Erev Shabbos

...with a walk down memory lane...

TO THE DISCO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IptifK7eLvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw6F3Sf-PGw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_hz2am90Hk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0ZG4lTmIu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZcY5vxLbpA

...and for fun...from The Animaniacs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOePNFRFRU

Good Shabbos, everyone!

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About PEZ (tm)...and More

I just stumbled upon this website http://www.collectingpez.com/.

I can't believe what kind of PEZ culture is out there -- you want to be able to differentiate between an authentic PEZ dispenser and a fake one, check out the site; you want to know how to properly load your PEZ dispenser, check out the site; you want to buy a glass display or a wooden display case/shelf for your PEZ collection, check out the site...

I'm sure we've all had our fun with those dispensers in our childhood and youth. How many of you got your fingers caught in those little spring-loaded traps? How long could you make those little candies last? Not long, I bet. "I'll have just one more," was no doubt your popular refrain.

Check out the site... It'll make your day just that much sweeter as you walk down Nostalgia Lane.

The Brainy Detective

I was thinking about my last post and realized that my son must've thought of Peter Sellers -- not as Hrundi V. Bakshi in "The Party" but as the famous Pink Panther himself, Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

I guess the kid figures that if you've seen one mustache you've seen 'em all.

And now a great line from "The Party":

C. S. Divot: You
mashuga!
Hrundi V. Bakshi: I am
not your sugar.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Bli ayin hara, my kids are pretty bright -- each has his/her own strengths -- and know a little about a lot...and sometimes a lot about a lot!

So I thought that perhaps my youngest son might know who the man was in the photo that I showed him.

"Do you know who this is?"

He nodded his head from side to side.

"No? You don't know who it is? I thought you might." (naive me thinks that everyone ought to recognize Einstein)

After a brief pause, he shrugged his shoulders and stated in a questioning way, "Peter Sellers?"

That cracked me up; he doesn't know Einstein, he knows Peter Sellers. A couple days earlier he'd watched the brilliant Peter Sellers movie, "The Party."

I guess my 7-year-old son knows that Peter Sellers is a man with countless disguises. But I'm not sure that brilliant mathematician is one of them!

416-756-6000

Is that my telephone number?

No. It's the number of North York General Hospital.



For the past 18 months or so I've had a very close relationship with that phone number. If it shows up on our phone display without my expecting it to, my stomach clenches and I prepare myself for the caller and the news on the other end.

Earlier this year I would ask people to daven for my father, who was in hospital.
Early last year I would ask people to daven for my father, who was in hospital.
I stopped telling people in the blogosphere about my hospital knowledge.
About my knowledge of ambulances and emergency rooms.

I don't even want to say about my knowledge of other city hospitals, other hospital phone numbers over the years.

My father spent nearly 3 weeks in hospital in March 2006.
He was in hospital between December 2006 and March 2007.
He was in hospital for a few days in May 2007.
He was in hospital for 10 days in July 2007, missing his grandson's bar mitzvah and family celebration in the course of events.
He was in hospital for 10 days in August 2007.
He was in and out of emergency about three times over the course of a week a couple of weeks ago.
A few days later he was back in emergency and was admitted.
He was in hospital for a week.
He came home on a Friday afternoon.
He was back in emergency on the Monday. He was admitted on Tuesday.
My father is in hospital once again.

We have to find some humor in all of this. Someone I'd met in the emergency room in March 2006 asked if my dad was a "frequent flier" at the hospital. Not too long ago I told someone that with all my father's accumulated "airmiles" at the hospital, he could've already travelled around the world and back.

Maintain your health, be thankful if it's good, enjoy your families and friends...and be extra-nice to doctors and nurses.

I hope none of you have to know hospital phone numbers off the top of your head!

My father's name is Yaakov Arieh ben Chaya Malka.

A little bit of davening on his behalf might just be the medicine he needs.

Thank you.

From Our (Dog)House To Yours...

...Chag Sameach. Happy Chanukah!

Tagged at 8

I've been tagged by Fancy Maven...

8 passions in my life

My husband

My three kids

Our dog

My parents

My siblings

Writing

Editing

Music

8 things to do before I die

Publish a children's book

Sing at a piano bar alongside the pianist

Tell some people what I REALLY think of them

Organize family photos

Improve my confidence level

Go back to Saint Maarten, where I honeymooned

Visit Paris and Switzerland with my daughter

Share hugs and kisses a little more frequently

8 things I often say

Love ya

You're such a schnauzer

Ciao babe

Hi booba

How many times do I have to say the same thing!

I can't find my cell phone -- it's SOMEWHERE in my purse

I'm going to tell your Abba

II'll be there in a few minutes...

8 Books I read recently

{How embarrassing that I haven't been reading recently, lately, in the not too distant past, either!}

8 songs that mean something to me

It Had to be You

A Whole New World

Aishet Chayil

Those Were the Days

Dust in the Wind

Time After Time

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

Papa, Can You Hear Me?

8 qualities I look for in a friend

Non-judgemental

Sense of Humor

Family-oriented

Good sense of humor

Sense of adventure

Sensitive

Compassionate

Similar interests

8 people whom I'm passing this on to...but in case you DON'T want to do the meme, at least come up with 8 reasons why you can't or won't :)

Raggedy Mom

Oriyenta

Here in the Hills

Miriam

Neil F.

Elie

Cruisin' Mom

Marallyn

Remembrance Day -- November 11, 2007

This is a beautiful personal essay I read in today's Toronto Star. I wanted to share it in honor of Remembrance Day, and tip my imaginary hat to all those veterans of WW1, WW2, the Korean War and the war in Afghanistan who have fought, some of them fighting "the good fight" to their ends.

Lest We Forget what Remembrance Day is really about

It's about families who still cry over namesakes they never knew ...

Nov 11, 2007 AM

Harriet Cooper

I always hated my name. Harriet. Not a name you'll find among the most popular girls names.
I never felt it was mine. It belonged to my uncle, Harry, who was killed in World War II.
I got his name for two reasons.

First, in keeping with Jewish tradition, children are named after family and friends who have died to honour their memory.

Second, although my mother and aunts wanted to save his name for a boy, they kept having girls. During her second pregnancy, my mother decided her baby – boy or girl – was going to be named after Harry.

For most of my life, I've worn the name uneasily. How could I remember somebody who died before I was born? Somebody I only knew through a bunch of medals my mother keeps in a drawer and a picture of a fresh-faced soldier, a kid really, in uniform.

My mother never talked about him and I didn't ask, too afraid to stir up painful memories. While I only knew him from a photograph, he was her adored older brother – the only boy in the family.

As I've gotten older, I've become interested in exploring my roots. Harry was one of those roots.
I wanted to know more about the man who gave his life for his country and his name to a niece he would never know.

With Remembrance Day approaching, I called my mother and asked her to tell me about him.
With tears in her voice, she spoke about a quiet, good-looking young man with a sense of humour.

A case of rheumatic fever kept him from completing high school and left him with a heart murmur.

Rather than finish school the next year, he looked for part-time work. He spent his first paycheque on a rose-coloured plate for his mother.

When World War II erupted, Harry enlisted, despite his heart problems. After training, he shipped out to England and then to Italy. My grandparents sent him care packages – cookies, chocolate, cigarettes and gum – which he shared with the civilian families who had even less than he did.

The news of his death came during the High Holidays, when Jewish families celebrate the New Year. Only for Harry, there would never be a new year.

While our conversation left us both in tears, they were tears of relief. My mother finally had a chance to talk about her brother; I had a chance to see beyond some medals and a picture to a real person.

Since then, I've thought about the ways in which my uncle and I are similar – a sense of humour and a belief in giving to others. Even more, I've thought about the ways we are different.
At 20, my biggest concern was doing well at university. His was struggling to stay alive. At 20, I had my whole life ahead of me. At 20, he had six feet of earth in a cemetery in Rimini, Italy, and a Star of David carved into his tombstone, along with the words: "At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will always remember you."

Instead of disliking my name, I'm now proud to share his name. I can only hope he'd be proud of me, too.

This year on Remembrance Day, and every day thereafter, I will honour what is written on his tombstone: I will remember Private Harry Silver of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, killed in action at age 20, Sept. 20, 1944, in the battle of Rimini, Italy.

My uncle. My namesake.

Harriet Cooper is a Toronto writer and teacher.

The Hollywood Story...about the Writers' Strike

19-Cent Cheques Leave Writers Wanting Change

Nov 04, 2007 04:30 AM

Ken Levine

Special to the Star

Why are Hollywood writers about to go on strike tomorrow? We asked Ken Levine, a Tinseltown scribe and Emmy winner with a near-peerless sitcom pedigree, having worked on Cheers, Frasier, M*A*S*H and The Simpsons. He's also the author of one of the sharper blogs in showbiz: kenlevine.blogspot.com.

I got a cheque recently from American Airlines. A royalty cheque. For the past several years as part of their "inflight entertainment"American Airlines has been showing episodes of Cheers, M*A*S*H and Becker that I wrote along with episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier and Dharma & Greg that I directed. Considering the number of flights and years I'd estimate they've shown my shows 10,000 times. My compensation for that: $0.19. That's right – 19 cents (American, so it's even less in Canada.) I figure at that rate, in 147 years I'll be able to buy one of their snack boxes.

An episode of Frasier I wrote is out on DVD. I make nothing. The script is included in a book. I make zilch. Soon you'll be able to download and watch it on your iPod or iPhone at IHOP. The only one who won't make money is "i".

Are you sensing a pattern?

The Writers Guild of America is asking the mega-corporations that own the entertainment industry in America and the galaxy to compensate its members fairly for this highly desired product they create. Just a piece, that's all. More than nothing. And without sounding greedy, more than nineteen cents.

Via-Uni-Time-Corps-Ney would rather have a strike.

I've been through three of them already. Many of the companies I struck are no longer in business. Two-thirds of the people I struck with are no longer in the guild. And unlike actors and directors, when we go out it doesn't just shut down the industry. It slows it. Hair restoration crèmes have faster results.

But as someone who has prospered and enjoyed the gains writers before me have won, I feel it's my obligation to fight the good fight for the next generation. And hopefully in 20 years, when the issue is holograms transmitted directly to the back of viewers' eyelids, WGA members will hang tough for a piece of that pie.

This acrimony between writers and management has been a proud tradition since the 1930s when scribes first rose up and had the audacity to ... well, ask for things. Warner Brothers czar Jack Warner warned that any writer who joined the union would "find themselves out of work forever." And he claimed this wasn't blacklisting because "it would all be done over the telephone." Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox once shouted, "Throw that writer off the lot until I need him again!" Critic David Thomson says Hollywood writers are like divorce lawyers or private eyes. When you want them you have to have them, but later you despise them.
Is it any wonder we "schmucks with Underwoods" have an inferiority complex and assume a defensive posture? We spend our entire careers trying to protect our work from meddling studios, directors, actors, fellow writers, research gurus, networks, and girlfriends of all of the above.

Yes, we're an angry bunch, a self-righteous bunch, but we make 19 cents from American Airlines when management flies in private jets.

I teach a seminar called The Sitcom Room (sitcomroom.com). It's a fun weekend where I simulate the experience of actually being on the writing staff of a network show. Students rewrite scripts, have real actors perform their work, and learn first hand the realities of the business – little sleep, bad Chinese food, notes. But they eagerly participate, because they love the process, they have a need to express themselves, they want to be heard. Not one has said they want to be a TV writer to make money.

And when they finally do enter the industry, who knows what that industry will be? New delivery systems are emerging so rapidly that even the "unthinkable" was obsolete five minutes ago. These young writers will embrace that future, and through their vision and zeal will make it soar. All they're asking for is their fair share. MyPiece, not MySpace. iShare, not iTunes. NetWorth, not NetFlix.

And Now a Word from the Peanut Gallery

I've mentioned this book in a previous post -- The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt. It's a wonderful anthology of personal essays exploring various aspects of life and the Jewish woman.
It is funny, and honest, and insightful. I have picked it up, read an essay here and there, then put it down and picked it up weeks later; it's that kind of "pick-me-up" read.

Anyhow, I had the book at work to read over my lunch hour; it was sitting on my desk.

A non-Jewish co-worker passed by, spotted the book, and asked -- in a very Jewish way:

"For that you need a handbook??"

What's with the "Ugh" in Donut?

When I was working in copy editing for the trade publisher, I'd always have to change the spelling of DONUT to DOUGHNUT...adding that "UGH" whenever necessary.

So this correlation was on my mind this morning and the other day as I was driving.

On Saturday night, after 8 p.m., I was driving, came to an intersection, close to a doughnut shop, and spotted a cop car. I wondered if the cop was coming from the shop at that hour. Then I started to wonder what exactly a cop's routine is -- going from doughnut shop to doughnut shop until a call comes in over his radio? He probably leaves white powder sugar as evidence on his own police equipment!

This morning, while driving to work on a rather large and busy main street, I noticed several police cars as I neared an intersection -- three were parked on one side of the road, two were parked on another. I wondered who they'd be busting at 8:15 a.m., having a need for five police vehicles. And then I saw it: the doughnut shop!

And several officers were huddled outside its doors, standing around and talking freely.

My taxpayer's dollars hard at work...

I discovered this on a website, and thought I'd share it with you.

Why Do Cops Like Donuts?

This is a question that has plagued mankind for years. The answer is quite simple.
1. Donuts are relatively inexpensive, so they can be discarded with little guilt, in case of a hot call in the middle of a snack break.
2. In many areas, the donut shop is the only place open 24 hours.
3. Donuts have sugar and carbohydrates, which allow for quick energy. Donuts, coupled with the ever present cup of coffee, help keep the officers awake and alert.
4. Donut shops are usually located in centralized areas, which can be used as a meeting place for briefings between Officers of different agencies or shifts.
5. Donuts are TASTY! Can you think of anyone who DOESN'T like donuts?

There you have it. There is no great mystery as to why Cops and donuts go hand in hand. One word of advice. When the Police Officer asks you,"Have you been drinking? Your eyes are red." Don't reply, "Have you been eating donuts? Your eyes are glazed ."

Shlemazel Mazel Revisited...Yet Again!

The latter part of Sukkot we were hosting and were guests, but the first day lunch we were hosting, so there was much preparing for the large crowd we were having. Being a bit organized this time, I divvied up the meal-making over a few days, just leaving a couple of things to do for Erev Yom Tov, when I came home from work in the early afternoon.

One of those things was making gefilte fish.

No, I'm not such a balebusta that I buy chopped fish or the unthinkable, grind it myself, and make gefilte fish. But I do make the frozen fish loaves, doctoring them up in a flavorful way as they cook.

And I made two loaves. And when it was time to take them out of the pot, I used a couple of utensils to try to balance a loaf at each end. The first loaf didn't cooperate and fell back into the pot. S P L A S H! OUCHOUCHOUCH....! (a stronger expression actually spewed forth from my lips) The water had splashed onto the middle of my hand and on some fingers.

The pain was quite unbearable; after a minute of shock, I ran the hand under cold water and blew on the hand the way our mothers always blew on our "boo-boos" to make them feel better. Still so painful and tingling at the same time, the way skin does when you have "pins and needles" after a foot or a hand falls asleep and you get up to move.

I found some cream to put on the injury -- my domestic "war wound" -- and told my story to my husband and children as they came through the door.

The next day, the area that had been splashed was visibly red, the next day it being worse, and a couple of fingers being swollen. A doctor friend at shul declared it a first-degree burn and told me to continue to apply the Polysporin (TM) cream, which was not a burn cream, but the only one I had at home.

The hand became a conversation piece at shul and in mixed company: "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAND?" I tried to put on cream and then wrap it in gauze, but I looked too much like a mummy in that area. (a "mummy mummy") So I continued to keep it exposed.

About a week ago, the skin, which had turned reddish-brown, began to flake and peel and itch like mad...hopefully a sign of true healing.

It is not a pretty sight this hand of mine, but my youngest son noticed something that gave me a bit more perspective of the matter. A couple of days ago, he looked at the area in the middle of my hand that was flaking the most and exposing a new, light pink skin beneath, and he said, "It looks like a heart."

My little boy was right! That main wound is now noticeably in the shape of a heart.

There are some people who are said to wear their heart on their sleeve. Your friend Pearl wears hers on her hand...

I'd hate to think that a large scar might remain on my left hand from this kitchen mishap, but at least I know that the gefilte fish, which was the instigator, was enjoyed by those guests at my meals.

I can imagine it now: "Where did you get that bad scar?"

"Oh...that? From gefilte fish!"

Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned...

...from the Internet!

I even learned something about myself...

Cultured pearls are simply real pearls managed in a semi-controlled environment.

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY...

...it's a plane.

Indeed it is.

I love walking in the neighborhood very late at night with Max, our "three-poo," and looking up at the night sky. It's dark, but as we live in the suburbs, we can actually see stars, instead of a mulitude of high voltaged lights. (contrary to Toronto's downtown business core)

One of the neatest things I love to see is an airplane cross the sky, his headlights on as he skims the inky dark. Those headlights/high beams cut swaths of brightness across its clear or cloudy path, just as a car does while driving on a lonely stretch of road.

Truly a sight to behold...

When I Grow Up I Want to Be...

We live in a modern, technological world. We witness advancements and progress on a daily basis.

People have different ambitions today than they might have had...say...40 years ago -- simply because the influences of media and education and society are different.

I don't believe that the ambition I'm about to share with you would have been on my "To Do" list 20 years ago. In fact, it might not have even been there a year or two ago. But it's somewhere near the top of the list these days. I don't imagine I'll actually fulfill that ambition simply because I don't tend to be a trendsetter or a leader; I'm a follower but still a doer.

Here's the wishful thinking ambition:

You know how you open up your emails on a daily basis and get jokes/videos/links to websites constantly being forwarded to you. You might get repeats of these emails from several friends and co-workers because these emails are making the rounds of the Internet.

Well, I want to write something or find something that's so attractive, so appealing, so interesting or so poignant or amusing, that I WILL START the ball rolling on a particular email. It will ORIGINATE from me and circle the globe through the forces of the Internet. It would sort of be similar to Norman Rockwell's "Gossip" -- I start off the email and eventually it finds its way back to me.

Hey, who knows...maybe it's this post that will have its fifteen minutes [or emails!] in the spotlight...!

Head Count

...so this is how the past few weeks have been.

Erev Yom Kippur -- I went to a funeral for the husband of a woman I used to work with. The family was able to sit shiva for 1 hour.

Erev Sukkot -- my husband went to a funeral of a close friend of ours. The family was able to sit shiva for 1 hour.

Chol Hamoed Sukkot Sunday -- my husband and I went to a funeral for a shul member. The family was somewhat in limbo for several days. The shiva begins tonight, motzei Shabbos. This afternoon, a friend and I went to deliver a seudat shlishit meal for the family.

Tomorrow, Sunday -- my husband and I will go to a funeral for the mother of a shul member, who is also our friend. His family was at our home this past Thursday for lunch, but our friend wasn't; after shul he walked for over two hours to get to the hospital where his mother had been taken by ambulance just before Yom Tov began on Wednesday night. He came home late on Thursday night; his mother was in intensive care. Yesterday morning, he and his wife walked to the hospital to be with his mother. Last night his mother passed away.
Today when I went to the other family who is waiting for the official shiva to begin, our friend who'd just lost his mother last night was also there to visit. It would be his only time because tomorrow, shiva will start to be observed by his family.

To say it mildly, it has been one hell of a tough couple of weeks. Yes, we've started a New Year and the famous "Who shall live and who shall die" has been presented to us. Let us hope for a better year and a better new month, which will start toward week's end.

Shavuah tov.

I Came, I Davened, I Ate...

...just about sums up the chagim/holidays for me.

[by the way, I have to try to recreate this post, as it got zapped before it could get published. GRRRRR!!!!]

"Food, glorious food" seemed to be the base line of the holidays. Guesting, hosting and feasting.

The question is now, do I start that intended diet after Shabbos is out this week? Do I wait for a few more weeks until the few upcoming simchas we have on our social calendar have come and gone?

Or do I just eat...and enjoy? With no guilt, no silent reminders that this is worth a few unnecessary calories and that is worth many necessary calories?

...and speaking of guilt....

I'm in the middle of reading a terrific anthology of essays entitled: The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt. And yes, food is mentioned in several places...and yes, there is enough to say about food that makes one feel guilty!

I hope you've been enjoying your Yom Tov meals, whether you've cooked them yourself or whether you've partaken of them on others' homes. In case any of you would like to sample TorontoPearl's mediocre cooking and TorontoPearl's husband's amazing cooking (and baking), you are always welcome to join us.

Just do us a favor -- leave your guilt outside the dining room!

Moadim l'simcha and enjoy the rest of Sukkot.

Timing Is Everything

Forty-six years ago, my mother gave birth to a baby girl.

Apparently, that baby came out about three weeks early... I guess, curious to discover the world.

Why, then, is that "baby" no longer early for anything, but always running late, feeling flustered and flurried?

That "baby" should ask Bruce Springsteen, Julio Iglesias, Jason Alexander and Mickey Rooney if they also have trouble with time management. Kublai Kahn, Augustus Caesar, John Coltrane are TOO LATE to answer the question!
********************************

I hope you all had an easy and meaningful fast. May your prayers be heard, may forgiveness be bestowed upon you and may you have a healthy and happy year.

Mi Yichyeh u'Mi Yamut...*

* Who shall live and who shall die...

"These words from the liturgy of the High Holy Days testify to our insecurity. As we grow older, our youthful illusions of invulnerability begin to disappear, and the questions become ever more acute. Perhaps the most difficult transition we make as adults is the first time we catch ourselves saying, “If you have your health, you have everything,”—and we remember how completely uncomprehending we were when we, as teenagers, heard exactly those words from our great aunt, the one who had doilies covering her tables and newspapers on her freshly scrubbed floors."

(from Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff, http://www.agudath-achim.com/)

Is this first paragraph not true? As young innocents, we don't think truly about the words we are saying, but as we age, we do.

I thought that perhaps I was morbid as I stood at shul over Rosh Hashanah and thought these thoughts. But in hindsight, as I think about all the things that are wrong with our world, all the people I know who are not well, or who have already been touched by grief and sadness in their lives, I think it is only right that I am aware of these words.

I looked around the shul and wondered who would be davening with us next year, who would be missing. Just like looking at a family photo album. Take out your parents' photo albums or look at your own wedding albums, if you're married. Scan the faces. You will see and say to yourself, "This one isn't here anymore; this one died a year after I married; he is in a nursing home." The list goes on.

And unfortunately, next year at shul, you will probably encounter similar losses. Familiar faces will be missing. Some families will be smaller and will need to buy fewer High Holiday tickets.

Perhaps I was most aware of the theme of this post as the kohanim went up on the bimah for "duchenin"; two of those men that were up there, whom I know, have cancer. They have been taking treatments and I believe that one of them has decided to stop his treatments. It shows in his face, in his body and in his wife's eyes as she looks at him.

As those men stood and blessed the congregants, as kohanim have done for centuries, I couldn't help but wonder if these men would be around next year to bless us again.

And moreso I thought that they are blessing us; Hashem should bless them hundredfold with strength and good health.

And how does one wish a true "refuah shlema" on someone who is so ill? Do you? Can you? Or do you wish them strength, as I do?

It is my fervent hope that we will all be inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year; that strength, and hope, and prayer, and tradition will be part of those pages of our own Book of Life.

Gmar chatimah tovah.

Out with the Old, In with the New

As I stand on the threshhold of a new Jewish year, I stop to take stock.

I review so I can see what I've learned this past year...if anything.

I review so I can see what my next step should be.

I review so I can appreciate what I have -- and what I still have.

It has certainly been a year filled with emotional strife as I've dealt with family members with ill health and lengthy and several hospitalizations. Each of those hospitalizations also had me review the past and hope and pray for a better future.

As I do now...for my family, for your families and for all of Klal Yisroel.

May you be surrounded by those near and dear to you...whether in person or whether in memory.

May the road of life you travel down this coming year be smooth, with no sharp turns or major detours.

May the wishes you seek for yourself become reality.

May good health be your best friend.

May laughter, not tears, prevail in your life.

To all of you: SHANAH TOVAH U'METUKA. A sweet happy New Year.