Too Strong

My parents are visiting with us for a few weeks. They had originally debated about flying over when our son Yonah was born a few months ago, but instead decided to wait until he was a little more ‘interactive’. Honestly, I can’t blame them. As wonderful as his arrival was for the entire family…as a houseguest he really didn’t bring much to the table those first few weeks.

You can tell from the photo albums… even the picture taking was sort of a one-sided affair (“Here’s Yonah facing east…and another one of Yonah facing north…oh, and here he is facing east again, but this time he’s drooling!”). No, I think Mom & Dad made the wise choice waiting until we could teach the kid a few tricks.

Now that the Westport Bogners are finally here, they are able to relax and really enjoy their new grandson. He smiles, plays with toys, rolls over, does long division (just checking to see if you were paying attention), in short everything a gifted, precocious grandchild is supposed to do. And, of course they are free to exercise that most important of grandparent prerogatives: They are free to hand the kid back when he needs food, a diaper change, or cheering-up (I can’t wait to be a grandparent!).

Since they arrived we’ve dragged them into Jerusalem for a little touring, and taken them hiking over hill and dale to a couple of archeological sites not far from our house. They even went with Zahava and the kids to visit Rachel’s tomb (yes, the Rachel from the bible) which is just up the road from where we live.

I guess we ran them a little hard for the first few days, so they decided to take most of today to just relax around the house. They’re entitled…after all, they’re not kids anymore. In fact, over breakfast this morning, I got a little hint that Mom and Dad might be starting to mellow in their ‘Golden Years’:

I’ve mentioned in a couple of entries how central a role coffee plays in my day. Well, I inherited this trait from my parents. To say they like coffee would be the worst kind of understatement. They like their coffee the way a junkie likes his ‘smack’! Once upon a time they used to make their coffee in a drip machine, but then they started ‘jonesing’ for stronger and stronger brews.

They went from regular roast to dark roast to French roast to Italian roast, and still it wasn’t strong enough to give them their morning fix. Once they were on the strongest roast they started increasing the amount of coffee until there wasn’t any more room in the filter basket (remember…they weren’t making a whole pot…just a cup each!!!). So like all good junkies, they moved up to the harder stuff: French Press pot, and ultimately Italian pressure pot! The beverage that oozes from the Italian pressure pot is something akin to having someone rip open your shirt, yell ‘clear’ and zap you with the defibrillator paddles! This stuff is literally one step removed from ‘freebasing’!!!

I mention this shared affection for strong coffee because this morning, after I’d made a big steaming pot of Peets in my French press, my parents casually mentioned that the coffee was good…"but a little strong". Huh? I’d better get on the phone to El Al…they seem to have misplaced my parents!