I Love New York

The Weather Channel web site is displaying the following header:

Winter Storm Atlas Forecast: Heavy Snow, Blizzard Conditions in Parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, Western Nebraska

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/winter-storm-atlas-forecast-20131001

At the same time, it is over 80^o in New York again today. So I have a simple question: why would anyone want to live in South Dakota?

On his (relatively) new iPhone, Barry has SIRI. For those of you who are not familiar with it,

Siri /ˈsɪri/ is an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator which works as an application for Apple Inc.'s iOS. The application uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Web services. Apple claims that the software adapts to the user's individual preferences over time and personalizes results.^[4] The name Siri is Norwegian, meaning "beautiful woman who leads you to victory", and comes from the intended name for the original developer's first child.^[5]

So, we asked SIRI, “why does anyone live in South Dakota?” And SIRI answered that she had no information on that. Being a clinical researcher at heart, I needed to know if that was the answer she would give no matter what place we asked about. So I suggested we ask SIRI “why does anyone live in New York City?” And SIRI came back with lots of links to recreational activities in New York City.

So there you have it, from SIRI. There is absolutely nothing in particular to do in South Dakota. And so I ask again, why would anyone want to live in South Dakota?

I had a little time this morning and started to work on the NY Times crossword puzzle. This was wishful thinking at best, because to the best of my recollection I have never completed a Friday puzzle. I finished about half of it in the first hour, and then was busy with other things and had to set it aside. Then I came back to it a few hours later and very quickly was able to finish it. A FRIDAY PUZZLE!!! But lest you be excessively impressed with my crossword puzzle skills, I just took a look on Rex Parker’s puzzle blog and, not surprisingly, he rated today’s puzzle as “Easy/Medium.” Nothing like bursting my bubble!

A new exhibit called “Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden,” opened for members today and will be opening to the public tomorrow at the New York Botanical Garden. These folks have again simply outdone themselves! I will post a few pictures but I simply cannot do this any justice. It only runs until October 27^th, so if you are in New York and can find any time this month I do urge you to go see it. We tend to think of chrysanthemums as “throw-away” flowers, but this will give you an entirely new view of them.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Rebecca

To Serve Man

In an effort to improve my cognitive skills, in addition to Lumosity and other games, I have been trying to read a little each day, often aloud to Barry, who is probably eligible for sainthood for his patience with this. I am reading on-line, where I can increase the font size. I am not sure I fully understand why, but this does seem to help. Dr. DeAngelis tells me that this is consistent with the area of my brain where the tumor was located. Since I have trouble differentiating letters from each other, often “seeing” a different letter than the one on the page, I imagine that having the larger font size helps me to focus more carefully.

As I scanned the New York Times web page, I saw the following in a piece published last week:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, stepping up his effort to blunt a diplomatic offensive by Iran, plans to warn the United Nations next week that a nuclear deal with the Iranian government could be a trap similar to one set by North Korea eight years ago, according to an Israeli official involved in drafting the speech.

This brought to mind an episode of an old television show called The Twilight Zone, that aired from 1959-1964. I was just a young girl (the same age as our granddaughter Ella is now) when it began, so I imagine I must remember it more from when it was later in syndication when I was in high school. You can sometimes find episodes being shown on various cable TV channels. A particular favorite of mine is one that first aired in 1962 called “To Serve Man.” If you have never seen this, I really do not want to give anything away. Instead, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I attach it here. It is about 25 minutes long and is, in my mind, a classic.

For all of our sakes, I hope that this is not what Iran has in mind.

Love,

Rebecca

Super Hero

Our dear friend Michal has been nominated for the Super Hero Spotlight Award given by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association. Quarterly, JP W.O.M.E.N. features a woman in the baby product industry who is doing great things either in her work, for her family, in the community or through her volunteer leadership.

Michal's story is summarized here. Please consider voting for her at the link below!

Michal Chesal, Baby K'tan, LLC

Michal Chesal is a mompreneur who co-founded the Florida-based juvenile products company Baby K’tan, LLC with her business partner, Isaac Wernick.  It all started with her desire to provide her son, Coby, born with Down syndrome, with the sensory nourishment he required for optimal development, while also wanting to carry him as much as possible for parent-child bonding. Thus, the first prototype of the Baby K’tan Carrier was born as a homemade hybrid that improved and incorporated different aspects from other carrier models available. With a background in marketing, she soon realized that the attention she was getting for the carrier was a sign that she should take it to market.  Introduced in 2007, Baby K’tan has relied on pure organic growth to become one of the strongest brand names in infant carriers. A devoted mother of three, Michal graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, and spent two years studying abroad. Starting her career as the Director of Academic Affairs for her overseas university, she moved on to spending three years as an equities trader, to being the sole proprietor of a regional marketing firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. On a volunteer basis, Michal assists in chairing events that promote advocacy and acceptance of the special needs community. Additionally, she serves as an active member on numerous children’s advocacy organizations, and sits on the board of the Broward Gold Coast Down Syndrome Organization and the Baby Carrier Industry Alliance.

You can cast your vote for Michal at:

http://jpma.org/content/about/jp-women/super-hero-spotlight

The YouToons Get Ready for Obamacare

I am not here to judge the concept or the details, am just sharing what seems to be a good primer on the upcoming changes.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

I woke up in Riverdale this morning humming an old Sally Fingerett song, “Home is Where the Heart Is.” Although the song is not at all about our present situation, that refrain is really resonating for me right now.

For some years we have been leading two lives: our life in New York and our life in Sharon. We are usually in New York during the work week and in Sharon over the weekend, although we do occasionally stay in New York on weekends. But for the past two and a half weeks we have been in Sharon.

I love our house in Riverdale. Before this house, we were living in a house about two miles north of here in Yonkers. Although it suited our needs, the house was never our style, and as we became more involved in a synagogue in Riverdale we finally decided to move south. I can no longer remember why we even looked at this house. From the outside it appeared lovely, but it was, to be honest, priced more than a bit above our range. I knew we were in trouble the minute we walked inside. We ended up taking a leap, and we have been fortunate that despite the dip over the past few years, the house is still worth quite a bit more than we paid in 1999. We have lived here now more than twice as long as we had lived in any of the places before this.

I moved to New York kicking and screaming back in 1991. But much to my surprise, I have grown to love The City. In defense of my earlier attitude, New York has become a much safer and cleaner (or should I say kinder and gentler?) place to live than it used to be. There is never a lack of things to do. Riverdale is amazingly close to Manhattan, so we have the pleasure of living in a house with a yard, albeit a small one, while being just minutes away from all the wonders of Manhattan.

Now that the rest of our family is in Sharon, we toy with the idea of buying a house up there, but we just cannot bring ourselves to do it. Since we are seldom there during the week it would be difficult to keep up with the inevitable headaches that a house entails. The conversion of the old Wilber School into apartments right in the center of Sharon came at precisely the right time, and we have rented an apartment there since shortly after it opened.

So why is it that every time we come back to New York I start to miss Sharon, but while we are in Sharon I miss New York? It brings to mind an old Joni Mitchell lyric:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?

Still, home is where the heart is. Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco. Who says we cannot have our hearts in two places?

We had a wonderful remainder of Sukkot, and I am certain we set a personal record for meals eaten in the Sukkah without rain, snow, heat, cold, or insects to force our evacuation (as happens pretty much every year). Our son-in-law’s parents were also in Sharon and we were pleased to have two meals with them, lunch on Thursday in Simmie and Ronen’s Sukkah and lunch on Sabbath, after the holiday ended, in our apartment. On Friday we joined a group of similar-aged friends, most of whom we have known for the 25+ years since we first moved to Sharon, for an enjoyable and tasty pot-luck lunch.

We returned to an amazing pile of mail! How do I make all those catalogues stop? Hopefully I did not lose any important mail weeding through them! The good weather is predicted to continue, and I am hoping to spend some time outdoors while we can.

Meanwhile, have a good week all.

Love,

Rebecca

We “break” for holidays

Traditional Jews celebrate a calendar full of holidays, on many of which we disconnect (literally) from many things that are part of our usual daily modern life existence, such as automobiles, telephones, television, and computers. Sometimes it takes a few days to catch my breath and get back on the treadmill.

I will spare you a blow by blow account of the past week and instead provide a few highlights. In the northeastern part of the United States, this has easily been the most beautiful Sukkot ever! Except for a brief shower in the early morning hours on Sunday, which ended early enough for the Sukkah to dry out before dinner, the sky was clear blue and the temperatures mild but not too cold. As a result, we were able to eat all our meals in our childrens’ Sukkot. And they are predicting that this will continue through the upcoming weekend. I can never remember an entire Sukkot this beautiful. We had a great time reminiscing about our early days of observing the holiday as students at the University of Rochester in Upstate New York, where I still have vivid memories of snowflakes falling in a bowl of soup (we’re not entirely nuts, we did go inside when that happened). Then there were the years in Dallas, where it was miserably hot in the fall. This week was absolutely perfect, and they are predicting continued glorious weather through the remainder of the holiday.

And oh the food…. Simmie and Ronen prepared a scrumptious feast for our ten the first night. Barry and I prepared lunch the first day which the ten of us enjoyed in Dina and Aaron’s sukkah. The other evenings we had soups that Barry and I had made. On the second day we joined friends who serve a wonderful annual buffet (Mom and daughter really outdid themselves) to a large group, pretty much all of whom we have known since we lived in Sharon back in the 1980s, while the rest of our crew had lunch with some of their friends.

On Sunday we took Joshua and Ella to see Despicable Me 2. Barry and I are becoming experts in animated children’s movies. We had never seen the first movie but you can pretty much figure out how it must have gone. Like most children’s  movies, there were bad guys and good guys and the good guys, of course, won. Perhaps you could say that about adult movies as well.

I received an e-mail from a dear friend I wrote about back in March whose son has Down’s Syndrome. She sent along a link to an article about upcoming changes in Disney World accommodations for people with disabilities. I had shared with you some months ago the shocking and disheartening news of healthy families who were shamelessly taking advantage of these accommodations. Perhaps those reports actually had the unintended effect of encouraging more people to do this! Disney World, saying that they have no way to control the problem, is pulling back on what they will do for such families. The details remain to be ironed out, but almost assuredly they will result in either longer wait-times or more limited flexibility. They appear to be proposing to do this by offering “fast passes” for multiple rides in advance (up until now, you could only get one at a time) to families with a disabled member. But that locks you in somewhat, and I know that for some families with a member who is disabled this can be quite problematic for a number of valid reasons. We will have to see just where this all leads before we begin planning our next trip.

It is another glorious day, and we are packing up a lunch and heading over to one of our daughters’ Sukkot (they and the children have school during the intermediate days of the holiday). Wednesday night begins Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, the end of the fall holiday cycle. We will head back to New York on Sunday, likely to a huge pile of catalogues that will make it difficult to find the real mail.

If you’re in the northeast and you can find even a little time, go outside! Who knows how long it will last?

Love,

Rebecca

Just for Nana

The Colbert Report is broadcast very late at night, well past our bedtime. Thanks to the wonders of digital video recording, not to mention on-line viewing, we watch it in the early morning just a few hours after it airs.

I just had to share this bit with you. I hope you find it as amusing as we did.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/429130/september-17-2013/soul-rending-cheerios-ad?xrs=share_copy

Love,

Rebecca (aka Nana)