With The Fringe on the Top🎼

Cards and tiles grab a seat better hurry.
Bring your glasses so your eyesights not blurry.
Counting 7’s or hoping for jokers.
Thinking Concealed hands are the chokers.
Watch your partners as they go down with Aces.
Don’t forget to wear poker faces.
Playing the games, we learned from our mother.
Laced with memories not like any another.

All our games help to add “the fringe on the top.” 🎼

Replacing tiles adds smiles to our miles.
Add some luck we’ll trade the joker.

Eye on the prize, the wild card as the topper.
Planning our games for the week, there’s no stopper.

Soon we stop, take a break for a nosh.

Give a kick a charlotte russe-
Oh my gosh.
Yep, one more thing to add “the fringe on the top.”

When we sit back down to the tiles.
Mixing and rolling the dice brings us smiles.
Singing along to Frankie Valli and his crew.
As we bank on a good time will ensue.
So let’s keep on counting and mixing, pick the pack will help add the fixings to “the fringe on the top.” Phew!

Alexander Graham.
Hold on to your Bell.
Listen very closely to this tale we’ll tell. 
4 out of 7 people walking on the street, 
Faces we will never know,
No one we’ll ever greet.
The instrument you invented, that sat upon our desk.

Came alive with a Ding a Ling and oh, you know the rest.

An hello was the greeting, 
The connection came so strong.

We got to schmooze and gossip.

Tell a joke, sing a song.
147 years later and 
The world has gone to hell.

Oh, Alexander, we need to be saved by the bell. 

We are carrying, pressing and gazing at your namesake like no other. 

You brought communication from one house to another.

We chat with our friends and check in with each other.

If you could see the spin off, we are holding in our hands.

The newest and most modern always in demand.

You gave us communication, sensibilities though were lost.

In fear of missing an email, a text at any cost. We are talking while we’re walking, our stories overheard.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry can hear our every word. 

Let’s travel back in time, when a phone call cost a dime.

A party line was the norm and it all seemed just fine.

We couldn’t take a picture or play a word with friends.

It simple was a means to a very happy end.

This is just for the moment when we take our eyes off the screen, pick our head up from the daily News and wipe the fear and horror off our faces.

Then one day the sky fell down.
No chicken little warning- the house fell on the witches legs and just like that the emperor had no clothes.

Cinderella lost more than her slipper and the three blind mice could no longer run. Mother Goose stopped singing nursery rhymes and stood by as prisoners exercised around the “mulberry bush.” There were no rainbows and we waited for happier days to be here again-hit it Barbra with an A.

Severus Snape knew that “the dark arts are varied, ever changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and more clever than before.”

Even though Tom (Tom and Jerry) was the antagonist, all of us felt for Tom. “After all what good is a cat if he can’t get the better of a rat.” From our own little corner in our own little chair- uh, oh! we spied with our little eye a black cat crossing our path.

And to quote Elmer Fudd in his garden of evil- “Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.” Only in that case, the hunter gets hunted always.

Then we ran into Mary Poppins who offered us a spoon full of sugar. It helped the medicine go down. We began to believe again and just like we know pruning flowers helps new ones grow bigger and brighter, alas the Prince of Tides helped our ship sail in.

We turned the beat around, stopped playing victim and got behind the wheel to claim our power back.

If you believe in magic, follow toto down the yellow brick road and know that somewhere between the curtain and the wizard is a place called Home. 🙏

In olden days a glimpse of stocking,
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now G-d knows.
Anything goes. Lyrics by Cole Porter.

As “times have changed” we are more aware of how tempus fugit (time flies.) Let’s (carpe diem) seize the day and in a (sicut enim medicus) just what the doctor ordered way, get out of our own.

As true broadway babes, let’s do a Priscilla Lopez from Chorus Line and “dig down deep,” flip the sting from these dangerous and difficult times and Go to Humor, for one moment in time.

And so “Anything Goes.”

Nip and Tuck- It’s a Rap.

Bo to the tox and the forehead looks younger.

Go to the thighs cause they tell you no lies.

As gravity tugs at our mugs with full force.

Can’t look any younger by taking a course.

Esteem to the team with eyes opened wide.

Into home base we score wth full pride.

Our mojo and moxie helps dig and look deeper.

We mellow, we chill, we’re considered a keeper.

Match up to our egos we know our self worth.

We are one of of a kind on this entire earth.

Consider the knife to smooth our appearance.

We go to the doc and ask for some clearance.

We fast over night cause we gotta look tighter, back out of the deal cause we pulled an all-nighter.

So Vixen and Rudolph strap into ur sleigh.

Ain’t going under that knife,

No fricken way.

We’ll accept what we look like cause older is wiser.

We ain’t going backwards, we’re no compromiser.

Let’s call up our buddies who know us so deep.

So happy to hear how we’re perfect when asleep.

With gumption and courage we hold our heads higher.

Came into our own the seller, not the buyer.

We like how we look and we feel so damn good.

We heard it for sure from a friend in our hood.

And I quote.
Good authors, too, who once new better words.
Now only use four-letter words.
Writing prose.
Anything goes.

What stays and what goes?

This One’s for you Wherever you are.

Hello Abraham hello Strauss.

Could it be I still have “stuff” from your store?

In the omg department- we are

thinking 1964.

Emotional hoarders anonymous has…

Saved us a seat towards the front.

We are bagging and throwing getting rid of so much.

Our garbage room will bear the brunt.

We found collections of pedal pushers and helancas- holding on to the best of the rest.

Dug up some amazing treasures.

Who knew underwear could put us to the test…(Days of the week.)

We found a bag of pink foam rollers.

Hairnets and bobby pins by the dozen.

A yellow alpaca sweater-that still has the fuzz in.

Ok, now our game of parchesi.

A full set of Jacks and a ball.

Flower power dresses we fancied.

So we wore them all through the Fall.

Charles Jourdan you made us feel taller.

Sorry to say you must go.

An old bottle of Canoe and Shalimar.

Come on let’s move on with the show.

We’ve learned so much rummaging thru our belongings.

Reliving parts of life we forgot.

Some laughter, some tears in the process.

Who knew bubble wrapping could leave us besot.

Shall We Play? Tra la la-

We’ve just been introduced.

I do not know you well.

But when the cards were shuffled.

Something drew me to your side.

I sensed we could be friends.

Share a joke or two.

It made me think we might be— Similarly occupied.

Shall we play? Tra la la

Shall we still sit together,

And depend upon each other?

On a clear understanding that we signal with the 7’s? remember to count aces.

Shall we play?

Shall we play- shall we play?

Shall we play? Tra la la

Shall we turn on the music,

Shall we try?

Shall we go down with four jokers and hope our partner matches.

And just go for a mere per chance.

With a clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen, shall we try and then try and then try.

When the last little 3 has left the deck.

Shall we still play together,

Staying tethered to the table.

And show up with a poker face?

Cause we know we are better.

For engaging one another

So we played and we played and we tried.

Crying Out Loud

Chai 18 b-day today.

With make-up and hair in place I dressed for a blessed day for Liam’s right of passage. With a lingering picture of the first glimpse of him 13 years ago Grandpa Ira and I entered the shul carrying that memory in the forefront of my mind. This beautiful baby boy was about to ritualistically come of age. Yes indeed we were kvelling. With luck and determination I’ve come to know this young man in an intimate and charming way. We just love him. 

Dearest Liam a beautiful baby now on the bema making us beam with pride. He lead the congregation in prayer with a full heart of “right from wrongs,” and hopes and promises for what will continue to be a philanthropic and protective future. He prayed to HaShem to bless his immediate population and the world beyond his four walls with love, health and peace. He never begrudges his birthright and his nature is philanthropic and generous. He truly cares about how other people feel.

Cut to yesterday morning in Pittsburgh. A day of sabbath in a random synagogue engaging in a sermon of prayers and gratitudes as we did one month ago.

No Donald Trump-an armed guard in the Tree of Life Synagogue would not have prevented this assailant from storming in Nazi style and committing the deadliest rampage against a Jewish Community in our country’s history. The murderers life was spared and he was deemed in “stable” condition. As far from the truth as can be imagined.

We are mired in prayer today choosing to focus with eyes who spent formative years in the 1960’s when we walked into a Shabbat service, our school, the bowling alley, or the local candy store and banked on leaving with more than we came in with.