Friends & Family

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My maternal grandmother was Margaret Dunbar, but I always called her Foxy Lady because that was her C.B. handle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the 70's craze, C.B. stands for Citizens Band radio. My grandmother used to drive herself back and forth from Atlantic City New Jersey to her trailer in South Florida every year until she was in her late 70's. This was no small miracle given that her other nickname was Mrs. McGoo because she was so nearsighted, she was almost legally blind. (She once asked a chubby 10-year-old girl in a restaurant When are you due? thinking she was looking at a pregnant adult.)

Foxy Lady would sign on to her CB radio somewhere south of Maryland on I-95 and scope out the speed traps Any Smokie's south of Santee?..over!.

She moved on to the next adventure in 2005 at 92 years old, but she was and will remain one of my most favorite people on earth. Though she was a Shiks (a gentile woman) my grandmother was the biggest jew-a-phile you would ever meet. Most of her friends were Jewish, and I think the only thing she admired about my father was that he was mostly Jewish. She had many little Jewish sayings and she was never more adorable than when she was coughing up some Yiddish expression in her over-the-top guttural pronunciation. She was a reader's digest of philosophical slogans and she had plenty of non-Yiddish expressions too. One often repeated bit of wisdom was act the way you want to be and you will be the way you act.

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I have a 16 month old daughter named Maitreya. Maitreya is a very precocious, joyful, determined, and curious creature. Not a day goes by that I am not inspired by her and aspire to some of her natural abilities.

Before she came into my life I had a really lame idea about what a baby of a year and a half was about. I had no idea how calculating and clever they could be or how sage. One of the lessons I have learned indirectly, is how fast life zips by.

If I had a dime for every time some parent came up to me when I was out with my daughter and said "enjoy it while it lasts" I would have her college tuition for the year 2024 all paid for. My kid is 19, I would give anything to have them at your baby's age again they say with a smiling mask to ease the sad delivery in the comment. I kind of understood it, but I didn't really get it until a few weeks ago. That was when Maitreya and began to walk.