Log Cabin Fever

A doll’s story

rebquilt — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:42:37 +0000

Over the recent Memorial Day weekend I learned that the American Girl Doll Company, in it’s infinite wisdom, was coming out with it’s first ‘Jewish American’ doll. I learned this from numerous emails and phone messages – we were out of town – that clogged both machines because the doll had my personal, individual, given by my real parents, name – Rebecca Rubin. She grew up in NYC’s Lower East Side – ditto – and has a relative in the film industry. If there were any more coincidences I would be looking for transmitters in the walls. Recently viewed the movie ‘The Conversation’ with Gene Hackman and forgot how good it is.

But the thing about my 18″ high twin is, how did they pick the name? Rebecca Rubin, while delightfully alliterative, is not, and has never been, the most popular Jewish American woman’s name. Being born in 1918 does make the Lower East Side a natural choice, ditto for Russian origin, but why my name? Apparently there’s another of us who is on the FBI list for arson. Sigh, maybe just being ordinary isn’t so bad!

Getting ready for the ‘Big Day’

rebquilt — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:32:48 +0000

My darling daughter is having a Bat Mitzvah in less than three weeks and everyone is wildly excited about it, except her! My friends think this is normal, and it probably is, but it makes me feel downright foolish. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and family, sharing a milestone in our families life. Daughter is interested in it being over. I had an adult Bat Mitzvah so it isn’t really a fair comparison because I definitely chose my path, though I mostly feel like the path chose me.

Well, it was wonderful and nothing much went wrong, except the usual… delayed flights, I came down with a cold and missed the evening party… but it was great and worth all the work. Right now I know she did it just for me but hopefully someday it might have more meaning.

My Old House

rebquilt — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:38:05 +0000

I found a box under my desk today that I quickly realized has never been unpacked from when we moved here 18 months ago. It was a difficult move in many ways, the main one being that we had lived there for over 16 years, a gorgeous 12 room Victorian with too much storage space. At the time it was a practical decision and while I knew intellectually that I would miss the house I am still amazed at the level of disorientation/dislocation that still exists. When I need something I immediately mentally launch into “of course, it’s on the shelf on the stairs …. ” except that it’s not because we don’t live in that house anymore, and I have no idea where it is here, where we actually do live.

Opening the box was a little like opening a time capsule, or a recently unearthed object from another century. Everything looked vaguely familiar as though I’d studied the objects in a history course, or seen pictures of them in a family photo album from the old country. It was hard to remember that they were once an intimate part of our everyday lives. Yes, this framed photo of my father-in-law and toddler daughter. I have seen it before, but there is a dreamy quality to the memory as if it belonged to a far-away time not the fairly recent time that it does.

I miss the house also, of course, because I put so much time and effort into making it the way I wanted. We did a lot of renovation and custom changes because we thought we’d be there forever. It doesn’t feel like we lost money in a real estate sense but for me it feels as though I lost time, the time I spent looking at every tile store in the Chicago area, picking up ideas from magazines, friends houses, storing all those nuts away in my nest of ideas, waiting for the spring of construction.