One Day

I read a quote the other day in Reader's Digest. It said "One day can change your life. One day can ruin your life. All life is, is three or four big days that change everything". That thought is so true. Yesterday I had a wonderful day. It wasn't life changing, but it was life enhancing. I watched as my parents played with their 3 great grandchildren. All three of them in the same backyard. I watched as my father sang a special song to my granddaughter. My sister videotaped it so the memory of that special moment will never be forgotten. As we sat around the dinner table, the family reminisced about the past. Special days were discussed and the stories were as clear in my mind yesterday as they were when they happened 32 years ago. As I sit here this morning, I know that in the future, yesterday will be discussed and fondly remembered. One day......

She's Here

My smiley girl has arrived. My granddaughter from Massachusetts is visiting for the weekend with my son and daughter in law. After a long ride, they arrived late yesterday afternoon. They hit the summer beach traffic, which added on about two hours to their ride. She came into my house with bright blue smiling eyes. She is a joy to look at. Her temperament is calm and delightful. This afternoon, I will have the pleasure of seeing my parents with their three great grandchildren. Needless to say, there will be many photo opportunities and my sister will take advantage of all of them. There will be lots of food, lots of family and lots of love in my house today.

Staff Development

This afternoon I am doing something new. I will be lecturing to the staff members at a local university. I usually do lectures that are open to the public, but this one is limited to the professors. The topic is "communication". I have done this topic previously, but today I will add the extra component of exercises and activities. I have been going over the lecture in my head for the past few days as I do not use cue cards. I like the discussion to flow and find that looking at cards is a distraction. The university hired me as an Adjunct Professor who will do staff development lectures and teach continuing education classes. I am so excited to go out of my comfort zone and try something different.

Survival

Last night I watched a new reality show and still have the ugly picture in my head. It was called "Naked and Afraid". The show was about two strangers who just met and have to survive 21 days in the wilderness with only one item from home. The catch  is that they are also naked. Of course the important "private" parts are blurred out. I would like to send a thank you card to the producers for doing that. Truth be told, the human body looks better when it is covered. So, these two strangers, one male and one female need to survive for 3 weeks and end up at a pick up point that is designated on a map. After watching some other survival shows, I think these people did rather poorly. They built a shelter and literally starved for 3 weeks. At the end of the show, the man lost 43 pounds and the woman lost 26 pounds. She looked like the walking dead. There were camera men with them, but they were not allowed to intervene unless it was medically necessary. I thought that when the girl got food poisoning from eating a turtle and vomited for three days, someone should have said, Enough is enough". Even I know that you never eat the intestines of an animal. As she ate them, I knew she would get sick. These two people were supposed to have survival skills, but I truly think I could have done better. They were next to a river, so why didn't they go fishing? There were bugs all around, so why didn't they eat them for protein? There were frogs and lizards walking by. Hadn't either of them heard of eating frog legs? They should have named the show "Starving and Unprepared".

One Word

My parent are the children of Russian immigrants. They grew up speaking Yiddish as that was their parent's first language. My sister and I understand the language, but are not fluent by any means. The other day we were discussing that the Yiddish language has many single words that can get across a point that would otherwise take up a paragraph in English. Most second generation American Jews know these words. My children also know them and probably do not even realize that they are a foreign language, as they have grown up with them. I will give you an example. If I wanted to say how I am related to my daughter in law's parents I would say the word "machatunim". If I wanted to say my relationship to all of my daughter in law's extended family, including aunts, uncles and cousins, I would say "mishpochah". If I wanted to describe a person who is nasty and mean spirited, I would say "farbissen". If I wanted to say that my children have made me proud with all of their achievements and accomplishments, I would say they give me "noches". If you listen carefully to the movie Austin Powers, one of the characters is named Frau Farbissina, meaning Mrs. Nastiness. The name was meant as a kind of an inside joke for Jewish people. I use Yiddish words in work and now my non Jewish co workers also use them, as they get right to the point.

Ageless Heart

My parents lost a close friend yesterday. He was 92 years old and up until the past few months, was in good health. He left behind his wife, who was also 92 and two children, in their 60's. When I tell people about his death, in their minds they will be thinking "he was an old man and it was inevitable". Rationally, they are correct. No matter how old he was, his family will feel the same grief. When we lose a loved one, at any age, we feel the same amount of sorrow. Whether it was at 72 or 82 or 92, our hearts do not feel less pain. When god gave us the ability to love, he did not put an age limit on it.

Underdeveloped Country

America has become an underdeveloped country. I am not speaking about our finances or agriculture. I am speaking about our photographs. Years ago, we took pictures on film and sent them in to be developed. We waited anywhere from 2 days to one week for them to arrive home. That is when we saw if they were good and if anyone had been decapitated. There were no second chances. If you took a bad picture you lived with it. Now, most people do not bother to develop their pictures. They remain on their iPads or cell phones. When someone asks to see a picture, we are always ready. No more saying,  "I will bring them to you tomorrow". My husband is a cell phone novice. He knows how to make calls, but it is a crap shoot whether or not he will answer a call. He once went for weeks with the phone on silent and had no idea how it got silenced in the first place. The phone is only turned on in emergencies. That is why I have to develop some pictures. His co workers keep asking him for pictures of the grandchildren and he has none. So this morning I will have to actually print them out on photo paper and use $20 worth of ink.