Do you remember that rather famous saying by David Ben Gurion? It went something like this: Time works both for and against us. Boy, did he ever get that one right. I cannot believe that it is already the end of July. So much for my New Year's Resolution to write blogs more frequently. Life just gets in the way. My last posting was just around Pesach. Now it's just past Tisha ba'av. Hmmmm, wonder if there might be a pattern here.
Well, what can I say? I have been busy. We redid our backyard. Something that was supposed to take ten days ended up taking three months give or take a month or two. Why? Because of the rain. And goodness gracious did it ever rain! We were actually shy of forty days and forty nights by a day. How scary is that?
We decided to put in a stone patio as opposed to a wooden deck because we have this very annoying creature called a carpenter or wood bee. Very large, very black, and there were a whole lot of them. They don't bite but they are very destructive. And a little bit scary.
Anyway, I met a great guy named Mick from a company called Stonescape. Super great guy and fabulous work. He and his men are true artists in their craft. I love my patio, it almost reminds a bit of Israel with its stone walkways and streets. I met with Mick for exactly twenty minutes and told him what I wanted and he said: "I know what you have in mind." And he did. He returned in two weeks with a plan and it was gorgeous on paper. Even more gorgeous in reality.
We then had to decide on landscaping. I originally wanted a vegetable garden but that idea got kiboshed by my clan. Too messy. So we have roses, roses, roses, blueberry bushes, lavender, and then....we went nuts. Delphiniums, coneflowers, peonies, mock oranges etc. etc. etc. We had a spectacular display of colour in the spring, now just a few flowering wonders here and there.
But we have peaches and blackberries. We lost the battle with the birds and blueberries. The robins ate every one of them. And the currants, and the gooseberries, and the saskatoon berries. But it seems there are enough blackberries for all of us to share.
Anyway, the project is done, it's beautiful and we love it. So do the birds.
I'll write tomorrow and tell you about my excursions into the world of writing conferences.

I have always loved Nature. Walking in the woods and walking on a deserted beach have always been favourite pastimes of mine. Sometimes, I have envisioned living in Northern Ontario or on a Hawaiian beach, (Now that I'm older, definitely the Hawaiian beach. Too cold in the north.) For some mysterious reason, this appeals to me.
I have also admired people who left everything behind and set off into the wild in order to live 'authentic' lives. Davey Crockett was a real hero of mine when I was six. I thought he was about as authentic as you could get. Then I became hooked on books. John Steinbeck can still move me to tears. He was the real deal when it came to observing humanity and its frailty. But did he live an authentic life? Not so sure. Maybe when he travelled the country with his dog.
I remember when I first encountered the raw passion of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I was thirteen. Didn't understand most of what he had written but I certainly could feel his emotion. It was the same with the idealistic yearning of Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond. I never realized until later in life just how poignant and brilliant this man's writings were for me. I remember when I first read these words of Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
"Live deliberately..." Seriously? How does one live deliberately? I've asked myself that question so many times: How do I live deliberately? How do I figure out how to live at all?
Recently I read a fascinating book by Jon Krakauer called Into the Wild. It is a true story about a college graduate named Chris McCandless who hitchhiked to Alaska in 1992 and walked alone into the wilderness. He had donated all of his savings to charity, left behind all of his possessions and burnt all the cash in his wallet. In the end, this young man dies of starvation. Some have dismissed his journey as foolish and irresponsible. But others who have read about his journey believe that Chris was sincere in his beliefs and at least had the courage to try to live according to them.
He wrote during his journey: "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon," (Krakauer, Into the Wild, p. 58)
Quite a statement, isn't it?
Since my earliest years, I have been enthralled with nature. Everything fascinated me from the tiniest flower to the grandest ocean and the creatures living there. I didn't get to actually see an ocean up close until I was a nurse, but from that first glimpse and then my first swim - I immediately knew that Hashem existed. I believe most children are like that, constantly longing to be outside, being part of nature, and to just be part of the hugeness of the universe. Feeling free.
I feel more a part of the universe, like I belong to it, when I'm diving between the ocean's waves. While snorkelling in the Molokini crater, I stared at colors and fish, and shapes that whispered of unknown worlds, waiting to be discovered. My heart swells with joy and love when I meet dolphins and whales and my first thought is to ask them about what they see and know.
When I think a bit more deeply about this incredibly strong physical and emotional pull to the wild, I wonder why this happens to me. Many people walk into the wild in order to escape one's inner turmoil. Get away from it all. Find some peace and quiet. Block out the pressures of life by distracting oneself with nature's beauty. I do that lots of times.
But is there more to it? I think maybe there is, only it takes far more courage to face or explore. And that is to walk into the wild in order to go towards one's self. You can find yourself anywhere on a path in the forest, and for many of us it's a pretty scary thought to actually come face to face with yourself. Most of us do not like who we are.
I think maybe, perhaps somewhere since Rosh Hashana, I learned how to do this. How to hike over mountains in order to bring the peace of the earth and the sky into my own home and heart. How to dive beneath the water in order to instill that sense of wonder and adventure in myself and in others. Certainly walking amongst the giant Sequoia trees in Sequoia National Park, California, I faced myself...and a bear. Not sure which one was scarier.
And it is during this time of year, I begin thinking about the wilderness of the desert that we crossed through as a Nation. I think about the glaring sun and the vast, unknown spaces. It's those unknown spaces that are frightening. I think about the silent, star lit skies and the miles of endless sand. And I think I'm starting to understand why it was so hard for the Jews to leave Egypt.
Not only did they have to leave behind the comfort of the familiar, but they were not going to the desert in order to escape. They were escaping the Egyptians, and that was an exhilarating thought, but leaving meant facing an even more intimidating enemy: the weaknesses inside of them.
Here's a little known fact: even though they were slaves in Egypt, not all of the Jews left with Moses. It is said that four fifths of the Jewish nation chose to stay! They preferred to stay in a place where they knew what was physically expected of them, and where they knew they would remain in servitude until they died. Why? Maybe because they were free of spiritual obligations to God. The minority of us Jews who crossed the sea and ventured into the desert were not journeying towards a place of freedom from those noble obligations.
We were on our way to Mt. Sinai to find out what our responsibilities would be towards each other and towards the world around us. We were journeying towards the truth inside of ourselves which sometimes can only be found in those frightening wide, unfamiliar spaces. And most importantly, we were not alone. Our Creator, Hashem, was guiding us and helping us temporarily shed the limits of our physical selves.
With His help, we were journeying towards the truth inside of ourselves. We lived in homes that could be taken down and re-built in a few minutes. We ate food that dropped down from the sky, Manna. We didn't need the leaven-saturated existence of stable, material structures. We lived by the simplicity of what matzah is. No time to stand around and let the dough rise. No time to stay in one place when there are so many miles to cover before it's too late. Too late for what they must have asked. We lived by the clouds and stars, by those pillars of fire on the shore of the Red Sea, by the Divine words filling the desert silence.
And every Pesach, we all enter the wilderness of that desert once again. We ask ourselves if we can temporarily leave behind the familiar expectations and conducts in our lives. Can we make room in our homes and inside of ourselves for a new journey to begin? And can we use the beauty and excitement of our journey to learn who we are and what our responsibilities are? After so many years of reading our Haggadah and going through the rituals of Seders, I finally believe the answer is yes.
So here it is folks, Passover once again. We all leave Egypt every year at this time and Hashem gives each of us each the opportunity to let go of our limited, narrow-minded perspectives of life and venture into the wilderness inside of us. But the question is: What do we do when we emerge from the desert? How do we use the gift of our journey through the desert? Do we bring the miraculous into our everyday consciousness or do we relegate it to the pages of the Passover Hagaddah? And that is where real courage is found. Not in escaping into the wilderness, but in using the wilderness to reach the truth within ourselves.
So my prayer for everyone at this Passover is simple: May you reach the truth within you during this season and bring the miracles around us into your everyday life. Amen.

Wow! I blinked and that tiny month of February was gone. When a month only has 28 days, I guess it does that. During February, my family went to Kauai, part of the Hawaiin Islands chain. Did I love Kauai? Oh, wow, you bethcha! Ever since my first visit to the islands a few years ago, I have been enchanted by the ethereal beauty of these islands. As soon as you step off the plane at the airport, you know you have been transported to another, more beautiful and serene world. I hate to sound cliche about this but it really does feel magical. Kauai is no exception. The island is so small from the air, I actually wondered if the airport could possibly have runways big enough for the jet I was on. It did. But just barely.
The very first thing that impresses me about Kauai is how clean the air is! I can actually breathe for the first time in months. No air pollution, which is what I am allergic to, more specifically diesel fumes from trucks.
Kauai is called the garden island and in my imagination I pictured a little island lush with gorgeous and unusual tropical flowers. Hmmmmm. I have to admit, I didn't see very many gardens - one beautiful botanical garden at the foot of the famous Bali Hi mountain,(from South Pacific fame.)However, there were about five or six more we could have seen. Every tourist place of course had stunningly beautiful gardens. There weren't really any plants that I had not seen on Maui or Oahu, but the flowers' vibrant hues were a delight. I tried valiantly to take pictures of them and failed miserably. Every picture just looked mundane. None of them captured the true essence or beauty of this little heaven on earth. In fact, there were three of us taking pictures on this trip and not one of us managed to catch a special moment in time. I guess some places are just too special for us humans.
What Kauai did have that the other islands do not is the Naapali coast. Now, that was spectacular. If you have trouble believing in God, you should go there, for nothing else on earth prepares you for this incredible sight. It is a rainbow of colours - lush greens, burnished reds form the iron in the earth, and waterfalls everywhere. We took a seven hour boat cruise up the coast and over to Niihau, the forbidden island. The first fantastic moment on our cruise was seeing the sun rise over the mountains. I sat mesmerized while watching this golden orb slowly make its ascent over the waterfalls and mountains, one by one until, at last, it blazed in a bright blue sky in all of its glory. We were greeted by about forty spinner dolphins at one point. The more we cheered and clapped the closer they came to us. They travelled alongside the boat for a mile or two and danced and spun much to our delight.
Lucky for us, it was the humpback whale mating season. It's one thing to see whales raise their tails in a movie or on TV, but it is so much more exhilarating to see it up close. We were fortunate to see dozens of them.
Once we reached the island of Niihau and had anchored for some snorkelling, our engine stalled. A curious baby whale ventured over to see what we were about. If I bent over the bow of the boat I would have been able to touch the little guy, he was that close. All of a sudden Momma showed up to make sure we weren't going to hurt her baby. No words can describe the rush of emotion that engulfs you when your eyes meet with a whale's. She knew I loved her, I swear. They stayed by our boat for almost twenty minutes, playing and watching us. I cried with joy while observing them.
Kauai was special for another reason - their beaches. So many different kinds! Anini was made of crushed coral, Kakahi was made of a composted combination of ingredients including parrot fish pooh. That sand felt like butter on your skin. Fantastic. It was my kids' favourite because of the boogie boarding they did. But the wildest and most spectacular beach to see was Polihale. Too dangerous to enter the water in February, we stood and watched thunderous waves crash into the coastline. It was deafening to the ears. And awe inspiring.
Kauaii had other fun things that we did - tubing down an old irrigation ditch of a deserted sugar cane plantation, a helicopter ride, hiking. We ran out of time before we could zip-line across the canyon or kayak down some of the rivers, or go horseback riding on the beach. It gives me an excuse to go back!
Some people leave their hearts in San Francisco. Mine is and always will be in the Hawaiin islands - a little on Oahu, on Maui, and especially on Kauai. Aloha Kauai and mahalo!

Now that it's almost gone, I'm giving you my final thoughts on winter. I titled it....My Winter of Discontent. Let me know what you think!

My Winter of Discontent

I hate Winter. I hate being cold. I hate having to wear an undershirt under the regular shirt under the vest under the sweater under the winter jacket, with a scarf around my throat, a scarf around my face, a hat on my head with earmuffs over the hat.
And that's just to take out the garbage. God-forbid I should take my dogs for a walk. That entails long-johns under my pants under snow-pants.
Here's my problem with so many clothes. After three pregnancies, the interim between washroom visits is short. 'Barely make it there' kind of short. By the time I finish layering, I have to go to the bathroom again. It's seriously depressing.
I also hate New Year's, another winter special. Every year my friend Nicolette and I make the same two New Year's resolutions: lose weight, exercise more. We vow that this year we'll succeed, by Golly, or else our names are MUSH.
New Year's Day! We're pumped for our first one hour walk. A new decade, a new year, a new regimen.
“I'll finish my Special K and be right over,” says Nicolette.
“I'll be ready.”
I start layering. I'm up to the sweater over the shirt...I have to pee! Whew, that was close! Now the pants.
Ten minutes later - I'm at the door having the Hot Flash from Hell.
Nicolette arrives in a frantic state. “I have to pee!” she cries as she strips out of her clothes and runs for the bathroom.
“Take your time,” I say. Meanwhile, there's a puddle of sweat around me; I'm melting.
Finally, we're outside and walking. It's snowing.
“It sure is brisk out here,” I say after a few minutes. My nostrils have frozen shut and my teeth are chattering. I have to pee but I'm determined to overcome the urge.
“What? I can't hear you through my hat and earmuffs,” shouts Nicolette. “I'm freezing my butt off!”
Nicolette grabs my arm. “We have to go back. I have to pee again!”
After we pare down to one shirt and pair of pants, I light a fire in the fireplace and make us hot cocoa with whipping cream.
Nicolette sighs. “We walked a lousy seven minutes. A disaster! Why did we think we could exercise in winter?” We each raise a whipping cream can in salute and fill our mouthes. “Next year, let's resolve to write a novel. We might keep that resolution.”
“If we don't run out of hot cocoa and whipping cream,” I reply. “At least we won't be cold.”
“But we'll gain a ton of weight,” muttered Nicolette.
MUSH, my name is MUSH, and I hate winter.

Here it is, the last Day of January, 2010, and I am looking at all of my New Year Resolutions that I made just thirty days ago. I had fifteen in all. I figure it's time to evaluate how I have managed so far.
1) Have I kept this one about exercising every day? Nah, not so much. It's been too cold. I do go out at least two or three times a week, though, with my dogs. That, however, is not what I had intended - Monday, Wednesday, Friday, at the gym, doing weights and the machines. Swimming Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hasn't happened yet... hate the gym.
2) Have I kept to my new diet? Not really, although I am doing much, much better and I have lost four pounds. Four pounds in thirty days is not too bad I guess. However, I need to work harder on that.
3) Is my blood sugar under control? Nope. But it is down several points from where it was in December. Need to work on it.
Getting pretty depressing, even if I do say so myself.
4) Have I cleaned out the garage yet? No. Got one side done, though.
5) Have I cleaned out the basement yet? No.
I feel a serious depression coming on.
6) I resolved to improve my life by adding more arts and culture to it. Hmmm, saw a play at the Fisher theatre in Detroit, an opera at the theatre and one on TV. And general TV is basically down to one show - Criminal Minds. I've also read three books so far. That's not bad for thirty days!
7) I resolved to find more time for old friends. Now, that I have done. Just last Saturday my husband and I entertained friends we used to travel with six years ago. It was great, like old times.
I'm beginning to feel a bit better.
8) I resolved to find women for friends who shared the same interests as I do. Voila! Thanks to my friend Sharon Mock, this is happening. And some of them even share my interest in writing!
9) I vowed to go to at least three writers conferences. I am registered for Erma Bombeck's and the Pikes Peak conferences. One to go. Not bad!!!
10) Resolution 10 is my favourite. I decided to devote more time to writing. Since January the first I have sent a piece in for the Erma Bombeck Writing competition; have written two plays and sent them off to a competition, AND did final edits on two manuscripts and sent them off to another competition. That's a lot of writing. I just hope I win one of those competitions!
11) Resolving to travel more is always on my list. I love travelling. Going to a new and exotic place always stirs the soul. Thanks to my husband William, I am travelling to Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands in February. April, Dayton for the Erma and Colorado for the Pikes Peak, a place I have always wanted to go. There'll be Stratford for the opening. I might be pushing it, but I'm also hoping to get to Newfoundland and Labrador this summer. That's not bad for a year!
Okay, now I'm getting pumped on this resolution thing.
12) I resolved to get the backyard completed with a new patio etc. The guys are coming in March to help me decide on stones etc. Mr. Head Honcho vows to be here by April the first AND be finished in ten days. Ta da!
13) Here was a tricky one...keeping the house, including basement and garage free from clutter. Bombing out...although I did completely redo the two closets in the master bedroom. Who am I kidding! I really, really need to work on this one. I'm not even close.
14) Trying to find new, healthier World foods to eat. Okay, I'm not too bad on this. I bought two tajines and have started using Moroccan recipes. Awesome recipes. Even my family enjoyed them.
15) And my final resolution was to write on this site at least twice a month. This is my second entry in January. It's the barest minimum, but by Golly, I did it.
Whew! That's a lot of trying for one month. I think I'll take a nap.

Let's see - we're five days into 2010 and I don't feel much different than I did on December 31st 2009. I'm still very sad. And a whole lot frustrated.
Windsor is still in a major Depression. Double-digit numbers of people all ages are still unemployed. The Provincial government is still ignoring what Windsorites want and need with regards to the new border crossing. It isn't much - tunnels for those millions of trucks barreling down our streets to get to the crossing.
Why do we want them underground? So we stop dying from the diseases that come with that pollution those trucks produce.
We have excessively high incidents of cancers -all kinds, lung diseases, heart diseases, MS, ADHD. Liver disease is huge here...of course it is. The liver is part of our auto-immune system. And everyone has the famous Windsor nose. You know the one - it's 'stuffy' all of the time, it can't smell anymore, and it causes your tastebuds to be somewhat ineffectual.I used to average out the ages of men and women dying in this region but it got too depressing. At one point the average age of death in Windsor last year for men was 68 years. Women- 70. Needless to say that's way below the national average.
Is our health care good enough to handle all of this extra illness? No.
I was just told yesterday about a woman who felt a lump in her throat a year ago. Doctors thought it was a malignant tumour. They couldn't get her booked for that emergency surgery for at least six months. She went back to her homeland and had it done in two days. The cost of the surgery was less than her flight home. I know hundreds of such cases. Malignant melanomas of the face having to wait four or five months before they can see a specialist, let alone having the darn thing removed. A man had to wait six months for testing of his head when he developed headaches. He died of the brain tumour they found during his autopsy. He never did get those tests. The health care we have is certainly not the health care that was envisioned by the people so many years ago.
McGuinty and his lot refused to look at the plans Windsor had for the border crossing. There was another 1.3 km. of tunnel. Not much really. Just enough where it would have lowered pollution to a level where we could survive. To add insult to injury, McGuinty's planners have the truckway to the crossing rising high over the west end, over our only natural habitat. Now we'll not only have increased air pollution, we'll have dramatically increased NOISE pollution. Yeah, way to go Liberals. We now know the worth of a human being and it's not very much, less than five hundred thousand a person. And they wonder why Windsorites have low self-esteem!
So, I have spent these five days of 2010 looking around for anything positive and you know what? There's a lot. It's in the spirits of the people of this region.
Goodfellows gave out a record 24,000 turkeys this year, so kids could have a good Christmas dinner. Just two days ago a man and his buddie raced their boats into the freezing water to save four deer that were stranded on an ice flow. They nearly drowned themselves as they worked. It took a while but three out of the four were saved. Those guys are heroes.
Children in local schools collected thousands of cans of food for foodbanks.
When a single parent's house burned down and she and her kids had lost everything, Windsorites came through and replaced it all in less than 72 hours.
One Windsor girl has taken it upon herself to work in an orphanage in Tanzania to save 34 children there. Amazing.
When a dead soldier was brought home to be buried, there were more people lining the streets for his funeral procession than there were for the Santa Clause parade.
With spirit like that, how can anyone turn their backs on Windsor? I can't.
And in the time it took me to write this, my dog Max has been at our fence visiting with his new friend - a lone female coyote. Their tails are wagging. How can one be sad when that happens? Not me.
Happy New Year everybody.

There was a time when my children and I attended two or three movies a week. We each loved them for various reasons. I loved escaping and following a good story. Ben loved plot and the ambient music. Josh enjoyed determining how the movie was made. Miriam was, is, and forever will be all about the acting. Duh! She is an actress.
I have to say that for a a couple of years, now, we haven't been attending movies very much...a few a year as opposed to a week. There just hasn't been anything that spectacular to see. On the big movie screen that is. Sitting at home in front of my HD TV suits me just fine. I have my own clean bathroom that works, just a few feet away, without a lineup. There are no noisy people yakking, coughing, sneezing, snoring, and crunching popcorn in my ears. No one is banging the back of my seat with their shoes. And you don't get one person saying, "Oh, why did that happen? I don't understand what's happening."
Seriously!
Small scale movies are great, but they don't deserve the money I fork out to take three young adults to the show. For a family of five to see an evening show costs nearly $80.00 thanks to Taxes. That doesn't include the popcorn, pop, etc. That kind of money for two hours of what is usually a mediocre attempt at a movie. Not gonna happen very much.
Will, my husband, refuses to go. He becomes insulted when the movie is stupid, the plot doesn't know the meaning of the word intelligent, and some Dingleberry without brains is the star.
Now, don't get me wrong. We used to go as a couple on a regular basis. Those were the days of films like Chinatown. Then, about fifteen years ago, he gave up. People in the theatre had taken a dramatic fall into that human abyss of rude and stupid. He hated them. Once every now and then I'd force him to go, especially if I thought he would like the film. Such as LA Confidential. Then even that became almost impossible. The last two successes that come to mind are The Insider with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, and Saving Private Ryan.
He occasionally deigns to see a movie. For example, we travelled across the border to the Detroit suburbs to see the Japanese film, Departures this fall. A great film!
Yesterday, I saw a new film I am insisting that he see, AVATAR by James Cameron. I was in a packed theatre and after the first couple of minutes the audience was silent. The only other time I was in an audience that quiet was while watching Schindler's List.
Cameron is a master moviemaker. He has created this most wondrous, ethereal planet called Pandora. By using his gadgets, 3-D special effects, he manages to immerse you in this world until you are actually a part of it. It is done so subtly that you don't even realize how strongly Cameron has captured you in this new world of his; you don't realize how much your emotions have become entwined with the people who inhabit Pandora. You don't realize until the last forty-five minutes of the movie but by then you are well and truly captured in Cameron's beautiful web of imagination. You soar, and cry, and laugh. My son Ben said he found himself crying just from the sheer joy and thrill of watching such a beautifully made work of art. Then he found himself crying again from the horror of what happens and his heart beat so fast from the battle scenes he started to break out in a sweat.
And this is all in one lone movie!
What also amazed me was the reaction of the audience. They cheered during a battle scene for the good guys. At the end of the movie the entire audience stood up and applauded and cheered. Teenagers and university students. Tattoes and all. They turned to strangers and commented on what an amazing 'adventure' that was. Guys were wiping tears from their eyes.
The film is long, 2 hours and 42 minutes, but believe me, I could have stayed in that world for a very long time. And when I left the theatre I was actually feeling angry and petulant because I had to go. A word of warning here....It is not a film for kids. Definitely a PG 13. Me, I would have taken my kids if they were 8 and up but it definitely depends on your child. It's not so much the war that would upset kids, it's the despair and grief that is felt.
Ben and I have convinced Will to see AVATAR tonight. I hope it isn't sold out.
As far as Mr. Cameron goes....I get the feeling he wants all of us to remember what it was like to be awed by the magic and wonderment that only a first-rate, spare-no-expense movie gives you. And in this sick and depressed Christmas season, what a fabulous gift to receive. It makes your spirit soar!
And for that experience I would gladly pay money - over and over and over and over again!

Today is Veterans' Day. War vets and volunteers are at all sorts of stores, selling poppies. I've always bought poppies. Several every year in fact. Can never get the darn things to stay on. Oh, believe me, I have tried every which way: weaving the pin through the fabric several times, like you would a pin in a corsage. I've tried once through, twice through. Never stays on. I met a friend at Starbucks the other day and was telling her my poppie tale of woe. She laughed hysterically. During that conversation, the poppie fell off of my shirt three times!
Ah well. My heart is in the right place. In fact, this year I was so determined to always have a poppie pinned over my heart that I went to a legion hall and literally bought an entire box of poppies. There are eight poppies pinned on my window visor, just in case I lose one in my travels. I've replaced those poppies twice.
I was always taught by my dad (also a World War II Vet)to shake a Vet's hand when I met one, and thank him for the sacrifices he made for me. For the longest time, I never understood what my dad was talking about, but I always did it. I even raised my kids to do the same thing. Oh, I heard the stories and I even interviewed a lot of Vets for my radio show. And during my nursing career I took care of a lot of them. But it took a long time before I actually got it. Before I really understood what the sacrifices were.
The first vet I met had fought in World War I, the Big War. Jim. He was in his late seventies when he had his stroke and I took care of him. His wife had died a few months before and he was incredibly depressed, refused physio, even refused to eat. He wanted to die and his lungs were becoming congested. If we didn't figure out how to fix his depression he would have been dead in a few weeks.
I was young and naive then, so I didn't quite understand why the doctor seemed to think I would be able to break through and 'snap him out of it.' But I was willing to give it all I had to help this man.
I tried everything. I teased, cajoled, begged, but to no avail. I was failing miserably.
Then one morning while walking/dragging him to the shower I started to hum, more to keep my own spirits up at that point. All of a sudden Jim came to attention and started to march. I began to sing the words to the song..."It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go..." Jim sang along. After a few times around the ward I sat him by a window and brought him tea with an English muffin. And Jim told me about his experiences in the war.
He was always on KP duty he recalled. "Ah, lass, I was a skinny bloke, back then. I was so skinny I couldn't keep my putties properly wrapped. They were always falling down." Putties were the material wrapped around a soldier's ankles.
Jim told me how his wife was a nurse and she took care of him when he was wounded. "It was love at first sight, you know. I'll never understand what she saw in me, but I'm that glad that she saw something. She saved me."
Over the next several days Jim regaled me with harrowing tales from that war and how he had lost nearly all of his friends. He never forgave himself for surviving. And now that his wife was gone, he felt even guiltier.
But what had made him so depressed was the conundrum he faced. He wanted to be buried by his wife, but he wanted a part of him to be scattered across the graveyard where his friends were buried. His doctor came up with the solution. Jim had his will changed to say that he wanted to be cremated. Half of his ashes were to be scattered on his wife's grave; the other half he wanted scattered where his buddies lay. Jim had a coronary a few weeks later at his home. He died a much happier man.
I have taken care of many war Vets since Jim. All of them have incredible tales, many of them I wish I had never heard. I lose sleep over them. There was the navy vet who had been stationed in Pearl Harbour when it was attacked. After so many years he still cried when he talked about that day. He told me that the men who survived had all made a pact. When they died their bodies would be buried where the ships sank, so they could join their buddies.
There was the Vietnam vet who had such horrific nightmares when he slept. We couldn't help him. He eventually committed suicide.
The list goes on.
And then came 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'The Band of Brothers,' two films so beautifully made and eloquent. Now, the people my age and even younger understand. And now when War Vets sell their poppies, so many people stop to say "thank you for all of the sacrifices you made for me." And the Vets smile, pleased for the acknowledgment.
There was a thank you note from a War Vet in the newspaper today. His license plate on his car had a poppie on it, something our Canadian government does to show our pride in our servicemen. Someone had seen the poppie, placed a Tim Horton's gift certificate under the windshield wiper with a note: Thank you for all that you did so I could be free. Enjoy.
It took us a while, but I am so glad that we get it now.
So, let me add my heartfelt thanks to all of the war vets out there. Truly, I thank you for all that you sacrificed so I could be free. You will forever be in my heart and prayers.

Soupy Sales died this week. Now I know that there are tons and tons of people out there who have never even heard of Soupy Sales. But for people like me, he was a hero. He came on at lunch hour in my area, and everyday I sat and watched my Soupy while eating the proverbial peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. (you could do that back then.)

Soupy was at the top of the favourite kids shows TV land list, then came Captain Kangaroo with his pal, Mr. Greenjeans. Oh, and there was Howdy Doodie, Popeye and the Friendly Giant, but none of them captured your heart and funny bone like Soupy.

But what made Soupy really special for me and my friends in the Windsor/Detroit area was that Soupy's show was local! The show originated in 1953 from the studios of WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Beginning in October 1959, it was telecast nationally on the ABC television network.

During the time that Lunch with Soupy aired in Detroit, Sales hosted a nighttime show, Soupy's On.The guest star was always a musician, and frequently a jazz performer, at a time when jazz was popular in Detroit and the city was home to twenty-four jazz clubs. Sales believed that his show helped sustain jazz in Detroit, as artists would regularly sell out their nightclub shows after appearing on Soupy's On. I think he was right. Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and Stan Getz were among the artists who appeared on the show; Miles Davis made six appearances. Clifford Brown's appearance on Soupy's On, according to Sales, may be the only extant footage of Brown, and has been included in Ken Burns' Jazz and an A&E Network biography about Sales.

And probably, Soupy Sales should be known for that contribution to Jazz and Detroit. But, he's not. That's adult stuff. It was us kids that loved and adored him. He came across as being a really nice guy who cared about us.

Now, I've been trying to think of a fairly modern day show that even comes close to Soupy's crazy panache and the only one that comes to mind is Pee Wee's Playhouse, only Soupy was so much funnier and had more class. There was a lot of comic banter with his two "dogs", White Fang and Black Tooth, which were just enormous paws that would wave out from the camera while they "talked." White Fang's words were "Er, er er er" and Black Tooth had a weird pitched voice, kind of like that guy Gollum, from 'Lord of the Rings.' I loved White Fang.

Then there were the two puppets at the window, Pookie the Lion and Hippy the Hippopotamus. I don't think either of them spoke, but Pookie would lip-sync Frank Sinatra singing "Young At Heart." It was a little disturbing.

Somewhere in the episode, Soupy would get a huge, fluffy pie in the face which always made me laugh. Because of Soupy, I threw one at my father, once, a coconut cream pie. I didn't get the big laugh that Soupy always got.

I have to admit that my favourite part of each episode was when Soupy danced. Boy did he dance! He would leap across the stage and make all sorts of moves with such joy and glee that invariably I found myself dancing with him. I can still do his famous Soupy Sale Schuffle.

Then there was the door. At some point in every show there would be a knock at the door and Soupy would answer. Sometimes it was a famous person. Sometimes they'd show some clip from an old movie, like cowboys galloping and shooting toward the camera or an elephant stampede from a Tarzan movie. Once the crew played a trick on Soupy and had a naked lady, out of scene, greet him at the door. We kids didn't know what happened, we just saw Soupy laugh hysterically and try valiantly to regain his composure. The joke was brought up on the six o'clock news that night. (Clearly our town didn't have a whole of happenings going on.)

In retrospect, I have wondered if perhaps Soupy was a little hyperactive, or maybe ADHD, or maybe a little bit Manic. If he was, I'm glad he wasn't treated for it.

Soupy went on to New York and Los Angeles, and hosted many shows. For me, though, I will fondly think of him as the guy with the dogs who entertained me at lunchtime and made me laugh.

Okay, seriously, where did August and September go? No one told me aging means that your life suddenly goes on jetpropel to the finish line. This does not make me happy at all. Especially when it's a finish line that I don't particularly want to see.
So to summarize in a nutshell....August was great, summer finally arrived. I went swimming every day. September was bad, my blood sugar and blood pressure decided to join forces against me and both went out of whack at the same time. Just in time for the High Holidays. It happened so suddenly, too. It made me wonder if it was a sign from above to seriously look at my life and where I wanted it to go.
Per doctor's orders, I did not go to services this year, and I have to say that I did not miss it. Not one little bit. Instead, I went for a long walk in the woods with my dogs, Max and Brinkley. And surprise! I felt a far more profound and significant connection to God there than I ever felt in our Reform Synagogue.
The immediate question I asked was why? How could that be? I love being Jewish.
There was a time in my life, when the kids were small, that I walked to the Orthodox Shul every Saturday and every holiday without fail. We celebrated Shabbos every week, had friends over for the Friday night. My kids wore tzitzis and kippahs and I kept my house kosher. We were practically Shomer Shabbos! So, what happened?
Well, I was happy and content with the way our lives were filled with the rituals and traditions of Judaism, but my husband was miserable. He was raised in a Reform household. Oh sure, they had Friday night dinner, but then everyone went their way. They did not have Havdalah or a Sukkah or their very own lulav and esrog. He hated the Orthodox service. Where I found comfort in the ancient words being said the same way and at the same time with the same tunes and chants, my husband was bored. Even though he reads Hebrew beautifully and understands a lot of it, Will objected to the service being all in Hebrew.
By the time my sons had their Bnai Mitzvot, they realized their father hated the Orthodox way of life. So, the three of them ganged up on me and announced they no longer wished to be kosher, they no longer wanted Friday nights, and they sure as heck weren't going to shul anymore. Within a week my beautiful kosher kitchen was no more and my lovely way of life with so my family, my traditions and ritual, and my feeling that my life had a Higher meaning, was out the door.
Now it was only my daughter and I who were at the Shabbos dinner table during the bruchas. The men in the family arrived after they were finished.
Even going to Israel for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah did not sway them from what I thought were their errant ways. The Goldstein men are quite content without religion in their lives.
I tried to reintroduce Shabbos a couple of years ago, but it's not really working. Two of my kids are in show Business and often have gigs on Friday nights. The third one is the child who had rebelled the most against being Orthodox.
There a few things that are clear, now. My husband is quite content, now that he isn't required to attend services or have people in his house for Shabbos and the holidays. So are my sons. My daughter misses the Friday nights and holiday festivities.
But what is most obvious to me now is that I am the one who is miserable.
What to do??
There's the conundrum. Really, what do you do? Two opposite ends of the religious spectrum living in one household. Who wins. Or more to the point can anyone win in this kind of situation?
Being ill for over a month has certainly given me time to reflect on that and what is important to me and what makes me happy. And now that I've started on this path of introspection and reflection I realize it's going to take a lot more time before I can make any kind of serious decisions.
There are, however, three things I do know, now. I love my husband very much, even though he drives me crazy. I do want to write more and have a lot more time to do that. And I do want to be kosher again, maybe even be vegetarian. Just have to convince my husband about that one.
I do think that both my husband and I need to slow our lives down a lot. We ain't spring chickens anymore, no we ain't. And then once that happens, maybe I can slowly reintroduce Shabbos just for me.
That would be a good start to making me happy.
Shana Tova everyone.