Dear Family, Friends, and Honorable Mentions,
We hope this correspondence finds you happy, healthy, and enjoying a restful and restorative holiday season with loved ones. To help achieve these objectives, we proudly present the following updates on our latest year in the form of text, photos, text arranged as captions to photos, and photos arranged to decrease the required text. We’ll kick things off with the main attraction, the kids!
Left: On his first day attending a new school, Zach boards an oversized yellow truck passing through our neighborhood. Right: Max also goes to school, and to master precalculus he puts in extra time with John.
Zach
Zach, now (and for a limited time) age 12, is enjoying life before the inevitability of adolescence. From building intricate Lego and K’nex sets to whipping up family favorites like Saturday French Toast, he really keeps busy. A devoted Philadelphia Eagles fan, Zach joined a football betting pool with his dad (John) and his dad’s dad (also, somewhat confusingly, John). Graduating from his Montessori elementary school last spring was a milestone, and his middle school experience at Newtown Friends School is off to a fantastic start. With small classes, hands-on science labs, and an independent study in Algebra II, Zach is excelling academically and enjoying new friendships. A highlight of his year will be a March trip to Iceland, where he’ll explore geological wonders with his science teacher and try not to freeze to death. Operating on the assumption that he’ll survive the Iceland trip, Zach is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah this coming April. In the meantime, he continues to hone his musical talents on the electric guitar and to care for his aquarium of perpetually hungry fish.
Top: Zach performed classic rock songs with a star-studded group of other kids who signed up for the same week of band camp. Bottom: Zach exhibited age-appropriate affection for a goofy-faced, hollowed-out pumpkin carcass. Right: Max the sophomore, dressed formally for the Sophomore Formal.
Max
Max, 15 years old pending the near-certain increment at his birthday next month, has embraced the quintessential teenage life. Whether listening to music with his ever-present earbuds, texting and calling friends, playing sports, or simply keeping his door closed, he is always doing stuff in distinctly teenage ways. Last spring, Max took up lacrosse, demonstrating remarkable commitment by braving freezing winter evenings for optional practices, practicing with teammates on weekends, and setting up a net at home. Fitness remains a major passion for Max, with regular visits to the gym, exercise (inside) and running (outside) at home, pickup football games with friends, and participation in a recreational basketball league. Max is tackling a rigorous sophomore year including AP Precalculus, Honors Biology, Honors World History, and AP English Seminar, so his time management skills are once again being tested. Beyond academics, Max joined school clubs and started a part-time job as a community assistant at Folkshul, where he organizes a sports club, helps with events, and supports teachers at our Secular Humanist Jewish Sunday School.
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Of course, our family includes more than just the kids, there are also adults. Segue! With much sadness, we said goodbye to Janet the nanny, but with an equal measure of joyness we extended our relationship with Janet the honorary family member.
Janet visits monthly to spend an evening with the boys so that we don’t have to so that we can enjoy a date night out.
There are also biological members of our family, including extensions beyond its nucleus here at home.
Mimi (left) and Papa (right) with the guys. Missing: Zach’s bicep.
Adults from the Meron-Lerner-Ruscio family gathered for a heist in Florida this summer. The vault contained sacks labeled for money, suspiciously lightweight gold bars, jewel-like objects, and many rolls of pandemic-era TP.
Ayelet
Ayelet is enjoying the freedom that comes with being a full professor. Now in her third year as Director of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Penn, she is continuing her research as well as her graduate and undergraduate teaching. Ayelet began working with a terrific new graduate student this year, gave the keynote address at a scientific conference last spring, and received an undergraduate advising award this fall. In her spare time she serves as Max’s biology study partner, assists Zach with his Bar Mitzvah research, and–with Janet’s transition from nanny to honorary family member–chauffeurs both kids all over town.
Ayelet’s activities, which are pretty abstract, are illustrated with clip art for directing clinical training (top left), graduate and undergraduate teaching (top right), delivering a keynote address (bottom left), and doing research (bottom right. Leave a comment to vote for which image looks most like Ayelet! [Correct answer: None of these, the real version looks more sleep deprived.]
John
John is enjoying the even greater freedom that comes with being on sabbatical. During this break from teaching and other on-campus duties, he completed several research and writing projects and is in the process of developing a new course (a seminar on decision-making algorithms) and making major changes to his textbook and course on statistics. With the transition in Janet’s relationship to our family that you’ve been hearing so much about, John does a lot more of the shopping, cooking, and assorted errands than ever before. Despite this, he manages to find time for his hobbies, interests, and exercise, including his 4th annual birthday marathon.
John’s interests are concrete enough to be shown via photos: following Formula 1 (Max Verstappen + Red Bull, top left), playing guitar (new “chromeboy” guitar reflected on itself a couple of times in the mirror, top right), keeping beautiful but finnicky fish (orange maze discus, bottom left), and watching football (Patriots rebuild, bottom right).
And that’s it for this year, from all of us to each of you!
