On this sad day, some pictures of our family in Paris, by special request.

On the Eiffel Tower.

Looks like the Champs-Élysées, also 1989.

2008. Mickey wearing beret.

And a very sad one. The majority of the deaths were around the route of the Canal St. Martin through the 10th and 11th Arrondissements, near where Elizabeth and I lived for a month (in the 4th) during September 2008, We took a tour of the canal, and this was among the photos I shot. On the block you see crossing the canal in the center is the Restaurant Carillon, a neighborhood restaurant at which at least 14 people were killed.

IT'S A GIRL! (Norwalk, CT, Jan 1982)

Happy (2011-1982)th Birthday Dora!!

Sunday 1/24 was Superbowl Sunday (and there was a big football game, too. SF beat Cincinnati, 26-21). Maybe that's why we had a Turkish substitute obstetrician. I looked, and he's still there 29 years later. In fact, he even looks exactly as I remember him, only 29 years older.

Dora & Elizabeth conspired to have a really fast labor, and right out of a bad sitcom I couldn't get the car up the icy slope of our driveway. Fortunately, we got a middle-of-the-night lift from the husband of Diane, Dave's and eventually Dora's child-care person. 

Note the same little card above her head.

It was a really long night.

Tanya visits Dora, January 2011

This post is written by Fisher Picture guest blogger, Dora.

The Fishers have a large, close extended family. I feel so lucky to know and be close with so many of us- Fishers, Cohens, Weinbergers, Fong-Cohens, Luxenburgs, now even some Amiras (venturing into 3rd cousin territory)!

This weekend, second cousin Tanya came to visit me in Chicago. Many of my friends say to me, "what does it mean to be second cousins?". So let this post explain how we are related.

We share great grandparents, Mollie and Isaac Cohen.



Our grandmothers are sisters, Rae Luxenburg and Sue Fisher, both pictured here on the left in this whimsical picture (on the right is Marci, Tanya's aunt and my dad's first cousin)

Our fathers are first cousins, Josh and Verne.

Verne with his aunt, my grandmother, Sue, in 1996.



I'm pictured here with Tanya's grandmother, my great aunt Rae, at my grandparents 50th anniversary 15 years ago:



Tanya, with her mother Susie and grandmother Rae (my great aunt), as a baby:



All this makes us second cousins!

Photo taken 5 minutes ago at a cafe in Chicago:



So fun to have you here, Tanya, and may our families continue to be close for generations to come.

It's Dora's Birthday (Darien, CT, early 1980s)

Genie wanted a picture, to go with Norman's profile picture.

More Snow (Burlington, VT, probably Nov 1985)

We sometimes spent Thanksgiving with Paul, Susan and, eventually, Dan. This is their house in Burlington.

Scattering My Parents' Ashes (San Diego, CA, Dec 2009)

Double-click for high-res full-screen version (after the video starts). The hills in the background are in Baja California, Mexico.

Scattering Ashes from Josh Fisher on Vimeo.

Santa (Unknown place, mid 1980s)

I haven't a clue here. From Dave & Dora's ages, this could also be from the 1986 visit to Rochester, but I'm totally guessing.

Hanukkah (West Henrietta, NY, Dec 1986)

We interrupt this Christmas marathon to bring you Hanukkah.

We celebrated Hanukkah a little at our house, but not much. Here are the kids at my parents' house. I'm dating this 1986 (which meshes with the kids' apparent ages), because that's the year Elizabeth and I went to the Yucatan, and the kids stayed with my parents. Hanukkah was on December 27th that year.



Dora made the wood menorah on the left at nursery school. Dave made the construction paper one in the back.

Christmas 1982 - Part 3 of 3 (Darien, CT, Dec 1982)

(Elizabeth said, "These Christmases don't seem a little the same to you?" I replied, "If these don't bore everybody, I don't know what would bore them.")







Two stockings now.

Christmas 1982 - Part 2 of 3 (Darien, CT, Dec 1982)

Christmas Dinner:





And the after-party (or maybe the before-party):

Christmas 1982 - Part 1 of 3 (Darien, CT, Dec 1982)

Our last Christmas in the house in Darien.

What's that peeking out from behind the presents??


It's "Dorrie's" first Christmas. Notice that the tree has moved back to being on top of the toy chest. Another baby to knock it over!


We had to move the tree in any case because the piano is there. Gordon and Jessica closed up the apartment in NY, and kindly gave us that piano.

Turkey for Thanksgiving (Istanbul, Turkey, Nov 1991)

As I've mentioned in a post earlier this month, we went to Istanbul over Thanksgiving week in 1991. On Thanksgiving Day itself, we went to the Sheraton and had a Thanksgiving dinner, sort-of, that was being served for homesick Americans I guess.

I can see from our photos from the trip that we also visited a cemetery on Thanksgiving Day. This image has stuck in mind since then:



We also visited a large synagogue in central Istanbul that day; I imagined my ancestors having been there. It is the synagogue that had a terrorist massacre in 1987, so getting in the door was no small matter.


Some more pictures from our trip to Istanbul:

Dave took this incredible and sad photo of a gypsy with his bear. There was a real mystery with this. After Dave snapped the picture, the gypsy came to me for money. He had some amount, maybe $5 in Turkish Lira, written on the pan you see in his hand. I offered him instead about $1. That was a large amount of money in Turkey in 1991--a taxi across town cost like 37 cents, and the cab drivers were almost running you over to try to get you in the cab. Anyway, the guy walked away rather than take my $1 equivalent. He'd already done the work, it was $1 or nothing, he picked nothing. It made no sense--was it pride? market support? Years later Martin solved the mystery. The gentleman was offering to do MORE--like maybe have the bear dance. We were negotiating over the price of something in the future, not something already consumed.