Read My Own Books! Why Didn't I Think Of That?

When I got my iPad last year, I found I really, really liked reading books in digital format - much more than I thought I would. I packed up most of my books and gave away several bookshelves - but kept a big pile of books I had acquired somehow that I really wanted to read.

I've been looking at that pile for a year and wishing it would all magically appear on my iPad. The books, in turn, have been glaring at me for a year and reminding me that they're probably really good books that I'm just passing by in my digital laziness.

So when I found out that bookalicio.us was hosting the reading challenge to Read Your Own Books in September, well - count me in. I just can't handle the guilt anymore. I need to get through at least part of the pile!

I’m very excited to participate and agree to read only my own books in the month of September.


The list of titles I hope to read includes: 

• Kraken - China Mieville
• Curse of the Wendigo - Rick Yancey (Book 2 of the Monstrumologist Series)
• The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter & Jam - Lauren Liebenberg
• Play Dead - David Rosenfelt 
• The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde

And there are a couple of digital books I've bought and not gotten very far with:

• Swamplandia - Karen Russell
• Zombies vs Unicorns - Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

I don't know if I'll get through them all but I'm going to give it my best shot.

For more information on the Read Your Own Books Challenge:

When Garden Gnomes Ruled The Earth: Muffler Man, Everett, Washington

Wordless Wednesday.

Retro Recipes: Orange Cream Cake

One of the blogs that I adore is Forgotten Bookmarks - whose author  runs a used bookstore and finds unique bookmarks (old photos, postcards, letters) in estate-sale books, and posts them. He runs a sister blog, updated less frequently, called Handwritten Recipes.

Recently he posted a recipe that intrigued me, for "Orange Cream Cake," by "Mystery Chef." I'm not sure what exactly I liked about it. Maybe it was because it featured handwriting that looked like my grandma's. Or maybe it was because it was found in an antique Booth Tarkington novel (not The Magnificent Ambersons, which he also wrote, which was made into a movie I love by Orson Welles - but still, Booth Tarkington).Or maybe it was the utter lack of instructions after the ingredient list - it felt like a challenge.

Apparently I'm not the only one who loves a challenge, because next thing I knew, Brewed Bohemian had tackled the recipe and posted suggested directions.

It sounded good, but it also sounded like it needed frosting, specifically vanilla frosting - to make it kind of an orange creamsicle. Emma and I also prefer our cakes to be of the "cup" variety, so we made some minor variations with the baking time. We made the entire thing in my Kitchenaid mixer, folding in the beaten egg whites at the end.

Orange Cream Cake
1/4 c. butter
1 1/3 c sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3 t. baking powder
1/3 t. salt
2/3 c. milk
1 t. orange extract


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put paper liners into cupcake tins.
Separate the eggs. Whip egg white until stiff peaks form; set aside.
Cream butter and sugar, then add egg yolks.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt
Mix the orange extract into the milk
Alternate adding the flour mixture & milk mixture into the sugar/butter/egg mixture
Fold in egg whites.
Divide batter among 12 cupcake tins; bake for 22 minutes, until cupcakes are lightly golden and spring back to the touch.


Emma and I were super excited to try these, so we burned our fingers and ate one of the cupcakes right out of the oven. It was hot but delicious - a very light and delicate cake, not dry at all, with a slight chewiness at the edges.

We decided to go with a traditional vanilla buttercream frosting, and we used the recipe from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook, one of my most reliable standby cookbooks.


Traditional Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 to 8 cups confectioners' sugar

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Oddly enough, the frosting was delicious and the cupcakes were delicious - but we didn't really like the combination. The light cakes were overwhelmed by the rich buttercream. The combination improved the next day, but the cupcakes were best right after they cooled.

No, I do not decoratively pipe my frosting. I heap it on until it seems like there's enough, then I add a bit more.

We agreed we want to make the cupcakes again, but just have them plain. We had been debating getting some root beer extract and making root beer float cupcakes, but I think a different type of cake would be better suited to that. We're also thinking we might make them even smaller - as mini-cupcakes or possibly in Madeleine molds - to capture more of the chewy edges in each bite.

That's my contribution to this week's Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Be sure to check out the other entries this week!

"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."

Life Skills: Being a Gift Horse

For many years, I drove a beat-up old Subaru Impreza - it's 12 years old now, and doesn't look like much, because it has been loved and driven hard for most of its 12 years. It's got a lot of life left in it, though, and some nice features, like all-wheel drive and an iPod jack. Great gas mileage. It is nicknamed The Yeti, for reasons even I don't recall.

My stepson has never thought much of this car. I have been aware for several years that I would probably be ready to get a new car right around the time he would get his first driver's license, and thus, it might be handed down to him. From time to time, I would mention this to The Boy.

He replied to these comments by letting me know that, basically, my Subaru sucks, and his stepfather's car - a beat-up Saturn even older than The Yeti - is WAY COOLER. And that's the car he's getting. He wouldn't want to be driving around in an uncool car like The Yeti.

I admit, it stung, but since it was all theoretical, I let it go, mostly.

This past spring, I decided that it was time for me to finally get a slightly more upscale vehicle, and after a little test-driving of assorted luxury gas-guzzlers*, I settled on an Acura MDX, for the simple reason that it was the only car that I found that has heated second-row seats. Lots of cars are nice and have satellite radio and are fun to drive, but very few bother to take the chill off of all the passengers. Happy passengers make for a happy drive.

We made the decision, and then my husband called The Boy - now taking driving lessons and approaching his license - and asked him what his car arrangements were, since we had to decide whether to trade in The Yeti.

The Boy replied that he was getting his stepfather's car. My husband, though, mentioned this to the Ex-Wife when she came to pick their kids up - and she had a slightly different take on the situation. In the first place, they might want to see if The Boy could even drive the car, what with it being a manual shift and all. In the second place, The Boy was going to have to share said car - because a new vehicle for the Stepfather "isn't in the cards right now."

They agreed to take The Boy out to test-drive Stepfather's car, and discuss it with him a bit, so he could do some thinking based on the facts. And sure enough, later that week, my husband got a call from The Boy, which was along the lines of,

"I've been doing a lot of research, and it turns out that a Subaru is a really good car for a beginning driver such as myself. I'll take it."

It turns out that a manual shift car whose upholstery is splitting inside is a really bad choice for a beginning driver - who spent 20 minutes stalling it in the school parking lot and realized that might be even less cool than driving a beat-up old Subaru.

We bought my new car and put the Subaru in the driveway while The Boy - who had certainly learned a useful life lesson about getting all the facts before you make a decision - worked on getting his driver's license.

Great story, right?

I'm not done yet.

The Boy got his license last week, and Friday night we went out for a family dinner, over which we congratulated him and talked a little about the logistics of transferring The Yeti over to him - insurance and maintenance and all that fun stuff. I asked him if he's excited about getting his own wheels and he replied:

"Oh yeah. I mean, it'll do for now. I'm still going to learn to drive a manual shift, I mean I really should anyway, it's good to know how to do and eventually I want to be able to drive Stepdad's car."

My husband sees the oncoming train and attempts to divert the wreck, but The Boy continues:

"I mean, the Subaru will be okay for a while, but it's not like I could ever, you know, take a date out in it or something. I need to be able to drive Stepdad's car for things like that. It's way cooler."

I tried to imagine what, exactly, he would say to a date seated on the torn upholstery of that car:

"OK, well, I'm here to take you to the prom. Of course, I'd rather be going with that little red-haired girl, so I didn't buy you dinner or a corsage or anything. I'll probably spend my evening keeping an eye out for her."

Or to his future boss, if he gets a job to pay for gas:

"Thanks for the job offer. I guess I'll take this job - I don't really want it and I probably won't stay very long because I'm still looking for a better job with a boss I can respect - but I'll show up every day, especially payday."

We got home, and I looked at the Yeti, sitting forlornly in the driveway. We've been through a lot together  - driving cross-country with two dogs in the back. (Nebraska in January, fun!) I drove my ex-husband and those same dogs to the airport, for the last time, while my sweet, soon-to-be-fatherless baby girl slept in the back seat. That baby girl grew into a toddler and said  Shit! with me every time I hit my head on that car's back door frame while buckling her into her carseat**. That toddler grew into a kindergartner who sang me songs from the back seat of that car. Once I drove my cat Linus to a Burger King drive-thru window in that car - because he seemed depressed and really, really liked Burger King french fries.

I know it's just a car, but here's the thing - it's my car.

And here's another thing - I didn't really even want thanks or a great show of gratitude. Nobody gives anything to a 16-year-old boy expecting either of those things. I just wanted that car - my car - to go to a good home. I wanted it to be appreciated and maintained.

Oh, and one more thing - it's kind of funny really - I got an email that same day from the Humane Society, which I am a great supporter of, letting me know that I can donate a used vehicle, no matter how scruffy, to them, and they will use the money to help some similarly scruffy animals, and send me their thanks and a receipt so I can deduct the value of the car on my tax return.

I discussed this with my father, inquiring, "What would Jesus do?" I meant to be a bit ironic, but he replied without hesitation: "You have followed the law faithfully since you were a child, now give up your wealth to the poor, take up your cross and follow me."

I asked, "You mean the poor animals or the poor kid?"

He replied, "The kid is not poor by any definition of the word."

The Boy mumbled a half-hearted apology to me as he left at the end of the weekend, and I overheard my husband talk briefly to the Ex-Wife, suggesting that maybe a well-worded email might help the situation. That was Sunday.

I'm still waiting.


* Sorry. 
**She was seriously cute in spite of her profanity.

No Ordinary Rabbit - Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada

Wordless Wednesday.

Life Skills: Digital Revolution

I feel sincerely bad about Borders going out of business: Apart from the many jobs lost, I've spent countless hours in our own local Borders, mostly in the children's section, helping my daughter find fairy books and warrior cat books. I have many fond memories of the place.

Last time we went to Borders together, though, Emma found some books that appealed to her, and we wrote the titles down, went home, and ordered them in digital format on her iPad. We did order them from Borders online - fair is fair.

Over the weekend, I tried to order a book I want to read, called How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher*. But I quickly discovered that the book is not available as an e-book - just regular ole paper - and I decided to just skip it.

I love my iPad and I like reading on it more than I thought I would. Often I fall asleep reading in bed, and wake up hugging my iPad close, like a beloved digital teddy bear. It's my best friend, and yes, it has a name - Tom Servo. This iPad actually is a replacement for my original iPad, which was defective but replaced under warranty. If you're going to name your gadgets, HAL9000 is not a choice I'd recommend. Tom Servo and I, though - we're together for the long term.

It wasn't long after I acquired Tom that I discovered I don't want to read books that aren't in digital format. Why?

• I don't need something else to lug around. I already lug a bag filled with assorted necessities, including my iPad, which can hold a vast array of books and magazines without weighing any more than it already does. 
• I would have to remember to lug the book around, which I frequently don't.
• Assuming I remember there's a book I want to lug somewhere, which is an iffy proposition, I would first have to find said book, which is an iffier proposition. 

Here's the thing: I have books all over my house. If you love books, start a book blog. They just show up at your house, unbidden, complete with promotional bookmarks. I think I request some of them, others I'm not so sure - maybe I ordered them from Amazon or someone sent them to me - truthfully, I don't really know where all, or even most, of my books came from. They're everywhere, like Tribbles. Ever try finding something in a house full of Tribbles?



I don't really know what this means for Borders, or the future of bookstores. I like talking about books but the sad fact of the matter is I rarely get good recommendations from bookstores, online or in-store; most of my best recommendations have come from friends and book bloggers. Most of my daughter's most beloved books have been recommended by teachers and the school librarian.

Will I miss bookstores? To a point, sure. But once upon a time, I spent countless hours at Tower Records in New York, which is gone now too - and I don't really miss it. I really like the free previews on iTunes - listening to some of the songs tells me much more about an album than the cover art ever did. I'm pretty sure Tipper Gore found out the same when she bought her kid that Dead Kennedys album.

My records are all in the garage now - crates and crates of them - and my books are slowly migrating there as well. I like the reduced mess around the house. I especially like the reduced mess in my daughter's room.

Change can be hard, but it's often for the better: I read more - and better - books now than I ever did before.



*note use of incorrect terminology: the proper term is "birder". Not that I am one. 

Review Times Two: Go the F**k to Sleep and Monsters Eat Whiny Children

Once upon a time, I was a teenage babysitter, and a two year old boy I was watching just couldn't get his eyes closed - but also couldn't stand it if I left the room. He just really, really needed me to sing to him: lullabies, endless lullabies, more lullabies than I knew ... and at some point I ran out: out of patience and mostly, out of lullabies. So I sang him other songs I knew, softly, as though they, too, were lullabies. Helpful hint: Little kids don't know the difference between Twinkle, Twinkle and the Ramones' I Wanna Be Sedated.

I'm sure he grew up just fine.

As parents, most of us have been to that place - in the wee hours of the morning, when a cranky and wide-awake child creates a parent who despairs of ever getting any sleep. Everything you've been taught or read in a parenting manual is an exercise in futility, and you know it makes you a bad parent, but

Come on kid, go the f**k to sleep!


Adam Manspach has captured this sentiment perfectly in his pseudo-children's picture book, Go the F**k to Sleep. Told in rhyming verse, the tale takes us through each successive stage of a long evening spent with a sleepless child, and all the things we're not supposed to think*, but do anyway.

The cubs and the lions are snoring,
Wrapped in a big snuggly heap.
How come you can do all this other great sh*t
But you can't lie the f**k down and sleep?

Ricardo Cortes' lush illustrations accompany the text, with beautiful scenes of sleeping villages at night, sleeping lions and tigers, glorious mountain peaks against a dusky sky ... and a gleeful, animated, but mostly wide-awake toddler bouncing through the scenes.

It's the perfect gift for the new parent, assuming they have a sense of humor**. Some late night, they will need it, and read it to their toddler, and it won't help the kid sleep it will help mom or dad get through the experience.

When they get a little older***, an important book in any parent's arsenal should be the lively Monsters Eat Whiny Children, by Bruce Eric Kaplan. It follows the saga of Henry and Eve, two whiny children who don't heed their father's warnings and are promptly stolen by a monster. They whine as he makes whiny-child salad with them, but since his wife doesn't care for cilantro dressing, he hoses them off and attempts to make whiny-child burgers instead ... but has some trouble with the grill. And on it goes, with more monsters joining in and suggesting what dish would be the best way to serve two delicious whiny children:

"We could make some rice, put a little curry on them, and have an Indian dish," someone suggested halfheartedly. "Perhaps a whiny-child vindaloo."

They all tried to figure out if they were in the mood for Indian food.

Sometimes it's so hard to figure out if you're in the mood for Indian food.

The illustrations are simple but witty doodles that accent the comic text perfectly. I just adored this book and laughed hysterically at several pages.

My daughter, age eleven, promptly claimed my copy, claiming she needs it, "for someday when I babysit, I'm going to read it to the kids. It will be very handy."

I'm sure they'll grow up just fine.



*Eff you, Doctor Spock. And all your successors.
** And if they don't, why are you friends with them?
***Assuming they live that long. Seriously kid, go to sleep.

Little Green Balls of Death - Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA

Wordless Wednesday.

Review: The Frugalista Files, by Natalie McNeal

Many, I'm sure, can relate to Natalie McNeal's predicament: When everyone else around you seems to be living the good life, and credit is easy - it's easy to spend too much, and rack up quite a debt, just trying to "keep up."  Why deprive yourself?

When The Frugalista Files: How One Woman Got Out of Debt Without Giving Up the Fabulous Life begins, McNeal is a newspaper journalist, unenthusiastically covering local stories that are of very little interest to her. Not surprisingly, she's not making much career progress - but she's comfortable, so she stays. She's also trapped under a mound of debt, much of which she has accumulated by needless spending on credit - for example, taking "networking" trips that sound like a lot of fun but generate little in the way of results. This debt presents her with a very real problem - she cannot afford to take the sort of risks that might lead her to a more rewarding career path, and in circular fashion, she continues to rack up debt making purchases that give her only short-term satisfaction.

Tallying up her debt and realizing that her spending is a prison, rather than the liberation she had previously assumed, McNeal embarks on a program to become, rather than a fashionista, a "Frugalista," and whittle down her debt by adjusting her spending. For McNeal, this means serious adjustments in her lifestyle and giving some real thought to how she manages her money: where does it all go?

The book contains a lot of the usual types of ideas, like doing her own manicures instead of paying salon prices, and finding great items in thrift stores - or, heck, doing a bit of shopping in one's own closet. McNeal starts a blog to track her progress but also as a place for others to exchange money-saving ideas and coupons and so on. She finds energy and enthusiasm for her new outlook on life, and with each successive accounting of her diminishing debt, she is invigorated.

You can pick up money saving tips in women's magazines, so although there's a certain amount of them in Frugalista Files, they aren't really the point of the book. Instead, McNeal discovers that devoting herself to something she is passionate about is far more rewarding personally, and, amusingly enough, financially.  In the midst of trying to rebuild her financial condition, her company announces a series of layoffs, and the writing is clearly on the wall for her newspaper career. Rather than sit around and blame a changing economy for her troubles, McNeal focuses on constructive things she can do. Her blog of money-saving tips, while not paid work, leads her to freelance articles for other newspapers and websites - work which is paid, and increasingly in demand.

While I mostly enjoyed McNeal's breezy style, it could also grate a bit. There are points where the book could have used a good insight or nice turn of phrase, and instead skims the surface with a "Yay me" or  LOL or (insert random text acronym here).  For me, the LOLs became distracting after a while. I was also a little put off by a couple of her money saving tips, one of which seemed to be to mooch off friends when possible.

Overall, though, I liked McNeal's optimism and her message, summed up neatly at the end, "Work harder, smarter, and never be afraid to take an educated risk. It pays off."

Review: Four Kitchens, by Lauren Shockey

For a long time, I have been a lover of foodie literature - well, foodie anything, really - so I was really looking forward to reading Lauren Shockey's Four Kitchens. The author, a recent culinary school graduate, tells the tale of her "real" culinary education - working in the kitchens of restaurants in four far-flung locations: New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris.

Although it doesn't exactly break new ground with the premise, the book has real potential for lovers of foodie and travel lit, particularly given the unique choices represented by two of the locales (Hanoi and Tel Aviv). Unfortunately, Four Kitchens falls into the trap that currently spoils much of the genre: it is not so much about the food and the cooking as it is a generic women's memoir that happens to take place in and around food, with a few recipes thrown in to help fill the pages.

Shockey begins her culinary travels in New York in the kitchen of a restaurant called WD50, which specializes in "molecular gastronomy" a laborious, chemistry-driven approach to cuisine. Although the cuisine and cooking techniques are sophisticated and unique, we learn very little about them.Shockey seems to prefer to skim the surface, and where she does decide to offer and insight or explanation, it tends to assume her reader is utterly naive, "We left a tip large enough to cover my food, as one should always do when food is comped."

She leaves WD50 for her next restaurant,  in Vietnam - but WD50 remains her frame of reference for the remainder of the book, with constant comparisons and references to it.

There is a lot of potential in Four Kitchens to present the reader with some interesting characters and insights, but Shockey, instead, is constantly thinking of herself - in particular, she relates to the other kitchen staff in terms of whether she made friends with them, or whether or not they like her. I found this particularly tiresome in the Hanoi section, where she rooms with an Australian expat, but much of the information we get about Belinda is Shockey noting she has made the breathtaking adjustment of referring to Belinda as her "flatmate" rather than her roommate. In a lengthy sequence in Hanoi, Shockey has a local take her to sample dog meat; regrettably, the entire section has an "Ew, gross" quality to it - as though she is trying to shock her girlfriends rather than inform the reader.

There are some interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout Four Kitchens - I had never heard of molecular cuisine, for example, and was intrigued by the description of a local Vietnamese unpasteurized beer. But by and large,
the author prefers to observe these things and then offer up her questions about them ("I wonder ..."), without following up by doing any of the research that might better round out the book, or herself.

I do think the Four Kitchens might go over well with a younger audience, as it has a coming of age quality that a younger person - perhaps one contemplating becoming a chef - might relate to. But for the more experienced reader, Four Kitchens comes up very short both as foodie or travel lit - there is just not enough depth in the writing to satisfy.

This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.

"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."

Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Pepsi Can American Flag - SeaTac Airport Ladies' Room, SeaTac, Washington

Wordless Wednesday.

When You Least Expect It: Long Lost Cousins

It was eighteen months ago that I began my genealogical research that discovered that I have an elderly cousin in Israel. If genealogy is about anything, it's about people and history, and this man was not only a link to my family and its secrets, but also living history: a survivor of a Jewish ghetto in Latvia, then of Auschwitz, then of the cold war era Soviet Union.

I learned about him quite by accident, through a historian whose website documented the destruction of the Jewish community in Libau, Latvia - he guided me to a source for records on my family, but also mentioned that there was still a family member living, and led me to someone who provided me with an email address for my cousin, Isak Hakel.

I knew of Isak Hakel, because I had copies of some old photos that belonged to my grandmother, Rachel Hakel - who was his aunt. There was a part of me that was vaguely aware that I had this cousin, and that he might still be living. His father was Schmuel Hakel, known to me as "Uncle Samuel" from Israel, and unfortunately my only interaction with Uncle Samuel was a card he sent me as a child, which I still have, tucked away in my closet a box of treasured letters and cards. He signed his name.

Standing: Schmuel and Ida Hakel (died in Auschwitz), Beno Hakel (shot by SS)

Seated: Isak Hakel and brother Romy (died at Auschwitz), Hanna Hakel, Joseph Hakel.

The general outline of the family history is this: My grandparents, Harry and Rae, were originally from Libau, Latvia, but left sometime in the mid-1930's, emigrating to South Africa. World War Two came along and swept away my grandfather's family in its entirety - so complete was the destruction that he could never say their names again. Granny Rae's side of the family had better luck - if Jews in Latvia in 1941 can be said to have any luck at all - two of her three brothers survived the war. A quick look at the history of Libau tells how extraordinary this was: Of Libau's total pre-war Jewish population of 7,000, fewer than 200 survived.

Schmuel Hakel and his family - wife Ida, sons Romy and Isak, and daughter Ruth - somehow survived the roundups and mass executions in Libau long enough to be documented among the 800 or so residents of the city's Jewish Ghetto. After that point, it is hard to know precisely what happened: The family lore is that Schmuel was sent to Auschwitz and had to choose which of his two sons he could keep with him. He chose Isak, it is said, even though Romy was his favorite; but he believed Romy was smarter and had a better chance of surviving on his own.

If this sounds a little Sophie's Choice to you, it does to me too. The facts are straightforward: Schmuel and Isak survived. Schmuel's wife, Ida, and children Romy (age about 10) and Ruth (age four), perished.

Of course I was extraordinarily curious to learn the truth of the matter, and find out what really happened to my family. How had Uncle Schmuel managed to keep his family alive in Libau for so long? What really happened at the gates of Auschwitz? What happened at Auschwitz? And after the war, under the communists?

I wrote to Isak and was disappointed to immediately discover that he did not speak any English - most unfortunate for doing any research, or doing much of anything really, particularly by email. He seemed to speak a dialect of Yiddish, but even my efforts to communicate with him through interpreters ran into difficulty: his replies to me were short, often badly typed, and the dialect he spoke was evidently quite an obscure one.

I emailed him my grandmother's old family photos. He thanked me for the "bilden," and sent me an assortment of seemingly random emails: A powerpoint of elaborate topiaries in Florida was one that stood out. I wasn't sure what to make of them but it pleased me nonetheless to receive them - he seemed to want to communicate as well. Every email I sent received an email in return - just not a reply to my writing in particular.

I took a chance and contacted one of the people mentioned in one email, as she seemed to have constructed some outlines of our family tree on a website, and I was thrilled when she replied, in English, and offered to interpret. She was the cousin of Isak's wife, and through her I learned that Isak, too had questions - starting with how I was related to him, and what had happened to his cousins, his Aunt Rae's children, and so on. I answered his questions and sent him more photos - of me and my family, and my cousins. I asked my own questions, and he replied with the facts about the War: Uncle Joseph, Schmuel and Rae's other brother, fled to the USSR ahead of the Nazi invasion, and so there was some family there, and Isak was in touch with them.

He did not answer my questions about Auschwitz, his mother, his sister - even the simplest questions on the subject received no response.

Receiving little of what I was looking for, I was glad of the information I received, but gradually gave up on getting anything useful - by my own standards - from Isak Hakel.

Then my father came along. Eager to connect with me, he went to great lengths for obtain copies of old family photos that still remained with his sister in Johannesburg - having numerous albums scanned, page by page and picture by picture. He brushed up on his Yiddish and wrote to Isak Hakel, a cousin whose existence he had been completely unaware of.

So there we were - an elderly man in Israel, a computer programmer in California, an amateur genealogist in Seattle, communicating with pictures and intermediaries and, on one occasion that thrilled Isak, Google Translator.  We were a family, albeit with none of the shared memories that generally helps define the relationships. Instead, we had a tremendously sad shared loss - a searing pain that can still be felt across the generations.

But Isak was the only one with any true knowledge of what actually happened in 1941 and 1942, and it did not matter what language he was asked in, he simply did not care to discuss it. Instead, he filled my inbox with links to funny Hanukkah videos on Youtube. He sent photos of him and his wife, enjoying some ice cream in the sun.

He looked happy and healthy, which I found extraordinary given the incredible tragedies that define his childhood, the unspeakable loss he experienced and I imagined him carrying with him: an unbearable great weight. I do not know what his memories were or how he bore them; what was fascinating history and a subject of great interest to me was just that: his private memories of his family and his own childhood. It was none of my business, although he did not say so.

Isak Hakel.

I tried to learn about my family and my history and what I learned was this: You can choose to be happy and enjoy your life, no matter where you start from or where life takes you.

The stream of email forwards from Isak Hakel stopped abruptly in May, and I got a bad feeling. I emailed and received no reply. I emailed his wife's cousin and learned he had died, age 80.

When someone dies, there will always be something we wish we had said or done - something more, whatever that something is. I don't know what else it was I wanted to do for Isak Hakel, as I was only just beginning to understand who and what he was - and then he was no more. He did not give me what I wanted; instead he gave me something far greater. And yet, I never met the man.