Comfort

I was watching CNN's coverage of the memorial service in Newtown, CT when a group of dogs arrived outside the high school.

They are from ...Lutheran Charities Comfort Dogs Program
Recently they have visited victims of Hurricane Sandy. They go wherever comfort is needed.

Later, dogs from Hudson Valley Golden Retriever Club also arrived.

The dogs will stay as long as needed; they will help ease the fears of returning to school and will distract people from the endless heartbreak of 26 funerals.

"Dogs are nonjudgmental. They are loving. They are accepting of anyone," Hetzner (head of the Lutheran Charities group) said. "It creates the atmosphere for people to share."

Being a Person

"it's so hard to just be a person, a good person" my Nana would tell me, "don't make it too complicated, just keep an open heart".

Yesterday was my birthday and I was in a mood. The mood of all moods.
Too many things up in the air; money issues, family drama, worry and stress.

I was determined to be grateful and open hearted. I fed the birds and squirrels. It was a cloudy and misty morning and I love that. Sunny days are so freakin' perky.

I brought coffee and doughnuts to "the old guys" at the marina. They were talking about Pearl Harbor and wars. "It's a sad day" one of them tells me. "It's my birthday" I respond without thinking, I had been hell bent on ignoring that fact. "It's your birthday!" he shouts out, a smile enhancing every beautiful line on his wonderful face. "Hey! you divas, it's the gal's birthday". They all know my name but prefer to call me gal, girlie, sweetie, sweetheart, and so on, Oh yeah, and kid. "It's the kid's birthday?" another repeats, "well that calls for the silver flask".

We all had spiked coffee and sang bits and pieces of old songs while the gulls fled to open water.

I got home and had a two hour fun talk with my baby brother. Right before we hung up he told me to check his Facebook.

He wrote this :

happy birthday to my big sister Dianne who took me in as a teenager
when living with my father became unbearable. if not for her my life
today would be different. we don't talk or see each other often but it
doesn't change that fact. remember where you came from and how you got
where you are today. no doubt someone helped you along the way.

Like · · Promote · a few seconds ago near Brooklyn ·

Baby bro and his daughters

In the evening Hope gave me a brownie she made in 'Kindegarden Cafe' cooking class and we played with the Ballerina Barbie I gave her for the first night of Chanukah. She'll be in Brooklyn tonight so we celebrated early.

"I get a Chanukah present because your Nana is Jewish?"
"Well sort of, you really get it just because I love you and my Nana would have loved you too"
"That's a good reason"


Have a good weekend everyone
Just be a person

Thanksgiving

After my town survived Hurricane Sandy it seems even more important to be grateful.

I'm grateful for the safety of my family.

I'm grateful for the people who always show up to help

I'm grateful for Siren and Isadora. They brighten any day and love unconditionally.
In their own way of course - they are cats.

I'm grateful for all of you. I realized it again when I couldn't share the storm with you and I worried about you worrying about me.

Most of all I'm grateful for Hope.

And on we go ...

I'll Hook Ya Up

During Hurricane Sandy my son did all he could to take care of his family and his neighbors.

He hooked up 4 other homes and created a schedule where everyone could have enough power to cook and warm the house or charge their electronics.

The kitchen was power central.

Cords then went down to the basement for the sump pump and out the basement window for a neighbor behind us. More cords went out the kitchen window and across the street or over the fence to the house next door.

The guy across the street created a secondary hub and taped it to the trash can so that it wouldn't get pulled into the street and run over.

We also told people to far to reach by cords to come by to charge stuff or use our stove to cook something.

The generator itself is missing from the photos because twice a day Jeffrey would take it over to his friend's house in a nearby town so they too could do what we were doing. It was easier to take these photos when the generator was gone since the noise and smell are horrid.

A week after power came back my son said he thought he still smelled like gasoline.

Speaking of gasoline. During one of the long waits on a gasoline line my son and Hope (who loves going anywhere with Daddy) witnessed the start of a fight between two men over position in line. Just as it looked as though it was going to get ugly my son started to pull away so that Hope didn't have to see this side of folks. As he began to back up Hope shouted out of the window "That is just not nice. It is not nice at all. Do you know how to share?"

People in other cars started laughing at the two men and with Hope. They tooted their horns and gave her thumbs up while she smiled from ear to ear and waved.

Two guys walked away with heads down.

I'm proud of my boy and his girl.

It's Not That Big A City If You Live Here

At 9:07 this morning a man started shooting people on 33rd Street near 5th Avenue. They’re still sorting through who that man was (he was killed by police) and why he started shooting.


That’s not what’s going through my mind.

As soon as I saw the breaking news report I called my Daughter-In-Law; she has family who work on 35th Street and 5th Avenue. Then I called my brother to find out if my nieces were in midtown.


Between those two calls a neighbor called me to tell me her daughter was OK. She knew I’d be worried. Her daughter was in the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 and still has serious anxiety and depression issues as an aftermath of that day. She now works in the Empire State Building – on a low floor she tells people – and we were all concerned that this would be too much for her to handle. Thankfully her co-workers are also survivors of 9/11 and they all helped each other stay calm.

While we spoke on the phone and compared notes of TV coverage of the event, my brother and I started to reminisce about all the times we’d been on that street. I walked down that street almost every day when I worked on 33rd Street and Lexington Avenue (about 4 blocks from the shooting scene); we used to meet at the Houlihan’s in the base of the Empire State Building; my niece worked one summer at the Duane Reade drugstore on 33rd Street. We each know people who work in the Empire State Building now or in any one of the hundreds of stores and offices and restaurants within those few streets.

If you don’t live in New York City you probably see it as the huge mecca for business and tourism that obviously it is.

If you don’t live in New York City it must be difficult to comprehend that streets full of thousands of people milling about are also neighborhoods.

While we navigate the crowds on the way to and from home we pass many strangers.

Yet we also pass the doorman we see every morning; the guy we get our paper and coffee from; the Mom who takes her baby to the park at the same time each morning; the elderly woman who goes to Food Emporium as soon as it opens; the pretty young girl who works in the sportswear shop; the janitor who pulls in the trash cans from overnight pick-up; the woman who walks her dogs before leaving for the office …

These are our neighbors and our friends. New York City is our home in exactly the same way that any smaller city or tiny town is home.

That’s what I was thinking as I watched what seemed like a movie unfold in my home town.

There are already hundreds of photos online of the shooting scene.

I’ll share with you some scenes of the NY I know.

    Be careful out there; wherever you are.

The Queen of Soul Food

During the late 80s and early 90s I had the pleasure of dining at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem many times. I had a client near there and we would go to Sylvia's whenever we got together.

Sylvia was usually at the restaurant and she greeted nearly every customer. I had been in the restaurant about a dozen times and had always gotten a smile and a welcome. On this one particular evening Sylvia was seated at a table next to mine visiting with another customer when she overheard me telling my companion about how I made potato salad. "That is old southern country salad" she said smiling. I laughed and said an old southern country woman had taught me. She squeezed my shoulder as she left the table.  A little later I bumped into Sylvia again at the front of the room. She asked who the old southern country woman was and I explained that she was my ex-husband's aunt with whom I had a wonderful relationship.  We talked a bit about our children and about South Carolina. I had read that she was from a small town very much like the SC town my ex was from. I told her about my one and only visit there in the mid 70s when a car full of young white men tried to run us off the road and how a group of white teens had called me a "nigger lover" at the Woolworth's. She was holding my hand and looking into my eyes the entire time we were talking. My heart melted when she hugged me and told me how she enjoyed talking with me and that she loved people who "had an easy kindness about them".

Each time I went back to Sylvia's after that I got a hug and a table visit if time permitted.

Dear wonderful Sylvia Woods died yesterday at the age of 86.

She and her husband Herbert built a restaurant that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

They led a family that will carry on. The restaurant is owned by her children and grandchildren,

I imagine that thousands of people are telling stories just like mine today. That is her exceptional legacy.

Peaceful Journey Sylvia

I will never forget your easy kindness.

Leggy Beauty

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I see someone doing a hand stand

The texture makes me think of an elephant

I adore trees

I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them. ~ James Russell Lowell

It doesn't tempt me, I do judge people based on the way they treat nature

NATURE NOTES



The Force of Nature

It was a windy day this past Saturday with gusts of 60 mph. The clouds were traveling fast.

I took these photos within a time span of less than 10 minutes, starting from the north and turning toward the south.

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And then back again to the north, it was as if it were 2 days happening at once.

The power and sound of the steady wind was extraordinary and the gusts were both amazing and frightening. My shopping cart escaped my grasp and the car door became a weapon as it slammed into me.

I've been thinking of that feeling as I see the destruction caused by the tornadoes in the Mid-West. Those winds were 3 times as powerful as the gusts I experienced.

Huffington Post has an article on how we can help