Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Story of the Day 3/ 30/ 2009

We went to Wal-Mart, Aaron and Sarah and I.
Aaron needed soccer shoes and shin guards.


The soccer shoes were with the other footwear. The shin guards were with their sporting goods.
I offered to buy him a pair of soccer socks, but all they had were peewee size.
Aaron didn’t’ think they would fit.


From behind me, as we were walking out of the store, the door greeter says something like, “Let me see your boots.”
And , a second later, “Let me see your boots.”
I was wearing a very nice pair of flat black dress shoes. I am not sure who would be wearing boots on such a nice day.
Then, from closer to me, “Let me see your boots.”
It was her speaking to me.
She gestured to my shopping bag.
A nice green one from Walgreens. A reusable fabric bag.


Ah, she wanted to see the soccer shoes.
“They are soccer shoes, “ I tell her, as I pull them from the bag.
And, as she added a moment later, my receipt.
Which I now pull from the bag for her to inspect.


While she is checking it and marking the information down on a piece of paper she has attached to a clip board, Sarah asks me what she is doing, and I explain.
She stands there gawking.
Not Sarah, the Wal-Mart greeter who is still holding my receipt and gawking at us signing.
And then she starts waving her hands around.
I really can’t describe it any better than that.


I suppose we all must have given her a dumb look. I mean, maybe she thought she was doing something meaningful, but it certainly didn’t appear that way to us.
Seeing our incomprehension, she then moves her arms around in bigger and wilder gestures with a look of absolute frustration on her face.
Then, it occurs to me that she thinks she has to sign or something.


“Excuse me, but I already spoke to you to explain they were soccer shoes. You could just talk.”

She hands me back the receipt, and stands there with her mouth open.

Hopefully, she will be recovered by the time the next person with boots , or soccer shoes, tries to walk out of the store.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Story of the Day 3/ 27/ 2009


I have a friend.


I figured this out because, when I let Sarah out the door, to catch the bus to school on Friday morning, I saw something colorful on my front porch.

My front porch is very small.
It is just a little bit bigger than a front stoop.
The difference between it and a front stoop is that I have a wooden bench on my front porch.
Two of its legs are resting very securely on my porch- on the side wall next to the door.
The other two are almost resting securely.
If you don’t’ look too closely, you wont’ even notice that the legs are about ¾ on eth floor f the porch, and ¼ off of it, floating in the air over some very nice hostas.
So far, it has held anyone who has sat there, without landing them in the hostas. Which right now are just mud, since they haven’t started to come up, yet.
But, for some obscure reason, very few people choose to sit there.

However, Friday morning, I saw something colorful on that very bench.
Two somethings colorful.
A plant- pansies in a very nice container- and nota few of them, and a colorful gift bag with two decadent boxes of tea in it.

Now, I actually have two friends.
Those two friends occasionally leave things by my front door.
Oh. Okay, I only have one friend. The other person is my cousin Charlotte.
Do cousins count?
I am not sure.
Anyhow, cousin Charlotte always leaves a note, when she drops goodies by.
And there was no note.
So, I figured that it must be my friend, Diana.

Diana usually knocks, but she also sometimes goes walking , very early, and she wouldn’t’ want to wake anyone.
So, it could have been her.
And while Diana sometimes leaves a note, she sometimes doesn’t.
And tea and flowers are very Diana.
So are pink flamingos.

But she had already given me one, recently.
I say , recently, because she has given me a few others, in the past.
Although, my neon one in the front window is actually from Louise.
But I only turn it on in the morning. If it is still dark outside when the school bus comes.
I wouldn’t’ want to waste it on anything less than that.

But the pink flamingo from Diana, the recent one, was awfully recent.\As were some very good homemade chocolate cookies.
So, I was surprised to find still another gift from her.
I did call to thank her.
Except, she hadn’t done it.

But my cousin ALWAYS leaves a note.
But maybe the note blew off.
So I called my cousin to thank her.
But it wasn’t her.

And now, I can’t figure out who left it.
Do I have another friend?????
On Shabbat, at services, Saturday morning, to be exact - Saturday being the day after I found the mysterious gifts on my front porch,
I mentioned this conundrum to Harriet.
Of course, this was during services, but we are Jewish, so I am expected to be carrying one conversation during services, at least part of the time.
And she said, “Oh, I wish I had done it!”
Gee, now I am up to three friends.
Or two friends and a cousin.

But I still don’t’ know who left them.
But “Thank you!”

Maybe I even have another friend out there, somewhere.

Of course, it is also possible that hey left it at the wrong porch.

Story of the Day 3/26/2009

It is important that this story is from Thursday.
Thursday is my recycling day.
Not every Thursday. Usually every third or forth.
It is Thursday, because I can drop my recycling off on my way somewhere without wasting any gasoline.
Okay, I am probably wasting about a ¼ a teaspoon, or maybe a little less. I have to turn into the shopping center, a left, and drive to the area of the parking lot in front of Wal-Mart that has the drop off bins, and then stop my car.
Then I unload, restart my car, and drive back to the traffic light, and go straight to continue on in the direction I was previously headed.


I have special recycling boxes. I can fit 4 of them perfectly into my car and they will not shift and dump any of the recycling.
This is important, because you can’t bag the recycling. The plastic bags will clog the recycling machines. And I rinse my bottles and cans. Rinse, not scrub, so I don’t’ want remnants of Paul Newman’s marinara sauce from last night’s dinner seeping onto my upholstery or onto the carpeting in my trunk.
And these specific boxes are the right size to set on the bin’s ledges and tilt to dump the trash, without going off balance and falling into the bins.
I measured them ,and then I tested them, before removing them from Costco’s lot.

A lot of people don’t’ recycle.
They complain that it is too much work.
I am waiting for Indianapolis to make it mandatory.
I have been waiting for 15 years. Almost 16.
The people here have no idea what a pain recycling can be in a different place.
Like New York.
If the trash folks spot a glass jar in your trash, you can be fined.
Or in Philadelphia, where you have to meticulously remove the paper labels from the jars.
Or in a place that makes you really sort your recycling.

Oh, we sort.
Paper and magazines in one bin. Crushed cardboard in another, and everything else- well, not everything, they are picky about plastics, in the last.
Indy is picky. Only #1 and #2 plastics.
Of course, I get around that.
I have a second place I recycle.
I have to go there for work, twice a week, so I don’t’ have such large containers to use for that.
I have a small plastic jar. I am reusing, not recycling it. I got it when I bought these really yummy pistachio cookies.
The cookies are long gone.
If you don’t‘ count the fact that my pants area little tight.
But the jar lives on, just for this.

At the Art Center, in the break room, they take batteries and all plastic lids.
It doesn’t matter what number.
Of course, I have been trying to get around this- well, that they only take lids.
You see, the cottage cheese container is a 5. So is it’s lid.
They will take the lid, but not the container.
But, what if I cut up the container so it looks like a broken lid or three?
I don’t’ know.
I mean, they accept my toothpaste tube lids, laundry detergent lids, and lids from Pringles cans.
Eventually, though, I may experiment with cutting styles and see if I can get this down to a useful skill.
Eventually.
At the very least, if I carefully severe the bottom of the cottage cheese tub, I think it could pass as a lid. Don’t you?


In Indy, the place that I drop my boxed recycling isn’t picky.
No separating the cans from the plastics, no separating the clear glass from the greens and browns.
The people here have NO idea.

Although, they do require you to separate the paper and the cardboard.
Yes, I know, I said that , already.
Which isn’t really a problem.
We do it for a different reason,.
The school, nearby, does fund raising through recycling the cardboard and paper. So, we drop it there, anyway.

So, every few weeks, I load up my car with Jimmy Dean Sausage.
Well, that is what it says on the sides of my 4 boxes.
And take my recycling off to the bins.

Only, this Thursday, there was a glitch.

I unloaded my first box from the car and carried it over to the large green bin.
And the sign was different.
Different.
In my family, that word is threatening.
Even though, by definition, we are a bit…or a lot…different.
It was different because it said:

“ Plastics #1 & #2,
glass, metal cans, aluminum,
paper and newspapers.”

It is supposed to say:

“ Plastics #1 & #2,
glass, metal cans, aluminum,
“ NO paper or newspapers.”

I set down my Jimmy Dean’s sausage, and peered into the bin.
I am short, so I had to stand on tiptoe- which is how I stand to dump my boxes.
Inside the bin were:
Plastics #1 & #2,
glass, metal cans, aluminum,
paper and newspapers.
I went over to the next sign on the bin.
It said the same thing.
There are 4 signs on that side. I read each of them.
Then I went half way across the parking lot to the other big green bin.
All of the signs on that bin also said:“Plastics #1 & #2,
glass, metal cans, aluminum,
paper and newspapers.”

I wasn’t sure what to do.
It felt…wrong.

After a few minutes of trying to absorb this change, I did , successfully, dump each of my sausages, I mean boxes, into the bin.

And I left.

Now, I am nervous about what the signs will say on my next recycling trip.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Story of the Day 3/ 25/ 2009

I am so old that the language I grew up with is no longer spoken.
It has joined Latin and Aramaic and some other no longer spoken tongues.

I found this out, today.
Oh sure, I’d had an inkling that I was dated.
I understood that bad was good.
I know that twitter doesn’t mean what birds do, anymore.
I even know how to Google someone. My friend Cindie taught me that skill.
Oh , yes, and I know all about surfing the net from personal experience, even though I have never even stood on a surf board.

But, that was all just…I don’t’ know , “slang”? Something I could snicker at, politely , behind the backs of my teenagers, knowing that the day would come when their children would be teaching them interesting new verbs.
But then , I read all about the death of my native language in my daughter’s textbook, today.

The language I grew up with never , ever, ever had anything called a “progressive” tense.
This new language conjugates verbs into three of them- past progressive, present progressive and future progressive.
It was bad enough when they relabeled verbs participles.
My daughter came home and had to identify the participle phrases in her homework. Apparently, an Ivy League education did NOT produce a literate adult, in my case.
Or , at least, not one who had any idea what the F…. a participle phrase was.
Okay, so I was only accidentally an Ivy leaguer, but you shouldn’t hold it against me that I hadn’t realized the college I’d applied to was one- and had never even heard the name of it until a teacher told me that I needed to apply there. I thought it was a state college…...

But this?

I suppose I will now be reduced to grunting nouns and adjectives without the benefit of any verbs- since I no longer recognize one when I see it.
Next, I suppose they will take my prepositions away.
And then……

So, unless , I can locate a small island somewhere where English is still spoken……

Story of the Day 3/ 23/ 2009



My husband had a vacation day.

He had a doctor's appointment , this morning.Very exciting.

But then we had a hot date planned for this afternoon, after I was done with work.

Starbucks.

I let him buy me a frozen drink with the gift certificate he got from another doctor.

If you send another doctor a lot of referrals, you sometimes get a holiday gift. A mug or a Starbucks' gift certificate.

He must not have sent the other doctor very many referrals- only a $15 gift card. Although, it did come in a cute little red knitted pouch- so maybe he did.


But that was only the first part of our hot date.

My husband has been curios.

Very curious.

He wanted to see the new store I have been shopping at.

The place at which I have been buying sweaters for Aaron and myself, and tee shirts for Esther .

I even bought us a nice rug for the family room.


On Shabbat, my friend, Harriet, showed up at synagogue wearing a lovely jacket she had gotten there.

Well, that wasn’t this Shabbat, it was a few weeks ago.

And, since his favorite store closed, he thought, “Why not see it?”

So I took him there.

He almost bought two books.

Almost.

And he paid for what I bought without grumbling: a raincoat, a fall jacket, two jackets and a sweater for Aaron, a sweater for Esther and a few other things.

He wouldn’t’ wear the gloves I brought for him, and didn’t quite get into rummaging through the bins.

But he told me, he was glad for the experience.


You should see where I told him I would take him on our next hot date!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Story of teh Day 3/ 1/ 2009

Aaron is growing a moustache.
It is some sort of thing all of the seniors do, in February.
It is called something like “ no shave February.”
Aaron has corrected me , it is called “ Facial Hair February”.


Of course, the seniors who are desperately job hunting don’t do this.
Nor do the seniors who are being interviewed for their top choice college.
Nor do most of the seniors who are female.


But Aaron did.
And, it is now March 1st, and he hasn’t shaved.


If you look very closely, you have to get up within a few inches of his face, you can actually see it.
It isn’t’ his fault , though.
It is my husband’s.
Apparently, he grew the exact same one, when he was Aaron’s age.


Although, maybe it is my fault, mine never grew too much, either, when I was his age.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Story of the Day 3/ 18/ 2009


I asked Sarah if she had more homework.


This was yesterday- when I was pressed for time and heading out the door.
I was trying to figure out how much I was leaving behind. Just a lousy dinner of leftovers, or a child potentially needing homework help.
Believe me, my husband would rather have the former than the latter.


“Yes, but I can’t find my Language Arts book.”
“Where did you put it?” Duh, but someone has to ask it.
“In my locker?”

“Did you forget to bring it home?”
This has happened, before, and yesterday was a stressful day at school, so I could see that happening.

“No. It is supposed to be in my locker, but it wasn’t in my locker. I looked and I looked”
“Check your backpack, and your room.”
“I did check my backpack. I put all the things out on the floor.”
“What about your room?”

“But it wasn’t here, it was in my locker.”

Nothing more an old mother could do, so I left.
Hey, technically I was only leaving a lousy dinner of leftovers, not a child with homework. Or, at least not with homework that she could do- with or without help.

While working, I thought about her locker.
Sarah’s locker is on the 3rd floor of the main building. In the hall.
It is a large, old , tan metal locker, with a lock.
That doesn’t’ work.
In other words, you can sort of close it ( although a wind would blow it open), but you cannot lock it.


Once, a couple of weeks ago, I had to come to school and get her books and assignments, when she was out ill.
The secretary went upstairs with me, to locate her locker and with the combination in her hand.
I had told her ,”It doesn’t lock.”

But she didn’t’ believe me, until we got to the locker, which looked locked, and I simply pulled it open.
She waved the paper with the combination on it and said, “Well, we don’t’ need that!”


So, her locker doesn’t lock.
But why would anyone take her book?


Language Arts is her second class.
And that class has more books than I have children.
I think.
I haven’t counted my children, lately.
And Sarah was not only without her one book, she was missing three of her Language Arts books.


This morning, she told the teacher.
Well, she was going to have to, sooner or later, but it was expedited because she needed one of the books to do the work.


“Did you check your locker?”
He must be related to me.

Then she thought she spotted in in the room, but it wasn‘t her copy.

He must be a sucker for a student in distress, because he followed her out while she rechecked her locker.
But it wasn’t there.
Nor were the other Language Arts books.


And then he said, “Look!”
Above her tan metal locker.
On top of the tan metal locker just to the side of hers.
Something green.
Apparently, on Tuesday, when pulling things out of her locker to put into her backpack, she had pulled out the Language Arts texts and set them on top of the locker while rummaging around for her other things.
And left them there..


Sarah told me three other things about this.

Gary, her teacher, laughed. Both at her story and when he spotted teh green books atop the other student's locker.

She felt bad that she wasted all of that time searching for them.

And that I could make this my story of the day.

Story of the Day 3/ 17 / 2009



It is Brown Bag season.
Not lunch brown bags.. I suppose that would start in fall, when school resumes.
But, it is related.
Distantly related.


Yes, you know the seasons : winter, spring , summer and fall.

If you are Jewish, there is also brown bag season.
All I have to do is say it, and the Jew next to me groans.


Purim was last week.
The end of Purim marks the beginning of brown bag season.
From Purim to the start of Passover is four weeks.
Four weeks to frantically prepare for Passover.
Frantically, especially if you waste a couple of those weeks thinking you will “soon” get around to starting your Passover cleaning.
Really frantic if you wait until that last week.
Suicidally frantic if you wait until 3 days before Passover.


I am not organized.
Stop laughing!
Look, I can’t spell, I can’t find my car keys, I can’t remember what day of the week it is.
Sometimes, I lie in bed, and think, “did I take my bedtime arthritis medications, or was that yesterday evening and I am confused ?”

Okay, regardless of the issue of the medication, I am confused. And that is on a good day.
Do you expect some other part of my life is going to look any better?


So, the start of Brown Bag season always used to mean a season of great dread for me.
Forgotten things that hit me in the face at the last moment- did I put a candy bar in the glove compartment?
Years ago. Less that 15, more than 5 ( please don’t expect me to remember)
I realized that since I have to do the exact same thing, every year, it was a waste of time and fear to have to reinvent the wheel each year.
So I made a list.
What to clean, which week.
Now, I have less fear of forgetting about forgetting to check the glove compartment for forbidden foods- and an organized schedule.
And the first thing on my list is filling the brown bags.
From the pantry.


All the opened boxes of cereal and crackers. All of the boxes of pancake mix and powdered sugar. Things that can’t be sold or donated to Gleaners( the local food bank).
And these things fill brown bags that are set on the floor of the breakfast room.
And then I have to issue the rule.


It is the same rule that parents all throughout the Jewish world are issuing to their families, right now, “Don’t open anything unless the things in these bags are checked, first! And don’t open anything without getting an okay from me , first!”
If you have never lived through brown bag season, you cannot imagine the viciousness with which this rule is pronounced, each year.


And we say this while we are wondering why we have three opened packages of the same crackers. And two opened boxes of Cheerios, or the generic Cheerios.
And our kids and husbands forget, and then we yell at them for opening another box of those same crackers……


So, welcome to Brown Bag season.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Story of teh Day 2/ 16/ 2009

Sleep is important.

Unfortunately, I often don't' get enough. Usually, my own fault. Coffee a bit late in the day, but that I felt I needed to be alert for driving home from painting., a book that just couldn't' be put down, some problem with the Deaf School that won't let my brain settle down.
Okay, maybe the last one isn't my fault.

When you don't' get enough sleep, you feel like shit.
And this feeling like shit is one of the reasons that people wind up going in for sleep studies. Or lack of sleep studies.
They are in search of help so they can sleep and feel better.Hospitals make good money with sleep clinics. Places that people go to sleep or not sleep, and where they are observed, their brain waves are measured ,and their eyeballs scanned, and ….
Okay, I am making that up- or at least, participating in conjecture, since I have never been part of a sleep study.

Unfortunately one of my friends has.

Thursday.
Not this past Thursday, but a few weeks ago, on a Thursday.
She checked herself in at St. V's.
St. V's is a nice local hospital with a good reputation.
And, she tried to sleep.
A few things interfered. Not a deviated septum.Not an excessive amount of caffeine in her system.
RatherA heavy snorer in the next room.
Of course, he was also having a sleep study. And he was managing to sleep. At least when he wasn't calling the tech to come help him to the bathroom (in a sleep study they connect you to about 37,000 electrodes so you can't just get up), he did this several times (maybe there was a prostate problem too?)
And Stacie could hear it all including the toilet flushing!
She was hoping that eventually the rhythm of his heavy snoring would fade into background noise , and maybe even be incorporated into her dreams. That and a feeling of being cold.
Of course, she figured, the cold must be part of the sleep study- maybe it helps them to figure out something. Maybe it is optimal for the room to be cool. But she was used to sleeping in a cozy bed, so it interfered with her falling asleep.
After finding an extra blanket she finally called the technicion who checked the thermostat only to find that they had forgotten to turn the heat on in the room!
Then came the beeping: it came in concert with the snoring next door.
That was it, she finally called to ask if they had any earplugs, it was 4:27 a.m. When the tech came in Stacie asked what the beeping sound was.

The tech said: "What does it sound like?"
If I were her, I would probably not have been able to do this with a straight face, but Stacie is made of stronger stuff than I am.


"Beep…..Beep….Beep."

As it happens, her sleep study was scheduled the night after the big snow storm, so , all night, the snow plows were going back and forth and back and forth in the hospital's parking lot- outside her window. And beeping.
Beep….. Beep….. Beep.

Friday morning, eventually, arrived.And the sleep study, which had turned into a sleep deprivation study, was mercifully over.
Because she had communicated her unhappiness to the tech it was suggested she fill out the survey on the table - of course it wasn't there and she had to go and ask for one - which she proceeded to fill with her opinion of her stay. . .

And, within only a few days, she had, more or less, recovered from the experience.
They were nice enough to tell her they were not going to charge her for it.

Of course, she still needs to have asleep study done.
For some odd reason, she has decided not to go back there for it.
She is going to the facility in Carmel.
The one that only schedules two patients a night.
At opposite ends of the hall. Since, sometimes the people who need these studies the most are the ones who snore the loudest.
With no windows.

As for the other facility?
Several days ago, as some of the memories were not exactly faded from her memory, but were , at least, a bit less fresh, Stacie got a letter in the mail.
There was a Border's gift card in it.
And a note:
"We're sorry for your less than extrodinary experience …"

I suppose it depends on how you define these things.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Story of teh Day 2/ 21/ 2009

At shul.
We were sitting and eating and talking.
In other words, it was a typical after services occasion.
Camouflage came up.
You see, I can go places and not need a disguise, but my husband, my son, and many Jewish men do need one.
Usually a hat.
A baseball cap does wonders.
You see , it hides the yid-lid - the kippah. That thing that blatantly labels them as being “Jewish.”
In New York or Miami , that is not an issue. In our little corner of the Bible Belt, it can be.


But it doesn’t’ always work the way you think it will.

Sukkot. That is the holiday where we build a booth, outside, and hope we did a good enough job that the wind doesn’t’ knock it over.
In the early years, it was a toss up.
Then we got smart and bought a succah kit- complete with a weird little bent piece of metal called a …….shit, what was the name of it? (an alan wrench- my husband has rescued me by providing the word.)


And then we got even smarter- oh yes, and we owned our own house, which made it doable, and we paid real people- I mean people who really can wield a hammer and saw without endangering themselves, to build us a structure we could convert, every year. A “permanent” succah .
So, now all we have to do s to unroll the schach - the covering for the roof- and decorate. Ah!


During the holiday of Sukkot, we are supposed to eat in the succah, and learn in the succah, and , the very brave amongst us, try to sleep in the succah.
This can be…dangerous.
First of all, you can freeze your butt off.
I remember one year, when I lived in Milwaukee, and over a foot of snow fell, one evening.
As far as I know, no one was stupid enough to brave it out, that night.
And then, assuming it isn’t quite that nasty out, there are dangers like the neighbor’s rottweilers, which they keep letting loose.
So, us old fogies, who value our lives, sleep in our beds inside our homes.
But, in our younger days, my husband, in a moment of true religious fervor, decided to buy himself a nice cot to try to brave it out.
So, down in Greenwood- where he works and where the streets are named’ Mistletoe Circle”: and “Christmas Tree Lane” and where many folks have never even met a real live Jew, there is “Joe’s Army Navy Store“.
One of those interesting places where you can buy a fun jacket, or dog tags, or a flag, or a used army cot.
Used army cot.
So, Larry gets one and goes to check out.
He is attired in a coat and one of his better baseball caps.
And the guy working the register leans towards him, and in an undertone says, “You know why God made gentiles?”
“Um, why?” Says my husband who now realized that his cover has been blown.
“Someone has to pay retail.”

Story of the Day 3/ 5/ 2009

Today is a serial killer kind of a day.

You know, the kind where first you want to kill one of your teenagers, and then you want to kill the other one.
Of course, you have to wait in line, because they are busily trying to kill one another.
To the point where, darn it, I had to act like an adult , which is stretching it at the best of times; and separate them; AND send them off to time out.

Which didn’t’ go very smoothly.
Sarah insisted on not going.
I told her, “I am going to count to 5, and if you don’t go, you are grounded.”Of course, she wanted to know what being grounded entailed. So, I had to get creative.
“No computer!”
“No internet and no TV for 2 weeks!!”
It has been so long since I’ve had to put her in time out, that I forgot what threats I use.

Not that I follow through.
My brain is semi-functional on a good day, so two days after the grounding has started, I have forgotten about it.
Esther used to implore her siblings, “Don’t remind mom that I am grounded!”

Of course, as I am counting and Sarah is slowly moving her butt off to Time Out, she is waving towards Aaron and saying “Doesn’t he have to go, too?” To which I ‘m counting and answering, at the same time” Yes, I will deal with him as soon as you are out of here!”
Luckily, he had already heard what the penalty was.

So, tempers have cooled off a bit.
I believe that is the reason for Time Out- so my temper calls and I don’t’ actually kill them.

And Sarah is refusing to speak to Aaron, who in normal Aaron fashion, is more than ready to apologize.
So, Aaron gets creative and calls her through video relay. Sitting n the same room.
Aaron trying to speak with the relay operator, and Sarah having to take the damn call.
Of course, she wouldn’t’ answer, so I had to , and then tell eth operator to hold while I signed to her to get her butt over to the webcam.
Sigh.

Another day at the Margolis/Greenbaum household.