Everything Goes

Heroes and Villains

2012-01-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

ב"ה

Back in August 2009, Failed Messiah had a post called America's Worst Rabbi. Read it and them come back here to continue.

While I agree with Rabbi Safran that people are making a much bigger deal of Bernie Madoff (I think the reactions to him, the out of proportion punishment he was given, a punishment that serves only to partially assuage people's need for vengeance, a punishment that murderers, rapists, kidnappers and terrorists often don't even get, shows that our society is overly obsessed with money and cares more about money than it does about people), I also think that there is little to admire in the man. Back then, I wrote a blog entry on this subject on my "Jewish Sandwich" blog called "He Madoff with all the Cash" which talks about my feelings about Bernie Madoff. To be honest, in retrospect, he could be let out of prison today and he will have already received the worst punishment, that being the knowledge that his actions led directly to his son's death by suicide.

All that having been said, I want to revisit the part of Rabbi Safran's article where he doesn't give "Sully" Sullenberger his due. "Sully", who, besides keeping a cool head and safely landing the plane in the Hudson River, besides not leaving the plane until he was certain EVERYONE was off the plane and safe, is also currently a spokesperson for St. Jude's Hospital (which shows where his heart is -- in helping others). And, this past week, we have a perfect contrast to Captain Sullenberger -- we have Captain Francesco Schettino of the Costa Concordia. Yes, I know someone is innocent until proven guilty, and I don't know what I would have done in his shoes. But I do know that people who tell the truth generally will tell a story that may expand as time goes on as the person recalls more details, but it doesn't change with the wind. Captain Schettino's story has changed more times than the death toll number has changed.

But even if he did "fall off the boat", he clearly didn't do all he could to save lives, clearly didn't search to see if there were people who needed help, didn't coordinate rescue efforts with his crew. Granted, his ship is larger than was "Sully's" airplane. But instead of being "proactive", instead of reporting right away that they needed help, he and his crew seem to have taking more time seeing if they could keep it quiet than trying to coordinate rescue. The passengers were left in the dark, not knowing what was happening, not knowing what to do to save themselves.

The Costa Concordia was a tragedy, a tragedy that could have been averted if the Captain had been a man more similar to Captain Sullenberger. I doubt the entire fault lies with the Captain, but, if Captain Sullenberger hadn't, G-d forbid, landed the plane with the skill and forethought he did, the ensuing tragedy would not have been his fault either. With his bravery and insight, his knowledge and his caring, no lives were lost. That, Rabbi Safran, is why, even though part of his actions was self-preservation, Captain Sullenberger is a hero and Captain Schettino isn't.

Reyes of Sunshine??????

2011-12-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

ב"ה

I have always had a "special" s*** list for men (or women) who left the spouse who stood with them through their training/college years only to have the spouse dump them when they made it big. In this category, I would place people like Jim Carrey, Roseanne Barr and Robin Williams.

And I'm a Mets fan. I've been a Mets fan for a long time, as long as I can remember. It's ingrained in me. For the most part, I like the players on the team (there have been a few exceptions over the year, but they have been few and far between).

Jose Reyes used to be one of my favorite players. He started with the Mets when he was very young. His 9 seasons with the Mets have been productive, but they have also been plagued with injuries. He gave the Mets a lot in those years, but the Mets also stuck with him, despite injuries.

After 9 seasons with the Mets, Reyes did something that no other Met ever did; he won the batting title. As a Mets fan, I was rooting really hard for him. But I also had some difficulty feeling really good about this because I knew in my heart of hearts that if he won the title, it would be VERY unlikely that he would sign with the financially plagued Mets.

To make matters worse, as soon as the rumor mill started grinding, it because more and more obvious that not only wouldn't Reyes sign with the Mets (apparently they weren't even talking), but he would be signing with a team in the Mets' own division, a team that was in the group of teams that they will be playing more than the other teams in Major League Baseball.

So now that the other cleat has dropped and Reyes signed a 10-year (longer than he played with the Mets) contract that rivals a huge Power Ball Jackpot, I am angry. I feel as though I was left after sticking with a spouse through the lean years (granted, Reyes years have rarely been totally lean, but, by the same token, his true potential never totally came through), after the Mets built a stadium designed to be a triples-hitter's (like Reyes) paradise, after the fans have loved him and cheered for him and showered him with affection that is rare among New York fans. Maybe he's spoiled. He doesn't realize how rare that sort of adulation is, particularly in NY. But I will adulate no longer. I will, from my perch in my house, boo him when he comes up against the team that nurtured him.

The nice thing about this happening now is that I have time before the season to forget Reyes, to move him from the beloved category to the despised category that I usually reserve for players who I heard abuse their spouses, children or animals. I hope by season's start some players I have loved will still be with the Mets (I just heard yesterday that Angel Pagan was traded away -- that I can't blame Angel for, any more than I can blame Carlos Beltran for leaving, since he was also traded). Good riddance, Jose Reyes. Take your dirty money and run.

Supplemental Security

2011-08-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

Disclaimer: I am NOT a doctor or even a licensed nutritionist or any other medical or para-medical person. I only know what I read and what I hear from my alternative medical practitioners. This is not supposed to be a substitute for medical advice from either allopathic or alternative medical practitioners.

I'm a long time vegetarian and vegan (34 and 22 years respectively). Though I didn't make either decision (giving up meat/poultry/fish/leather/fur first and then adding dairy/eggs/lanolin etc. to the list) for health reasons. But somewhere along the line I did begin to be interested in health and nutrition and, of late (within the past 5-10 years I suppose) I've been downright obsessed with it. Health and nutrition books populate my bookcases and I subscribe to several health and nutrition magazines and newsletters.

About the same time I "went vegan", I also stopped taking medications. I don't even take aspirin. Most people find this very surprising (many even find it hard to believe). There are situations where I might take medication (particularly if it would be to treat an acute infection or injury) but I would then have to deal with the "fallout" (for example, taking antibiotics causes an imbalance in the body of bacteria vs. yeast -- for the most part, they keep each other in check, but antibiotics kill all bacteria without regard for whether or not it is helpful to the body's function -- if I were to need to take antibiotics then after I would have to pump up my body on probiotics and prebiotics).

One of the reasons I read a lot about health and nutrition is that I need to read about supplements and herbs to know which ones help the body regain equilibrium (as in how to treat different health issues to assist your body in healing itself).

Toward that end, I read a lot about this subject. My Mom has even "jumped on the bandwagon" (not that she doesn't take any medication, but she also takes supplements, etc.) -- this began when she went to a doctor for some muscular pain she was having. The doctor asked her what she wanted him to do. All he could recommend is semiannual cortisone (or something similar????) shots, something that, thank goodness, she cringed over the very idea of.

I had just been reading in one of my health newsletters about vitamin D and how prevalent vitamin D deficiency is, particularly in seniors, particularly in people who avoid the sun and particularly in the Northeast (all three conditions apply to my Mom). And, as it turned out, one of the symptoms was muscle aches. So she tried increasing her vitamin D and within days, the aches went away.

A few days ago, she had a bit of food poisoning (she thinks, anyway) and I gave her ginger tea (hot water with a few slices of ginger root in it) and, voila! Within a short time, she was feeling better.

I myself take many supplements, including vitamin D, vitamin B complex, niacin and niacinimide, and iodine. Some I take on my own (though I run them by my alternative medical practitioner) and the others I take on the advice of my alternative medical practitioner. With the help of these supplements, I have lowered my blood pressure, my cholesterol (though I think my vegan diet made the biggest dent in the cholesterol since I eat precious little saturated fat and no cholesterol).

So I was pretty intrigued by an article about The 12 Most Dangerous Supplements. I was curious as to how many of them I had heard of (7) and how many I had ever taken (none). The ones I might have considered taking (and with herbal preparations one should always either do research or discuss with their medical practitioner (allopathic -- that's MDs -- or alternative -- naturopaths, osteopaths, chiropractors, etc.) or both (with me, I try to do both).

It's ironic, from my perspective, that they spend so much time and effort trying to make it seem as though thousands upon thousands of people are dying from taking bad supplements. But they ignore the myriad side effects of medications.

Just about every day I see commercials from some law firm trying to find victims of this or that medication (Avandia is the big one right now, but there are so many drugs with potentially fatal side effects that once Avandia isn't there another one will pop up). So why is there such a fuss made of supplements and herbal preparations?

Too many people just follow what their doctors say. But most of the doctors just take symptoms and make a diagnosis and from the diagnosis they pick a medication from the a list and write a prescription for it. Doctors get most of their information about drugs from the pharmaceutical company representatives, who convince the docs that these are the only solutions to these specific issues. So most people are putting their faith in the drug companies. And I think most of them are doing this without understanding the consequences.

Most drugs work by suppressing a symptom, whereas most nutrient supplements and herbal preparations work by helping the body heal itself. What happens with drugs is that they suppress a symptom (say high blood sugar) but they haven't been proven (and in many cases, as a matter of fact, they have been proven to NOT) to save lives. Oftentimes, they cause more deaths than they save. (An example is diabetes drugs -- there was a study to see what would be the ideal dosage of diabetes medications that would prevent heart attacks in diabetics. What they found -- they had to stop the study early -- was that the drugs themselves caused more heart attacks! Everyone was surprised even though this also happened in the late 1960s when they tried this with diabetes drugs from that era!

I think people need to remember that the doctors won't have to live with the consequences of their prescribing. Only the patient has to live (or die?) with the fallout. So it behooves everyone to take control of his/her own health. Do more research, read magazines and books. Be an advocate for yourself and your family members.

Hasn't Charlie's Sheen been tarnished yet?

2011-04-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

There are always people one hears about even when one doesn't want to. Over the past months, I would include Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī (Moammar Gadaffi or however his name might be spelled in the English transliteration) and Lindsay Lohan are right up there on the list.

But I have to tell you, the person who I think it stretching his [way more than he deserves] "15 minutes of fame" to breaking point is Charlie Sheen. He's insulted people, offended people, ruined his career (not to mention screwed up the careers, at least temporarily, of his co-stars on "Two and a Half Men") and been booed off the stage in his "One Man Show[off]". So why are GSN and Drew Carey giving him yet another opportunity to prove to the world what a self-centered, ego-maniacal, immature, self-entitled individual he is?

There are so many people in this world (and even just in this country) who are nice people, who are talented and intelligent, who can't seem to make a decent living and people are wasting their money showering this low-life with adulation (or, in some cases, just money -- after hearing of how he was booed off the stage in more than one locale, I was reminded of a verse my Mom taught us when we were kids -- "Cy and I went to the circus/Cy got hit with a rolling pin/We got even with the darned old circus/We bought two tickets and we didn't go in")

Ok, so I have some advice for you all out there in big-city land -- DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON CHARLIE SHEEN!!!! If you really want to get something for your money, how about supporting the arts by buying products created by artists -- check out Cafe Press, Zazzle, Printfection, and PrintPop . Buying from these sites is, IMHO, a much better use of your entertainment/arts dollar. Of course, the fact that I have shops on all these sites doesn't hurt. (If you are so moved, the links to my shops are on the side of this blog under the heading Compugraph Designs' Stores)

Project: Runway and Michael Costello and me

2010-10-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

Ok, so I didn't meet Michael Costello, but I would love it if I could talk to him. He struck me as being a very sweet person, but something about his experience reminded me of my life.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I love my parents. But they grew up in a different world, they grew up in the world of "college education is the ticket to permanent vocational security" and "work for the same company/organization for 20-30 years and then you retire on a nice pension". And, while my Mother's family has artists (like writers and musicians), she seems to have internalized my father's family's depression mentality (my father's sister, though she's artistic, was a school teacher -- the safe profession for women of her are -- her daughter and granddaughter have a cake decorating business and the cakes are gorgeous -- though if you've ever read my Bayit and Garden blog you know I wouldn't eat a bit if them)

I have been designing since my teens. I used to knit and crochet Barbie doll clothes and I would sell them at a local concession store. I've never actually learned how to sew and make patterns well, so most of my clothing designs (with the exception of a couple of sweaters I knitted and a couple of dresses someone made for me for my sister and brother's weddings) are on paper only (mind you, I never learned how to sketch well either, so I trace figures and draw the clothing on them). I did go to Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in "the city" (aka Manhattan) part time at nights for 3 years, but I learned more about jewelry designing (I can make some of my jewelry and I have made quite a few and even sold some, but most of my jewelry designs, which I DID learn how to render well -- I even developed my own method of designing on the computer -- like my fashion design, are only on paper -- or pixels). I did try learning "flat pattern design" (I tried twice) and draping, but I was so far behind after only a few weeks that I dropped the courses each time (I was more concerned about credits back then than learning).

But after 3 years and only 19 credits (6 of which were in science and astronomy), I left FIT and went to college full time, majoring in TV/Radio and nothing with art or drawing in it. And that was the end of my design career.

Part of this was because my parents never encouraged me (actually,for the most part, they discouraged me -- my Mom still says XX years later, that I should have worked for the government like she did -- despite my telling her that I actually tried getting a job with the government on numerous occasions). The first people in my life who have encouraged me are a friend (who sometimes works with me to get my business going) and my niece, who just started design school in Israel. For the past 20 or so years I have been working off and on as a freelance graphic designer and for the past 4 or so years I have been working on my Cafe Press, Zazzle and Printfection stores.

So my message to Michael: I love you. I love your work. I think you're very talented. Keep in mind, not every idea a designer has is great. We all have horrible designs in there somewhere. But if you listen to your voice (and, in your head now, I have a feeling you'll hear Tim Gunn's voice whenever you step back and look at your newest creation). I know I would love to see you in the future. If you have faith in yourself you WILL succeed. And, one favor if you ever do see this blog entry, leave me a comment.

(If you want to see some of my clothing sketches, you can see them here.)

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

The End of an Era? I Hope it's the End of a Losing Era

2010-10-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

So yet another promising baseball season ends without the Mets making it to the post-season. In my opinion, it's not that the Mets don't have good players. Reyes, Wright, Beltran, add to them Ike Davis, Angel Pagan and lately Ruben Tejada (I think if we could either get back Frenchie or if Bay would come back, we would have a solid starting line-up).

Lately, Lucas Duda and Nick Evans have been making some noise (I like Nick Evans -- I think he's a good young player and I've been watching him for a while).

I wonder what Gil Hodges (am I showing my age????) would have done with the current team. I like the new (and some of the old???) pitchers. K-Rod is a huge question mark (holy Plaxico Burris, Batman! Talk about "shooting yourself in the foot"!) -- wish he weren't such an idiot from a human perspective. Dickey has been the best surprise, but Gee and Niese.

So I hope this bodes well for next year, particularly with a new GM and manager. Here's to 2011! May it be our best year yet!!!!

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Frenchie's Toast

2010-09-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

The sports news lately has been very depressing. The Mets have been raising losing to a new art.

But last night's sports news added to this -- not only did the Mets lose, but they traded away a player who I have considered a bright spot in the dim haze of the Mets' 2nd half of this season. I know he hasn't been hitting well (who on the Mets has???) but his arm is worth a few home runs a week, in my opinion.

I'm a real Mets chauvinist, so if I like any players from another team, particularly the Braves or the Phillies, it's generally because I see something in that player that I think would work with the Mets and help the Mets. Jeff Francoeur was just such a player.

In a previous blog entry, I spoke of how much Jeff Francoeur gives to the team. I think his infectious smile also makes him a favorite with fans. This is good for the morale of the fans and the players, in my opinion.

I don't know about other fans, but I'll miss Jeff Francoeur. I think there are different dimensions each player can give to a team and when you are trying to build a winning team. The Mets have (and have had) the talent; they just need to work together in a cohesive manner to truly be a winning team. This is something the Mets don't have right now, and trading away Jeff Francoeur takes away just one more element from the equation.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Folk Hero or Obnoxious Man?

2010-08-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

B"H

It's amazing how quickly Steve Slater, a flight attendant who claimed that he was fed up with rude passengers, cursed over the loudspeaker, grabbed a beer and slid down the safety slide has become a "folk hero" of sorts (sort of in the category of Bernhard Goetz, I would think). It seems that service workers seemed to identify with Mr. Slater.

I was reminded of a few things in my life when this happened. My mom didn't believe for one moment that Mr. Slater was justified because recently I (who usually get along quite well with the flight attendants, often talking to them on long flights) had an incident with a flight attendant. A few months ago, I was on a flight (a puddle jumper with only one flight attendant) and had some difficulties with a nasty flight attendant. It started when he refused to let me go to the bathroom before the flight left the gate. It continued (I don't recall what the second "thing" was) and came to a head when he wouldn't give me more water (I'm diabetic and need a lot to drink or I get dizzy). So on one of my myriad trips to the bathroom, I saw an open water bottle and took it from the galley and brought it back to my seat. When "Mr. Personality" saw me with the bottle, he tried to take it from me, wrestling with me over the bottle. When he realized he would not be able to take the bottle from me, he crushed it rather than allow me to drink from it. He had the Captain call ahead and I was met by a woman who I assumed was supposed to escort me out of the airport, but when I told her what happened, she laughed and realized that I wasn't some crazed terrorist or criminal, intent on disruption their flight. I laughed the whole thing off (after sending a narrative of the event in an e-mail to the airlines and promptly put the incident in the cobweb covered filing cabinet in the nether regions of my brain and didn't think about it again until Mr. Slater's incident -- and it took my Mom reminding me for me to extract this from it's place in my brain).

This past week, on Undercover Boss, there was a repeat of an episode about a CEO of a mail order business (I forget the name) was working undercover with a customer service phone employee who was rude to a customer and he was livid. He later told the employee that this was totally unacceptable.

This also reminded me of when I was working many years ago as a teller at Chase Manhattan. I often worked the "deposits only" line and I was also the teller that one of the "not exactly by the book, but let's help the customer" officers (whose name was John and he later was the president of a smaller branch) used to bring the upset customers to (because he knew that I would do whatever he asked me to do even if it wasn't "by the book").

One day, John brought over someone who was really upset. The customer continued to complain while I was taking care of him. I finished the transaction, handing him his receipt, smiled and said, "have a nice day" and he left. The next customer was a regular of mine and so I started chatting with him. He started staring and I asked him what the problem was and he said that he was shocked that I could take that abuse and still be my normal cheerful self. I shrugged and told him that I knew the customer wasn't angry with me, just the bank. I'd been on the other side myself many times.

On that episode of "Undercover Boss", there was also an employee who was able to diffuse just about any customer with his charm and "let's make this right" attitude. He personified the cool customer service representative and he managed to resolve issues, feeling that it was his job to have the customer feel good after the call. I have experienced people like that too, in between the obnoxious "I'm right, you're not!" people.

So what's the real story with Mr. Slater? I don't know. But he's no folk hero to me.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

2010-08-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

B"H

I'm a long time vegetarian and vegan (33 and 21 years respectively). Though I didn't make either decision (giving up meat/poultry/fish/leather/fur first and then adding dairy/eggs/lanolin etc. to the list) for health reasons. But somewhere along the line I did begin to be interested in health and nutrition and, of late (within the past 5-10 years I suppose) I've been downright obsessed with it. Health and nutrition books populate my bookcases and I subscribe to several health and nutrition magazines and newsletters.

About the same time I "went vegan", I also stopped taking medications. I don't even take aspirin. Most people find this very surprising (many even find it hard to believe). There are situations where I might take medication (particularly if it would be to treat an acute infection or injury) but I would then have to deal with the "fallout" (for example, taking antibiotics causes an imbalance in the body of bacteria vs. yeast -- for the most part, they keep each other in check, but antibiotics kill all bacteria without regard for whether or not it is helpful to the body's function -- if I were to need to take antibiotics then after I would have to pump up my body on probiotics and prebiotics).

One of the reasons I read a lot about health and nutrition is that I need to read about supplements and herbs to know which ones help the body regain equilibrium (as in how to treat different health issues to assist your body in healing itself).

Toward that end, I read a lot about this subject. My Mom has even "jumped on the bandwagon" (not that she doesn't take any medication, but she also takes supplements, etc.) -- this began when she went to a doctor for some muscular pain she was having. The doctor asked her what she wanted him to do. All he could recommend is semiannual cortisone (or something similar????) shots, something that, thank goodness, she cringed over the very idea of.

I had just been reading in one of my health newsletters about vitamin D and how prevalent vitamin D deficiency is, particularly in seniors, particularly in people who avoid the sun and particularly in the Northeast (all three conditions apply to my Mom). And, as it turned out, one of the symptoms was muscle aches. So she tried increasing her vitamin D and within days, the aches went away.

A few days ago, she had a bit of food poisoning (she thinks, anyway) and I gave her ginger tea (hot water with a few slices of ginger root in it) and, voila! Within a short time, she was feeling better.

I myself take many supplements, including vitamin D, vitamin B complex, niacin and niacinimide, and iodine. Some I take on my own (though I run them by my alternative medical practitioner) and the others I take on the advice of my alternative medical practitioner. With the help of these supplements, I have lowered my blood pressure, my cholesterol (though I think my vegan diet made the biggest dent in the cholesterol since I eat precious little saturated fat and no cholesterol).

So I was pretty intrigued by an article about The 12 Most Dangerous Supplements. I was curious as to how many of them I had heard of (7) and how many I had ever taken (none). The ones I might have considered taking (and with herbal preparations one should always either do research or discuss with their medical practitioner (allopathic -- that's MDs -- or alternative -- naturopaths, osteopaths, chiropractors, etc.) or both (with me, I try to do both)) I checked out more carefully only to discover that they have negative side effects that I wasn't too keen on (so I never tried them).

It's ironic, from my perspective, that they spend so much time and effort trying to make it seem as though thousands upon thousands of people are dying from taking bad supplements. But they ignore the myriad side effects of medications.

Just about every day I see commercials from some law firm trying to find victims of this or that medication (Avandia is the big one right now, but there are so many drugs with potentially fatal side effects that once Avandia isn't there another one will pop up). So why is there such a fuss made of supplements and herbal preparations?

Too many people just follow what their doctors say. But most of the doctors just take symptoms and make a diagnosis and from the diagnosis they pick a medication from the a list and write a prescription for it. Doctors get most of their information about drugs from the pharmaceutical company representatives, who convince the docs that these are the only solutions to these specific issues. So most people are putting their faith in the drug companies. And I think most of them are doing this without understanding the consequences.

Most drugs work by suppressing a symptom, whereas most nutrient supplements and herbal preparations work by helping the body heal itself. What happens with drugs is that they suppress a symptom (say high blood sugar) but they haven't been proven (and in many cases, as a matter of fact, they have been proven to NOT) to save lives. Oftentimes, they cause more deaths than they save. (An example is diabetes drugs -- there was a study to see what would be the ideal dosage of diabetes medications that would prevent heart attacks in diabetics. What they found -- they had to stop the study early -- was that the drugs themselves caused more heart attacks! Everyone was surprised even though this also happened in the late 1960s when they tried this with diabetes drugs from that era!

I think people need to remember that the doctors won't have to live with the consequences of their prescribing. Only the patient has to live (or die?) with the fallout. So it behooves everyone to take control of his/her own health. Do more research, read magazines and books. Be an advocate for yourself and your family members.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Be it Ever So Humble......

2010-07-31T22:12:00.000-07:00

B"H

After a majorly pathetic road trip, the Mets are back in the friendly confines of Citi Field. The bats woke up (and my main man Jeff Francoeur hit a home run) and, the first game against the Cardinals felt better than the anxiety of the previous good pitching/ practically no hitting games of the road trip.

I just wish they could stay on a winning streak. Granted, they did win 2 out of 3 from the Cards, but so far they split the two games with the Arizona Diamondbacks (who are supposed to be one of the worst teams in the majors -- so far, as of tonight, they have lost 4 games to the D-backs and only won one game. This doesn't exactly fill me full of warms and fuzzies. Now I realize that as a Mets fan, I have learned to rejoice at the small victories, the home runs, the triples, the stolen bases, the walk-off victories (there are so many of the walk-off losses this season). And tonight's game (which I was able to see part of since it was still going after Shabbat -- the Sabbath) was one of those small victories. Thanks to a double by David Wright driving in the tying runs and a triple by Feliciano, who was driven home by a sac-fly by Beltran (for the second out of the 9th), the Mets pulled off a win (before having to go into extras, where they are totally pathetic this year).

I have to preface what I'm going to say now with a bit of a disclaimer: I never wanted Jason Bay to get injured. I don't even like it when players on teams I hate (like the Phillies and the Braves) get injured. But I'm happy that Francoeur is playing.

Francoeur adds something to the team, IMHO, even when he isn't hitting. Because of his arm, runners often stop at third, afraid of being thrown out at the plate. Add that to the number of runners he does throw out at the plate and he probably saves a significant number of runs. A run kept from scoring is just as much help to the team as an RBI, IMHO.

Angel Pagan, Thank G-d, is hitting and fielding well. I think he has proven his worth to the team and Carlos Beltran is starting to come into his own after coming back from the long-term disabled list. I personally think that Francoeur is the natural choice for the third outfielder, especially with Bay not hitting up to par. I don't totally understand why all the announcers and commentators are taking it as a fait accompli that Bay should be the 3rd outfielder. I vote for Francoeur.

(Let's Go Mets!)

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

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Israel and it's Place in the World
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I Lost on Jeopardy, Part VI

2010-06-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

(Two paragraphs from the previous entry:)

After the taping of our show ended (I came in third, so I would get $1,000, not the $6,300 on my lectern at the end of the game, Pat came in second, so he would get $2,000), Pat and I were told we could stick around for the taping of the next show or go back to the hotel. Pat decided he’d like to stay for the next show and I didn’t want to go back to the hotel alone, so I stayed too. After the next show, Jack (who had won our game but lost the next, so he won two days all told) and another man (who’s name I can’t recall – oy! – I feel bad because he was really nice and I introduced him to my Mom in the hotel later on – he was a tall handsome African-American man who I think was in his late 30s to late 40s – I’m a terrible judge of age, though) lost to Samantha, a local who wasn’t staying at the hotel. So the four of us went back to the hotel (we split the cab 4 ways and it came out to, with tip, about $4 a person).

Because I now had a lot of time and nowhere to go, I called my cousin who lives just outside Los Angeles (we had spoken on Monday night about her taking us out Tuesday night) and she told me when she’d be there (and I told her the address of the restaurant we wanted to go to – it was the same kosher restaurant that sent food for my Mom when we got there – it was the only kosher restaurant I had called that had food on the menu that I’d be able to eat with my restricted vegan diet rather than them saying they’d make something for me). My Mom and I hung out for a while until she got there. It was a lot of fun going out with my cousin (who I think I’d only seen once in 20 or so years) – she also took us grocery shopping.

The next day, a long time cyber friend of mine (10+ years I think) who lives in Los Angeles and whom I had never before had the opportunity to meet in person (whenever he was east, we never could get together). So he came and picked us up and took us again to the same restaurant. We had a wonderful time with him (my Mom found him charming). I was disappointed that we didn’t get to meet his wife (she was at work that day) but at least I got to meet him. After lunch, he took us back to the hotel where we packed and got ready to go to the airport for our “red-eye” back to the east coast.

The trip home was uneventful. But after that came the waiting. Well, first I had to take care of some business. As I mentioned earlier, there was a question that I thought my answer was correct that I was called wrong on. So I checked some sources, just to make sure I wasn’t grasping at straws, and my sources said that my answer was also correct. (The “answer”, in a category that the “questions” needed to start with “SP”, was something to the effect that “this started in 1957 with the launching of Sputnik” and I buzzed in and said, “what is the ‘space race’?” and I was called wrong, Pat buzzed in and said, “what is the ‘space age’?” and was given credit for a correct answer.) So I called Robert and he told me I needed to write a letter to Maggie and explain the whole “deal”, which I did. This was back in November, within a week of returning from California. I didn’t hear anything for a long time….

Being home, I now had to wait almost 2 months before the show I was on would air. We got home November 13th and the show wasn’t aired until January 12th. But we had to get ready to go to my nephew’s Bar Mitzva in December, so the activity of getting ready for the Bar Mitzva and being at the Bar Mitzva and visiting with my brother’s family helped. I kept telling people to watch me on January 12th.

January 12th came along and I tried to remind everyone I could (my family, my cousin who I saw in California, my friend who I saw in California, though he missed it since he thought it was Tuesday, not Monday, my High School classmates – we have an on-line yahoo group – my best friends, etc.). Because at the time we got Jeopardy twice in our viewing zone (once from the Long Island affiliate at 5 pm, again on the NY “owned and operated” at 7 pm), I taped it twice. Another friend taped it and I ended up with enough copies to send one to my sister (who lives out of the country) and another to my brother (who has a computer but no TV) so that my nieces and nephews could see me. My other brother, who lives near my sister, came to visit in early February and saw it then.

A few weeks after the show aired, I finally got a letter back from Jeopardy about the “space race” question. They checked their sources and also came to the conclusion that I was correct. But, they reasoned, I wouldn’t have won anyway (they didn’t take into account the part that this threw me – I could, in my brain, hear my brain yelling at my eyes to look at the lights but my eyes fell into the “being at home” routine of keying into Alex’s voice, so I was slow on the buzzer and, because of that, there were two “answers” I buzzed in on, since I could get through because no one buzzed, that I knew I had the wrong “questions” for – I lost a total of $3600 on those two “answers”, this extra $3600 would have put me into striking range of the leader when I later hit the “Daily Double”, which I got correct, but they had their own way of figuring, and I didn’t argue), but I might have ended up in 2nd place, so they gave me the 2nd place prize ($2,000 instead of the $1,000 for 3rd place). And I didn’t have to go back to California! (That second part I was particularly pleased about – I’m not cut out to be a Californian.) This was good, since the trip there, between airfare for two and two days in the hotel, cost me almost the original $1,000. This left me with some money to put towards my business.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
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Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
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Top 10 Presidents
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How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
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Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
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Holy 1962, Batman! Where have you gone, Marv Throneberry?

2010-04-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

ב"ה

I think by now you all know that I'm a Mets fan -- an incurable Mets fan. I don't root for the Mets only when they win. I stick with them through thick and thin (and, believe you me, there has been way more "thin" than "thick"). I'm one of those people who loves my teams win or lose.

Anyway, I've been watching the game on and off today and, now that it's finished, I can finally say "Yay! -- they finally won!!!!!" (so now they're 3 and 6 for the season I think -- they've played 3 series and won 1 game in each series) -- Ok, so I rejoice on the small victories, what can I say????

Once upon a time, the Mets were an expansion team. Marv Throneberry was one of the players who sort of embodied the team -- he was lovable, but pathetic. As were the Mets in those days. In their first year, they won 40 games and lost 120. I think that put them in the record books. One of their pitchers, Roger Craig, almost tied the record for straight losses -- he lost 18 straight and the record was 19. There's a story about the early Mets -- there was a game they played once where they scored 19 runs. They told a man on the street about this and his response? "Did they win?" (They did -- they beat the Cubs 19-1)

In any case, for today, I'm happy. Tomorrow???? (Well, I can't watch the game tomorrow anyway, so I won't know the results until after שבת -- Shabbat -- the Sabbath)......

Let's go Mets!

Compugraph Designs web site

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Israel and it's Place in the World
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Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single
Strong Biblical Women
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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
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Top 10 Presidents
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How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
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Macys Fashion Director

2010-03-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

B"H

Macys Fashion Director: "

Check out my entry into today's Macy's contest!"

Ok, so I've lost some weight recently and I'm currently wearing sizes I never wore before. Which is nice in and of itself except this means I'm a bit on the short side wardrobe wise. I've been getting some nice "hand-me-across" clothes (kind of hard to call clothing from my younger sister "hand-me-down"). But it's not the same as picking things out on one's own. (Mind you, I super appreciate all the help I'm getting from friends and relatives on this) -- But when I found out that Macy's was having a contest to put together outfits from clothes they supply you with for different occasions ("meeting the in-laws", "applying for your dream job", "beach party with your workmates", stuff like that....) with a daily prize of a Macy's gift certificate I decided I'd at least try.

Now, I have a feeling that most of the daily winners are young people, college students perhaps (?) who have tons of friends voting for them. And I realize that most of my friends are not so young and voting for me and my outfits might not be tops on their list of "things I must do today".....

I'd like to hope that perhaps some of my friends could help me with this -- so if you get a chance, check out my outfit for today.......

Thanks....

Compugraph Designs web site

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
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Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
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Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
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Top 10 Presidents
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How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
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My experience on Jeopardy
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Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
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Lightnin' Striking?

2010-02-23T20:41:00.002-08:00

B"H

Nothing like listening to the words of a songs to destroy your illusions. I think the first time this happened to me was with the Police song "Every Breath you Take". I started listening to the words and realized the guy singing the song was a control freak, a stalker, a really scary guy.

I was away from home most of the past week and I took my laptop with me. I set up the laptop in the room I was staying in but I couldn't get on the internet. So I played a lot of freecell, solitaire and minesweeper. And I listened to the one music cd I had -- it had about 15 songs and in the course of my few days there, I heard that cd probably 10 or more times.

One of the songs that I got the opportunity to hear over and over and over again was Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Striking". And, while it was playing, I began singing with it. Now, mind you, it's not that I didn't know the words before, it's just that the subtleties of their meaning escaped me as a naive child.

I don't know how many of you know the words, but it starts with "Listen to me, Baby, you gotta understand/ You're old enough to know the makings of a man/ Listen to me, Baby, it's hard to settle down/ Am I asking too much for you to stick around?" -- so far, it sounds relatively innocuous. But it continues. "Every boy wants a girl/ He can trust to the very end/ Baby, that's you, won't you stay/ but 'til then/ If she's put together fine/ and she's reading my mind/ I can't stop/ I can't stop myself...."

So I listened over and over to the words and I realized (despite comments I have seen about how this is a nice little love song) that, far from being a love song, is an apologia -- an excuse, an explanation of how and why he is cheating on his "lady love" -- yes, one day, he vows, he will be faithful to her (after they get married -- SOMEday....) and, you feel that underneath it all he totally expects her to be "pure" when they do get married one day. It's the double standard, the whole "there are 'girls' you s**** and 'girls' you marry and they aren't the same" hypocrisy, the "men are expected to be experienced but women are expected to be pure" thing. (Mind you, I feel that sex is only appropriate within the confines of marriage, so I think both parties should be "pure")

I hope that some day I can forget (or forgive) the meaning of the words. I hope that some day I won't always think of the machismo or overbearingly "full of c***" words of this song. But for now, when I listen, all I can hear is a man making excuses for his infidelity.

Compugraph Designs web site

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):

Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
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Math Tips 2
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Why Should anyone hire Me?
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My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
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Super Bowl giveth and Super Bowl taketh away.....

2010-02-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

B"H

I'll admit it -- I'm a Giants fan. If I can survive a few years of the Mets crashing and burning, I can certainly survive one year of the Giants doing the same.

Because I'm a Giants fan, I was rooting for "our Quarterback"'s brother -- Payton Manning and the Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts.

A lot of people, however, were rooting for New Orleans because of the whole Hurricane Katrina fiasco/disaster. New Orleans, I agree, needed something big. But for New Orleans, just making it to the Super Bowl was excitement worthy, celebration worthy, Mardi Gras-type party worthy. But by winning, they gave the city, which has no baseball team (I'm having difficulty thinking of a major sports team in New Orleans besides the Saints), a needed "shot in the arm". And, though I was rooting for Indy, I'm not horribly upset that New Orleans won (it's not as the Indy is one of my favorite teams or New Orleans is a team I hate -- I was only rooting for Eli's brother -- and, truth be told, in this regard, New Orleans isn't so bad since "Dad" Archie was the quarterback of the Saints "back in the day" as they say).

But, to pull this blog entry back to the title, one of the players, Pierre Garcon, is from Haiti. Haiti, which recently experienced an earthquake that it is still in the throes of, also needs to have something to "hang its hat on" from an inspirational perspective.

So, while it's very nice for New Orleans (and I love that they are "back"), it would be nice to see this sort of niceness for Haiti, too.

Story about Pierre Garcon and his organization that is helping Haiti

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):

Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
My Blogs
Top 10 Presidents
Bottom 10 Presidents
How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
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Carnie Wilson Unstapled

2010-01-23T23:02:00.001-08:00

B"H

I've been watching the new show on GSN "Carnie Wilson Unstapled". It's sort of like watching a train wreck. But I'm finding it fascinating.

It reminds me that everyone has a set of problems that other people who find easy to solve (and, perhaps, she would find my issues easy to deal with.... or not????)

I've been dealing with weight issues since High School. Before he passed away, one of my HS teachers was in the local nursing home and I went to visit him -- our visit ended when he needed to go to lunch and I walked him to the cafeteria. As he turned to walk in, he turned to me and said, "you were chubby in HS".

So I have been fighting this fight for a long time. But each step of the way, I've had small successes. I first went high fiber, then vegetarian, then low fat, then vegan -- recently, I went on a diet that my alternative medical practitioner put me on and started treating my adrenals with nutrient supplements.

Along to way, I discovered a few things -- firstly, I discovered that I love sweets and if I try to cut them out of my diet, I will have crazy cravings. So I discovered stevia, a natural no-calorie sweetener. I have used it to make cakes, cookies, biscotti, puddings (mostly tapioca), iced herbal teas, even vegan "gello" using herbal tea and agar. I've also made Popsicles, sweet and sour dishes, pancakes (and a strawberry "syrup" to go with them), cereal (hot and cold), even chocolate. I also use whole grain flours (including sprouted grain wheat -- I'm still not allowed regular wheat or rye, but I'm finally allowed spelt and oats! -- so this Pesah -- Passover -- I can have spelt matza.....)....

Secondly, I discovered that it's easier to lose weight if I exercise (I love walking and I keep track with a pedometer -- I aim for 12,000 steps a day, which I often get -- I usually average my steps for Sunday through Thursday (I can't wear the pedometer on Shabbat -- the Sabbath -- so Friday and Saturday, I don't have accurate readings for my steps, so I don't count them in the average, though I do record them). In my little log book I record my morning blood sugar (Sunday through Friday) and my morning weight and fat percentage, water percentage and bone percentage (per my scale -- also Sunday through Friday). This past week, I averaged over 14,000 steps for the five days and mos of the time recently, I've been keeping my blood sugar under 110.

I discovered that if I walk when I'm talking on the phone or when I'm watching Jeopardy (often twice a day on weekdays) and Millionaire, that helps me reach my step goal (also walking around town, or around the block, or going to the gym).

In the past XX years (my weight loss odyssey):

I lost about 30 pounds from my heaviest point in my 20s until my sister's wedding in my early 30s (and anther 10 pounds before my brother's wedding about 6 months later).

I lost another 30 or 40 pounds by the time I was re-diagnosed with diabetes about 8 years ago.

I lost another 30-35 pounds in the past almost 2 years.

I'd like to lost another 10 pounds, but I won't make myself crazy doing that -- just keeping from gaining weight right now will be enough.

This is one of the issues Carnie is dealing with. The other issue is that she spends as much money as she makes (considering she's making the Newlywed Game and has a few other enterprises, this is a considerable accomplishment.

I've spent the majority of my life not getting a regular paycheck. As a matter of fact, despite the fact that I'm a graphic artist, a writer and a tutor, I've been a programmer, a technical writer, a teacher (computers, wood shop and Hebrew school), I worked several summers for the state of NJ employment office, administrative assistant for several concerns (including office manager for a psychology group), and a zillion other jobs... but I've never been able to support myself, and except for 2 years, I never made a salary that anyone would consider reasonable, never even near the median income in this country.

So I look at Carnie's spending -- and I think to myself how much easier things would be for her if she bought things that weren't quite so overpriced. It's sort of like Carrie Bradshaw, Sara Jessica Parker's role on Sex and the City. Carrie was a shoe buff -- there was one episode where she mentions having 100 or so pairs of shoes. That part didn't faze me, since I probably have close to that many. But I spend an average of less than $10 a pair of shoes. Carrie said she averaged $300 a pair. Miranda, her friend, said, "do you realize how much that is?" so Carrie said, "$3,000?" and Miranda said, "No, $30,000!!!". If I do have 100 pairs of shoes, they probably total less than $1,000 and I've been collecting them over the course of several years. That's what Carnie spent on one diaper bag.

So, if Carnie ever does read this -- Carnie -- call me, I could help you with your issues (and maybe you could help with mine??? With your name, maybe more people would buy my designs -- the ones I sell on Cafe Press and Zazzle)

And if you get a chance, you may want to check out my chocolate recipe -- for each two squares (rectangles???) of 99% cocoa baker's chocolate (I melt in a double boiler) I add 1/8 cup each of cacao nibs and mixed chopped nuts and enough stevia to equal 1 cup of sugar (2 teaspoons of the one I use) and 1 teaspoon erythritol (another natural no-calorie sweetener) -- I mix well and drop it by 1/2 tablespoons on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and put it in the refrigerator until it sets and I keep them in a container in the refrigerator.

Compugraph Designs web site

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):

Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
My Blogs
Top 10 Presidents
Bottom 10 Presidents
How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
Check out my Stress Release Mix list

Let's PREVENT 9/11 in Addition to the Memorials

2009-09-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

B"H

With another 9/11 anniversary approaching, I find myself thinking of just how far we’ve come, and not in a good way. I remember how, right after the attacks, people were so upset about what had happened, so resolved to prevent its recurrence. I remember how much people wanted the perpetrators punished, the organizations that backed them up and sent them destroyed, the leaders of those organizations made to pay.

But 9/11 seems to have gone the way of the Holocaust; people get brownie points and have photo-ops by attending and speaking at memorial services but no one is doing anything to prevent either from recurring, far from it. The recent release of the Lockerbie bomber and Qadaffi's visit to the Nations-United-Against-Israel-and-the-US (aka the UN) show just how uninterested people are in standing up to and fighting terrorism.

The only way to fight terrorism and terrorist acts is to fight. We can’t back off. We can’t allow any of the terrorist demands to be met. We can’t even appear wishy-washy. We need to stand up to the haters of freedom.

I’ve been reading Cokie Roberts’ book “Founding Mothers”, about the women who helped this country gain our freedom from British tyranny. I wonder what they would think, after being there for so many sacrifices by boys and men and girls and women to win our independence. I wonder what they would think about the world’s tacit capitulation to terror forces, forces we could easily defeat, forces that have proven they have only the “best interests” of a small group of despotic leaders at “heart”. I wonder if the spirits of these “Founding Mothers” are looking down on us from heaven and crying over the squandering of our liberties and the Western world’s autonomy and free-will.

The picture in Europe is bleak. Just about every country in Europe has regions where the Muslim minorities have taken over, suppressing the rights of women, violently suffocating the free will of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, not only in these districts but in their entire countries. People are losing their rights to a free press and free speech as Islamist extremists, who have taken over by spreading fear and panic, riot and murder at the slightest “insult”.

This picture will become even gloomier if we don’t prevent this from happening here in the US. We need to defend our freedom. We need to defend our way of life. We need to defend the free world, the Western world, the world of George Washington and Patrick Henry, of John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin, of Samuel and John Adams, and Eliza Pinckney, Deborah Franklin and Abigail Adams. We need to, as Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, “resolve that these dead [those of the World Trade Center attacks, Lockerby and other terrorist attacks] shall not have died in vain…. That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” We need to preserve our legacy to our children; we need to give them a world where their differences are celebrated, not suppressed. And we need to protect our bequest from our founding fathers and mothers. We need to maintain our oasis of freedom, the place where oppressed people can escape their subjugation; the country of liberty, the country of choice, the country of openness and opportunity.

As our forefathers and mothers learned, this freedom doesn’t come cheaply. And it isn’t defended by weakness and appeasement.

If we don’t prevent it, 9/11 could happen again. Memorial services don’t prevent attacks or genocidal holocausts. Memorial services don’t fight our fights or defend our children. We need to make these memorial services more meaningful by doing battle with our enemies, the perpetrators of these atrocities, and preventing the need for further memorial services. We need to be strong and remember that our children are worth fighting for. And we need to press our leaders to strike at the adversaries of freedom and liberty.

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Check out my other blogs:

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NEW!! Jewish Wedding Customs
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Strong Biblical Women
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Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
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Passover: Holiday of Freedom
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The Walking Wounded (like our pride)

2009-08-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

B"H

I realize that the Mets' newest addition to the "Walking Wounded" yesterday could be the most devastating of all (though I still point to the stat from last year that the differential between how the Mets did with Jose Reyes vs without Jose Reyes was the biggest differential of any lead-off hitter in the majors). David Wright has been the stalwart of the team, the man who kept on keeping on when others went into huge slumps. And now he's down....

I'm seeing flashbacks from last year. Ryan Church (who was traded to acquire Jeff Francoeur, who I think is a wonderful addition to the team, though I miss Church) was "going gangbusters" until he was hit and got a concussion. Because of the needs of the team, he was rushed back to the line-up and was never the same all season. (I just heard the announcers mention this very thing and that he spoke to Jerry Manuel about this very subject)

In any case, I have to say I'm not a huge "blame the manager" person. I don't automatically jump to say it's the manager's fault when a team isn't doing well. Sometimes it's just that the team doesn't have good players.

But, IMHO, that just isn't the case. Omar Minaya, despite the controversy surrounding him for his unfortunate comment, seems to be getting help when it's needed. Luis Castillo, Angel Pagan, Omar Santos, Francoeur of course, Daniel Murphy, Alex Cora, and Fernando Tatis, just to name a few, have stepped up to the plate, so to speak. The acquisition over the winter of "K-Rod" Francisco (Frankie) Rodriguez has helped to shore up the bullpen (though I still thought it would have been nice to let certain pitchers attempt complete games, though they're the exception these days where they were the norm in the past).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, yes, I liked Willie Randolph (I even liked him when he was a player on the Yankees, and that's going some). Yes, I was sorry that things weren't working out with him. I reluctantly did think changing the manager last year might help the team. But, and this is a big but, I really don't think Jerry Manuel was the person (or is the person) to take that spot. I was never terribly impressed with him as a manager (I did think he was a good -- ok, descent? -- bench coach) and this season I'm even less impressed with him than I was before.

So perhaps it would be nice to see what a different manager with a different style might do. I'm tired of apologizing for the Mets. I'm tired of seeing a good team lose consistently. I still root for my team. But I'm getting frustrated.

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Israel and it's Place in the World
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NEW!! Jewish Wedding Customs
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Strong Biblical Women
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Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
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Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
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Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
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Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
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Pythagorean Theorem
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Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
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It's not easy being Mets

2009-07-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

B"H

I'm not saying that I won't watch the Mets play anymore this season, but I've more or less given up on them for this season. Granted, I'm enormously frustrated -- just a few short weeks ago they were mixing it up with the "big boys" in first or second place, less than 2 or 3 games out of first place or in first place. Now, the only thing keeping them from the cellar of the NL East is the pathetic (and thanks for them) Washington Nationals (nee Montreal Expos).

I realize it's hard to totally remake a team after losing three key players (Jose Reyes and the two "Carlos"es -- Beltran and Delgado), but it's also hard to keep on hoping only to see my hopes dashed against the craggy rocks of defeat again and again.

At this point, I'm glad I root for other teams besides the Mets. My LA Angels, Boston Red Sox (Why I'm a Red Sox fan) and St. Louis Cardinals (who I mostly like for two reasons -- My Dad's been a fan since his childhood years and they have a vegetarian manager) are all in first place and have been in the "thick of things" for most, if not all of the season so far (KI"H).

I'm still a Mets fan and I'll still hope for a turnaround, but, from my perspective, I'm hoping one of my other teams will get to the "big game".

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
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Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):

NEW!! Jewish Wedding Customs
Going to a Wedding Single

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
My Blogs
Top 10 Presidents
Bottom 10 Presidents
How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
Check out my Stress Release Mix list

I Lost on Jeopardy, Part V

2009-06-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

B"H

(One paragraph from the last entry:)

The week before we left, I did some research on vegan restaurants in the area. I found one that was perfect for me – since, besides being a vegan, I can’t eat grains or sugars or soy it was hard even with vegan restaurants – it was a raw food restaurant, called "Leaf Cuisine", that had a number of soy free dishes. I called them and found out that I could get food delivered from them if I contacted a food delivery place they deal with. I ordered a lasagna type dish called "rawsagna", a kale salad, a wrap type sandwich (make with greens on the outside instead of bread) and carrot juice (the carrot juice was a mistake – it got all over the bag, but it was delicious). There were some more arrangements I had to make (since I wanted the food to be there when I got there) but this all worked out rather well and the food was delicious. But my Mom didn’t want anything from a place that said it was raw food (turned out she liked the food too, but neither of us knew what would happen). So the Sunday before we were leaving (we left Monday afternoon), I spent about 8 or so hours on the phone trying to find an appropriate kosher restaurant (that also had food I could eat). I found one called "La Gondola" on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills and I ordered some stuff for my Mom for Monday night (when we got there). The food was there when we got to the hotel.

But I’m jumping the gun. Monday, my friend Tasha took us to the airport (she had also had taken me to buy three new outfits for the show – all were sleeveless tops with a long sleeve stretch top underneath and leggings "down below" – one was actually appropriate for me to wear to my nephew’s Bar Mitzva – without the leggings). The first leg of our trip was down to North Carolina. It was a very short flight (possibly even shorter than going to Chicago). We didn’t have a long layover, so the long flight came next. That flight took us to Los Angeles (LAX).

After getting our bags (mostly carry-on – there was an extra charge for a checked bag so we managed to work it out with only one check-on bag), we went looking for the shuttle to take us to the hotel. Someone (one of the drivers of the other shuttles) told us we would have to call the hotel, which we did. The shuttle was only a couple minutes away. So we got on the shuttle (the driver helped with the bags without our asking him) and were driven to the hotel.

The woman at the desk was the one I had spoken to about the food, and she remembered me and gave us our food, checked us in, and gave us a room with two beds (we were told we might have to stay in a room with one big bed). The room was ok – the TV didn’t have many channels (and CBS didn’t come in clearly). It also was in a cabinet that made it hard to see. But the bed was big and comfy and I was SO tired (and I had to be up early the next morning) that I just ate and went to sleep.

I had asked for a wake up call at 5:45. I’m a real night owl and usually the only reason I’m up at 5:45 in the morning is if I haven’t gotten to sleep yet (this happens rarely, but it happens on occasion, way more often than how often I’m up at 5:45). But I had so much on my mind that I got up at 5:30. So I got dressed and went downstairs and told them not to call (I think that I got up that early because I didn’t want to wake my Mom). I then got a bowl for my breakfast (I had brought some cereal – sprouted grain cereal – and almond milk and almonds and chopped walnuts and pecans and some pumpkin pie spice and stevia – a natural sweetener ok for diabetics).

After getting dressed (and telling my Mom what to do about getting to the studio, which she never did, BTW), I went down to the lobby to wait for the shuttle to the studio. The shuttle left at about 7:15, I was told, to get us to the studio before 8 am. So I wanted to make sure I got there in time (I was nervous about being in Los Angeles – I had never been to California before and I didn’t know my way around and I was a bit freaked out by being alone in LA). But the van didn’t leave until 7:30. I had introduced myself to a few of the other contestants at that point. I had always wondered how it would be competing against people that you get to know a bit before the taping, but that wasn’t a problem.

We got to the studio and didn’t know where to go, so we waited. Someone eventually came and got us. As I was walking toward the door, Robert was standing there. He called out to me, "you must be Debbie" and I looked down at my leggings and flip-flops and said, "the leggings and flip-flops are a dead giveaway, right?" and he nodded.

We were brought in to a big building and then into a room. The room had a big table, a couch, some food, two bathroom doors, and an area off on our right to have make-up put on. Robert and Maggie (who I had met in NY at the original audition) briefed us (well, briefed may not be the best word – it wasn’t brief). Maggie is full of energy and lots of fun. She’s the kind of person who I wish I could be friends with, but being that this was my only trip to Jeopardy, I doubt I will ever see her again. Robert is more low key, but also very nice and he was just a phone call away every time I had a question (well, a voice mail message away?). For example, when Tasha and I went shopping for Jeopardy clothes, I called Robert several times, "is it ok for me to wear leggings?" or "is this or that color ok?" or the immortal "can I wear nice flip-flops?" This, of course, is why he knew who I was when he saw me in leggings and flip-flops.

During the briefing, we filled out some forms, picked something to have Alex talk to us about (this is one thing I keep second-guessing myself about), heard rules, got advice for doing our best (advice which went totally out of my head the second I got in front of the camera – I just went into "automatic pilot" and played as though I were in my living room), and had make-up put on. We were then taken out to the studio and given the opportunity to stand at the podiums and try out the buzzers. We had mock games at the audition, but that was already over a year earlier and, if I recall correctly, it was a bit easier in the studio than in NY. Oh, BTW, if you are a Jeopardy watcher, you will notice that the players repeatedly hit their buzzers (like we’re punching out a Morse Code signal). This is because we’re told to do that.

The first mock game we did, I had the buzzer nailed. I knew the answers to the questions (or the questions to the answers????) and focused in on the lights (you can’t buzz your buzzer until the lights go on). I felt good and for the first time thought I might actually be able to win. I’ve always said that most (if not all) of the people who are on Jeopardy know at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the material (I kind of "prove" that by counting the number of clues I know and 20 out of 30 is good, under 17 is bad, over 20 is great – I only got 30 out of 30 twice – and once was a teen tournament, though those can be harder because of the pop culture questions). Sometimes even if you know the "answer" it can totally fly out of your head (this is true at home as well as in the studio – strangely enough, I think it happens more when I’m at home!)

After the second rehearsals, we went back into the room and we were told that this was it; the shows would be starting. I went to use the "ladies’ room" and when I came out, I was told I’d be on the first show! (5 Shows are taped per day, so two week’s worth of programs would be taped in the two days I needed to be in Los Angeles).

We were brought out to the studio – Jack, the champion, in the champion’s spot, Pat on the first lectern and shrimpy 5'4" me in the middle. They have to have people’s heads at about the same height, so they have platforms for shorter people to stand on – I got 1-1/2 platforms. Pat, the guy on my left, had to put a sweater over his shirt because the shirt was a problem with strobing (I was a TV/Radio major in my college days and I knew all about strobing colors). Alex Trebek came out and we were on our way.

I was rather surprised at how calm I was. I was frustrated at being buzzed out a lot (as in the guys beat me to the buzzer), but I apparently did myself proud. It was a great experience (Robert and Maggie were wonderful, Alex is a doll, really. I’ve had a major crush on him since my teens and he didn’t disappoint). One thing I have to say about Jeopardy, they are really hyper concerned with everything being fair and accepting alternative answers that are correct but weren’t what they expected. At one point during the game, Pat buzzed in with an answer that was ruled wrong; I buzzed in and blurted out the correct answer, though Alex never called on me (and my time apparently expired before I blurted out the answer). The reason Alex never called on me was that they were signaling him that there was an issue they needed to check out. Pat’s answer, though eventually ruled incorrect, was thought to have been a possible alternative version of the correct answer. So they stopped the "action", turned us around (so we didn’t have a chance to look at the board) and Maggie and Robert came over and started talking to us, first telling us what was going on, then relaxing us with friendly chatter). Eventually, the ruling was made and they then told me I should ring in again, Alex would call on me, and I should re-give the correct answer so they could splice that version. It worked so well that when the program was on you couldn’t tell.

Because we were told about things like what I just described (we were told during the briefing that things like that happened with some regularity and we shouldn’t get thrown by it, which, thanks to Maggie and Robert I didn’t get thrown), when I was called incorrect in one place on something that I was pretty certain was correct, I expected they’d get back to me on it. But they never did. (More on this later…)

After the taping of our show ended (I came in third, so I would get $1,000, not the $6,300 on my lectern at the end of the game, Pat came in second, so he would get $2,000), Pat and I were told we could stick around for the taping of the next show or go back to the hotel. Pat decided he’d like to stay for the next show and I didn’t want to go back to the hotel alone, so I stayed too. After the next show, Jack (who had won our game but lost the next, so he won two days all told) and another man (who’s name I can’t recall – oy! – I feel bad because he was really nice and I introduced him to my Mom in the hotel later on – he was a tall handsome African-American man who I think was in his late 30s to late 40s – I’m a terrible judge of age, though) lost to Samantha, a local who wasn’t staying at the hotel. So the four of us went back to the hotel (we split the cab 4 ways and it came out to, with tip, about $4 a person).

Because I now had a lot of time and nowhere to go, I called my cousin who lives just outside Los Angeles (we had spoken on Monday night about her taking us out Tuesday night) and she told me when she’d be there (and I told her the address of the restaurant we wanted to go to – it was the same kosher restaurant that sent food for my Mom when we got there – it was the only kosher restaurant I had called that had food on the menu that I’d be able to eat with my restricted vegan diet rather than them saying they’d make something for me). My Mom and I hung out for a while until she got there. It was a lot of fun going out with my cousin (who I think I’d only seen once in 20 or so years) – she also took us grocery shopping.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
My Blogs
Top 10 Presidents
Bottom 10 Presidents
How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
Check out my Stress Release Mix list

Let's Go Mets!

2009-05-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

B"H

Well, for now, being a Mets fan is fun again. Six straight wins has gotten me excited about my team again. They seem to have tied up some of the pitching "loose ends" (like the closer spot -- thanks to K-Rod -- Francisco Rodriguez).

It could be that they got off to a slow start because a lot of the Mets players were in the World Baseball Classic playing for various nations (some of whom were playing for most of the series). I hope that's the reason for the shaky start. But for now anyway, they're in first place (Thank G-d!).

As a long time Mets fan (or is it long suffering????) I've gotten used to rejoicing whenever there's a good sign because I never know when the Mets will turn a good thing around. I hope I can continue to rejoice all season long. I hope this is the year they finally prove they don't always choke in the clutch.....

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Ruth and Naomi
Strong Biblical Women 5: Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Strong Biblical Women 6: Yocheved -- Mother of Moshe (Moses)
Strong Biblical Women 7: Miriam
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Purim, Esther et al
Being an internet small business owner
Why I'm a Red Sox fan
Pythagorean Theorem
My Blogs
Top 10 Presidents
Bottom 10 Presidents
How Can We Appeal to G-d for Forgiveness?
Math Tips 2
Searching for a Fashion Partner
Math Hints 3
One Actor, Two Shows (TV Quiz)
Presidential Tidbits
Why Should anyone hire Me?
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
My experience on Jeopardy
Project:Runway and how it got me excited about designing again
Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
My Vocational Experiences
Check out my Stress Release Mix list

I Lost on Jeopardy, Part IV

2009-03-29T11:10:00.001-07:00

B"H

(Two paragraphs from the last entry:)

Sometime in March, I think, I got a call from Robert from Jeopardy. He asked me if I wanted to be on Jeopardy and I said, emphatically, "Yes!" But, the date that he asked me if I could be there was in the middle of Passover. The first two and last two days of Passover are holiday days and we are not permitted to drive, use electricity, or use just about any modern electrical (or telephone, cell phone, or the like) or technological product. Now that I have gone to California, I realize that I was right to tell him I couldn’t do it – I wouldn’t have had the time to squeeze this in between the holiday days. Since this was the last taping for the year, Robert told me that they’d keep me in mind for the new season.

I was concerned that, especially with the awful set-up of the Jewish holidays this year (Rosh Hashana was Monday night to Wednesday night, as were Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret / Simhat Tora, and Yom Kippur was on a Thursday) that I would be called sometime during the Jewish holiday season (which pretty much lasts for 4 weeks). But thankfully, that didn’t happen.

On Erev (the day before) Yom Kippur I got a call from Robert. He asked me if I could make it on November 11. I checked the calendar, found out it was a couple of weeks after the Jewish holidays (and a few weeks before my nephew’s Bar Mitzva – I later found out that it was a few days after my cousin’s Bar Mitzva, but that was in town, so I was able to go to the Bar Mitzva and do Jeopardy).

Now came the stressing – not over being on Jeopardy, but the stressing over the plane tickets, the hotel room (they don’t pay for you and you’re only guaranteed $1000, so if you’re heading to Los Angeles from the Northeast, you need to keep costs down), food, etc. The actual Jeopardy experience didn’t stress me out at all. I’d been looking forward to this since I was a little girl. My Mom and great-aunt had been on Jeopardy in earlier years. I’d been practicing in various ways since I was in my teens (from writing down what I got right as a teen, to counting amounts on my fingers, to counting right answers on my fingers, to counting the right answers while using a click pen as a substitute buzzer). So even though, in order to actually do this I had to schlep from coast to coast and sleep in a hotel (I’m not a hotel person), I was as ready as I’d ever be for the actual Jeopardy experience. I knew that a lot had to do with what categories came up (my Mom told me about her experience – I missed the actual show she was on – that she was ahead after the Jeopardy round but when she saw the Double Jeopardy categories she knew she was toast), who else I was competing against and how fast I was on the buzzer.

I managed to get reasonably decently priced plane tickets (my Mom came with me – I’d never been to California before and didn’t like the idea of going someplace I’d never been before all by myself) and the hotel rate, I was told by my cousin who lives just outside LA, was very good. Then came the food…………

The week before we left, I did some research on vegan restaurants in the area. I found one that was perfect for me – since, besides being a vegan, I can’t eat grains or sugars or soy it was hard even with vegan restaurants – it was a raw food restaurant, called "Leaf Cuisine", that had a number of soy free dishes. I called them and found out that I could get food delivered from them if I contacted a food delivery place they deal with. I ordered a lasagna type dish called "rawsagna", a kale salad, a wrap type sandwich (make with greens on the outside instead of bread) and carrot juice (the carrot juice was a mistake – it got all over the bag, but it was delicious). There were some more arrangements I had to make (since I wanted the food to be there when I got there) but this all worked out rather well and the food was delicious. But my Mom didn’t want anything from a place that said it was raw food (turned out she liked the food too, but neither of us knew what would happen). So the Sunday before we were leaving (we left Monday afternoon), I spent about 8 or so hours on the phone trying to find an appropriate kosher restaurant (that also had food I could eat). I found one called "La Gondola" on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills and I ordered some stuff for my Mom for Monday night (when we got there). The food was there when we got to the hotel.

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
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Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?
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I Lost on Jeopardy Part III

2009-03-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

B"H

(One paragraph from the last entry:)

I hadn’t heard from Jeopardy by the time the next on-line test came along (well, the next one we were told that we could take). So, since we were told that Jeopardy loves people who keep trying (there was one person there that was on his fourth or fifth time there), I decided to take the test again. There was only one problem, though. I was scheduled to be in Israel for my niece’s wedding when the test was being given. So, while the test is given at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time, it’s 3 am in Israel.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. At 3 am, everyone is asleep in my sister’s house, nobody would be competing with me for the computer nor would anyone be around to distract me. But, because so many people came in for my niece’s wedding (and my sister-in-law’s wedding two days later), my sister didn’t have enough room in the house to put everyone up, so I was sleeping at a friend’s down the block (where I didn’t have the availability of the internet). But two very interesting things happened.

The day before “test day”, the lights and electricity went out at the house staying at. I walked down to my sister’s house and woke her up and she said I should bring the stuff I needed down the block and sleep on her couch (which was fine with me). She helped me set up the couch and I slept there that night.

The next night, we went to get some take-out (and pick up my brother’s daughter since my brother and sister-in-law were on vacation for their anniversary and the two teens were by themselves, so we invited them for dinner that night – my nephew would come straight to the house from school) at the same mall my sister brought her kids to the eye doctor and it started to pour. The rain was coming down so heavily that we got totally soaked just running to the car. I have to give my sister credit for driving home in that weather. I had never seen such a rainstorm in Israel before and I don’t recall ever seeing a storm where it poured so much for so long.

It was pouring so hard that my sister told my brother’s children that they should stay over (there was no one to go home to anyway and with this horrible weather, no one knew if the electricity wouldn’t go out). It was so bad that my sister said she wasn’t even going to drive me down the block (I certainly couldn’t walk in that weather – I got soaked just running to the car to get my pjs from the night before). So, thanks to the “blackout” the night before, the couch was already set up for me.

I went to sleep about 1 am and woke up again about 2 am, leaving me plenty of time to sign on and get ready for the Jeopardy test. I did get on in time, and I took the test (though I’m not at all sure how I did – I couldn’t even think of George Eliot’s name until the time had almost run out and I was trying so hard to get it in time that I spelled it “Elite”, so I doubt, even with their very liberal spelling rules, that I got it right).

Sometime in March, I think, I got a call from Robert from Jeopardy. He asked me if I wanted to be on Jeopardy and I said, emphatically, “Yes!” But, the date that he asked me if I could be there was in the middle of Passover. The first two and last two days of Passover are holiday days and we are not permitted to drive, use electricity, or use just about any modern electrical (or telephone, cell phone, or the like) or technological product. Now that I have gone to California, I realize that I was right to tell him I couldn’t do it – I wouldn’t have had the time to squeeze this in between the holiday days. Since this was the last taping for the year, Robert told me that they’d keep me in mind for the new season.

I was concerned that, especially with the awful set-up of the Jewish holidays this year (Rosh Hashana was Monday night to Wednesday night, as were Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret / Simhat Tora, and Yom Kippur was on a Thursday) that I would be called sometime during the Jewish holiday season (which pretty much lasts for 4 weeks). But thankfully, that didn’t happen.

Stay tuned for the next installment.....

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Dr. Phil, what ARE you thinking?

2009-02-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

B"H

I was watching Dr. Phil's program last night. They had another installment (I hadn't seen the first installment) of yet another weight loss contest. I personally think these weight loss shows are good except......

Ok, it's a good idea to get people who are very heavy and who have really horrible habits (eating badly, not exercising) together and help them learn to make better decisions. That's really laudable. But there are some issues I have with these shows in general.

First off, I have noticed that often they push people a bit too much. They take people who have rarely stood up for long periods of time, much less walked, and push them to do things that athletes do during their off season training. This helps the people see big numbers quickly, but it's not necessarily the best way to go, in my opinion.

I'm a bit of an expert on dieting and losing weight. I've been fighting the battle of the bulge since I was in my teens. I've tried calorie counting, the eating man's diet, the enzyme catalyst diet, the fit for life diet, Atkins, Ornish, Powter, running, walking, pilates and yoga. All worked to some degree, but some helped pile more pounds on (most notably Atkins since it's such an unnatural way for me to eat that I couldn't keep it up for long and when I stopped, I slingshot not only back to where I started, but to a higher weight -- it was after my first run at Atkins that I reached my heaviest point -- about 250 pounds).

The times I lost the bulk of my weight were when I became a vegetarian and, 12 1/2 years later, when I went vegan. I'm still fighting -- I've recently (within the last 10 or so months) started losing weight again (by taking nutrient supplements designed to treat my adrenals) and then even more recently (about 4 weeks ago) started Prevention Magazine's Flat Belly diet. Since Pesah (Passover) last year, I've lost almost 20 pounds, a bit more than 5 of them since I started the diet.

In any case, back to the main point -- the second thing I don't like is that they eliminate people. Granted, they didn't last night (and I hope they never do, but that may be a vain hope), but they were supposed to and made it sound like they will in the future. This is just what these people need, right? Here are a bunch of people who already have low self-esteem (I ought to know, I'm the princess of low self-esteem) and, instead of encouraging them, they will bring on a streak of self-loathing by making them feel like losers in the weight loss game. It's also a bad idea because the people who need it the most will get the least help.

I also get the feeling that often these people will go back to their "real life" and without a trainer or a nutrition coach, end up back on the couch. I hope I'm wrong (will we get to see what they look like a year or two years or five years from now?). But I'm also still worried.

From my perspective, the best thing anyone can do diet wise is to eat lots of vegetables -- sauteed vegetables, boiled vegetables, steamed vegetables, raw vegetables, vegetable soup, etc. Learning how to cook for yourself (and not be dependent on industrial food) is a huge step forward. Check out recipes on line and in cookbooks. But eat veggies!!!

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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
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About the Jewish Calendar
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Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
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Passover: Holiday of Freedom
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Television Trivia Quiz
Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Jewish Perspective of G-d
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I Lost on Jeopardy Part II

2009-02-02T14:59:00.000-08:00

B"H

(I'm giving you two paragraphs from part one to remind you of where I left off -- they're in italics below:)

I got a letter (or was it a card? I was so excited I don’t even remember) saying that I should go to NY for an interview for Jeopardy. It was on a Friday in June at 9 o’clock in the morning. And it was a Friday that my Mom (who I always do these things with) would be in Israel. This meant several things: 1) I would have to go on a Friday (a day that I usually devote to getting ready for Shabbat – the Sabbath) 2) I would have to get up at an unG-dly hour in the morning (to me, anything before 8:30 am is unG-dly) – something like 6 in the morning (usually, if I’m up at 6 in the morning it’s only because I haven’t gone to sleep yet, and this happens more often than you might expect) 3) I would have to go ALONE (something I rarely do).

But, just to show how much Jeopardy means to me, I managed to do this. I even got into bed the night before around 10 pm (the only way I’m in bed by 10 pm is if I’m sick or I just came back from Israel the day after staying up all night to see the Giants in the Super Bowl that starts in Israel at about 1:30 in the morning, but I digress).

I actually got up before the alarm rang (a pattern that will repeat, but I’m jumping ahead). I got myself ready, off to the train (I borrowed my brother-in-law’s parking permit to park at the train station) and into Manhattan early enough to walk to the Waldorf Astoria from Penn Station (forgetting that Grand Central was in the middle if I walked all the way East, so I walked through Grand Central to “get to the other side”) by 8:30, before anyone else. The room wasn’t even open yet.

The other people started coming a few at a time. Since I was in NY, there were a few other Orthodox Jews there. One, another woman, overheard me talking to my brother about what time Shabbat (the Sabbath) started where he was and started talking to me. That was when I started to feel more comfortable (not, mind you, that I was nervous, just that I didn’t quite feel “at home”).

I had previously tried out for “Who wants to be a Millionaire”. For “Millionaire”, one goes to the studio to be in the audience. Anyone who is in the audience can take the test for the show. Most of the people in the audience do take the test. So if you pass the test (they don’t tell you who has passed until late in the second of two shows your are part of the audience), you are one of only about 10-15% of the audience to pass and you feel really smart.

With Jeopardy, though, everyone who is invited to the audition has passed the test on-line. I have likened the experience to new students coming into Harvard – just about all of the students who come into the freshman class of Harvard were valedictorians of their High School classes. So they’re used to be the smartest one in their class. But then they come to Harvard and everyone there was the best and brightest in their school.

It’s the same with Jeopardy. Everyone there is the best in trivia and that sort of knowledge in their milieu. So you don’t feel quite so brilliant. It can be a bit intimidating.

They took us into the room and we sat down. I don’t remember everything that happened in the order that it happened, but I remember several things. I remember them giving us another test (this test was very easy, much more so than the on-line test, it’s possible I got all the answers right and I couldn’t have gotten more than 3 or 4 wrong). I think they just give this test to make sure that the people in the room are actually the people who passed the on-line test, not someone substituting for them. I also remember doing a quick rehearsal of using the buttons. And I remember that nobody (including, or especially??? Myself) stood out as being any faster or smarter than anyone else.

I hadn’t heard from Jeopardy by the time the next on-line test came along (well, the next one we were told that we could take). So, since we were told that Jeopardy loves people who keep trying (there was one person there that was on his fourth or fifth time there), I decided to take the test again. There was only one problem, though. I was scheduled to be in Israel for my niece’s wedding when the test was being given. So, while the test is given at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time, it’s 3 am in Israel.

Stay tuned for more...

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Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Why I'm a Red Sox Fan

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"I Lost on Jeopardy, Baby" Part I

2009-01-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

B"H

I was on Jeopardy a couple of weeks ago, but the taping was back in November. Back then, I started writing about my experiences, while they were fresh in my head, but I wanted to wait until I put it in my blog. So here is my first installment:

It’s currently November 13, 2008. I can’t put this on-line yet, but I want to get my thoughts down about my Jeopardy experience. I can’t put anything on-line about it until after the show I was on airs.

I should probably begin at the beginning. I’ve wanted to be on Jeopardy since I was a little girl. They didn’t have teen and pre-teen and college tournaments when I was in that age group, so I was never able to do one of those tournaments.

The show started off in NY (which I live near), but like just about all TV/Movie and similar things (sports teams????), they moved to California (Los Angeles in this case). So up until recently, the only way you could try out for Jeopardy (at least since I was old enough to be a contestant) was to go to California. Finances being what they are (like non-existent????) I never had been to California. So being on Jeopardy seemed like a faded dream.

They did once have a tryout in Atlantic City, so my Mom and I went down to AC and tried out. But since it was a 10-question test (and you needed 7 correct out of 10 to be considered) it was hard to pass.

But a few years ago, hope was restored! First of all, Jeopardy had changed its policy of scoring so that everyone who was on the program was guaranteed $1000. Secondly, they began to offer an on-line qualifying test. This was the 50-question test that they used to qualify people.

The first time I heard about the on-line test, I tried to take it but because I have dial-up internet service I wasn’t able to get set up fast enough and I missed taking the test. The second time I heard about the test I got on-line earlier, set up fast enough and took the test.

You don’t know how you did on the test. They tell you that only some of the people who pass are called in for an interview. So I figured I would never hear anything. But……

I got a letter (or was it a card? I was so excited I don’t even remember) saying that I should go to NY for an interview for Jeopardy. It was on a Friday in June at 9 o’clock in the morning. And it was a Friday that my Mom (who I usually do these things with) would be in Israel. This meant several things: 1) I would have to go on a Friday (a day that I usually devote to getting ready for Shabbat – the Sabbath) 2) I would have to get up at an unG-dly hour in the morning (to me, anything before 8:30 am is unG-dly) – something like 6 in the morning (usually, if I’m up at 6 in the morning it’s only because I haven’t gone to sleep yet, and this happens more often than you might expect) 3) I would have to go ALONE (something I rarely do).

But, just to show how much Jeopardy means to me, I managed to do this. I even got into bed the night before around 10 pm (the only way I’m in bed by 10 pm is if I’m sick or I just came back from Israel the day after staying up all night to see the Giants in the Super Bowl that starts in Israel at about 1:30 in the morning, but I digress).

Tune in again for the continuing story of a regular person who's taken her first step along the Game Show Road.

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Strong Biblical Women
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Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Why I'm a Red Sox Fan

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"Why can't Americans learn to speak???"

2009-01-19T12:33:00.001-08:00

B"H

My Mom and I are always annoyed when we see a specific commercial. It's one from one of those scooter companies, the ones that help people who are unable to walk on their own. This one talks about a woman who is, "limited by (sic) her mobility".

Every time we hear this commercial we yell at the screen, "you can be 'limited in your mobility' or you can be 'limited by you lack of mobility' but you can't be limited 'by your mobility'."

This is not the only problem I have with Americans and their grammar, usage and general speech. One of the phrasings that bothers me the most is misuse of the word lay. Lay means put. If you can't say "put" you can't say "lay". For example, since you can't say "I'm going to put down" you can't say "I'm going to lay down". What you probably mean in this case is lie down. Lie means recline.

I suppose the tripping point in this word maze is that the past tense of lay is laid (as is the past participle) but the past tense of lie is lay (and the past participle is lain). In other words, while you ought not to say "I'm going to lay down now" you would be correct to say "yesterday, I lay in my bed" (just as you could say "yesterday, I reclined in my bed").

Lay does have a use (in the present tense). You should, for example, say "I'm going to lay my coat down on that chair" (just as you could say "I'm going to put that coat down on that chair").

Yes, I understand that an awful lot of people misuse lay. And I really don't know why it bothers me so much. It shouldn't annoy me so much, nor should it bother me when people say, "between you and I" instead of "between you and me". Yes, Virginia, there is a use for objective case pronouns (me, him, her, us, them).

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Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
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Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Jewish Perspective of G-d
Why I'm a Red Sox Fan

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2008-12-13T18:35:00.001-08:00

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More food....

2008-10-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

B"H

One of my favorite desserts is tapioca pudding. Before I was vegan, I used to make it with milk and eggs, when I went low fat, I made it with skim milk and egg beaters.

But when I went vegan, I needed a way to make it. So I tried a number of things, but they proved unsuccessful. So I tried going "simple" -- using just soy/rice milk, tapioca and stevia (which I had begun using by the time I figured this all out). I now use almond "milk" -- I take one container (32 ounces) unsweetened almond "milk", put it in the top of a double boiler. I add 1/2 cup large pearl tapioca and 1/4 cup small pearl tapioca and stevia that is equivalent to a cup of sugar. I boil the water in the bottom pot of the double boiler, then put the top pot on and turn the flame to low. I let it cook, stirring occasionally (to keep the pearls from sticking together) until it gets to desired consistency (keep in mind that it thickens in the refrigerator). Put it in a container and into the refrigerator.

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):
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Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Why I'm a Red Sox Fan

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Double Bummer

2008-09-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

B"H

For the second year in a row, the Mets have taken until the last day of the season to dash the hopes of their loyal fans. I have been a Mets fan for a long time and I wonder which is worse -- when the Mets are so terrible no one even expects them to crawl out of the cellar, or something like this year and last when they dangle a carrot in front of us all season only to pull it away on the last day of the season.

To make matters worse, they're demolishing the stadium I grew up with -- Shea Stadium. I'll never again walk up those steep ramps of Shea to the "nose bleed" section. I'll never again see those orange seats or the unisphere from Shea. I'll never walk from Main Street in Queens to the Shea.

I have memories of Shea -- one was a banner day that I went to with my brother and father and I wore my banner -- I sewed a skirt and batiked a tee shirt (with the number of my then favorite player, #23, Teddy Martinez -- I remember it was 23 because I was standing in the aisle watching the game (returning to my seat from the lady's room) and I was standing in someone's way and he yelled to me "hey, 23, skidoo!"

I remember my first time at Shea -- it was a night game and I was 9 -- and from our vantage point in "general admission", the slope of the seats was so steep and the night so dark, I thought I was going to fall on the field.

I remember a time when my brother and I (and I think my sister?) were leaving the stadium and we saw Ralph Kiner and Roy McMillan (who was a coach for the Mets in those days -- he had been a shortstop and I grew up wanting to be a shortstop) and I went up to them and pointed to the former shortstop and said, "aren't you Roy McMillan?" I think I made his day -- I have a feeling Ralph Kiner was the one who was usually recognized when the two of them walked together, but Roy McMillan was one of my baseball heroes.....

Sigh. What can we do about our Met? Omar, are you reading this? We need some relief pitching! Really.... seriously.... and some starting pitching would be nice too. I think we also need a healthy Ryan Church. And Jose Reyes to keep his good attitude, and Davie Wright to be there in the clutch and Carlos-squared to keep hitting those home runs ("... knocking those home runs over the wall...") and Damian and Luis and Endy and Duanar and newbies Daniel Murphy and Nicky Evans.....

So, Mets, listen to a long time fan -- I know you all can do it. You just need to believe (just ask the late Tug McGraw, to paraphrase Archie Bunker, "Mr. we could use a man like Tug McGraw again...." -- our first best reliever....) and you need to play like you have to prove to the world that the last two years were flukes (this year might have been very different if the team didn't start out believing they were losers after last years major crash and burn.....)

Any time a team loses not just a game but a trip to the playoffs on the last day of the season it means they should have been there, should have been with the "boys of October", should be the ones looking to the World Series.

So, next April (or March???) I will be there, at the TV, rooting my team on.... Let's go Mets (2009).

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Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz

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2008-09-21T09:12:00.001-07:00

Food!

2008-09-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

B"H

One of my friends (who also is a blogger and has introduced me to certain blogging things) has been bugging me to do some vegan blogging. So now that I have a blog that is a catch-all for any topic I want to write about, I think it's time to at least start with one recipe.

I have lately gotten hooked on one of those sandwich machines. What this machine does is take a sandwich and, like a waffle iron, cooks the sandwich and presses into a cute shape. I love the way the sandwiches come out. I mentioned this to the above friend at the kiddush (ablations???) at our synagogue yesterday and she asked me what kind of sandwiches I could make that were vegan. So I told her.

The first thing I have to tell you how to make is something I call "green stuff". I should probably come up with a better name -- this makes it sound like something Bartholomew Cubbins ran away from in some perverted Dr. Seuss book. But in reality, my "green stuff" is just a mixture of dark green veggies, some walnuts, some mushrooms and some spices.

This "recipe" (such as it is) calls for Kale, Spinach, other greens as available (when I can get it I add watercress), broccoli, garlic, Shiitake (or your favorite kind) mushrooms (I get them frozen, which makes is SO much easier!), walnuts, oil to sauté with, flax oil, your favorite mustard and spices (I use French's spicy brown mustard and curry powder). I take my large frying pan (with a cover), put in about a tablespoon of canola or olive oil. I add the greens (1/2 to one bunch of kale, about 1/2 bag frozen spinach, about 1/2 bag frozen broccoli and/or a few florets of broccoflower) and about 1/2 bag frozen, sliced mushrooms (sometimes I add a bit of bell pepper, depending on what I have in the house) and a few cloves minced garlic. I sauté (in a covered pan -- stirring occasionally) all this until it's soft (leafy greens are wilted, garlic and mushroom cooked through). I cool a bit, then add this to a handful of walnuts (1/4- 1/2 cup) in a food processor, add spices and mustard and 2 Tablespoons flax seed oil (for omega-3 fatty acids) and process in the food processor until very smooth. I then put this in a container and keep it in the refrigerator (it's best when used within a week -- it smells REALLY bad when it spoils).

Another thing I make that I often use in the sandwiches is sautéed vegetables. I do this with the same large frying pan, add a Tablespoon of canola or olive oil, chop up bell peppers (the more colors the better -- green, red, yellow, orange, purple -- purple's my favorite), garlic, sometimes onion or red onion, zucchini, sometimes eggplant, chestnuts (when I have them), mushrooms (see above), whatever interesting veggies I run across in my meanderings during the week (lately I've been adding purple potatoes)..... add a bit of grated fresh ginger (about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon), then add the veggies, mustard (see above), curry powder (or your favorite spices) and sauté (in a covered pan), stirring occasionally, until everything is cooked. I either eat it then or store it in the refrigerator.

So, now, back to the sandwiches.....

First, I warm up the sandwich maker. Then I take either an English muffin (I use sprouted grain bread) or two slices of my favorite bread -- I spread one side with "green stuff". If I have hummus in the house, I spread hummus on the other side. As a filling, I add either the sautéed vegetables or sliced black olives. I close the sandwich, brush canola or olive oil on top, flip the sandwich onto the sandwich maker and brush oil on the other side. Close and lock the machine (each machine is a bit different) and cook until brown.

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Rosh Hashana
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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
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Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
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Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Jewish Perspective of G-d

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Project Walkway

2008-09-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

B"H

My teen nieces were visiting me for the summer and they got me hooked on "Project Runway". I've really gotten hooked on it -- I supposed my years of being a closet designer (ok, not too closet -- I've shown my sketches to just about anyone who'll look at them)has contributed to my mania over the show. I know that I could never do what they do (well, at least not now) because sewing just isn't my thing (I'd like to get to know this better, but it's hard for me -- When I went to F.I.T., I tried to take "flat pattern design" (I think I still have the text for it) twice (I was so far behind after a few weeks, that I dropped the class both times) and I tried draping once (again, I fell so far behind that I knew I'd never pass the class). Maybe I should have stuck with it, I don't know.

When I was in High School, I learned how to knit (I already knew how to crochet since elementary school -- was it 5th grade???) and I started creating/designing clothing for my Barbie doll (It's about as much as I had patience for). I used to bring it to a concession store in a nearby town and sell them. I didn't exactly become rich selling the clothing, but I sold a few here and there.

I've spent the vast majority of my life trying to make a living doing things I like doing. I can design (as in draw designs either on paper or on the computer) but I can't make the clothing, shoes or purses. I can make some of the jewelry I design, but I can't afford the expense of doing more than one or two designs a year or so. I've also been doing graphic design for a number of years (20ish???).

A number of years ago, someone I knew introduced me to a woman who prints t-shirts who needed an artist to help with design, so I did some work for her. That led me to create a design, ostensibly for tees, of Strong Jewish Women (scenes from the lives of biblical women) -- I started with Miriam, added Devora (Deborah) and Queen Esther. I have since added Sara, Rivka (Rebecca), Rachael (Rachel), Yocheved (Moshe, Moses's, mother), Tzippora (Moshe's wife) ,Yael, Ruth and Naomi, Hana and Another Esther.

But I'm also working on the jewelry designs (you can see a couple of them and a couple of my doll clothing designs at my etsy shop and at my Shop-it site. Maybe that's my problem? I'm not focusing in on one thing? But I love all these things so much -- I enjoy creating and selling my artistic visions.

But when I see "Project Runway", I see myself in the rolls of the people who are there designing and making their own creations. Even the ones who end up "out" (as in going home) have a vision (even if I don't like their "stuff"). I find myself right now wondering who the last three will be and who will win. I have noticed one thing -- the people who listen to the judges and make changes based on their advice rather than constantly pushing their own agenda (though "trying to please the judges" without any vision also doesn't do it -- I knew the entire episode that Keith was "out" that he was going to end up gone because he was trying too hard to please the judges without being true to his own vision) are the ones who do the best (LeAnn -- I hope I spelled her name right -- learned very well from being in the bottom two in the second week and adjusted her work to showcase her vision without sacrificing style and advice she got from the judges -- she's won the most recent two challenges including this week's Diane Von Furstenberg challenge).

To all the designers who have left or are still on right now -- good luck in the future -- my heart is with you.

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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
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Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
Tamar -- Mother of Kings
Jewish Perspective of G-d

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Pitch Black

2008-08-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

B"H

I know it seems as though this is turning into a "rant about the Mets" blog. But it's hard to not rant.

Omar Menaya -- if you are reading this --- GET SOME GOOD RELIEF PITCHING!!!! (Of course, I would add, don't do it at the expense of any of the good players on the team, like J. Reyes, Wright, Delgado, Beltran, Chavez, and the two new minor phenoms Evans and Murphy). Lately, the only semi-reliable reliever (and that includes the now injured Billy Wagner) is Sanchez.

Oh, and can we stop scoring runs only in innings that are included in the minimum official game?????

Today's game was a major case in point. Pedro (who's back!!! YAY!!!) pitched well -- he left the game ahead 5-1. It seemed as though the Mets would be coasting to a win. But the dreaded tar pit of baseball, the Mets bullpen, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Except for Sanchez (and why was he taken out anyway????) all the relievers contributed to the 6 run roughshod executed by the Pittsburgh Pirates today to give them a 7-5 win over the lapsing Mets.

I don't have a specific statistic for how many games the Mets bullpen has blown. But I have a strong feeling that if they Mets had won even 1/3 of those games they would be comfortably in first place.

One bright light in the dismal day -- David Wright added 3 RBIs and Jose Reyes added two stolen bases.

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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
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Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
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John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz
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Jewish Perspective of G-d

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Diet Advice????

2008-06-23T22:44:00.000-07:00

B"H

I happen to like reading health magazines and books. I also happen to eat a healthy diet and actually enjoy exercise. But, because neither my weight nor my blood sugar are as low as I'd like them to be (I would love it if I could lose about 25 or so pounds and I would be ecstatic if my daily fasting blood sugar were about 20 or 30 points lower) I'm always looking for changes I can make to my diet to make it even healthier (I'm already a vegan -- this means no animal products: no meat, poultry, fish (I was never fond of fish anyway, but I digress...), dairy or eggs -- and, in addition, I eat no sugar, no grains (except sprouted whole grains), no soy (that's a tough one for a vegan, let me tell you!!), well, basically, what I do eat is beans (except soy), nuts, things like wild rice (not a grain) and kasha (buckwheat -- also not a grain), vegetables and a little bit of fruit.

But despite this diet, I'm having a tough time losing weight. I've tried adding fiber (by eating foods high in fiber -- I've been doing that for over 30 years now), lowering fat (I once had it so low that I'd say my diets averaged about 5-7% of its calories from fat -- I haven't done that in years), I even once tried the Adkins diet (boy, was THAT a mistake!) before I was a vegetarian (and, actually, even while I was ovo-lacto vegetarian -- somehow or another, I doubt I could find a way to keep to Adkins as a vegan)

So I keep looking for more ideas and more information about dieting. I read books, magazines, newsletters. I've tried eating more of this or less of that. And I still have a belly that won't budge.

So I read the latest "new thing" as far as belly fat goes from Prevention magazine. They were writing about the virtues of MUFA -- Monounsaturated Fatty Acids. These fatty acids are in things like nuts and nut butters, olives and olive oil, peanuts and peanut products, avocados, sunflower and safflower oil. And we're supposed to eat them at least at every meal. Ok, this is not an issue for me. I eat a lot of nuts and nut butters, lots of avocados, olive oil (and, occasionally, canola oil) and other high MUFA oils.

Ah, but here's the kicker. You have to eat these high MUFA foods at least three times a day, but you still have to keep your caloric intake under 1800 calories a day.

So I tried to figure this out. I also read that I need to eat one gram of protein for every kilogram of body weight. Fair enough. That means I need to eat in the neighborhood of 70 or so grams of protein. That would mean the equivalent of two cans of beans a day. Another few hundred calories.

I also noticed that I do best when I have either vegetable soup or sauteed vegetables (or both) during the day. But that's also more calories.

So how do you get by on 1800 calories a day? I guess I don't.....

Let's go Mets!!! (Do we need to "get out and 'push'"?)

2008-06-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

B"H

The Mets have done it again, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. After 3 straight losses to San Diego (who had, at the time, a winning percentage under .400) 2-1, they were ahead in the 4th game.....

Then, again, yesterday, against Arizona, they were ahead 5-1. But, again.....

So I was watching tonight (of and on -- I switch to the game during commercial breaks on nights there are shows I watch with my Mom) and I tuned in in the top of the 9th and there were 2 out, 2 on and the Mets were ahead 3-0.

Well, I had to turn back. Then I tuned over again and it was the bottom of the 9th and the score was 3-3. I felt very frustrated. (When you're hot you're hot and when you're not you're not)

Well, the end of the story (at least today's story) is that in the bottom of the 13th inning, Carlos Beltran, hit a two-run home run and the Mets are finally out of their losing streak.....

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Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
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Quick Vegan Cooking
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Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
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John and John Quincy Adams
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What this is all about....

2008-06-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

B"H

I do have several blogs with specific subjects. But every now and then, I want to write about something and it doesn't fall into one of those categories. So I decided to start and "Everything Goes" blog -- that means it could be about anything that's on my mind.

Lately, what's been on my mind it the Mets. I'm a big baseball fan. I don't get to see the games as often as I'd like (I rarely get to see the entire game from beginning to end, but thanks to Sports Channel, I do get to see more games than I used to). I've been following the Mets since I was a little girl (about 6?) and, while I have other teams I root for (the Angels, the Red Sox and the Cardinals mostly), I don't get to see their games with the regularity I get to see the Mets (being that I live in the NY viewing area).

At the beginning of the year, everyone was saying the Mets were the team to beat. Well, I think that was right -- they were the team EVERYBODY was defeating.

I watched the games (and recalled their crash and burn from last year and this is what I came up with:

1) As Jose Reyes goes, so goes the team (this was confirmed for me last night with actual statistics). It's important for people like David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, etc. (and Ryan Church has been a pleasant surprise, though he still seems to need some TLC after the two concussions), but when Jose Reyes is "on" -- hitting, walking, stealing bases, smiling and enjoying himself, it gets infectious and it infects and helps the rest of the team.

2) Starting pitching needs to be tightened up. This is happening, to some degree, and with the return of Pedro Martinez and I hope it will tighten up a bit more.

3) Relief pitching needs to really tighten up. It does no good if your starting pitching is on the money but the relief pitching totally blows it (this happened a lot during the crash and burn from last year but hasn't totally disappeared this season).

4) And this is a biggy -- one of the things the Mets do well when the team is hot is those ubiquitous come from behind victories. They haven't done this at all this year.

5) Get over last year. It happened, it happens, life (and Baseball) goes on. It shouldn't define who the Mets are.

In the past week or so, the fog seems to be lifting (KI"H). I hope it continues.

Check out my other blogs:

Israel and it's Place in the World
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women

Check out my squidoo lenses (articles):
Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Strong Biblical Women Part 3
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Presidential Trivia Quiz
Christmas and the Jewish Single
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington
Passover: Holiday of Freedom
Ruth and Naomi
John and John Quincy Adams
Television Trivia Quiz

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