little d

It's shabbat (Saturday) and we went out for lunch with my in-laws, who are apparently the center of my social life. Daughter slept over at their house yesterday, giving us a rare night to ourselves -- time to fight about money in private, and then watch a dvd, "Matchstick Men." Loved Nic Cage as always, but the plot sucked. Couldn't buy that ending at all.

My father-in-law, of whom I've grown very fond as I've matured, is 74 and not very interested in life at the moment. I say "at the moment" because I am hopeful he will grow interested again in regaling me with his office gossip, marriage advice, and wisdom of a life lived hard. He is less than two weeks after prostate surgery, and feeling very weak, not sleeping at all, he says, even with two sleeping pills.

Walking slowly back to the car after a dismal lunch, he shook his head and told me he is "me'u'ash," which could be "desperate" or "in despair" or, less dramatically and probably more idiomatically for this context, depressed. He was using one word to describe a state of mind where he was fed up with feeling lousy, to the point where he was feeling hopeless. I responded that I was too.

And by that I meant, despairing for the moment of finding any satisfactory solution to the situation I am in.