Xanadu For Getting Your Spirits Up

My old colleague James Altucher is to thank for reminding me today about how much I loved the movie "Xanadu."  He posted eloquently about a topic I thought about lately:  heroin.

I guess it's out there more than ever because of Philip Seymour Hoffman's recent tragic death.  Or because of the article in the NY Times last month entitled "Prescription Painkillers Seen as Gateway to Heroin."  Could also be due to my conversation with a doctor friend who specializes in addiction, who has seen time and again the quick slippery slope people fall down into heroin addiction once their doctor prescribes them painkillers.

James' thoughts are how to produce a natural high similar to that created by heroin.  He has a lot of good points:  stress-out for short periods of time, working out, socializing, eating at least a modified paleo diet, hot spicy foods, fewer grains, sex, laughter.  Sounds about right.

Painkiller addiction scares me.  Opiates scare me.  I tried to avoid the Percosets after Levi, but I figured they couldn't hurt if I took them for just a couple of days.  That was 2 days too many and the after-effects lasted more than a week.  No thank you.  Let's not get into too many details, shall we?

Nancy Reagan was effective with her brain-on-drugs campaign, by keeping kids like me far away from street drugs in high school.  But 1980s Reaganomics also made the drug companies stronger.   Today we hear stories of problems with on-the-spectrum kids taking Ritalin and Adderall these days (remember last year's national story about a kid who committed suicide in conjunction with his Adderall addiction?) and adults taking OxyContins.  People don't take these drugs seriously enough, and yet off-label drug use is rampant.  Are pharm parties real or made up?  I like to think high schoolers are smarter than that, but it is pretty easy to access stuff which is powerfully addictive due to our nation's licensed doctors who write prescriptions.  And then they freak out over issues of marijuana legalization.  I don't get it.  It's all about money in the end. We live in a Capitalist society, I guess is what people argue.

Back to happiness and Xanadu.  I loved dance and rollerskating, so as a child of the 80s, I naturally loved this movie that flopped at the box office.  Of course I was already in love with Olivia Newton  John because of Grease.  My cousin bought me the record for this movie because she knew how much I loved it.  Back then I didn't appreciate the architecture used in the film, but the Pan Pacific Auditorium was a Los Angeles architectural icon that was destroyed in a fire in the 1980s.

Like James, I listen to the theme song from Xanadu (and watch the awesome choreography) and feel totally pumped.  I hope you do too!

Xanadu was filmed here.  source:  Wikipedia

People Are Strange When You're a Stranger

Happy Monday, everyone.

I decided to be low-key and not offer advice to people, etc.  But I just did it again, and I wished I held back.  But if I don't want to be a stranger.  And I think I have good info to share.  Who knows where things will lead.

So, I am going to still hold back a lot but offer up advice in a kind, happy, good way.  And know when to shut up.


Why I had a poster of Jim Morrison hanging in my college dorm room is beyond me.
It should have been Jerry Garcia.
At least this photo is a bit more modest than the famous bare-chested one of him.

   

Rashi Mincowicz, Of Blessed Memory and SITM

"Unimaginable heartache" is what my friend Rachel just told me when I mentioned the sudden passing last week of Rashi Mincowicz. z'l.  She was 37.  Married and a mother of 8 children.  It was a huge shock.  She was named for her grandmother who also passed away at the age of 37.  She ran a Chabad house.  I can't even get into what that means, but it's all good.  Clearly she had beautiful taste - look at this photo of her and her beautiful family.

But the style is just the surface.  She wrote a beautiful email to her family last year when her aunt passed away regarding how to deal with loss of a family member that has been shared with the public.  And it is very deep.  Way deeper than the beauty you see on the surface in the picture above.

Rashi lived in/near the town of Alpharetta, which is where Phish played numerous times.  So I recognized that right away.

Her children have no mama.
Such sadness.
Look at that sweet little baby next to her.

Do what you can and support them to help with household help.

Music isn't the thing we do when someone passes away in the Jewish tradition, but I am posting this anyway.   A lot of special people go to see Phish.  And they were all right near Rashi at the time in Alpharetta.  They play Silent in the Morning (SITM).  I don't know what the words mean exactly but it's a pretty tune.  So, I dedicate this to Rashi Mincowicz whose neshama (soul) should have an aliya in shamayim (have an honor in heaven) and continue to glow, sparkle, and offer "resounding echoes" of bracha (blessing) to her family.

Rainbow Hamentaschen? Go for it!

If you're a Jewish mama like me, you've seen these rainbow hamentaschen trending on Facebook these past few weeks.

From Kitchen Tested

What can I say?

Kids...there is NO.WAY.I.AM.GONNA.MAKE.THESE

The recipe itself as well as my friends who have ventured into this den of self-inflicted pain echo the same warning signs. They take time.  They aren't easy.  And that's all I need to conclude that they are not for me.  No ounce of Jewish mothering guilt will get me there.

I love to bake, but I dread the annual hamentaschen baking.  My mom didn't make them growing up, so I decided it would be a good thing to share with my kids.  But, yet again, I learn that my mother was a very smart person back then (she's still very smart).  Every year when the hamentaschen either open, ooze out their jam, make a sticky mess, or any combination thereof, I utter the same thing:

You Nasty Expletive  *@A#  %*^ three-cornered Eastern European Purim cookies.
You jerky Haman's pockets.
May there be an ugly curse on you, Haman's Ears.

So, while these rainbow hamentaschen look stunning, this year I will enjoy the hamentaschen that everyone else made from the shalach manos packages we receive.  And I will eat them with a smile.

Rock N Roll Resort Contest for a FREE VIP Weekend

This music festival coming up this April 4-6th in "The Mountains" (if you are Jewish and reading this and from the east coast  you know what mountains I am talking about.  To my Santa Monica SparklingSister, sorry to be so New Yorky!) called Rock N Roll Resort is having A CONTEST FOR A FREE VIP WEEKEND

Here is the Link

https://facebook.antavo.com/DOW/F/?oid=tI

Click on that to enter to win a free weekend for two.

And to all you Yidden, yes of course you recognize that town name of Kerhonkson!  You can betchyer bottom dollar that there's only one thing there that you would know of.  And that some smart person renamed the former Granit Hotel (didn't people just say "The Granit?"  Didn't Aunt Sherine used to go there?) as the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa hotel..  I never went there, but it was one of "those places in the mountains."

Actually it looks like you can go there for Pesach this year!

So, Nu, the real question is...for the winner of the Rock N Roll Resort, will you find a minyan and can they get me kosher food?!?  (I am sortof joking.  Sortof not.  Maybe so or maybe not. Was this the life I sought?)

)

Oh yeah, if I win, (Cuz , yeah you bet I entered this even though The Wolfman has his kung fu testing that Sunday and we really can't miss it but I would love to win this!) I will figure out the (kosher) food thing, the shul thing, and the convince the husband thing cuz it's something we won and you know how much live music makes me happy and it's something we love to enjoy together, and good thing the baby loves his mama and he will come along with us no worries there and by the way mom and dad if we win can the kids come to you for Shabbes that weekend?)

I hope I didn't just jinx our chances.

Relationship Building in the Age of Social Media...Simple Smiles and Good Times

Who else is fed up with Facebook friends?  People who you haven't seen in years, people you have never met, people who you danced with at a show once?  All those photos of dinners in Wine Country, at Disneyworld, on the ski slopes.  You weren't there.  These aren't real relationships.  They are virtual and fun, but these friends aren't calling you to find out if you got over the stomach flu.  Who makes phone calls anymore, anyway?  The voyeurism of Facebook, Twitter and other social media may be fun, but it's not a real deal live relationship.

Just the other day, Stango and I were chatting about the idea that it's time to cultivate REAL relationships.

Time to have real tea.

Time to stop texting, because you can't text an intonation.

Time to learn from the Green Bubbie!



Here's an oldie but a goodie about relationships.  Not very solid relationships, but they probably were solid at one point.  Such a classic newbie tune.  Reminds me of when I began to fall in love with my favorite band.  Good times.

Stuck in the Middle With Fill in the Blank

Thanks Bob Lefsetz for referencing this tune today.




Been wondering where I've been, eh?  (That's the Canadian eh)

Been trying to not really care about the little stuff.

There's a lot of little stuff out there.

At least the baby's clean, the boys are in the shower and Nistar is on her way home from gymnastics.  That's what matters in my tiny corner of the earth.  You don't need to care about any of that, but I do, and I'm glad.  The question is why in the world would I write this all on a blog?

No clue.

Baby Levi.  My Nova Scotian roots ain't too far away.

If Not Now, When?

It is lovely to see Pete Seeger quoting Rabbi Hillel's famous words.  There have been so many posts all week about Pete.  He was a giant.  I was grateful to have said to him directly:  "Thank you."


 

Thanks Pete Seeger.  We'll be seein' ya.

Pete Seeger at the Strawberry Festival in Beacon, NY June 2010  Photo by yours truly

I Must inquire, Mr. Salinger, can you still have fun?

Today is the 4th anniversary of J.D Salinger's death.  Us Jews call it a yahrtzeit.  Even though he wasn't Jewish, Salinger's father was.  Close enough.

You should watch the documentary about him.   You really should. I liked it.  Then again, I am no film critic.  I told a friend that I watched it; she said she heard it got bad reviews.  I don't care.  I liked seeing all the interviews.   I liked envisioning eating popcorn made with brewer's yeast with Jerry, which is what he did with one of his young girlfriends.  That would've been fun.  But then again that never would've happened cuz I wasn't a good writer.  As such, Salinger wouldn't have been terribly interested in me. 

Here is my own sweetness at the library last week.  I hope he and all of my kinderlach will love Salinger's many works.  And that they will read more than just Salinger (which is what I basically did in high school.  That and Cliff's Notes for the rest of the stuff).  And that they will be better writers than me.  

And why the blog title, you ask?  Cuz I was listening to Wilson from 12/31/91 today, a show I should have been at in Worcester when I was a college sophomore, just after the prime of my wannabe Salingeresque youth, but wasn't.  And boy is that Wilson so much fun.  The blog title comes from Wilson.  A lot of modern-day Holdens have enjoyed that one.  Please me have no regrets that one comes straight from my baby Levi's mouth.

Which leads me to the whole Wilson-Seattle football team thing that Trey got going.  I love these guys.

Here's a look at Wilson from last summer.  The very day when Levi, the sweetness above, was born.  Not like Trey knew that.  But hey, it's all connected.