Something different......

Tonight.....I went outside and walked back and forth in front of my house....watching the sky.

There were no clouds.....and the stars were out.

The stars were out!

I wanted to plant a kiss on each and every one of those little lights.

It seems like months since the sky was clear.....and months since my head was free of nagging thoughts......Is it time to check my weather app?? or turn on the TV to check which storms were heading into our area...how many hours did I have before it hit?.....how bad would it be?

Siege mentality...day after day of wondering when you would need to dive in closet or seek shelter from massive storms....

And the storms have been brutal.....the south is known for throwing lightening and thunder around that could knock a person over.......but these storms have been vicious....holding something raw and dangerous in them.....which made your heart beat faster and the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

Couple this personal experience with stories....our local news stations have inundated us with storm stories....children sucked out of their mothers' arms during a twister.....decapitations.....people disappearing....cars left in trees.

I've handled all of them pretty well....except for one story I heard the other day....which keeps tugging on me....the sheer horror and serendipity of the universe in full display.

It's a tornado story from Joplin.....I read about it in one of the national papers....they were reporting on missing people.....one missing person is a teenager who just celebrated his graduation across town....while driving back from the event....the twister hit his car....and the boy was sucked out of the sun roof of the car and has not been seen......a young man....sucked out a sun roof....his father in the car but spared.

It is tragic sad unbelievable weird.....and sticky story. It has stuck with me....I catch myself visualizing a young adult.....being pulled up into the sky. In a very weird way....it reminds me of the rapture stories from the previous week....when some people believed The Chosen would be elevated and taken up into the sky....unto God.

I hope this is where this young man went....unto God.... into the universe....very quickly....without pain and fear. And for his father.....who was left behind....who sees this image every minute now too.....I can only mentally send my deepest sympathy...and hope that someday he will be able to live without seeing this image every time he breathes.

I think I'll hit publish post and go outside again....check on the stars...make sure they are there....

How strange to think of sleeping through the night without the worry..... to sleep and not to think about some radar.....some radar with green and red and pink.....heading for your home....how many times I have talked to my home and said silently to it....be strong....hold on....let the fury flow over you.

What strange strange times these have been.......

Guess We Dodged the Bullet.......Here's a look at what we Missed.

The End of the World

I stocked up on my favorite champagnes and wines cause True Believers are supposed to be raptured tomorrow.... Saturday, May 21st at 6pm....and I wasn't sure if the employees of my favorite liquor store might vanish along with all their stock. ( I really didn't think the liquor would get raptured....but figured all the folks left behind would loot the store before I could get there.)

I, of course, won't be rapturing since I'm not Christian and those of us left behind...are destined for a terrible 5 months of chaos before the world officially ends in October....double bad news for me.....because it means surviving a typical southern summer of intense heat and humidity (probably without electricity) coupled with chaos before relief arrives....hence the need for adequate supplies of wine and champagne.

I only bought red wine which could be served room temperature even in chaos and figured I could store the champagne in the crawl space under the house where it's cool although not frosty cold.

But heck....I'll probably have more to worry about than the ideal serving temperature for champagne.

I also bought an extra bag of cat food.....because if there is anything that would surely fray my nerves is cats howling preceding the End of Times.

Finally, I stopped at Krispy Kreme and splurged on a few doughnuts....then I realized.....after I ate one....that only the raptured should be eating greasy food and sugary treats since their figure won't matter after tomorrow....where as I.....need to be in tip top shape to face chaos.

My bad.

I do have a small horde of vitamins so maybe I can make up for my transgression.

I seriously tried to make a list of what I would do if the world was really coming to an end tomorrow.....I thought even the non-raptured.....could benefit from this type of exercise... probing your deepest desires in the short time you have left....unfortunately....I scheduled several meetings for next week and had so many things on my "to do" list for this weekend....I couldn't truly scare myself into thinking the end was near and so my revelatory list began to look more like my grocery list.

Truly....that's a shame....because sometimes you should stop and think about your demise and see what sort of things rise to the top of your do-this-right-now- list.

Tell someone you love them? Tell someone you are sorry for hurting them? Make peace with someone who annoyed you.....reach out in friendship to someone you didn't have time for?

Hmmmmm.....alas...the Krispy Kreme donut....has made me feel bloated and somnolent....and the only think I can think of is the little sign in the donut shop that said the donuts were kosher.

Really?

What a revelation!

Bye Bye .......

The Kugel Queen Reigns for One More Year.

Yours truly, the Kugel Queen, reigned supremely over the Kugel and Blintz Booth yesterday at the Jewish Food Festival.

I wish I had pictures....but your royal highness here....was so busy....from 6am till 5pm……I never could get my phone out of my apron pocket!

This is truly a labor of love…..because the week before the festival is quite stressful for a queen who doesn’t cook.

First of all….I have to help make 25 huge pans/tubs of noodle kugel. By “help” I mean….I’m the kitchen slave to my hub and the director of the festival who mix and blend and bake this Eastern European delight in a commercial kitchen.

The two baking sessions are followed by “jamming”….the art of scooping strawberry jam into little ¼ cup portion cups. The jam is not for the kugel but my booth also sells blintzes….and we give out a sour cream cup plus a jam cup with the blintzes. Fortunately, other folks do the sour cream….I’m just responsible for the jam.

I make a 1000 jam cups….neatly organizing them into plastic bags containing 50 cups a piece…. and then I stuff about 40 bags in my second fridge in the garage.

Of course, I worry too. Being in charge of a booth means scheduling volunteers…..making sure you have all your equipment….and keeping everything coordinated.

Of course, people are your biggest variable….some volunteers I plead sweetly with….to ensure they will be there…other folks…like some of the younger guys….I use guilt….telling them if they don’t show up…..people won’t get a break to eat, sit down or PEE. It works!

We usually have about 10,000 folks come through the festival….which means we serve a lot of kugel and blintzes. Yesterday was a beautiful day….so we could have had more folks...I haven't heard the official estimate yet.

Strange….for one brief moment…..as I saw pairs of policeman roam our festival…. I thought of this week’s arrest in NYC of folks who were making plans to bomb a synagogue ….and here we all were….working and dishing our food and friendship out at our festival….all clumped together...an easy target.

But I shook my head….to get rid of my thoughts.....because you can’t think of those things or you could be paralyzed with fear.

So the blintzes…cooked brown in their butter…..the kugel came out of the warmer and hit hundreds of plates…..and a good time was had by all.

This morning…I required one muscle relaxant and a couple of aspirins .....but the Kugel Queen rose (although slowly)…..and quickly threw her greasy apron into the wash.

Next year….there will be a new Kugel Queen……

And all I ca say is.....Hail to the new Queen!!

While I will be a lowly volunteer in some other booth.....Yippeeee!

My $8.99 Tomato

What can say?

It's my first year trying to grow a vegetable.....a tomato plant.

Since I have lots of shade around my house....I bought a large clay pot and planted a store bought tomato plant in it (8.99 for a foot high starter) and nestled the pot close to my driveway where sunshine is consistent in the afternoon.

The plant had a promising amount of green tomatoes till the bad weather and hail storm....which made big holes in fruits and tore several leaves off.

Today....I plucked off one of the lower tomatoes....which had turned red and only had a few scars.

As you can see.....I better not count on this plant to provide for our salads this summer. I would estimate, when cut in half, perhaps two bites worth of food.

Still it is my first tomato.....

although I think I'll be visiting the Farmer's Market next week.

Who's the Special Op Dog?

There's a lot of speculation about the Special Ops Dog which accompanied the Mission in Pakistan.

Was it a German Shepherd or another breed? (Most Special Op Dogs are either German Shepherds or Belgian Malinois)

Did it have titanium fangs? (Yes....some of the Special Op Dogs have a titanium cover fitted over their front fangs so their bite can pierce personal armor. Can you imagine anything scarier than a big growling dog with shiny steel fangs? I'm thinking Stephen King Novel here)

Was he a bomb dog or a tracker? (Apparently, dogs don't multi-task anymore. They are specifically trained to be explosive sniffers or human trackers)

Did he carry equipment? ( Most dogs don't go fur-only anymore into a job. They have flack jackets to protect them from bullets or knives....they can have collars with an intercom and/or camera attached so their handler can talk to them as well as see what they see...and some have a short pole that sticks up from their flack jacket with a flashing light so their trainers can see them in dark/foggy conditions)

Was he a Euro Dog or an American Dog? ( Most of the military dogs have been bred in Europe where there is a strong tradition of breeding dogs for military use. In recent years, there's been talk that the US is starting to breed dogs here)

There's lots of possibilities......

but


I know ONE THING for CERTAIN

MY DOG was not involved or would ever be considered
as his specialty is sleeping in t he sun.

Sun's out/ Weather bitch is vanquished

After two weeks of wind, rain, hail, tornadoes, funnel clouds, flooding, downed trees and 5 million weather alerts....the sun is out.

I think a couple more days of those 3 loud weather alert beeps.....and I would have chopped my ears off......as it was.....I felt some kinship to Pavlov's poor dogs.....yes...those bitches that were in his conditioned reflex experiment. Ring bell....salivate while waiting for food.

Me? 3 loud weather alert beeps.....and I was close to needing a Depends undergarment.

There's only so many weather beeps for tornado watches, warning, hail, and flooding one can take in a couple week period and I was at the top of my quota.

The only good thing is I made sure my pantry (the safest room in my house should a tornado come barreling through) was not only stocked with my good wine....but also a wine opener.

I realized this the first time I hit the closet....hmmmm....lots of wine stashed in here....nice amount of peanuts too...thanks to a giant Sam's club purchase....but it ain't gonna do me any good if I can't open the bottle while waiting to be rescued.

So now I've got wine, peanuts and a corkscrew in the pantry.... along with my flashlight and candles.

You make due...when you don't have a basement.

Well...I calculate in 5 minutes the sun will be hitting my front porch.....and I've got my trusty broom leaning against the wall here....time to go sweep up some debris. Guess I could get the leaf blower out...but that would bring my chore to an end too quickly....I want to sweep slowly in the SUN....and let me skin feel the warmth....and let my eyes relish the blue sky....and let my psyche relax.

Whooo hooo for the sun!

Inches of Hail and Storm Debris

It is good to be in one piece today.
Last night was probably the worse storm I've lived through here in the South.
Wind, rain tornadoes.....and hail ...lots and lots of hail by my house.

This morning....it's easy to see not ever street or neighborhood experienced the same effects of the storm. I live in a small area that was pelted with dime to quarter size hail and lots of it.

The picture above shows my driveway and the neighbor's lawn all white from a layer of hail.

You can see how deep the hail is.....by my footprint. Most of my landscape shrubs were shredded to stubs. Some car damage....my roof is covered with so much debris....I can't figure out of if it's damaged or not yet.

I could scoop the hail off our lawn furniture last night.

This is probably the scariest picture I've seen. It was taken from the 9th floor of a hospital east of me and the photographer is facing west. I live right under the path of that tornado.....it hadn't touched down yet.....but in a few minutes it skipped over the river and leveled a complete town. I imagine the immense amount of hail we got....coincided with that huge funnel passing us by.

I hear there's another storm on the way tonight.....I may be dipping into the dog's "Valium for Storms" stash soon if this keeps up.

Someone got their ride pimped in red red red.......

Whooooeeeeee.....

I rubbed my eyes and came over for a closer look to see if this car was for real.

Red Metallic paint.....red tinted windows......red rims.

Someone got their ride pimped...big time.

I wonder if they see "red" when they drive around?

Wild Kitty update

Well lookey here....guess who's in the house.

From Meowing, hungry, stray cat living in fear in our front bushes....to potential house cat.

Wild Kitty has gone through a transformation......after her surgery.....we crated her because of her stitches and lo and behold she also became litter box trained.

Then we moved her from crate to laundry room....where she hid in the cabinet on top of some old soft towels. She snoozed a week there at least....just eating and being shy.

Then...we started letting her into our kitchen/family room area....where we have doors so we can close her out from the rest of the house.

Result: Wild Kitty is having fun....rubbing up against the dogs....hissing at the Old Cat.....(but only 50% of the time) chasing paper balls....carrying a small stick around.....jumping over and under furniture and then collapsing close to you and resting.

That's what she did here....she had just been on a kitten rampage across my family room....and plopped down in the kitchen.....because even a non cook like me has access to food.

So I rewarded her with a potato chip....so bad....but she loves them.

She not ready to be out all the time....and certainly not unsupervised....but the Wild Baby is having a good time and so far so good.

If something happens and we can't keep her...she can't adjust....she is at least now very adoptable.

So it's time to let the Wild Cat out again.....got to make some new paper mouse-ys.

A beautiful evening

Tonight was the first night of Passover and my hub and I were invited to a friend's home. Silvana is from Argentina and a renowned baker and cook. Wow.

Let me say that again. Wow.

From fish to a carrot and ginger salad.... to rice with pine nuts and onions...... and chicken cooked with apricots and plums...it was heavenly.

Then came dessert......a triple chocolate torte and a plum torte.....obviously this woman has a divine gift.

All of this, accompanied by bottles of Malbec wine from Argentina.

And wonderful company....a family from Israel.....other folks from the community ...I think we were a group of 15.

It was so amazingly pleasant....and sweet.....and it looks like Silvana, who has never made her bat mitzvah wants to be my partner.

We already picked out the dates....October 18 and 19. Amazingly...her husband was born on October 18 and mine on October 19.....so how fitting....we would do our two day ceremony on their birthdays...two years from now. I need to study a lot more than she does....and her mother-in-law is very ill....so this is nothing we can rush. But how wonderful to get it settled.

My tummy is full and happy.....and so is my spirit tonight.

Book suicide

My book weekend

So our book festival is almost over....a small session tomorrow.....and one major author on Wednesday and we can put a year's worth of work to bed.

I have mixed feelings this year.....everyone says the book industry is in upheaval due to electronic devices but I also think readership is in upheaval too.

I know this is cliche but they are so many things to do and so many ways to amuse ourselves....I'm not sure people are glued to books anymore. I used to think that declining interest in books was a cliche but now I'm beginning to think there's some truth to the matter.

You see books take time....and in a life filled with work and email and so many tugs on us.....it seems more and more of a luxury to read for a long time. Reading is now in short bursts...an article on the net....an excerpt....but who has the hours it takes to commit to read a story?

I'm sounding cliche.....and don't get me wrong....we had good attendance.....we go to schools...we expose folks any every turn we can think of.....to what's happening in the book world....but for the first time.....I wondered....really wondered....if we were making inroads into our community.

Perhaps it's just post project blues......I don't know.

The Start of the Next Phase........

I blew the sawdust off one of the boxes in my garage (hub's woodworking hobby is dusty) and gently slid a knife under the tape. The box opened in a small cloud of dust and 10 folders where neatly packed inside.

My dad was a newspaper-magazine junkie and he just couldn't bare to let thoughtful interesting articles and great pictures find a home in the recycle bin. He saved them....but instead of stacking them in a empty bin or tossing them into a file cabinet.....he took the time to place the articles in plastic sleeves and then into notebooks. I'm not sure how many notebooks I took from the house.....10 here....10 there....perhaps some others wedged in between stuff in the boxes.

Although I still have the lit fest to watch over next weekend, I started the next phase of my life, which should last about two years. I've got three major projects to work on: go through the boxes from my parents and decide what to save, sell or give away// go through and organize the second floor of my house and attic//study for my bat mitzvah.

I've already told folks I'm cutting back on volunteering and doing extra projects. I love helping out but.....whenever I get neck deep into these projects.....I ignore my house and my finances.

I don't necessarily want to dwell on my house, the stuff in it, and my finances. But I've got those 200 boxes in my garage, family history scattered all over, important papers here and there and not much organization.

My parents' death really affected me in many ways.....and hard hit has been my sense of stuff. I don't want clutter....I don't want junk.....I just want the essential and fun stuff around. I want to open my cabinets and find just the stuff I need. I want my art and collectibles out so I can live with them and look at them....and I want to document what I have so the kids can understand what it is gathering dust and then make good decisions about whether to cherish or move on.

It is so easy when you have fun projects or interesting volunteer work to close your eyes to all this...but if I keep doing this....when will organize it? I guess I can say.....oh it's something I can do when I'm older.....but if I wait 10 years.....I'll just have more stuff and more chaos.

So it starts......I went through 5 notebooks. I went through them one by one.....because dad...bless him.....sometimes he would stick an important little piece of family history or a photo at random in one of these books. In Chicago, I found a birth certificate for a relative stuck in the middle of one of these notebooks...with no rhyme or reason I could discern for putting it there.

So....page by page I look........and marvel at what dad saved.....pictures of beautiful women....crazy fun ads.....articles on politics and World War II.....secret health tips....secrets financial tips....gardening ideas .....Chicago history.....Polish cuisine....and tons and tons of recipes....even though I never saw my dad do anything more warm up soup in the microwave.

My goal is to do 1.5 boxes a week....open ....inspect and make decisions....if there are 200 boxes in the garage (I'm hoping there is not more) then it should take me about 18 months to get them all decided on.

I'm ready to do this.......