by the weather we had for the bar mitzvah weekend. Micah's weekend was book ended by 2 very cold and wet weekends, both the weekend before and the one after were much colder and wetter. We had an amazing double rainbow over Ramshorn/Porcupine on Wednesday night - the first night of the bar mitzvah festivities and the night before Micah's Bar Mitzvah the weather held up for our barbecue at the Half Moon and then starting around midnight it just poured until about 6am and then slowly the fog lifted and by 9 am when we started arriving to the chapel for the service the weather was extraordinary. It was such a magical weekend from Wednesday through Sunday, actually the magic began even earlier with Lou and Josh's arrival and lasted for more than another week until all the out of towners left and actually is still going on.

It's like I've suddenly discovered Zen, or had the epiphany of Tao....

but then again planning this trip to Israel has me all tied up in knots...

and work still drives me crazy

But...

Life.

And this all reminds me of a funny thing I said to Lauren, yesterday, "I need to remember to order Christmas trees before I leave for Israel on August 12th..."

Well, it's July 11th, and all the guests have gone home and I have actually a few minutes here to think about blogging. I haven't looked at any of the bar mitzvah photos or the video of the service. There are very few pictures on my camera, lots of pictures on other cameras. The Bar Mitzvah was absolutely awesome, very fun, very spiritual, full of love and laughter and I will at some point sit down and write about it, but right now I am blogging so Grandma Peggy can see Howie's Big Sky Broadway Camp performance and some pictures of Patty and Christine's beautiful wedding ceremony on the top of Andesite Mountain... I promise that I will do my best to blog with bar mitzvah photos and thoughts over the next few weeks, but it is summer in Big Sky, a year ago I was just starting this blog with all the fun summer events and this summer there are more than ever, plus Micah and I are going to Israel for 3 weeks leaving on August 12th and I have had no time to plan a thing so I will be very busy over the next month trying to plan our trip out. Lots of exciting stuff ahead, but for now photos of Patty and Christine's wedding ceremony which was followed by a hike down Ambush by Jackie and I and then the Big Sky Beerfest in the plaza and then a fantastic dance reception at the Huntley Lodge. Congratulations to a very beautiful couple!

Stephanie, Candice and Jackie before the ceremony...

Kristin, Jeremy and Elijah

Patty and Christine...



Our hike down the mountain...


Micah fishing this afternoon...

The videos are of Howie's Big Sky Broadway Camp Performance. Howie is hard to spot, but he was loud and animated, he just happened to be on the far side of the stage from where I was sitting. All the kids did a tremendous job, as you will see... There is a song from Lion King, from Wicked and from Annie....

Lou and Joshua Arrive in Big Sky!

So I woke up to a quiet house, just Howie and I, and took the dogs for a walk and just hung out till Grandpa Stan called me and Lou, Josh and Grandpa came over for a Father's Day breakfast which I slowly prepared during my quiet morning. So we had a father's day brunch and watched the Mets lose to the Yankees and just hung out. Then we hiked to Ousel Falls, and here are the photos and videos....

Grandpa Stan on the phone with sister Joan and brother-in-law Don...

Uncle Louis catching for Howie...

Louis and Joshua at the Ousel Falls trailhead...

At the falls...

at the top of the falls

Bar Mitzvah Boy is Soccer Hero!

Three weeks before his big day, Micah had one of those too good to be true, only in sports, amazing moments. Playing against the team that cut him and his buddy Cooper last fall, with minutes, actually seconds left to play in a game tied at 2, Micah took the ball from his own end and with a couple of passes in between headed all the way downfield where he broke through yet another defender then shot the ball over the goalie's head and into the net for the game winning goal!

His team, the Belgrade Rage had fallen behind early when Micah's old teammate and still good friend, Mike Galli took a beautiful shot that sailed into the goal. Soon afterward the Blittz had another goal and sat on a 2 - 0 lead most of the first half until with only minutes left in the first half, Cooper took the ball through the Blittz offense, right past one of their biggest and strongest players and shot and scored. At the end of the first half the score was Bozeman Blittz 2 - Belgrade Rage 1. In the history of these 2 teams the Rage has never beaten the Blittz...

The boys played a tough game. Shane, their goalie kept the ball out of the Rage net with the help of Big Sky teammate Harry's excellent defensive play and then through persistence and perserverance the Rage scored to tie the game when Chris their lead goal scorer put another one in the net. Both teams fought hard as time winded down and it looked like the game was surely going to end in a tie. And then with seconds left, Micah made it happen. He took the ball downfield past and through a series of Blittz players, the ball bouncing back off the Blittz defenders, suddenly leaving Micah alone in front just outside the box and then the shot of a lifetime... lofted over the head of the goalie and into the back of the net. Players and parents went wild, high fives and hugs all around.

And then seconds later the referee blew the whistle to signal the end of the game and the players and parents roared in excitement yet again, high fives and hugs all around. The Rage players lifted Micah up on their shoulders. It was one of those unforgettable sweet sport moments...