Category Archives: de rebus familiaribus

May your fast be easy and your year ahead filled with sweetness and health…

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Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, the last day of the Ten Days of Awe that follow Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.

I’m not an observant Jew and we aren’t raising our children Jewish.

But each year, Yom Kippur is a day of reflection for me.

What a year it’s been… A year of some of our greatest joys fulfilled and a year of some of our worst fears realized.

Our sweet daughters are healthy and happy and are already enjoying their school year, ballet, painting, drawing, and music. My beloved wife Tracie and I are both working hard and our professional lives have been rewarding this year on many levels.

But all around us — literally all around us, in our neighborhood, in our community, and in our city — people are still suffering from the impact of the storm.

We are filled with hope but also deeply concerned about the year ahead: the continued fallout of the storm here at home, the ongoing and often challenging recovery from natural disasters across the world, the turbulent political climate, the threat of war, the seemingly unstoppable rise of intolerance…

Tracie and I will face many challenges in the year ahead but the blessing of our family fills us with joy and purpose.

May your fast be easy and your year ahead filled with sweetness and health…

L’shanah tovah: may you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet new year…

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On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, we eat apples and honey as a symbol of the sweet year ahead we hope G-d will grant us.

.לשנה טובה תכתבי ותחתמי

L’shanah tovah tikatevi v’taihatemi.

.לשנה טובה תכתב ותחתם

L’shanah tovah tikatev v’taihatem.

May you and yours be inscribed and sealed [in the Book of Life] for a good and sweet new year.

From Chabad.org:

Let us turn our heads heavenward and, while thanking Him for sparing so much human life, beseech G-d to restore health and wellbeing to those who are suffering!

Let us ask G-d for a Happy, Healthy and Sweet New Year for the entire universe! Our High Holiday prayers, we are taught, have an extraordinary effect on the year ahead – let’s seize the opportunity!

Let us make firm, tangible resolutions to better ourselves and increase our mitzvot, in both our interpersonal and our G-d-and-us relationships.

And let us all simply shower one another with blessings!

Thanks for being here. I’ll see you next week. Happy new year…

Where to donate to Houston relief efforts…

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Above: Houston restaurateur Giancarlo Ferrara preparing lasagne for first responders.

If you’re not in Houston and want to help out with relief efforts, here are our recommended sites for donations:

Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund
(established by Mayor Sylvester Turner)

Houston Food Bank

Thanks, everyone, for all the notes, wishes, prayers, and solidarity. It’s going to be a long, long road to recovery. But we’ll get there together. #HoustonStrong

Orange, Texas disaster update: our families safe and dry but towns still underwater

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I grabbed the above photo this morning from family friend Glynis’ Facebook.

That’s her house on the left (flooded) and Aunt Ida’s house (not flooded, miraculously) in an image snapped above Bridge City (one town over from Orange) using a drone yesterday.

Reverend and Jane Branch (my in-laws) got some water in their house — for the first time ever. But they are okay and still in their home with another family friend whose house flooded and memaw (Tracie’s grandmother) who is in her 90s.

The Parzen/Branch/Johnson family has been extremely lucky throughout the disaster. But our communities have been (literally) devastated. Most of Orange and the towns that make up the Golden Triangle are still completely underwater and nearly all of the towns north of I-10 have been under mandatory evacuation orders.

Thanks for all the wishes and the prayers. They went to good use. Now it’s time to take care of those who haven’t been as fortunate as we have.
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Please say a prayer for Orange and Southeast Texas: waters rising, residents trapped (including our family)

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I came across the above photo this morning as I was scanning Instagram hoping to find images of my in-laws’ neighborhood in Orange, Texas on the Louisiana border (Google map).

Isn’t it beautiful, with the blue sky and clouds reflected in the floodwaters? The famous Shangri La Botanical Gardens (where our daughters often play) lie just beyond those trees on the right.

“It’s a beautiful day to save lives,” wrote the Instagram user, redbeard_mark, who took the photo yesterday. He’s a veteran who’s helping with rescue efforts.

Right now, as the Sabine River continues to rise and overflow into the surrounding towns, including Orange, Tracie’s parents are trapped by flooded roadways that offer no way out. And the floodwaters are only expected to rise through Sunday morning as the river level continues to get higher and higher.

We are watching the situation closely and I’ll post updates here and on social media.

But the nightmare of Harvey is far from over, I’m sad to say.
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Best ways to donate to #Houston #Harvey relief efforts…

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Ever since we were able to travel beyond our block, Tracie and I have been working as hard as we can this week to aid our neighbors and fellow Houstonians: helping with clean-up and gutting houses, babysitting someone’s kids as they deal with insurance, washing flooded families’ laundry, gathering used clothing and purchased goods for shelters and relief distribution centers, etc.

If you’re not in Houston and want to help out with relief efforts, here are our recommended sites to send donations:

Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund
(established by Mayor Sylvester Turner)

Houston Food Bank

Based on our research, these are the best resources for contributing directly. As Tracie pointed out this morning, the Houston Food Bank can stretch a dollar a lot farther than we can by simply going to the grocery store and dropping off food we purchase. And by giving to Mayor Turner’s fund, you can be confident that the money will go directly to local relief efforts.
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Parzen family #Houston #Harvey update: helping our neighbors and praying for Tracie’s family on the Louisiana border

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Just a quick update today to let everyone know that we are doing fine. Thanks for all the notes of solidarity and concern. The thoughts, wishes, and prayers really made and make a difference. They really do. Thank you…

We were finally able to leave our house yesterday and we began helping our neighbors with recovery.

That’s just one image of a thousand I could have shot yesterday as I was finally able to move around beyond our block and see some of the damage.
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The quiet before the storm: Parzen family hunkered down for Hurricane Harvey

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It’s been drizzling on and off this morning since Lila Jane, age 4, woke us up at around 5 a.m.

She crawled in bed with us and told us that she didn’t like thunder.

At 8:20 a.m. the drizzle has already turned to a steady but light rain. You can only hear distant, intermittent thunder at the moment but even little Lila Jane knows that it’s heading our way.

As we await the arrival of Hurricane Harvey here in southwest Houston, Parzen family is hunkered down with plenty of water, canned food, batteries, flash lights, a first-aid kit, gassed-up cars, fully charged phones, and even a whistle (see the check list for hurricane preparedness here).
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“I will not be part of the silence on Facebook about this atrocity. It effects my family.” When anti-Semitism hits home in Southeast Texas…

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Tracie’s uncle Terry Johnson, Tracie’s mother’s brother and my uncle by marriage, published the following post yesterday on his Facebook. Terry, Tracie, and nearly the entire Johnson family grew up in the city of Orange on the Texas-Louisiana border in Southeast Texas. That’s Terry, below, in the very last row, at our wedding in January 2010 in La Jolla, California where I grew up. And that’s the extended Johnson family surrounding Tracie and me, including Reverend Randy Branch, Tracie’s father, who officiated (to Tracie’s left, standing behind her mother Jane née Johnson).

Terry wrote the post after he read the post I published yesterday, “‘Jew will not replace us’: looking to Dante for the origin of anti-Semitic hate speech.”

The Washington Post reported today that a “White Lives Matter” event scheduled for September 11 on the Texas A&M campus (a two-hour drive from where we live in Houston) has been cancelled by the university. In a statement, the event’s would-be organizer described it as “Today Charlottesville Tomorrow Texas A&M.”

Thank you, Terry. I love you, too. Thank you for your words of solidarity and thank you for the way your family has embraced me so lovingly.

I am sharing this because I want to stand up against that despicable event in Charlottesville.

Jeremy Parzen is MY nephew. He married my beautiful niece Tracie Parzen. W[est] O[orange]-S[tark High School] Class of ’94. Jeremy is an extremely learned scholar. He grew up in beautiful La Jolla, CA. Many in the Johnson family went out to La Jolla for their wedding. It was an experience that my family will forever remember. We created family memories that we will always have. He is Jewish. He is very well-known for writing several blogs. He is one of the best fathers, to my two beautiful, great-nieces. Georgia Ann Parzen (named after our beloved mother RIP 😥) and Lila Jane (as in Jane Branch [Tracie’s mother] from the mere rock-throw proximity on Smith St. by Mustang Dan R. Hooks Stadium).

They are a beautiful family that is targeted in the hearts of these ilk of humanity White Supremacists. It hurts in their hearts to see.
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Rock with me this Friday, July 14 in San Diego: my 50th birthday concert in La Jolla

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After nearly 50 years on this planet, I’m allowed to take a little vacation, right?

Tomorrow Tracie P and I will be taking our girls to La Jolla, California where I grew up and where I will be performing a set of music with one of my old and beloved bands, The Grapes, on Friday night.

We’ll be playing mostly classic country-Americana songs as we celebrate my 50th birthday. And there are a bunch of great bands playing that night as well, including a lot of guys I grew up with and a lot of friends who are coming down to sit in. It should be quite the show.

Beaumont’s is a pretty rowdy club so come prepared to dance (and drink) your ass off.

The Grapes are Jeremy “the Jar” Parzen, John Yelenosky, and Jon Erickson. T-Bone and other special guests will be sitting in on drums this time around.

The Grapes
Friday, July 14
(my 50th birthday bash)
Doors open at 8 p.m.
Beaumont’s
5662 La Jolla Blvd.
La Jolla CA 92037
Google map

And if you happen to be in San Diego on Saturday, July 15, we’ll be pouring some Nebbiolo from my cellar that night at Jaynes Gastropub. All the spots at the community table are already spoken for but if you stop by, I’ll fill your glass with some groovy Barbaresco (no joke… but be sure to reserve a table).

Tracie P will be there, too, on both Friday and Saturday nights. I’m taking the next few weeks off from the blog to enjoy my time off. See you in late July! Thanks for being here and have a great summer.