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Posts Tagged ‘News’

Where’d Ya Go Kate?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We were all sitting around the Bride’s sunny porch, when someone asked, “Can anorexia destroy your stomach?” Well, the doctors on the porch reluctantly shook their heads ‘Yes,’ while the rest of us began speculating about the health of a princess far, far away. And this wasn’t the only social gathering IRL this past weekend that turned into a royal sleuth fest. Bob and I saw our Germantown friends at a St Patrick’s dinner where most of the talk was about local politics, but eventually we waded into the Case of the Disappearing Princess.

Where in the world is Kate Middleton? My bet was on a hysterectomy, Bob just shrugged, and lots of us ran with plastic surgery of one kind or another… with complications… but who books a pre-planned hospital stay for TWO WEEKS? I mean you are in and out in 5 DAYS after heart surgery in this country! You’re lucky to get 3 DAYS after a C-section! It doesn’t add up. And since the Palace released a picture of Kate with her children for Mother’s Day in the UK, the firestorm has only increased. My reaction was – honestly, who doesn’t do a little editing now and then?

After all, we edited the Groom into a holiday card during the pandemic because he had to work in the ICU. We just placed him in his hospital-issued, PPE space suit right next to his wife, a mere centimeter off the ground.

Here in Nashville we have a real mystery to unravel. A 22 year old college student from Missouri, Riley Strain, was kicked out of a honky tonk the night of March 8 never to be seen again. Except: homeless people have reported seeing him; he was spotted on CCTV stumbling towards the Cumberland River; his bank card was found on the river bank; he spoke with a police officer in passing who asked how he was doing, only to say “I’m good how are you?” https://www.yahoo.com/news/newly-released-video-shows-interaction-200326733.html; and his last outgoing text to a girlfriend made no sense – “Good Lops.”

So how does a 6’5″ guy just disappear?

It’s been over a week and I’m afraid the outcome looks bleak. Why didn’t a fraternity brother follow him out of that bar? Why didn’t that cop stop him and talk to him for awhile? And my final question about our right to privacy (Kate Middleton) and a society’s need to surveil its citizens for safety (Riley Strain) is:

Why can our Congress pass a bill banning TikTok and NOT pass a bill banning assault weapons? Admittedly I am not on TikTok, nor do I want to be. But if the App is a national security threat, I would counter that assault rifles are a national health crisis and have no right being in the hands of ordinary people. Leave these weapons to the armed forces, they do not belong on our streets or in our schools.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are frequently used in the violence that plagues our nation. From 2015 to 2022, mass shootings with four or more people killed where an assault weapon was used resulted in nearly six times as many people shot, more than twice as many people killed, and 23 times as many people wounded on average compared to those that did not involve the use of one. Some states and Washington, DC, have enacted legislation to prohibit assault weapons.”

https://www.everytown.org/solutions/assault-weapons/

If we really want to keep young people safe…

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From Soup to Sanity

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This has been the winter for strengthening one of my super powers – SOUP! During the pandemic, while Bob honed in on his sourdough bread, I discovered a delicious Asparagus Vegetable Soup recipe courtesy of Jamie Oliver https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/creamy-asparagus-soup-with-a-poached-egg-on-toast/. I don’t do the egg on top nonsense btw. Now, due to unforeseen circumstances, I’ve been experimenting with more healthy and hearty soups. My take on these liquid elixirs is usually thick, like a stew.

But I’d rather not label these gastronomic efforts; or maybe I should just call everything I make in one big pot “chowder”? Thinking chowder was meant only for fish stews, I went in search of its meaning and yes, it’s mostly fish, but not always – https://www.foodandwine.com/soup/chowder/chowder

The problem with Bob is he’s not happy when I whip out the immersion blender. He likes a chunky soup, he wants to identify the vegetables. Maybe it’s just that we still have all our teeth? I did manage to win him over with a beautiful, cauliflower soup from the New York Times: Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Rosemary Olive Oil! https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020764-creamy-cauliflower-soup-with-rosemary-olive-oil that surprisingly has no cream whatsoever!

I’m probably best known for the soup I deliver to new moms and friends recovering from an illness. We have a cousin who was in need of some Jewish penicillin, so last week I taught his wife, Peg, how to make it, Reform Jewish Style. When I was in the middle of converting to Judaism, the rabbi arranged a cooking class for me. You guessed it – Real Chicken Soup! No matzah balls, no noodles or rice, just the basics. I’ve never felt so professional as I passed on my secret recipe to Peg in her new kitchen! She was a delightful sous chef, while also archiving the lesson for all eternity.

I brought my Starbucks apron and we traded tidbits of of gossip, chopping away, slowly perfuming the air with chicken fat. Maybe the world needs the next Southern Jewish French Irish Julia Child? My cousin is also a writer, a prolific expository health journalist, for major digital and print news outlets. In fact, she already has a cookbook… and I might have major writer-envy… but in a good way. I’m so happy Peg and her husband moved right across the river.

The Bride’s famous Sweet Potato Soup was recently discussed in detail here https://mountainmornings.net/2024/01/24/gray-swan-events/ and it continues to be a favorite in my winter soup rotation. Don’t despair if you don’t have any V8 on hand, you can substitute a can of fire-roasted tomatoes. I love the dollop of peanut butter you add at the end. This might be my favorite soup of 2023, and next on the list?

I’d like to try my hand at Pasta e Fagioli, a classic Italian pasta and bean soup. The Flapper used to make this all the time. I asked my brother and sister if they remembered a favorite soup from their childhood, and they both said Pea Soup. They like to remind me that their early years were much harder than mine. After our Year of Living Dangerously, Kay told me she had to do all of the housework, including cooking, while our mother was “… lying on the couch in the kitchen.” Jim told me if they had a ham to eat during the week, they could count on pea soup made with the bone that weekend.

They had no TV in 1949, and the radio was stuck in a big box in the front parlor, so the Flapper read aloud poems from a little red book, “A Thousand and One Poems.” Kay has all these poems stored away in her brain that she can recite at will. Just ask her! Occasionally a nurse would visit the kitchen in Scranton, trying to stretch out the Flapper’s legs, while I imagine my Mother screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. Poetry and cursing in motion.

Making soup has become my antidote to cursing the media for leading every story with you know who. What about calling anorexia “terminal” so that patients can enter hospice? “In Colorado, a state where medical aid in dying is legal, [patients] would also be eligible for MAID (medical aid in dying) drugs…” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/26/terminal-anorexia-mental-illness-diagnosis/

What about Alabama calling embryos “babies”? “In a recent court case over embryos accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled under state law that all embryos are “children”. However, the global medical and scientific consensus on when reproductive cells become human life says otherwise.”

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240226-what-is-an-embryo-global-medical-definition-of-personhood-ivf-ruling

Ooof. I’ll continue making soup to calm my Novemberphobia.

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It’s Delightful

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2024| 2 Comments »

On my way to the Bride’s house, I heard a strange sound. It was a typical early spring morning, a bit overcast and chilly and I thought to myself, I should have worn a heavier jacket. But it’s a short walk, just two houses down our street to the next block. Their house would be empty, everyone at work or school, and I’d promised the little French Emperor he could visit us and chase rabbits in our backyard. The sound was getting louder, and it was coming from the sky.

But first let me start with the beginning. Most mornings, I’ll sit in my snug for breakfast and scan the news on my desk/laptop – the BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Bob and I will attempt to do the Connections puzzle if we have the time, and I might browse through the vegetarian recipes on Times’ Cooking. I may or may not pick up my phone, depending on a few factors; like did it ding and did I remember where I left it.

But that morning, the one with the otherworldly noise, I was looking at Instagram on my cell and saw that Brother Jones, aka TN52 Democrat Justin Jones, was visiting the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge in Alabama which attracts thousands of wintering waterfowl. It seems that the flight path between Wisconsin and Florida takes these magnificent birds right over Nashville. Jones was going to introduce a bill to protect the whooping crane, an endangered species that first migrated here in 2004. Whooping cranes numbered only around 20 in North America in the 1940s. Today we have about 600.

As I swiped left, I could hear a cacophony of noise, like a gaggle of geese had boarded a slow-moving train playing metal clackers with their webbed feet. I’ve seen great blue herons and egrets on the Jersey Shore, but I’ve never seen a crane of any kind.

And voila, not an hour later, I was gobsmacked, craning my head upwards, listening to the exact same discordant/natural/music/sounds I’d heard on my phone… only louder and more urgent. I shielded my eyes. For a long minute the clouds sauntered and the music amplified.

Then they appeared out of the mist in gray formation, scattered Zs so high up, heading north by northwest.

I stood very still. I remembered to breathe. I felt present, as if I belong. Thousands of sand cranes escorting whooping cranes through their ancient flyway. Escaping. Migrating.

When I returned home with the little emperor, I tried to tell Bob about the whooping cranes. I showed him the Jones video, but something was lost in translation. It was otherworldly, it was out-of-body, it was magic! And maybe, it was because of my T’ai Chi classes that I stopped and soaked in that moment. In the past, would I have stopped, or looked up for so long? “Mindfulness is deliberately paying full attention to what is happening around you and within you – in your body, heart, and mind. Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgement.” Jan Chozen Bays

Every day I am confronted by delightful experiences; a petulant dachshund named Lucy, rainbow sprinkled biscotti left on my porch by Leslie, a grandchild walking through the door. Or a video of an owl in the wild walking like Charlie Chaplin! I follow a New York City photographer named David Lei on the Gram, and was delighted to learn his pictures of Flaco, the aforementioned Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo, were recently featured in the NYTimes. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/nyregion/flaco-owl-central-park-zoo.html

These small, unexpected delights add up and sustain me through health challenges and news cycles. And I can smell spring. We divided a monster (monstera) plant this week that had been devouring the dining room table. Its roots were like tentacles. Bob is planning to build a raised bed for vegetables. I can only hope the rabbits, chipmunks and birds approve of our choices this year.

 

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Pecha Kucha

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, science, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 10, 2020| 4 Comments »

We have some very good news for you today. The Groom has returned from his two week exile in the Tower of Nashville garage apartment! He is virus and fever-free and our family couldn’t be happier. Next week, he and the Bride will be sharing home-schooling so he better rest up while he can. We’ve all learned that a surgical mask may not protect you if you’re around patients all the time, or colleagues who test positive.

But what about the rest of us? What have we learned in our (fill in the blank) weeks of quarantine? I’m on week 22 and I’ve learned that Bernie was pretty much right about everything, that police budgets are off the charts, that misogyny still lives in our political language, and that you get 50 points for using all your letters on one word in Scrabble!

Bob may never play with me again.

I’ve also discovered new family members on my biological Father’s side thanks to the Rocker and “23andMe.” Which resulted in my becoming addicted to “Ancestry” – the keeper of my personal DNA thread. You know the one, where I’m 99.9% Irish. I have a vague memory of traveling to a lake in PA, in a town named after a long dead relative, for my First Holy Communion in about 1953. I even have a black and white picture of an ancestral Victorian farmhouse there, with a huge wraparound porch.

I couldn’t wait to share this second cousin news with my brother, Dr Jim, and my sister Kay on our weekly Zoom call yesterday. Kay is the family archivist, after all she is the oldest sibling with the longest memory. She told me that two of my paternal aunts never had children, and another, Aunt Elinor (the grandmother of my newly discovered relatives), adored my Father. A fourth aunt died at the age of 15.

A chill ran down my spine when I later found her death certificate from 1914 on Ancestry; her cause of death was listed as “chronic endocarditis.” My Father was only 13 when she died, this may be why he decided to study pharmacology instead of taking over the family business. Druggists, in the 30s and 40s, were the de facto doctors in poor, working class communities. Many people were afraid of hospitals, they thought you could catch polio there.

Dr Jim, still a working psychologist, told his sisters that we should try doing a Pecha Kucha presentation about our lives! I think he’s afraid dementia may set in before our stories are told! It’s a power point presentation, where you show 20 slides for 20 seconds each. That gives you exactly six minutes and 40 seconds to talk about transformative events in your life. I’m not so sure Great Grandma Ada could condense 96 years to 20 pictures, but I’m willing to give it a try.

Pecha Kucha was invented by two architects four years ago, Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, to fill up a gallery space they owned in Japan and increase business. Many big cities, before the pandemic hit, used to host pecha-nights, including Nashville. Why? “…the rules have a liberating effect. Suddenly, there’s no preciousness in people’s presentations. Just poetry.” https://www.wired.com/2007/08/st-pechakucha/

What would your first picture be? How would you begin the story of your life? My future adult Grands might start out with this picture of their Dad, released from his Covid quarantine.IMG_8085

 

 

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Say Anything

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, science, tagged , , , , , , , on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Reality is a fluid thing when your president attacks the press and sends his personal counsel on errands to create or approve a conspiracy. It leaves us walking along in a fog of Christmas cheer mixed with New Year dread – what’s next?

A soliloquy that screams of Lady Macbeth in the bathroom? “We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers. And other elements of bathrooms….” said the leader of the free world, which just made me scratch my head. Is this the rambling of a demented mind? Move along, nothing to see here!

As we were entering the Vanderbilt auditorium last week, I noticed a small group of young men handing out flyers. Walking down Madison Avenue in NYC I’d usually just keep moving, wave them off saying, “No thanks,” but our small group of friends stopped to engage with the students on this chilly Nashville night. They were clean cut and sincere, they just wanted us to “know something:’ their flyer read:

“Why is Vanderbilt giving Steven Pinker a platform to speak?”   

Pinker, a Harvard Cognitive Psychologist, had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Hmmm Epstein, Epstein now where had I heard that name? It took a few beats before the sleazy sex trafficker came to mind.

I mean I’ve been so impressed and astonished by the impeachment hearings I’d almost forgotten the poor guy, left alone in his cell by 2 sleeping guards. But like Prince Andrew, Pinker was being sullied by association with Epstein: by flying on his private jet the “Lolita Express;” by collaborating with Alan Dershowitz to manipulate the language of Epstein’s defense on child sex trafficking that resulted with a very generous plea deal; and by being photographed with him at a party after his conviction.

Why thank you students! I was on pins and needles during the Chancellor’s Lecture, waiting for a protest to erupt or Pinker to meltdown, but nothing happened. Absolutely nothing! Southern students have manners or tremendous restraint. So i went home and Googled the guy.

I didn’t know that Epstein courted scientists, that he had donated 6.5 Million to Harvard, helping to found the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics?! Did you know Epstein was a devout transhumanist who wanted to seed the world with his sperm and freeze his head and his penis when he died? Honestly, I was wondering if this news was legit. All I’d read about was his crazy relationship with the Victoria’s Secret’s CEO, Leslie Wexner.

But Epstein was throwing tons of parties with money, booze and girls for scientists on his island and in New Mexico. He was reviving eugenics.

“On multiple occasions starting in the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein told scientists and businessmen about his ambitions to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies, according to two award-winning scientists and an adviser to large companies and wealthy individuals, all of whom Mr. Epstein told about it.

It was not a secret. The adviser, for example, said he was told about the plans not only by Mr. Epstein, at a gathering at his Manhattan townhouse, but also by at least one prominent member of the business community. One of the scientists said Mr. Epstein divulged his idea in 2001 at a dinner at the same townhouse; the other recalled Mr. Epstein discussing it with him at a 2006 conference that he hosted in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html

In the New York Times article, Pinker disavows a relationship with Epstein, saying he thought he was an “intellectual imposter,” using adolescent humor to switch subjects if a conversation wasn’t going his way. Now who does that remind you of?

Last weekend I was recounting this example of student activism to a friend at a holiday party. We were two drinks in and the party was heating up when I heard a woman’s voice from across the room yell,

“HE WAS MURDERED!”

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Wacky Waco

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2018| 1 Comment »

Do you miss Chip and Joanna Gaines on HGTV? All the silo-loving, shiplap-using, funny marriage-banter of their show “Fixer Upper?” Not me; I see their “Magnolia” housewares in my local Target, and I follow her on Twitter.

Last night was “movie night” in their farmhouse. All five kids (including the newborn) were piled up in their meticulous Master Bedroom bed, with a fire going in the fireplace and a Christmas tree in the corner. It almost looked too good to be true.

There is an undercurrent of unrest in Waco, TX. Housing prices have skyrocketed and tourists have been flooding into town to catch a glimpse of the happy Gaines’. Rumor has it, the Evangelical couple belong to a church that shuns LGBTQ people. And all those beautifully rehabbed homes, many have been spotted on AirBnB.

Now Waco is in the news for all the wrong reasons.

“Jacob Walter Anderson, 24, faced charges of sexual assault after allegedly attacking the woman at a fraternity party two years ago.

But after agreeing to a plea deal on a lesser charge, the former Baylor University student was given three years’ deferred probation.

The woman said she was “devastated”.

“He stole my body, virginity and power over my body and you let him keep it all for eternity,” the woman told Judge Ralph Strother in a Waco courtroom after he agreed the deal, NBC News reported.”  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46519600

This is the THIRD time this judge has approved a plea deal for probation after a rape in the past two years, all Baylor University students. Anderson drugged and raped a young woman repeatedly and left her outside to die. But we wouldn’t want to “ruin” this white boy’s reputation, after all he is a former fraternity president and may one day want to serve on the Supreme Court.

He will not have to register as a sex offender, and his charge was knocked down to “unlawful restraint.” In Texas, if you’re white and wealthy, you are obviously above the law. At first Anderson was facing 20 years for rape, now two years later, his lawyers are celebrating; “No Jail Time” screams the headlines!

Great Grandpa Hudson graduated from Baylor a long time ago. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a frat boy since he had served in the Navy during WWII first, and later became a missionary to Ghana. Bob recently accompanied him in an ambulance to the Bride’s ER. It seems he fell and conked his head, which immediately gets you all the bells and whistles, even though he never lost consciousness and all his tests were fine. Hudson is one indestructible old sailor!

As for Baylor Alum Chip and Joanna, I’m pretty sure their white-washed, religious life will have its share of ups and downs, like any marriage. But unlike most, they are still in the spotlight. At least her bedroom Christmas tree wasn’t blood red, like a certain immigrant from Slovenia!

Here is the girl who recently lost her first tooth and her Great Grandma the marriage counselor. That’s a Mona Lisa smile if I ever saw one!

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#3ThingsToDo IF…

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on June 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

This morning I awoke to the sun shining through my windows and the birds singing. And the second thought I had in my head was, “Wow, I’m still alive!” I couldn’t stay up to watch the live coverage of the #TrumpKimSummit, and I’ve been too busy setting up house for the Great Grands arrival to pay much attention to breaking news. Suffice it to say, I feel as if I’ve entered the Twilight Zone – our Toddler-in-Chief throwing shade at our allies while shaking hands with our enemies.

Don’t get me wrong, denuclearization is a worthy goal.

But after reading how we Americans are so ill-prepared for a nuclear attack; https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/11/would-you-know-what-to-do-during-a-nuclear-attack-218675 I started thinking – just what would I do if my cell phone alarm started screeching about an incoming ballistic missile and not an amber alert? How far away from a major American city would one have to live to survive that mushroom cloud, cause obviously within a certain range there would be nothing to worry about. Literally nothing. To calculate your chance at survival try NUKEMAP.

Here is what one of my favorite author’s wrote: “I’ll immediately buy my first pack of cigarettes in 32 years—Camels, unfiltered. Then a 2 lb bag of M&M’s. I won’t drink again in case it’s a false alarm.” Anne Lamott (Ms Lamott is a recovering alcoholic).

Like that false nuclear alarm in Hawaii last January, that paradise that is melting under lava at the moment? OK here are my three things:

  • I’d immediately start drinking, white wine cause it’s easily potable.
  • I’d conference call my kids, the Great Grands, and my brothers and sister.
  • Ms Bean would be sedated by a drop of hemp oil on her morning biscuit.

Although the M&Ms sound good, I’d prefer Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, just in case I had the luxury of actually shopping for candy. Surprisingly, if we are exposed to a survivable nuclear event, our government does actually have some advice, besides “Duck and Cover”:

It turns out they (instructions) are located on page 66 of a 130-page document compiled by a federal interagency committee in 2010 known as “Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation.” It reads: “The best initial action following a nuclear explosion is to take shelter in the nearest and most protective building or structure and listen for instructions from authorities.”

This week has been surreal in so many ways. There was an attempted armed robbery in my neighborhood, shots were fired shaking my sense of security to the core. Between shopping to furnish Great Grandma’s new apartment and setting up her new home with Great Grandpa Hudson in a very secure building, I found out that Waterford crystal is now made in Germany. And this morning we have the handshake, between Mr T and Un.

Look, I have eyebrows! Will wonders never cease?

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A Murder in Belle Meade

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on June 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Monday’s can be hard, let’s face it. You need to wake up early and get back to work, if you’re still working. You might just be a tad hungover from a fun weekend. And then, to top it off, many restaurants are closed on Mondays, don’t ask me why. So you return to your castle and slap together a sandwich or order pizza for dinner. But if you’re of a certain age, Monday can seem just like any other day.

Except yesterday was exceptional in a number of ways. First, we had the Love Bug delivered to us early because her parents were working and she’s out of school for the summer! Her brother’s pre-school in Belle Meade is still in session. Our little Kindergarten graduate showed up looking like Mata Hari with a long paisley scarf wrapped around her head.

I’d already watered the potted herbs, walked Ms Bean and started a load of laundry so we were free to play all day. But shopping for Great Grandma Ada took precedence, so we spent some time v e r y  s l o w l y riding different lift-recliners at our local surgical supply store. After that, we strolled through the Farmer’s Market picking up our favorite peanut butter and a bath bomb shaped like a heart. Pretty soon it was time for lunch, and Pop Bob told her, “Today, we’re having dessert first!“

She ordered strawberry buttercream ice cream with sprinkles, I had fresh cherry and goat cheese while Bob stuck to his fave, butter pecan.

Little did I know that a hatchet murderer was on the run from a fitness center in Belle Meade and the L’il Pumpkin’s school was on lockdown. Our Sonos was tuned to classical music while the Love Bug and I started a paint-by-numbers present of the Bat Building for the Great Grandparents’ new Nashville apartment. Happy as clams while chaos unfolded just a few miles away in a genteel part of town.

The killer it seems had it out for the man who had fired him from his job a year ago. So it’s a workplace related homicide, which is only slightly reassuring, but there had been signs. For instance, he had been stopped in his car by Metro DC police for coming too close to the White House – and refusing to leave. He’d also referred to himself as “The Sun of God” on his Facebook profile… https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/06/04/police-man-attacked-hatchet-belle-meade-strip-mall/668606002/

The Agatha Christie in me wants to make this more than just a paranoid schizophrenic nightmare for these families. Create intrigue where there is simply raw hate, anger and resentment; still I wonder if one law actually worked. Was the killer unable to buy a gun because of his previous run-ins with the law? Or did he just prefer  to terrorize a neighborhood and inflict pain on his victim?

Our Pumpkin returned home without ever knowing what was happening or why moms and dads seemed especially anxious while picking up their kids early yesterday. He always looks me straight in the eye, saying “I knew you would come,” and that always melts my heart.

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A Gaffe

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, science, tagged , , , , , , , on April 12, 2017| 2 Comments »

What’s happening in the world. As Tillerson jets to Russia with a “Make my Day” kind of deal, an Asian physician is dragged off a United plane while passengers documented every minute. This morning, the United CEO has done an about face, finally apologizing for the incident; and simultaneously lovely Melissa, oops, Sean Spicer got his apology right on the third try. Yes Sean, Hitler DID use chemical weapons on innocent people, they just happened to be Jews.

The Jewish people are used to this kind of thing. In fact, a dear friend just told me that one of her son’s friends/acquaintances is a Holocaust denier. And that they actually don’t say it didn’t happen anymore, just that it was more like what we did with the Japanese internment camps…. You know, like a “Holocaust Center?!”

Over the years, I’ve met relatives with numbers on their arms. My first supervisor at an outpatient mental health clinic was a child of Holocaust survivors. One of our Big Chill friends was conceived at a refugee camp in Italy after his parents were liberated from a concentration camp in Poland. I’ve been attending Seders now for almost 40 years, and yet this was the first time I actually ran the show. I knew something would go wrong. I forgot to give everyone some parsley, so I started a new tradition of a parsley posey.

This is the first time I’m actually afraid for the survival of the human race, not just one group of people. Seriously – will Russia decide to sacrifice another pawn. Or maybe North Korea will put us into checkmate?

What kind of plagues should God rain down upon us this time? At least I didn’t poison anyone at my Seder. I’m a compulsive germaphob in the kitchen. Ever since I nearly killed my first husband with a salmonella infested sandwich I picked up at a deli in Harvard Square. I made Great Grandma Ada wash her hands all the time, and we cooperated on the prep for the haroset. Maybe Mr T will get a bad case of boils? Or locusts could infest the Rose Garden?

Our trees are greening and birds are singing. Spring is a time for rebirth, not sarin gas and armageddon. In fact Sean, you were right in one detail, Hitler did NOT use sarin to exterminate 6 Million Jews, “innocent” people, even though it had been discovered by a German scientist. Some speculate it was because he was gassed in the First World War. But most scholars say it was because Churchill would have retaliated if he tried to use gas on the battlefield or in the camps.

“War is chess. Hitler would have sacrificed a lot of pieces that he couldn’t afford to lose.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/04/11/hitler-refused-to-use-sarin-gas-during-wwii-the-mystery-is-why/?utm_term=.9dc38985fc9d

The Nazis constantly searched for more efficient means of extermination. At the Auschwitz camp in Poland, they conducted experiments with Zyklon B (previously used for fumigation) by gassing some 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 ill prisoners in September 1941. Zyklon B pellets, converted to lethal gas when exposed to air. They proved the quickest gassing method and were chosen as the means of mass murder at Auschwitz.

At the height of the deportations, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed each day at Auschwitz. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005220

6 Thousand a day, 6 Million in WWII. Holocaust centers, killing camps. Sarin gas vs Zyklon B vs chemical weapons. A gaffe is a gaffe is a gaffe. And this whole Trump administration is one big gaffe.

Today we rode along Skyline Drive to get the long view, the balcony shot. I wish we humans could just decide not to play chess with our lives on this planet.  IMG_0305

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Dense Fog Advisory

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 31, 2016| 2 Comments »

Fog Happens. That was the bumper sticker I loved on Martha’s Vineyard. To this day I have remained a bumper-sticker-free driver, although I do appreciate a good joke on a taxi. There is one company in town that adorns its taxis with snippets of wisdom, like this one: “Only dead fish go with the flow.” And you know that silver fish you sometimes see on a car that means the driver is a Christian? Well a friend gave me that fish with the word “Gefilte” inside; it stands above my desk keeping guard. My car shall remain fish-free!

This morning it’s hard to see your fingers in front of your face. Birds are grounded and the red tail hawks are not circling the backyard looking for vermin. I wonder if planes will be grounded too, and that has me worried since we are supposed to fly out of here today for our 37th Wedding Anniversary river cruise up the Danube. Fingers crossed the fog lifts and s&*t doesn’t happen!

For a person who doesn’t like to travel, I seem to be doing a lot of it. We are supposed to have WiFi on the boat so hopefully I will continue to blog.

I will be happy to take a hiatus from CNN. The fog of war continues as our brave armed forces “assist” the Iraqi forces in taking back Falluja. Trump continues to spout nonsense to Bikers in DC, many were Vets yesterday showing respect for the fallen as they cruised the monuments.

And don’t get me started on the gorilla and the toddler. Bob says they could have tranquilized the big guy, but I said he may have collapsed on the baby…we met a large animal Vet the other day at Starbucks. Pat is married to our small animal Vet. He tends to cows and horses all over the Shenandoah Valley and he told us they are “Wild” animals and cannot be trusted. That made me feel better, sort of. Still I turn away from the video. So, as much as I’d like to be all Dame Jane Goodall about gorillas, I’m sure the zoo did the right thing. Right?

Time for another cup of coffee, to clear my foggy brain, and make sense of the final packing checklist. To edit out the useless, and stick with the essentials. We always pack light, one carry-on each for any trip, of any length, anywhere. Bon Voyage!  IMG_4484

 

 

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