A college professor understands my family

A professor understood and appreciated my family . . . who'd of thunk it? (ME).

This work is noteworthy, and Ms. Katzir deserves commendation for probing the less visible psychoemotive scars and behaviors resulting from terror and privation, and for committing them to paper. She presents to the reader the fears, the resilience, the compartmentalization of life (the former life and the present life) which characterize the lives of survivors; she hints at the complexity of assimilation; and always she shows the humanity of the survivor.

Katzir honestly describes the impact such scars had on the children (the broken birds) of survivors. Without apology and without sparing the reader, Katzir describes the loving but often fractious relations between parent and child, sibling and sibling. Significantly, these tensions (found in all families) often result in fractures, fissures which may be irreparable...And the source of these "broken" relations? Well, as the Irish would say: "that would be tellin.' "

A marvelous work which should be included in the catalogue of Holocaust literature; additionally, also in any college course designed to exam human behavior.

Karol Jordan, Professor, Physiology and Sociology

Diet Saboteurs-They're everywhere!

I have just started my diet AGAIN and am trying very hard. Yes I understand that I've only been trying for two days, but they feel like two years. When a person is trying to diet, it is so difficult when the person you live with, i.e. my husband, behaves like a diet saboteur. Today he went to Costco, he brought home humongous bags of meat, chicken breasts for a hundred and a large, oversized, delicious box of Hagen Daaz chocolate covered bars . . . rolled in nuts. They are 22 grams of fat each bar, and for those of you who don't understand fat grams . . . a small bag of potato chips is 5 grams of fat. How am I supposed to lose my weight when calling my name, day and night is ice cream. Now don't you dare say, as he does, just use your will power. Bullshit, if I had willpower would I need to lose 30ish pounds? It's bad enough that Starbucks are everywhere, but now in my own home there's ice cream. He could have done me a favor and brought home strawberry, which I would never ever touch, but no, he brought back something I'd love to eat. Well we'll see who wins, the ice cream bars, or me?

The darn food diary

Alright, I give up. My doctor has asked me one million times to start keeping a food diary, to help me in my failing attempt to lose weight. I've done so for one day and it works. No I'm not necessarily staying on my diet perfectly, but the idea of writing down what I've eaten - that I shouldn't, (like cheese on my taco) has made me nervous about being told that cheese is a big NO NO, so I am behaving myself. I have a homemade cheesecake in the fridge and I am staying clear of it. I also am not making an endless line of grilled cheese sandwiches, which I have to admit I would have, if it were not for that darn food diary. For any non-human people who don't have to worry about dieting, it's really difficult. Weight gain is horribly insidious and the phrase" I'll start tomorrow" becomes your mantra, BUT I want to live long enough to see my grandchildren marry, so I will try again using the darn food diary to help me out. Wish me luck.

Are you a Big Picture or Detail person?

I was chatting with a friend (Nora) and as we spoke I realized that she was a detail person and I was a big picture person. She is the kind of person who goes over things repeatedly, making sure they are as perfect as possible. This is a great trait, unless "Perfection" remains an unobtainable goal. I, on the other hand seem to be on some kind of self-imposed race. This blog is an example of my big picture-ness. This is my 2nd draft, having felt the need to return to add more depth to what I was speaking about. In my first draft, I wrote too quickly, seemingly trying to answer the overall question of what kind of person I am, but answering too quickly didn't seem to answer the question at all. I find that much of the time I am in such a rush to get the job accomplished that I overlook the small stuff. I am a photographer and many times the big picture so captures my heart that I can't seem to see the smaller things . . . the things that made the shot so spectacular to begin with. It wasn't merely the waterfall and the trees, it was the way the water flowed when the gusts of wind blew it, and it was what the branches, which were was overloaded with snow, looked like . . . It was the details. Being able to slow down, concentrate and realllllly see the small stuff is paramount to good photography. I am also a fledgling author and hurrying through chapters, without spending the necessary time to truly expound on people's feelings and thoughts, might get you to the end of the book, but it only weakens the writing.
I am now committing myself to slowing down, looking around and placing the issue of small details up with the big picture to hopefully improve my photos and writings . . . and my life.
Why am I hurrying?
It is we, the big picture people, who see the end of the story before it is written . . . It is just all those pages in between we have to slow down and perfect.
I guess if there was a lesson for me to learn before 2010 ends, it is that I don't want to be a big picture or detail person, I want to be an all around person . . . . and in 2011 I will be.

My two favorite childhood movies are . . . .

Tori, the daughter of a close personal friend posted her favorite all time children's movie and I got to thinking about which one was mine. For the longest time it was 101 Dalmations. There was something so wonderful about the first part of the film when they save that poor pethetic pup by rubbing the life back into it. Then when that horrible DeVille lady steals them to make a coat (Which anyone who wears fur needs to stop!), my heart ached until every single puppy was returned. BUT times change, I grew up. I still don't like fur at all! but I think I am now taken with the mother ape who befriends a little lost boy, teaches him all about mother nature and loves him to the end. Tarzan, yes that is my favorite, but I do have another . . . Disney's Fantasia. I like the movie, but I love the scene where the beautiful Pegasus mare opens her wing and displays her young foal . . . Love that part. So it is Tarzan at number 1, followed by that scene in Fantasia. What's yours?

Black Friday - Part 2 (I'm not that Scrooge-like)

Christmas is an odd amalgamation of feelings. The holiday decorations and twinkling lights are all very pretty, and there's supposedly Peace on Earth - Good Will Toward Man, and yet . . . . . When we pulled into the mall, there was a $5.00 sur-charge to park ground level. Christmas spirit . . . I think not. It was just the mall share holders soaking us for a little more cash.
Sales were everywhere, but were they real? I once told my brother that what sales REALLY are is jacking up the price then slashing it down so the customer FEELS he got a deal. I think what the mall were doing was price cutting their winter stock, which they needed to do anyway. Sales personal were non-existent and yet people were spending like there was no tomorrow. Bing Crosby was crooning his all time best selling song White Christmas over the mall's sound system, and if you paid St. Nick a couple bucks you could have your child's photo taken with the man in red. BUT is it really about the birth of Christ. . . . I think not. I think its about getting caught up in the euphoria of a shopping. It's the "Gotta that personal a gift" insanity that comes with this holiday period. It's the endless subliminal priming we get with the non-stop Christmas music, which I am already tired of hearing, and the twinkling lights on every street corner and in every window, be it a bagel shop or shoe store. I wonder if Christmas would have ever survived as the holiday it is today if the merchandising industries were removed from the picture . . . I think not.
Baa Humbug . . . And happy holidays, and to all a good new year.

Black Friday - Part 1

I really tried to fend of the impulse to participate in Black Firday. I don't want to brave irate parking lots filled with shoppers chomping on the bit to spend spend spend. I don't want to try and find my size in understaffed mall department stores, but I couldn't do it. I will go out and navigate my way through Macy's, Target and all the others in an attempt to save money. I hate that the peer pressure has worked and that I have weakened, but what can I do, a sale IS a sale.