It's My Birthday and I'll Sigh If I want to, But I Shan't.

 

 

Jeff––Saturday

 

On the occasion of my birthday, I proudly present “The Road Not Taken––NOT by Robert Frost.”  

 

It’s a greatly abridged description of transcendental moments of decision in my life. For those classicists among you, the original—frosty––version follows upon this parody of my favorite poet’s much revered lyric view on life's choices.

 

 

Two roads diverged in my youth as should,

And thinking I could not travel both

And fearing a wrong choice, long I stood

Searching down each road as far I could

Seeking clues on which led best toward growth;

 

I chose the most financially fair,

Dismissing my passions’ author claim,

I took the label lawyer to wear;

Perceiving fortune by passing there

Instead of a life far from the same,

 

I’d picked my path when I made my play

Yet as years faded by on that track

I longed more to find another way!

But knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted I could ever come back.

 

But I shan’t let this end with a sigh

For I trotted back along the fence

To where two roads diverge in a ‘should I’—

To follow the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

 

The Road Not Taken

 

By Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Thanks, Robert––Jeff

A Child's Hug

Jeff—Saturday

These past few days, a New Seekers’ lyric from an early Seventies song of the same name keeps running through my mind: “We’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”

 

It didn’t happen back then, and I don’t see much of a chance of it working out any better now.   How wrong were we to think the times they were a-changin’—but that’s a different tune.

I guess I could wonder what sort of songs the children of today will find occupying their thoughts when it’s their turn to reflect on the world they’re passing on.  But considering the state of the planet we seem hell bent driven on leaving to them, I’d prefer not to face those lyrics.

Instead, I just want to watch my happy, healthy, joyful (puh, puh, puh) granddaughter celebrate her fourth birthday.  She’s surrounded by love and happy thoughts, safe and secure. And when she sees me pull out my laptop to (try to) write this Saturday blog, she plops down next to me and says, “When you’re done with your work, Zayde, I’ll do mine.”

Her patience lasts about a sentence, before I find her wiggling her butt onto my lap, her fingers onto the keyboard.  She bangs away happily, then stops.

“Are you done?” I say.

“No. Just thinking.”

If only more adults would pause for that purpose. 

Next, it’s close to bedtime.  She runs off calling out over her shoulder, “You can finish my work, I’ll be back.”

That’s me, personal secretary to the star.

She returns in princess PJs saying how happy she is I’m still there. Amazing how someone my size can fit in the palm of a hand so small.

Oh, I forgot about the presents.  Some we brought for her from our trip to Hawaii (for Left Coast Crime), others for her birthday.  She calls it a fashion show, praises every garment, every card, every bit of wrapping, and passes around hugs and kisses. She makes it a joy for us to be with her.

Doesn’t it make you wonder how we’ll be judged for not doing whatever we can to make it a joy to be a child?

Here’s a bit of what my granddaughter composed on my laptop.  If it seems a bit hard to decipher, just view it as symbolic of how our behavior will be viewed by her generation, and then it may make perfect sense.

MOMMY

DADDY

HHYHYYHHYGTTGTGTRFFRRFRRFREDDEEDEEDEDDEWWSSWSWSSWWSWWYGJJGJJJHMHJJJHNYJNNYJJUGGHUGUHHUGGGGHHJJJNJJJJJJJJJJGJJJGJGJ

God bless the children.

—Jeff

Happy Passover, Birthday, Easter, and Paska.

Last night (Friday) was the first Passover Seder.  Today is my granddaughter’s second birthday, tomorrow is Easter in Western Christianity, and next Sunday is Orthodox (Greek) Easter.

Passover or Pesach always takes place around the same time as Easter or Paska because the holiday of Passover, commemorating God’s liberation of the Jewish People from slavery in Egypt, was the occasion for the Last Supper.  In fact, before the year 325 Easter was calculated upon the lunar-based Hebrew calendar and all one had to do to determine the date for Easter was to “ask a Jew in your community” when Passover was celebrated.

All that changed in 325 when the First Ecumenical Synod calculated the exact date of Easter from the more modern cycles of the sun-based Julian calendar.  That became Christianity’s generally accepted method for calculating the date of Easter and continued to be so for more than five hundred years after the Great Schism of 1052 separated the Church of the West to Rome and the Church of the East to Constantinople (Istanbul).

Then, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced what is known as the Gregorian calendar for the express purpose of correctly calculating Easter, something the Julian calendar was not believed to have achieved.  Today, the Gregorian calendar is the world’s officially accepted civil calendar (except in Greece’s 1500 year-old monastic community of Mount Athos—see Prey on Patmos), but there still is not agreement among the Christian world over whether it correctly fixes the date of Easter. 

Indeed, as recently as 1997 the World Council of Churches proposed a method of using modern scientific knowledge for precisely calculating Easter and replacing divergent practices.  It was not adopted.

As for how Passover fits into all this, Julian calendar Easter always falls on a Sunday after the first day of the eight-day Passover holiday and generally within those eight days, though at times more than a month later.  Western Easter, relying on the Gregorian calendar, also generally falls within Passover’s eight days, though three times in every nineteen-year period it falls a month before Passover.

Yes, that’s why Easter is considered a moveable feast, as opposed to Christmas that always occurs on the same date.

I guess you could say that, of all these celebratory springtime occasions, the only certainty is that my granddaughter’s birthday always falls on April 4^th. :)

Happy Birthday, Rachel.

And a Happy Easter, Kalo Paska, and Zissen Pesach to all. 

Jeff—Saturday

Today is a Day for Singing!

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear, daddy-grandpa-boyfriend, happy birthday to me.

Well, I guess that just about says it all. Except for the number of candles on the cake.  And who even bothers to count anymore anyway. Once you hit forty it’s all the same. Or is it fifty?  Or is it… Just can’t quite remember at the moment.

And if you have to pick a place to celebrate a birthday, it’s hard to beat the place I now call home.  I’ve celebrated more birthdays on Mykonos than anywhere else on the planet. And my parents weren’t Gypsies.  I lived in or around Pittsburgh until graduating college.  Then it was off to Boston, for a bride, a baby boy, and law degree.  Then on to NYC for a career, baby girl, and bye-bye bride (a still grand lady).

A street in my Pittsburgh neighborhood

Then came Greece.  And it obtains.

No wonder.  Look at these photos.  No (h)airbrushing, just the effects of jet lag on the fishermen struggling to catch something other than a cold while free-diving a few days ago off the coast of Mykonos.

I’d like to share some photos of my birthday dinner tonight, but without my time travel machine that’s not possible.  So, I make you a promise: I’m having my birthday party celebration when my grandchildren and their parents (notice the order of importance) come over for a visit.  I’ll post photos of that event.  Assuming I remember the camera.

As for birthday presents, no need to send any.  I received mine serendipitously this past week from a tourist who stopped by where I live on Mykonos to ask me to autograph a copy of my first Andreas Kaldis novel, Murder in Mykonos.  Yes, that in and of itself was a great honor—even though not quite as visually stimulating as the fan who once approached me on a beach au natural (link to that article here)—but what really made my day was what the gracious woman said after I’d signed and thanked her.

“Have you seen this?”  It was a copy of Fodor’s Guide to the Greek Islands (2012).

“No.”

She opened the guidebook to page 297, and in the introduction to the section titled MYKONOS AFTER DARK, pointed out this sentence:

"Some say that after midnight, Mykonos is all nightlife––this throbbing beat is the backdrop to Jeffrey Siger's popular mystery, Murder in Mykonos."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I felt as if I’d just won an Oscar.  Screw Kirkus (only kidding) or the New York Times (REALLY only kidding), I’d made Fodor’s!

And in a most bizarre coincidental twist, the title of my new book coming in September—one that throbs and then some to the island’s magical beat—is MYKONOS AFTER MIDNIGHT!

Wow.  I want to thank my parents, the academy… 

A few parting words on this significant occasion [nod to the camera].  Somewhere out there is a throbbing beat calling out your name; go with it while everything else is still ticking.

Jeff—Saturday