Once upon a time, people gave gifts. For holidays, birthdays, and special occasions, your friends and family would buy you a necktie or transistor radio, a necklace or a crock-pot. The problem was that no one knew your taste in neckties or whether three crock-pots were already languishing in your cupboard. This situation resulted in many exchanged gifts. For the vendor, this meant a loss of profit, due to the manpower needed to handle the exchanges. Furthermore, the returned merchandise was often not in pristine condition or was poorly re-packaged, creating a product that could no longer be sold as grade-A. On December 26th, the stores had to deal with long return lines and lost profits.

One could always give a gift certificate, of course, which allowed the recipient to buy what he or she preferred. It was a good deal for the stores, as it meant no return on that transaction, no ruined merchandise or repackaging, and one more little goodie: slippage, from the word “slip,” as in “to fall by the side.” It refers to the fact that if the gift certificate was not redeemed, the store got free money!

Now that school is closed for the next two-and-a-half months, families face the familiar dilemma of how to keep the kids entertained. The Where What When spoke to some mothers to hear about places close to our neighborhood – and some a little further out – that were a hit with their families. Somehow, hearing about a place from a fellow mother is more useful than reading about it in a guidebook or online. And often, you don’t have to travel far to find a kid-friendly place to go. In fact, it might be right here in our neighborhood.

For the last decade, private school families in Maryland have read with envy about the programs in close to 20 states across the country that provide tuition scholarships, whether through a school voucher or tax credit program. Day school advocates in Maryland have worked tirelessly and diligently throughout that time to provide their constituents with a program to address this great need, but year after year things fell short for one reason or another.

During the 2016 legislative session in Annapolis, the nonpublic school coalition put together an effort that focused on several different legislative approaches, all geared to creating a program that would generate scholarships for nonpublic school students. In the end, these efforts were met with success, b”H, as key legislative leaders and the governor’s office came to an agreement to provide a brand new $5 million allocation in the state budget to dispense tuition scholarships for students to attend eligible nonpublic schools in Maryland.

Miriam,* a 29-year-old stay-at-home-mom who lives in upstate New York, not only has bipolar disorder, she is in recovery from an eating disorder. Elana,* a 37-year-old mother of two who lives and teaches in the Midwest, suffers from both bipolar disorder and epileptic seizures. Rachel,* a 34-year-old who lives in the Northeast, has bipolar disorder that is triggered postpartum. What these women have in common – besides being challenged daily by their bipolar disorder – is Chazkeinu.

Chazkeinu (which, in Hebrew, means “our strength”) is a new organization that gives chizuk (strength) to all Jewish women, throughout the U.S., who suffer from a mental illness of any sort or have a family member who does. The empathetic support and positive connections the organization provides is a vital component in helping them feel safe, understood, and uplifted in their struggles. It offers these things through a variety of programs, projects, and networks that cater to the mental health needs of each individual. In Chazkeinu’s partner program, for example, two women reach out to each other on a weekly basis just to “check in.” The organization hopes to eventually grow to have a monthly email/newsletter and retreat for members to meet one another in person. 

Baltimore County Public Library offers a wide variety of activities for your children this summer. I’d like to mention some of them.

Let’s start with our youngest customers. Whether for the summer or year round, all branches of Baltimore County Public Library offer “Baby Storytime” for ages birth through two years with an adult, and “Preschool Storytime” for ages two to six with an adult. These programs incorporate reading books, rhymes, singing songs, and playing – through which librarians expose children to vocabulary words and encourage parents to do the same. Librarians help increase language awareness by modeling for parents how to employ books with very young children: using words in a variety of ways; incorporating language with movement, music and art; and exposing children and adults to voice inflection. All of these are important skills that foster literacy.

Ever wonder where cherries get their vibrant red color? The secret to these red gems is in pigments known as anthocyanins, a group of compounds whose colors can range from bright red-orange to blue-violet. They are found in many fruits and vegetables and provide a protective mechanism against environmental stresses such as cold temperatures and drought. 

Nutrition researcher Denise Webb writes in Today’s Dietician that, “while the answers to how and why anthocyanins may help prevent disease remain undiscovered or unexplained, the literature is intriguing, and most researchers are calling for more studies to explore the potential health benefits of these naturally occurring compounds.”

The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) website adds additional information about the nutritional benefits of cherries with this statement: “Lab studies suggest that the phytochemical anthocyanin, credited with giving cherries their notable red hue, has been recognized for its antioxidant power.” Antioxidants help prevent damage to healthy cells caused by free radicals, an unstable molecule. This destructive process contributes to the development of many diseases. A study published in 2013 in the American Society for Nutrition found that sweet Bing cherries lowered inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) for chronic disease in healthy humans.

I often try to imagine what the lives of my great-great grandparents were like in Poland. (Or was it Russia? I guess it depends on what day of the week it was.) I also can’t help but wonder what threads tie those mostly anonymous shtetl forebears to us, living more than a century later. What is the enigma of Jewish continuity, which wends its mysterious way through the generations? My curiosity was partially satisfied recently through a new friend.

A few months ago, I became a volunteer at Levindale. My official “job” is in the gift shop, but I’ve also had a chance to meet many of the elderly residents. Though not all of them have the ability to remember their past and communicate well, many do, and have regaled me with fascinating stories. I had planned to do short profiles on several people I met, but after speaking with resident Rosalie Wolfson, who is well into her 90s, I felt compelled to write about her and her interesting family.

Today I was witness to a miracle.

I was driving my car on Knights Hill Road from Bridgton to Lovell in western Maine, thinking about what a good day I’d had. Normally one doesn’t think happy thoughts after spending $250 on car repairs, but our brakes needed replacing and I’d gotten estimates that were $150 higher. I was happy to come back to rural Maine, where I know our mechanic and his family on a first-name basis. I also knew we’d be treated fairly and wouldn’t be overcharged.

Paul is a good, honest man. He is a U.S. military veteran fighting for recognition of his disabilities. He was exposed to very high doses of radiation without adequate protection in the Marshall Islands during military exercises. Many in his unit are dead from cancers related to this exposure, and Paul has already had several cancers. The government is refusing to acknowledge the military’s carelessness, because they don’t want to compensate the affected vets exposed during the testing. We usually discuss his latest lobbying efforts and meetings with senators and other politicos on behalf of his military buddies.

In my previous articles, I explained how Medicare Parts A and B pay for seniors’ hospital and medical care. Medicare offers generous coverage, but you must pay for a share of the costs as well. If you develop a condition that requires a lot of treatment, you can potentially be left with bills that total thousands of dollars over the course of the year. As an actuary, I have personally seen policies that have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single year to cover a senior’s medical expenses. So what can you do to protect yourself from these potentially large costs? That is where Medicare Supplement comes in.

Because I have lived in Kiryat Arba, Israel, for 32 years, bored Shabbos guests often ask me, “Well then! Living near Hebron you must have seen a lot of violence in your day, isn’t that so?” After recovering from their use of the expression, “in your day,” I realize that they are right in a sense. I have seen violence. Here is the story of when that happened.

In 1988, at age 33, married with one child, I did 95 days in the Israeli military, away from home, learning to be an artillery soldier. Startled to discover that I could actually learn something that didn’t involve conjugating verbs or declining nouns, I chalked it up as a positive experience and moved on. A year later I was called up for a 17-day reserve duty, including all of Succot, to guard in a prison for Arab stone-throwers at Anatot, Jeremiah’s birthplace. Then, half-a-year later, I was called up for my first five days of artillery war games, in the Negev desert base of Shivta, somewhere south of Beersheva.