Hey Mama, What's the Matter Here...Why You Treat Me Mean?

Well, Robert, if you want the answer to that, maybe it's as simple as:  No means no.  Perhaps said "mama" threw the beer in your face because she just didn't want to have anything to do with you.  And you didn't listen.

Of course, I'm just postulating.

But it's a good guess.  We all know the male species is driven by testosterone.

Even in 1972 when you recorded that tune, no meant no.  But maybe there wasn't a lot of awareness about it back then.  Contrary to today when accountability of universities regarding campus sexual assault is a timely news topic.

Still, I enjoyed "Black Country Woman" on the elliptical machine today.




 I do hope, though, that my boys won't have this attitude when the time comes.

Back when I had two boys.  Summer 2010.

Long Time Gone for a Baby To Nap

As my poor sweet baby cries away in his crib because he is so tired and can't continue sleeping without his mama by his side, I am grateful for this video I took just yesterday of him playing so peacefully.  He is engaged, interested, and curious.  He is human and healthy!  So grateful.  So not grateful for the sleep-deprived state we are both in at the moment.




Never saw CSN in concert.
Always wanted to.




That video is from the famous Woodstock concert you might have heard about.  It's the one my parents couldn't make due to my mother being pregnant with my brother.  At least that's the joke we always say.  No way my dad would have hung out with all those hippies.  My mom was busy singing along with Peter, Paul, and Mary and my guess is that if she was hanging out with other people at the time, she might have gone.  Reba's mother-in-law went.  So, that counts, right?  She still carries her ticket around in her wallet!

You know what they say, Man plans, Gd laughs.  The irony the irony.  They say things skip a generation?

Which reminds me there is a fun-sounding family and kids gathering this Sunday in Philly called Kidstock at Liberty Lands.  Just in case you had any pre-conceived notions that I might be a (cough, cough) hippy, no real earth mama would let her baby cry this long during the day to get down for a nap.

Since you asked, no that isn't a Moby Wrap, but good guess.  It is a NeoBulle and it is from Switzerland.  There are many, many wraps out there and the babywearers of the world are grateful for the Moby and its popularity!  Full disclosure:  I am not even terribly a huge wrapping geek, and only own 2 wraps!  The serious mamas out there are fully stashified and I am far from that.  But, I *am* in the market for a nice dressy slate or gray wrap for shul, so be on the lookout next time you see me at your friendly neighborhood synagogue.

BH.  Sleeping baby.

The Key to Good Hollie

Hollie is what my Grandpa Al called the traditional Sabbath bread also known as challah.  You know, that gutteral "ch."  Hollie to me is actually Holly, who is a new friend of mine.  (Hi, Holly!)

This week is the first Shabbat after Passover and an old but only recently popularized custom is that of the "shlissel challah" or , key challah.  The idea is that you bake a challah in the shape of a key, or, alternately, bake a key directly into the challah.  One of the explanations given is that the key will open up the gates of heaven for the next 7 weeks until the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. 

Early this morning I remembered the shlissel challah, whipped up some dough, and even got the big kids to shape some loaves.  Glad they fit it in before the bus. 

I wonder if Grandpa Al knew of this custom or learned about it during his youth at Chaim Berlin Yeshiva.  For some reason, I doubt it.  But I know he would have chuckled at the joke my dear husband Stango offered up this morning as I pulled out the last loaves from the oven.  Something that I should do more often.  Shlissel while you work. 

no keys in here, but these are the loaves shaped by the 3 children shown above.  Nistar's is the top.  Ezra's is the bottom left, with help from his big sis.  Eli's is the bottom right.

Kinderlach's challahs baked and finished product

will be needing this spare house key!

for those who care about sepsis, indeed we wrap the key

I do the traditional three strand braid

wow, I had a manicure last week!

peekaboo, I see you, key!

I braid from the center.  See the key?

moving right along...

almost there

I flipped it over after braiding

I also shaped one in the shape of a key.  I brushed the loaves with an egg-oil-chopped onion-salt mixture.  Yummy onion taste, thanks again to dear Leah Shemtov for that tip

Whelp, that's all folks.  Thinking of Grandpa Al, and Grandma Martha, all of blessed memories, since I mentioned Grandpa Al above.  Hope they enjoyed my handiwork!  Good Shabbes to everyone on the planet and in the past in the future and all the energy bodies everywhere.

Here are my Grandma Martha and Grandpa Al, at my bat mitzvah, sitting in center.  Other dear family members include, from left to right, by couple:  Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Murray , Aunt Henny and later husband Dave, aforementioned Grandma Martha and Al , and Grandma Mayme and Grandpa Archie .  May all their memories be for a blessing.  Miss all these good people.  What a nice representation of families.

TBT: That's Throwback Thursday for the Techno-Challenged

If you don't know what TBT means, and you're interested, or at least want to brush up on your iPad, iPhone, Facebook, Internet, Ebay, Etsy (you never heard of that, huh?) skills then I suggest you contact your

Friendly Neighborhood Tech Coach.

Main Line Tech Coaches.  Alas, that's for another day.

For now, it's Thursday, and my TBT is my dear Stango and I on our honeymoon in Hawaii.  It was March, 2002, just a few months after our wedding.   This photo is from our 7 hour boat ride out into the Pacific along the Na Pali Coast.  From a distance, we viewed the forbidden, private island of Niihau.

May I take inspiration from this photo that we go as soon as possible to another resort vacation filled with exploration and adventure.  And that we have clean, fresh, new clothing to wear at it.  And that we can get back into the shape we were in here.  It's 2014...plenty of Gen Xers are fit, in shape, and healthy.  Forget Gen Xers, what about all the Baby Boomers and Between the War Babies.  So many people are taking good care of their physical health, whether it's walking, swimming, yoga, pilates, Zumba, spinning, barre method, elliptical machine, whatever!  No excuses!  Now that we relived our freedom at the seder(s) as Passover just passed over, and some of us have been renewed (those who celebrate Easter and other spring festivals), and we enter into warmer weather, let us all take a pledge to ourselves to be more active physically.  We have it in us.  I know the food is so delish but we could put down that 2nd portion of food and say we're full and now it's time for physical activity.

At long last.  A photo from the Stango Loony Affair.

Stango and Loony, March 2002, Na Pali Coast, Hawaii

Happy Passover

There are two videos I would like to share with you.
And one illustration, shown at the end of this blog post.

The first is a Happy Passover message from me and Levi.  He is enjoying his egg matzah tam tams already.  Wishing you and yours a happy holiday!  May it be sweet.  Considering I need a quick food to give him, and have no cooked food yet like roasted carrots, sweet potato or zucchini, the tam tams are good.  Soft enough like Joe's O's (Cheerio's).

The 2nd is the most appropriate message from Mr. Marley.  It is the time of our Exodus. I actually posted this video in the past.  But that link no longer works.  Movement of Jah people. We are all moving towards our freedom.  Jews and all people alike.  Let's speak nicely, be kind, and help each other out every day.  Let's share ideas and listen to one another.  Let's follow the good word and love the earth we inhabit. Let's respect all creatures.  Let's be positive and walk away from evil, bad words, and negativity.  Let's rise up against our oppressors.  Speaking of which, and I thank my friend Leah for reminding us to think of this today on the eve of Passover, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Overland Park, Kansas. 

Finally, here is a drawing I am sharing that was sent to the Nunever.  It was done by an anonymous fan of his drumming.  Talk about it all coming together on one wacked out frazzled Candy man (look at the dude's tie). It's a lot of band music references -- as if the illustrator is thinking that these are *the most* important music influences out there -- but I can see that the illustrator is trying to take it to another level.  All things together and connected I agree.  Gotta wonder what his very official-looking notes are on the right.  Very Wall Street, I would say.  Who knows, this person could be a Kellogg or Wharton graduate.  My interpretation is that this is what happens when the candy man at shul forgets his kippah and has too much candy.  Remember often times the candy man and kiddush club guy is one and the same.  So, just remember whatever you do, take care of your shoes.  And wear something on your head to shul, dude!

From an Anonymous fan of Noah Lehrman

Chillin at Home...In the Year to Come

Who needs Passover cleaning when you have your own in-house entertainment to distract you?

This is most of us, yesterday, with a friend visiting from out of town.  Got to love the 8 year old boy handling the baby, and the punching and silly moves he makes the baby do.




Yep, you caught Stango playing that classic tune "Bashana HaBa'ah" ...just makes you wanna kick back to earlier days on the kibbutz, at Camp Ramah, or when you could only see 2 tv channels in Israel.  Nowadays I wonder even if Israeli kids know this tune.


Thanks to all the Israeli soldiers for defending our country.

from npr.org

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.