[The following article, in a modified version, was previously published in my SubStack.  Apologies to bird-lovers.]

All of my grandchildren tolerate me. They adore my wife. I am their Grandpa and occasionally bestir myself to share my store of accumulated wisdom and abundant humor for their improvement and edification. She is their Bubby, who, out of unconditional, unadulterated love, engages with them, discusses their lives and interests, treats each one as an individual with individual charms and quirks, and thinks about ways to make them happy.

Ahuva is the best thing that ever happened to me.

My wife belongs to a group of grandmothers (Savta Mi’Modiin) who bake chocolate chip cookies for soldiers every Sunday. On Mondays, she goes with friends to Hatzalah in Bet Shemesh to pack emergency supply kits for first responders. On Tuesdays she attends classes at Midreshet Orot Techiya. (Attention, prospective home invaders: I am diligently on guard doing nothing while she is away. “They also serve who only stand and wait,” said Milton–or, as we call him, Moishy.)

The rest of the time, she recites tehillim for peace in Israel and the welfare of individual injured soldiers, whose names (including their mothers’ names) she knows by heart. She listens to OU’s shnayim mikra and nach yomi, as well as various educational programs on YouTube.

And she cares for and puts up with me.

If only she could get past the pigeons.

My lovely, beautiful, caring, charitable, and kind wife hates pigeons the way the Chofetz Chaim hated lashon hara, except a bit more because lashon hara didn’t crap all over the Chofetz Chaim’s balcony.

She doesn’t hate all animals. We once had an aquarium full of tropical fish until the big black one ate all the others, and then dropped dead of indigestion. We briefly had a bird, Rita Parakeeta, that died of old age while quite young, probably because of our lousy animal husbandry skills, leaving us with a great deal of bird food that we could not leave outside because . . . pigeons. I disposed of it surreptitiously, telling Ahuva that I had sold it to a passing Gentile in........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)