There’s an analog for this in life, where disparate events, spread across years, come together to reveal the path forward. It goes by a nicer name, though: serendipity.- Robert Lang

Grew flowers and vegetables. 🌼🌺
Opened bottles and popped corks.🍸🍷
Scents of candles.
Smells of french toast, veggie nuggets and secret sauce. A.k.a. The regular.
Mixed mj tiles🀄️
Shuffled canasta cards-❤️♣️♠️♦️
Did art projects and made shadowbox presents with love.
Snuggled thru nights wrapped in grandchildren’s arms. Hashtag Blessed.
Roasted chickens we ate through the glow of shabbas candles. Challah strong.
Listened to the musical soundtracks that were the backdrop of our lives.
Watched dance routines practiced for recitals. Alexa play -Somewhere Over the Rainbow. 🌈
Built buildings , space centers and parking lots with blocks and magna-tiles.
Binge watched our way through weekends.
Recovered from thank g-d not many surgical procedures. Shout out to Nurse Joyce.
Prayed.🙏
Wiped up more spilled milk then we cried over.
Welcomed friends and friends of friends.
Held choruses of more Happy b-days through more candles then we could count.
Rejoiced in family. Better together.
Sat shiva for our parents- b”h
Cried in each other’s arms.
Had passover seders. Hail to the matzoh man.
Chanukah parties- grab bag presents.
Dressed for bar mitzvahs, weddings and funerals.
Disseminated unfortunate news and made lemonade out it.

And knew all along, through good nights or restless sleeps that this was the “Place We Called Home.”

Go to Grateful One Day at a Time.

When you wake up on the right side of nostalgia, send pictures and exhume memories of days well spent. Love your muffin of choice and iced coffee and cherish the moment.

Easy to say…
When you get the chance to grab the holy grail as it’s swinging by go for the ride. Who knows why the days that hit you sweetly happen. All we know is when they do happen why not choose to see the windmills. Don Quixote mistook them for giants and spent his time tilting at windmills. Our take away quote from Man of La Mancha is, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished.” Too often we catch an impregnable moment and put up our dukes when we are being offered kindness. After listening to the score yesterday from Hello Dolly we’ve been humming “As the Parade Passes By,”

It dawned on us as our bench in life grows smaller, to fill each seat with the deepest of players who have our backs when we are looking the other way.

So since June and July lasted 10 minutes and August is steaming our reading glasses why not get out your baton and tap shoes and start the parade.

Watch reruns of My Little Margie and don’t “get up” to change the station because you don’t want to miss the episode where Peter Sands (Don Porter) asks his secretary, Susie McNamara ) to have lunch with him. Loved -The Ann Sothern Show. Netflix who? You Got this- Wednesday.

Repost from 2017- ere of the Holidays.

The room was comfortably full, not packed. The A/C offered a Brrr so any remnant of heat left over from Indian Summer was left outside our “four walls.” Rabbi Lookstein walked up to the podium with his particular cadence I’ve come to know through the years. I was appropriately clad in the “right” length skirt. And so the stage was set, the evening began.

I was at KJ Synagogue to hear Dr. Rabbi Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University speak. The write up about the evening caught my eye and the kids set me up to gain entrance. He spoke on Sin, Self Perception and the Art of Living.

The timing for me to hear this was propitious. Yes, G-d offers no coincidences. I walked away from the evening a little more fine tuned on some immediate issues that have been dealt to my extended family.

He touched on the distinction between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He detailed the difference in prayer between looking at and embracing your sins, your misgivings and your wrongdoings. He was light on the emphasis of sins necessarily being terrible shandas worthy of punishments and more on ways we have wronged others. He moved on to the meaning of wearing white on Yom Kippur and praying for the forgiveness of the past year’s behaviors that we feel we can better. His delivery was straightforward, his words flowed with a pleasant melody and his sincerity offered comfort. We, as Jewish people are factually in the minority.

Our importance and roles in society however, quite the contrary. What was in the minority last night as well, were cells phones beeping, ringing or being accessed. We were there to listen, perhaps learn and be respectful of a very busy man sharing his knowledge and wisdom about keeping the peace pipe moving. L’dor V’dor.

I left the Rabbi’s sermon feeling comfortable, embraced and that my well being was cared for by a virtual stranger, an ordained man.

In the love your neighbor category and a look after your own way, I question why it is often easier to be more kind to strangers than intimates. As a divine order play out, we are placed in positions, in families and situations that because we are “just humans” will inevitably offer conflict and need for repair. So perhaps just for today, four days short of wearing a white outfit and maybe even sneakers, why not look to our left, glance to our right and say we are sorry to an intimate we may have wronged. Perhaps if we begin to own our piece of behavior we can move on in a healthy way to the sounds of cell phones ringing and beeps of texts coming in. Amen!

Once in Awhile-

Dear Ordainer of Weddings and Funerals. Would we still have tried as hard? Perhaps overlooked more.

Please stand on that long line over there. That’s the one that says “Weddings and Funerals only.”

You don’t see it? It’s the longest line in the room. The shared celebrations and the pool your sorrows with tones of mandatory invites and holiday seats filled.

The terms Kismet, Destiny and Beshart suggests- the prophetic,
the meant to be’s.

How much does luck or chance factor into who we go the distance with? Does forever mean until the holiday meal is over, the card game is finished, or when someone moves off the block?

Early on we come to learn Holiday Anxiety can exist all year long .The uncomfortable dread of the “do we have to” kicks in.

As social media has connected us to our past, we have become voyeurs into the lives of the people we met through our “chance” encounters.

Reunions, cousin clubs and catch up events offer the second time around opportunities. If we try hard can we champion our first time around defeats and turn our once in awhiles, into the more oftens?

Our primordial worries of will we be liked, accepted, invited back have subsided with time. Some of the people…

So we learn back to the future isn’t always in the canasta cards. The surprise of the well blended double date shows up. We walk away, look at one another and think yes, a take two would be very nice, indeed.

We spoke with the pharmacist at CVS yesterday about waiting until October for our, as he referred to it “upper classmen” flu shot. What a gentle way of saying senior discounts accepted.

So as a member of that category we took our senior day discount on our over the counter Nexium and went home and took a nap.

My take away is, we can dwell on missed opportunities and bemoan our fate about who has stayed and who is gone, or we can accept that our time with them was inscribed as exactly what it was “meant to
be.” Make it a reach out to someone you love day. I just did.

As the juggernaut of talk show hosts, endowed with the gift of gab.
He showcased life changing moments, all breaking news he would grab.
A round table was his prop, paced the audience with a mic in hand.
He’d asked startling questions, the responses were never planned.
Off script his signature posture to his audience of devoted fans.
On the show he courted “That Girl.”
They exited hand in hand.
44 years together a life well lived would unfold.

Marlo found her dream of a man- Donahue his pot of gold.
When flat screens were called T.V.s.
And cheerleading was our afternoon sport.

At the 4:00 hr. we’d make our way home and watch Phil Donahue hold court.
Referenced as king of daytime talk shows, he trail-blazed his way to the top.
Oprah and Maury and Rosie and Ellen on and on it just didn’t stop.
Phil’s folksy and eye to eye style made for easy listening to what he had to say.
The bottom line to all this is that pretense stayed out of the way.
RIP Mr.Donahue you had us under a spell.

When the early bird catches the extra blintzes.

It’s 4:45 when we begin thinking about dinner.

We have an hour to get ready.

We put on a new blouse and hope It won’t get a food stain on it. This is new.

We walk out the door.

We’re on line at our go to restaurant of choice. Long line but we are in the door, getting closer to the table.

We grab some after dinner mints at the counter and a couple of tooth picks while we wait. If we order the corned beef and it is stringy the toothpicks will come in handy.

Oy, the beeper they gave us to hold just went off.

We push through the crowd, disregard the dirty looks. We’re in and being escorted to our table. “Excuse me sir maybe you got a booth? My husband has a bad knee, is a lefty and needs to sit on the outside and with his leg facing out. TMI-

Again a dirty look, alas we are sitting.

Here honey have a pickle, it’s a good mix and they have the sour tomatoes you like.

We catch up with out friends about medical stuff and get it out of the way.

I point to my mouth as to signal our friend that a piece of coleslaw is stuck to her lipstick. Yup, not a good look at any age.

So we open the menu of oh so many choices.

Excited that the two sides with our main course we can “substitute” did you ever? A potato knish or potato pancakes instead of baked or mashed.

Glad we swigged a little mylanta on our way back into the house because we forgot oh, well something.

Our orders are in.

Only took twenty minutes for four people to decide. Not like it is ever an easy order going through the book of choices. Unless you had a willy for something. Like you could taste it.

“Saul my friend says to her husband of all the many items to choose from a hamburger deluxe with sweet potato fries is what you are getting.”Saul says to my husband, can you believe with everything going on in the world you would think if I want a hamburger it would maybe, just maybe once go unnoticed and not a gonza magilla. Do I tell her a side of balsamic dressing is not going to matter in her salad if she orders the fried chicken as her main?”

Ok, so we get our food and only one of us returns something- a veritable miracle.

My friend sent her fried chicken back, she only likes dark meat. She says go ahead eat. Your meatloaf won’t taste good cold.

So we talk over one another. We know every detail about their grandkids camp experience and how long they waited at the airport when they went to Aruba this summer.

The table is cleared, a new dessert menu is handed to us. Wait, oh my they have the Boston Cream Pie tonight. I ask my husband if he wants to share, I suggest four forks and one dessert. You would think I was taking their toys away.

No, my friends husband Saul says I am getting my own. Under her breath I hear my friend whisper “ maybe get the jello, you ate every sweet potato fry. Then “ give a kick” he says to her- mind your own sweet potato fries, did I mention that you inhaled the potato pancakes like they were going out of style.

Goodnight, it was great seeing you we yell out the car window. Same time, same place- next week. We took the flyer at the door it says the specials are chicken in the pot or flanken. See you in the morning at water aerobics. Vayismir I am so full

Step out, step out of the
sun, if you keep getting burned. —Evan Hansen.

Ok listen up, what’s it going to take?
Adages galore bout repeating mistakes.
First toast to health and good luck along the way.
Stay with me this time, cause it will juxtapose naysay.
As time marches on with challenges stockpiling.
We fuss and we muss with the “not importants” all the whiling.
“Elementary dear Watson,”
It’s easier said than done.
We’re turning our cheek, as we’re coming undone.
We try flipping the negatives.
Counting one by one.
Will they like us and invite us to come back?
The hard on ourselves, try cutting some slack.
Hit the ground running.
It’s medicinal indeed.
Give it a chance.
Plant a new seed.
The news on the daily, breathtaking for sure.
Like a minute under water, open a new door.
Dr. Seuss and I quote.
“I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win cause you’ll play against you.”
Give someone else a good day.

Walk a mile in his shoes and you will never be PET-TY again- RIP – Sal.
You had a certain something.

Watchful of reruns of Two and a half Men. #justhavefun— you know all those things you want to do. Yup! Go do them.