“My romance doesn’t need a castle rising in Spain.

Or a dance to a constantly surprising refrain.

And wide awake I can make my most fantastic dreams come true.

My romance, doesn’t need a thing but you.”

Written by Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers.

Father Time You Need a Haircut.

World Book Encyclopedia, The Merriam Webster Dictionary and The Thesaurus– versus Google, Kindle, Amazon Prime, Tik tok, Snapchat, Facebook,

Instagram, and a myriad of search engines plus. A.I. give it a try.

Our days of licking our finger to turn the pages are virtually over. Although we still pick a hard cover over a battery operated read. Can you easily bring to mind memories of brown paper bags with pencil calculated totals of grocery store purchases? How much were a dozen eggs? Anyone else struggle thru trigonometry? Specific functions of angles and their applications to calculations- no comprende.

How about looking up Ticonderoga and cutting out pictures from National Geographic Magazine for a cut and paste project on Africa? Oh, and who doesn’t remember carrying that elaborate science project to school hoping it wouldn’t spill or rip?

What happened to Ed Sullivan on Sunday night, Tom and Jerry and a deeper meaning to Bugs Bunny then we ever knew (google him) Saturday mornings. 

Yes to the the guilty pleasure of Luke and Laura’s General Hospital Wedding? Would you “Bet your Life” on Groucho, if he threw in the swinging Duck? How bout (pie in the face) Soupy  Sales?

Our days now where we are going at a slower pace with the absence of having to re-boot anything is high up on our “only if” list. We have finally come to learn when you call customer service you have to press #1 and scream loudly #9 times. Operator assistance please. 

When we step back and chronicle the speed at which life has reinvented communication it is mind boggling. 

Ironically we miss the days of waiting on line to buy tickets to a Grateful Dead Concert. We brought our lunch and a snack and sat through 3 hours and 42 minutes of loving Lawrence of Arabia.

We look back at memories of being careful not to touch chewed gum under our seats. We could come in the middle of a movie and watch it again. A couple of cartoons thrown in. A box of bon-bons please.

Missing slower paced times. Some days we jam pack activities to avoid suffering from FOMO, ( fear of missing out.) Of What we ask?

Beam me up Scotty- sets in as we exhume the days of the smells of home cooked meals. Our fav- Very well done baby lamb chops, baked potatoes, canned le sueur peas and fruit cocktail with Entenmann’s toasted pound cake. Yes, two n’s.

We miss getting hand written letters, and saving them in our memory box, scented envelopes and all. I repeat – “Can it be that it was all so simple then, or has time re-written every line?” Hit it

Barbra with an A.

So just for today, pay less attention to the frequency of sound with every e-mail or text coming in on your Apple watch.

Explore some hand written behaviors. “I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter. And make believe it came from you.” Fat Waller’s piano version is fun.

Perhaps on demand old episodes of Dr. Kildare or Ben Casey -our original Mc Dreamy’s. And Have a 

Happy Father’s Day!

Mazel times three 💙💙💙

Summarize
Stop, alt delete.
Gaze at your life straight in the face.
Where you have gotten and what you’d erase.
We’ve jumped on many wagons.
Adding words to our Song.
What  would we have changed on the path all along? 
Many round numbers we’ve left in the dust.
Family and friendships -the love that we trust. 
The recipe calls for laughter add more than a pinch.
Help minimize the difficulties that grew by an inch.
As we tap into glory that made memories so strong.
Sign up for the good times, as they trickle along.

Calling all first time nine hole-rs.

You’re only as good as your last shot. 

Is it just the positioning-or the synergy between you and the club. 

Or all of the above- or not?

Forget about precision.

Focus on one thing at a time.

  Just go out there have fun, you

   will do just fine.

“The time has come 

The Walrus said.

To talk of many things.” Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax”

Is it your eye on the ball, or the follow through, or simply the strength of your swing? 

The further you hit the ball.

The more you’ll double down. 

Outdoors and 9 holes breezy.

Or 18 as in chai.

Plant your feet on the course, hit a putt in just two.

Count blessings you’re out there learning something brand new. Phew!

When There is Food on the Table- there is always room for one more.

The feeling of being excluded stinks. There’s a program called #operationshabatshalom it was started during the Pandemic. 

Shout out to Rabbi Josh Lookstein. His father is Rabbi Lookstein, (Rabbi Emeritus at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.)

 Fast forward and several years post (bh) pandemic. One pervasive and lingering side effect for so many resulted from the feeling of being isolated.

 The common denominator was negotiating our safety from our own ships during the many phases of the universal storm. #operationshabbotshalom was set up as an “effort to bring people together after a years of distancing.” Friday afternoons are designated to reach out to people who could use a call. Come one, call all. You in turn get the calls too. 

Social lives have an ebb and flow. There are times when we are inundated with invites to join the colloquial party. There are periods where empty calendars feel italicized in yellow marker fashion. 

Differentiating between alone and lonely is a tough call. 

In an attempt to ward off lonely we schedule our days and nites in bulk. Some days we look actually forward to cancelled plans. 

We can then get into our sweats, no make-up and hair pulled back mode. It gives us a moment to get off the treadmill of activity, tap into an evening of Salad, Pizza, Netflix  and a Vodka we nurse through binging Teheran.

 Lots of time and sometimes tortured energy to create a syllabus that keeps our dance card full. 

So just for today, reach out to someone who is having a difficult time. Invite them for a cup, a lunch, or a stroll through the mall.

Leave the door open and let them know in a more than merrier way, that they will never walk alone, as long as you are around.

Pour le Sport ( The Last Resorts) 1956

“We’re having such fun.
We’re going golfing.
We’re having such fun.
And feeling fit.
Isn’t it mad? We’ve never had so much fun—-
Let’s quit.”

— Sondheim—1956

As an apprentice under Oscar Hammerstein.
Consummate wordsmith brought words to the point of a rhyme.
His work spanned theatrical lifetimes.

His sense of rhythm, was simply sublime.

His content dictated the form as a sentence,
Turned a paragraph into a story through chimes.

Sinatra sent in the clowns and Bernadette Peters took a walk through the park with george.

Ambition only superceded by talent.
Like when “good things get bettter/bad things get worse/Wait—I think I meant that in reverse.”
He took us “Into the woods”

In good “Company” were we.
Every theater lyric a short story, every line the weight of a paragraph you see.
“A funny thing happened on the way to the forum,” with a “Little Night Music”
And a “Gypsy” or three.

With “Passion” he composed the story,
From the “West Side” of the street was the call.
Dear Mr. Sondheim, in our memory, you will always stand Tall.
You threw a lot of spaghetti and All of it stuck to the wall.

Unplugged Friday

Alexander Graham
Hold on to your Bell.
Listen very closely to this tale we will 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.
148 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 speak 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.

We had a party line 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.

And so the story goes…Swing easy!

G
O
L
F
When Birdie met Bogey in the old neighborhood they were pretty much hook(ed). They (fore) warned their parents that they believed strongly this was their (stroke) of good luck. They knew there might be (rough) days ahead, but their attraction proved to be (out of bounds.) With no (mulligans) in sight and no red (flags) in view they would plunge ahead, not let sleepy dogs (lie.) They would disregard an (albatross) as an impasse and call it three strokes in their favor.
Perhaps there would be (hazards) along the (Fairway) but for now they were in the (Green.) They vowed to (bunker) down together, knowing all the while as long as the (Eagle) has landed they would invite everyone to the 19th hole to raise a glass as they celebrated their ( hole in one.)
See you on the Tee box- off to drive a few buckets. Reeking with enthusiasm.

Back to the Future-The expression refers to the time when one has to stop (over) thinking about the things they could, or not, have done in the past so that what happened wouldn’t have happened.

We took a stroll back in time to our beloved Rhinebeck. Flowers, food, art shops, cheese shops, kitchenware, knives sharpened, Bread Alone pastries and anything and everything at Adam’s Fairacre Farm. Attitudes of “disarming stress” was the common denominator. The paradigm in a soundtrack would be “let’s get it on,”- “ girls just wanna have fun,” celebrate good times come on- thank you Kool and the Gang. The familiar turns on the drive up the Taconic imprinted in our memory as if it were yesterday. Deja vu in full gear as we set out to exhume a long lived, feel good moment in time. We sprinted back to a community where our collection of play things unfolded like the adage about bike riding. Our emotional vision autocorrected as it’s been many years and a deleterious pandemic in between our then and our now. We had a group of peeps that shared an attitude of playful wonder. “Come eat by me.” Or, we are going to the neighbors for their signature dinners and warm embraces. This encapsulated chapter in our playbook is medicinal and holds a woven spot, likened to a puppy nestled in our laps. Sometimes you Can pick up where you left off. Especially now more than ever pick up where you left off, eat the dish you loved in the corner table at your favorite bistro- don’t miss the sale on lavender scented candles at the shop local boutiques. Knock on your door number one, win a -Trip Back to the Future. “Just a passing breeze filled with memories. Of the golden smile that introduced me to-The Days of Wine and Roses and you.” Have a memory filled day.

The stumbles and falls, the lapses in judgement, the near misses, the could haves. We’ve become convinced that our lives are shaped less by the mistakes we make than when we make them. There is less elasticity now. Not so easy to bounce back. We move with greater deliberation, but we move. We push through sadness, as it is not productive. We look forward, add another chapter and know as survivors the good will eclipse the times we struggle. So just for today we will tap into laughter, raise a glass ( or two) and celebrate this precious moment in time.