Sunday part I

Melissa, Tani, and I spent a wonderful day together. We began with a walk in the Wissahickon. We parked at the upper lot at Valley Green and walked the short trail into the park. Tani enjoyed looking at the creek and walking over bridges to get to Forbidden Dr. Once on Forbidden Drive, Tani pretended he was a bus and we were his passengers. His motto is "taking wonderful people to beautiful places-- anywhere you want to go." We came up with this a week ago on our first hike in the park, and he still remembered it. Being the bus driver motivates him to keep walking down the trail. We found a pretty spot with a view of a small waterfall. There was a picnic bench and we sat down for a snack. On our way back to our car, Melissa pretended that she was a car running away from her Mommy and Tani pretended that he was a bus who wanted to crash into Melissa. It kept Tani moving quickly and was a lot of fun!

We had a short visit to the park today, because we were on our way to the Abramson Center for Jewish Life, the large Jewish nursing home in the Philadelphia area where Melissa had worked as a student rabbi. We went to help out at the Simchat Torah services led by our friend Debrah, who is a chaplain there, and who has a delightful 2-year old daughter Levana. (Debrah and Levanah have become good friends, who often join us for Shabbat, and who introduced us to the Morris Arboretum and invited us to the fabulous outdoor Tom Chapin concert this summer). We were hoping that Tani would march around the sanctuary with his stuffed Torah and participate in the childrens' aliyah during the Torah service. Alas, that was not to be!

The granddaughter of one of the residents brought her black lab Midnight to visit and Tani immediately went out of the sanctuary to visit with the dog. Midnight's owner was wonderful with Tani and helped Tani "walk" the dog around the lobby a few times. A lot of people delighted in Tani's presence at the Abramson Center. At one point, Tani noticed an elderly man lying in a Geri chair (a recliner on wheels). Tani approached this man and sat down in a nearby chair. "Are you sick?" he asked and the man smiled weakly and nodded his head. Then Tani asked what was the matter. The man pointed to his heart. Then Tani asked if he ate too much food. The man shrugged "maybe" - that morning Tani & I had read Tani's book "Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons" and one of the pages talks about how you might feel sick if you eat too many. Tani sat next to the man for a few moments and then waved to him. The man waved back. Then Tani went back to the Midnight.

Tani then discovered a sunny play room full of toys and books, right off the main lobby-- what an oasis in a nursing home! He and Levana loved playing in this room. Levana had a babysitter with her from Tani's school, who also knew Tani. This allowed both of us to help bring folks who lived at Abramson back up to their rooms after the service. We also spent some time visiting with the mother of a friend of ours from Allentown (or, in Tani's world, with Rebecca's grandmother). We left around 2 pm and were both very hungry. We decided to drive to the nearby Whole Foods for lunch and were wondering how we were going to be able to pick out food/eat with a tired Tani on the move; however, Tani had already fallen asleep during the 7 minute drive. We took turns going into the store to get our food for takeout. We then drove back home and took down the sukkah.