More smiles

 

Our reading hour with Julia and Noah has continued to be a major highlight of each day. A month or so ago we started reading “Pete the Cat” books, and we found this video of “Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes,” which we shared with the children. It quickly became Noah’s favorite and he requested it every day for weeks. 

Now Noah, with the help of his mom, of course, has made a video of his own rendition of the book. And without an ounce of bias, I declare his version simply delicious!

 Noah reads "Pete the Cat"

Enjoy!

Love,

Nana/Rebecca

A definite source of smiles

 During this pandemic, we cannot gather the twelve of us (well, 13 if you count Rory) for a family picture. But a wonderful project run by Young Israel of Sharon enabled each of our daughters and their families to gather for pictures, and I have now put these together at the top of this blog.

So smile and stay well!

Love,

Rebecca

 

Still young?

One of our long-time favorite recipes is “Nachos Sauce” from Molly Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook, originally published in 1974. We make a big pot of this without the cheese, divide it into containers, and freeze it, adding the cheese when we reheat it to eat over rice and vegetables. It makes a great dinner.

You may be wondering why I am talking about this old recipe. One of the key ingredients is beer. Since we plan to prepare a batch of Nachos Sauce this week, Barry added a 6-pack of Corona to our Whole Foods order. The delivery man knocked on the door and informed Barry that he would need to see a valid ID before he could leave the beer. All I can say is that Barry was quite flattered that his thinning gray hair was not sufficient to prove he is old enough to buy alcoholic beverages!

Meanwhile, we finally had a chance to return, albeit briefly, to the New York Botanical Garden. The storms this area experienced a couple of days ago did some damage to some of the trees, and as a result our favorite area, the Native Plant Garden, was not open. The Native Plant Garden first opened to the public in 2013, the year after the Monet exhibit that we had visited so many times while I was undergoing treatment for the primary CNS lymphoma. We hope to get back soon to be able to return to the Native Plant Garden. But meanwhile I did try to take a few pictures of some of the other areas we visited.

Hope you are all well and keeping your spirits up. It is no easy feat these days.

Love,

Rebecca

And the winner is....

Well, many of you got it! Of course, it might have helped that I had titled the post “Some Nerve.”

In Merriam-Webster we find

Definition of chutzpah

: supreme self-confidence : NERVE, GALL

It took a lot of chutzpah to stand up to him the way she did.

Dictionary.com has

          chutzpa

noun Slang.

unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall.

audacity; nerve.

Back in 2012, Forbes ran a piece entitled “Why Chutzpah Is The New Charisma - And How To Use It To Get What You Want.”  

But perhaps the best simple explanation is the one on Wikipedia:

Chutzpah (/ˈxʊtspə, ˈhʊt-/)^[1][2] is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. It derives from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpāh (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation but the form which entered English as a Yiddishism in American English has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television. The word is sometimes interpreted—particularly in business parlance—as meaning the amount of courage, mettle or ardor that an individual has.^{[citation needed]}

As of yesterday, over 150,000 Americans have died from infections with COVID-19. There have been over 4.5 million confirmed cases, and over 30 million job losses, and many grandparents who have not seen their grandchildren in months. Some of our government officials speak as if they have done a great job managing this crisis. THAT is chutzpah!

Have a safe and healthy weekend.

Love,

Rebecca

Some Nerve

Please forgive me if I have written about this before, but one of my practices over the past couple of years has been to play “Spelling Bee” in the New York Times. Each day, there are 7 letters given, and from these 7 letters the player must come up with words consisting of at least four of them, with one specific letter, which appears in the center of the grid, being required to appear in each word.

Today, the letters are:

 

 

 

Here are 15 of the 16 words I have found:

Attach

Catch

Catchup

Chat

Cutup

Hatch

Hutch

Pact

Patch

Path

Phat

Putt

Putz

Taut

That

Tutu

Can you find the word that uses all 7 letters? I will tell you that the word is 8 letters long (i.e., one of those 7 letters appears twice in the word).

Do not drive yourselves too crazy with this – I will try to remember to post the solution tomorrow.

Love,

Rebecca

Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test

On a completely different topic, during a recent interview with FOX TV reporter Chris Wallace, President Trump noted his performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test (MOCA). I had to go back through the last few years of my posts to confirm that I had once before written about this commonly used exam, on 21 January 2018. A copy of the actual test can be found on this link:

Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test

At the time, I noted two things. First, it was and continues to be quite sobering to recognize just how low my cognitive function had sunk during those darkest days in early 2012. And second, I would certainly hope that the MOCA would be a test any United States President, let alone any individual in a much less consequential position, could easily pass.

So, I find myself, once again, absolutely stunned that this could be used as “proof” of competence to be in the position of power in which he finds himself. I am not really in a position to judge his mental acuity. But, please, no matter how much you may all think of me or love me, do not under any circumstances give me the codes to the nuclear arsenal simply because I can now ace this test!

Love,

Rebecca

Sing Gently

Just in case you missed it, I feel compelled to share this incredible video. American composer Eric Whitaker recorded 17,672 singers from 129 countries singing his composition, “Sing Gently.”

 

May we sing together, always,

May our voice be soft,

May our singing be music for others,

And may it keep others aloft.

Sing gently, always,

Sing gently as one.

 

May we stand together, always,

May our voice be strong,

May we hear the singing, always,

And may we always sing along.

Sing gently, always,

Sing gently as one.

 

The word that comes to mind is, simply, WOW!

Love,

Rebecca