Mort Rubin

I just returned from Miami, where we attended the funeral of my grandfather, who passed away on March 17. Because my grandmother, his first wife, died before I was born, he is the first grandparent that I've had to bury.

In the past 20 years, Pop-Pop had developed emphysema, lost one kidney and had three heart attacks. But he continued a reasonably active lifestyle for a 79-year-old, and had been working for a cruise line greeting passengers. In the middle of February he became very ill. Heart failure followed by bronchitis and pneumonia and a host of other ailments kept him in a hospital for over a month, and required him to be on a respirator for much of that time. Mom and her brother flew in on the weekends to stay with him. Although he could barely talk and, as one doctor put it, "every organ in his body had been insulted," he still managed to give 'em hell at the hospital. Not content with the staff's assertion that a rather uncomfortable feeding tube couldn't be removed in favor of something less intrusive, Pop-Pop ripped out all 18 inches of the tube and laid it on his pillow while everyone else was distracted by the evening news. That won him a couple of days of comfort courtesy of a much sought-after IV tube, but he suffered another setback. Finally, he suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side. The day after he realized that the best-case scenario was to live in a nursing home in a wheelchair, he showed himself out the door, so to speak, and died in his sleep.

I spoke at his funeral, along with most of his other grandchildren. I don't have anything more original to add here than what I said there. He was the kind of guy who called waitresses "hun" and "doll" and drove around in a black and white Cadillac and was fond of dirty jokes. A trip to the dogtrack was as appropriate an outing for the grandkids as bike rides on the Boardwalk. He was a cool cat who at the end knew he was too hip for the room, and left before he had to face any further indignity.

Robyn

Putting it All in Perspective

Yes, the Eagles lost the Super Bowl.

They were not annihilated, as many a naysayer thought they would be. It was a close game. That's the good news. The bad news, however, was that it was ::sigh:: a close game.

But it was a fun night, the last three minutes notwithstanding. Wigs were donned, songs were sung, families were drawn together, and it was all captured on videotape for the future
mortification of our progeny. A most disparate group of Shepherds, Bobby's friends and Bobby's friends' families gathered to pay tribute to that great equalizer of Eastern PA and South Jersey -- the Iggles. These are the things we should remember. It was a great season. Think not of the three interceptions, the poor time management, the missed onside kick and the tendency to run the ball up the middle time and time again to no avail as if this time will be different than the last seven can't you please once pass to the outside -- no to our guy NOT THEIR GUY WHY DONOVAN WHY????

But I digress

So Philly's in a funk right now. But now, with the benefit of a few days hindsight, it's not so bad. I even stumbled across a rather timely parable that made me less ashamed of our zeal for the Boids, and the fact that I'm still picking stubborn green nail polish from my cuticles. Hey, we might be okay after all.

SO what does he do when his team loses?

AAAHHHHWOOOOHAHHH!!!

Title of update refers to collective noise made by Philadelphia metropolitan area and its subsidiaries going absolutely batshit last night at around 6pm.

The Eagles are going to the Super Bowl. The core Shepherd clan shall be united on Redwood Drive on February 6, and I shan't go to work the day after. There were tears last night. And fabulous silver and green makeup. And an extremely bemused gay man at a loss as to why a stupid game could inspire such hysterics in the tiny girl in the horrible green wig leaping and screeching around his group house. I left it to token straight roommate Jeffrey to explain, as I was far too busy violating acceptable DC-neighborhood noise levels.

Alas, I had to keep my victory celebrations to a minimum at the office, as my good pal and fellow tiny red-headed football fan Beth is a traumatized Steelers fan. There will be time enough for slapping the front page of the Inquirer on the office door. As one who understands playoff-induced pain, a certain amount of restraint must be exercised. For now.

Fly eagles fly...

Very Important Events

Not a moment of peace to be had here in snowy Washington for both the best and worst of reasons as of late. Really, I feel like one Very Important Event has transpired after another since Christmas. InterAction was sent into a tizzy of activity for about two solid weeks dealing with the tsunami crisis. Since IA mainly serves other charity organizations, rather than operate as a public funding institution, we usually get about 2 or 3 calls from the public a week. But we distrbuted a list of our members involved with the tsunami to the Associated Press, who gave it to just about every other media outlet, so we had 200-300 calls a week all of a sudden.
Complicating matters was the fact that a colleague was honeymooning in Thailand at the time, and barely escaped the disaster while causing us a lot of worry in the meantime. It was an extraordinary, awful situation which really taxed the abilities of a large sector of people well-versed in calamity on a global scale. I think we're back on track now, but everyone is still caught up in the momentum.

Amid all of this, I managed to leave the burden of saving the world behind and celebrate my 24th birthday. I was taken out to eat no less than three separate times, which was quite nice. I was also whisked off to NYC by Jeffrey for a lovely weekend of perusing old haunts (Met, West Village) and new. Among the new was the relatively new Museum of Sex in the Flatiron District, which was surprisingly educational. Admittedly, there were moments I got the impression that they were stretching a bit for educational context (let's just say I learned more about foot binding than I'll ever want to know in the ancient China exhibit), but not at all a seedy experience. It's no substitute for la Met, but it's quite interesting.

Back in DC, the snow and the inaugeration have put the city in a state of suspended animation. Most businesses (including IA) were closed for the inaugeration -- not so much so people could attend, but because about 100 sqaure blocks were shut down making commutes impossible.
Actually, I know of no one from DC who went. I myself stayed inside and watched the proceedings on TV. It's not that I begrudge the inauguration taking place. It's just that my going to W's second inaugeration would be a bit like me attending the Carolina Panthers NFC Championship victory party last year. Someone's gotta win, and they won fair and square, but some parties just ain't my scene. Besides, it's not like it's a royal funeral or anything. That, as we've learned, is a thing not to be missed.

And the hits keep on coming. Tomorrow the Eagles play their fourth consecutive NFC Championship, which could determine whether Monday morning will be greeted with abject delight or despair. Regardless of the outcome, Monday will be guaranteed to either compound post-victory elation or assuage my horrible melancholy with the announcement of the U2 Vertigo tour, to be followed on Tuesday for a ticket pre-sale for dedicated fan club members. I believe that that's a fine slice of the drama of the human experience for one month.

Robyn

The Big 2-5

Some hardcore partying went down for the big 2-5 on Friday, friends. Nothing says hardcore like a "dining lounge" called Cloud, where you can be served blue cocktails with marshmallows while sitting on a big fluffy bed. Y'heard? We didn't actually sit on the fluffy bed, 'cuz my crew was too large. So we sat at a table. Drinkin' marshmallow cocktails. That's just how we roll. Then my girls bought me a donut. Word.

But this party didn't stop there. We went to the Big Hunt on Connecticut Avenue, which is fun to go to, because after a few Jack and Cokes, really funny things happen when you try to say that bar's name. I think they did that on purpose when they named that place. Fo' real. Incidentally, it's good to order Jack and Cokes after marshmallow-tinis, because you get to indulge your boozy sweet tooth, and feel like a bad-ass in the same night. Good times.

Got home after midnight, fell asleep on the couch, and woke up with "Flavor of Love" on VH1 and the cat passed out on my tummy. A very successful birthday indeed. Holla.

Not Just Laci

The Washington Post ran a really fascinating article on the prevalence of new or expectant mothers dying violently. Written by Donna St. George, thearticle is a result of a year-long investigation by the Post. At first, the study only focused on Maryland, where they found that homicide was the leading cause of death for pregnant or recently pregnant women (20%). The findings prompted the team to do a more extensive study of 1367 killings since 1990.

Among the more alarming things:
In the DC area alone, three pregnant women were killed in the final seven weeks of 2004.

Three weeks after Laci Peterson disappeared, an 18-year-old woman 80 miles away was shot in the head by her boyfriend as she walked home from the grocery store. Fatherhood, he believed, would get in the way of his music career.

For more than 70% of abused women, pregnancy does nothing to stem the abuse. For 27% of abused women, the abuse actually starts during pregnancy.

51% of the victims in the study were black, 46% white. 12% of the victims were identified as Hispanic, but could be of any race.

42% of the victims had less than a high school education. 36% were high school graduates. 22% had at least some college education.

Most women were killed by the men by whom they were pregnant.

It just gives you something to think about. As horrible as what happened to Laci Peterson was, hers was by no means an isolated case.

The article can be found here

Tsunami

Busy days at InterAction, in the worst sense. We have staff members fretting about relatives and friends in Sri Lanka, and we spent a good deal of yesterday trying to track down a co-worker honeymooning in Thailand. She's fine, but as fortune would have it, she had just left the resort of Phuket just before the waves hit.

Here's a link to our site with some information on what our members are up to, and you could help if you're so inclined.

Robyn