Get off your high horse and out of your comfort zone on this chill in the air, no malaise Sunday.

So your knee jerks and you have a touch of arthritis-flip it and listen up.

They had no more raisin bran muffins left at our local deli so we went to corn, Plan B. The restaurant only had a 6:00 or 9:30 time slot available to dine, so we chose another restaurant- yup-you got it.

One and done meager alternative are you kidding me choices .

Up early, in a time to make the donuts moment, we watched the news recount the time Christina Applegate, a.k.a. Kelly Bundy in Married with Children received her Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was barefoot and being held by her co-star Katey Segal. She was grateful and weepy as she explained her continuing decline as she negotiates life with MS.

We binged watched her performance in Dead to Me on Netflix.

This piece of work is touted as her best and funniest performance. In Anchorman, with Will Ferrell, there were laugh out loud moments.
She is a versatile actress. Funny, clever, engaging and relatable.

So as we drank our early morning coffee and read the newspaper we came upon the story about “Dolls in Wheelchairs” at Disney. It was a preface to the article on the final ceremonies at The Paralympics being held today at the Stade de France in Paris.

This newly added diversity represents a population of children who live with the physical limitation of getting up and walking to the next exhibit. Seriously people.

In 2019 Ali Stoker (first caught our attention on Glee) was the first person on Broadway to perform from her wheelchair. She was paralyzed since youth from a spinal cord injury as a result of a car accident. She never begrudged her fate, studied performance art and went the distance, sitting down. If anything her disability served as a motivator and helped propel her all the way to her Tony winning performance in Oklahoma.
Ali Stoker has since become part of the #AerieREAL Role Model Campaign. It is a body positive and inclusivity initiative led by the underwear retailer Aerie. The campaign highlights a diverse group of women from varied industries and backgrounds and uses their unretouched photos in ads.

In the everyone got something category, grab a make it happen opportunity and make peace with a relative or friend you “walked” the path of life, lost touched with, but really enjoy.

So just for today let’s embrace our individuality, mix in our limitations and remember when it comes down to it- “It’s a small world after all.”

5785 we’ll welcome you with a determined stride.
With another chance to shrug off the impossible and err
on the side of the probable.
We’ll pray to continue our daily routines.
Filling in the blanks on the in-betweens.
With a fierce willingness to play by the rules.
As we have the floor plan and the tools.
We’ll stay close to our nearest and dearest.

We will absorb the force of the familiar, never holding them at bay.

So let’s become the laureate of this new opportunity.

Make a difference in anyway we can.
Call on help when we need it.
United together-stronger we’ll stand

On this day Sept 5th in between mitn drinnen, we’ll stop at the pitch and putt in our local Calaveras County. We’ll be careful to watch for the jumping frogs as it is their high season.

With dejavu on our breath we’ll turn up the radio that is set to Cousin Brucie on our local WABC Am. The top is down on our new yellow mustang convertible, our hair (what is left of it) blows in the late summer breeze ( which makes us feel fine.) We add some pedal to the metal.
We will sing along to the catchy phrases “ in the village the mighty village The Lion Sleeps tonight.” “In this whole world, you can love but one girl. Let me be that one girl. For I’ll be true to you. End quote. Loud shout out to our Devoted Soldiers.
We heard they added some new holes at the aptly named Periwinkle Pitch and Putt. One hole is named after Mark Twain and one named after Shania. We are thinking maybe his great niece. We’ll try their new chili dogs and awful awfuls. Order a peppermint stick (a la Howard Johnsons) ice cream cone for dessert and call it a near perfect walk down memory lane.
As we woke up to the devastating news in the core of our arena, we thought exhuming a moment in time when the pending officials in office were not slinging mud at one another on screen, when access to weapons were not readily available to 14 year old Children and when the alarm system in our house (who had those growing up?)- didn’t go off because armed villains were coming into your safe haven to steal your black and white T.V.’s you watched Bonanza on- let alone your Life. So just for today, pick up a T.V. Guide and look to see what time Gene Rayburn is hosting The Match Game on NBC. Make it a good Thursday.

The Dept. of It Doesn’t Get Better.

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!