Quick Brilliance to Brighten Up Your Day

Just to show how silly can be genius. I don't know how it's physically possible, but no matter how many times I watch this 16 seconds clip, I laugh out loud (snorting including, for those who know me....). Keep it at arm's length, and use as needed:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhJQp-q1Y1s

(Oh, yes, and this is my little homage to 40 Years of Monty Python, who's been magically crossing generations and cultures, and I'm sure will keep doing so for a long long time!)

My King-dom for High Rating: Musings on Last Night’s Interview with Ahmadinejad

“Thank you, Mr. President. Always good to see you”, was how Larry King ended his hollow hour-long interview with Ahmadinejad last night.

You seemed so timid, Larry, so meek, that I’m not sure you had such a good time with Mr. “Allow Me”, after all. But oh my, Mr. King, did you indeed “allow” him....and then some. Is it out of fear? I mean, I promise he would have not thrown a nuclear bomb at you had you dared to challenge him (he might actually come closer to doing that if he’s NOT challenged, but that’s another story…)

And speaking of challenging an interviewee, can you please refresh my memory and tell me how many decades of experience you have...? Isn't it 50 years? Something like that? Now, I do understand that you are most comfortable interviewing about the real issues, like reality TV and beauty pageant controversies. But cut us some slack, Larry, you had an opportunity last night, to sit face to face with someone who is one of the world’s major threats, who wants to make our future a very very dark place. And instead of telling this overwhelmingly dangerous man “all of your answers are absolute lies and allow ME now to confront you with some truth”, you sit there and every 120 seconds, on the dot, you say “we gotta go to break”.

Yesssss, commercial breaks is really what you needed last night, to fill 75% of a crucial interview. Not to mention you needed a break to squirm in your seat without the world watching (the president of Iran saw it though, I wonder if he offered you some xanax). But commercials mean money, and apparently money is what you needed to provide last night, more than anything else, to your excellent reputable Network.

Has anyone prepared you for this interview? Do you understand how important this interview was? How come you were more prepared for your John Gosslin interview?!
Why would you let this man go on and on about the wonderful democracy that is Iran, where it’s so sad that people just don’t seem to know how to honorably lose an election? Would it have been so hard to articulate some facts for Mr. Allow Me?!

And one more thing, Larry: When somebody tells you how it’s so unfair that people maliciously ostracize him simply because he goes against “common opinion” about the Holocaust, you ask him if he ever heard of the Final Solution, and then you talk to him about facts, and if it’s necessary, you explain to him, very slowly, the difference between Opinions and Facts. Okay?

You can also ask him if he’d like to see for himself any of those pretend showers that instead of water, poured Zyklon B gas on millions of people, in order to systematically mass slaughter and annihilate a whole nation.

I only wish, Larry, that you mentioned the gas chambers, the crematoriums, and the extermination camps. And more than that, I wish you offered to take him on a tour.

If Larry King represents the current attitude of a world seeking a peaceful future (or a future at all, for that matter), all I have to say now is:

We Need to Wake Up!

And on that note, I will also say “Gmar Chatima Tova”, to those of us who observe Yom Kippur. As a Jew, this is one of the most important days of my year.
...And while at it, Shana Tova: Happy New Jewish Year!

A Tribute to Billy: September 2001- May 26, 2009

I received a sad message this morning from my ex. Our cat Billy, Bill, Billbillon, Billbilloni, passed away a couple of days ago from a kidney disease.

He was a lot more than a cat. He was a rare creature that brought endless joy and laughter to anyone who knew him.

I read the message over and over again, and my brain knew what it meant, but all I could do was to write back a “be strong” reply, delete the message like it never existed, and continue my day.

Early this evening, sitting with my eyes closed in the beginning of my yoga class, when you “set your intention” for the next 90 minutes, tears started streaming out. When I opened my eyes, my face was wet. Billy. Billy is dead.

It wasn’t love at first site. Not at all. I’m a dog person, always have been. Actually only German shepherds. Never cats. Frankly, pre-Billy, cats used to scare the hell out of me, partially because when I was seven I was haunted to read this scary story about how they had nine souls.
When I fell in love with a guy who had a cat, I had to adjust, but I didn’t know how to handle Billy’s presence, so I simply tried to ignore him whenever I visited the boyfriend up in Maine.

But every time I slept over he would come to bed in the middle of the night and sleep on my face. Now, if you know me, you know that no one in this whole world is allowed to wake me up, ever (!), unless asked, let alone a skinny little orange cat, a peculiar cross-breeding of a chirping bird and a fierce tiger (not to mention that the nine souls trauma didn’t work well with this particular way of being woken up…).

I didn’t know what to do. I was in love, and had to somehow come to terms with Billy’s existence. We had a couple of bonding experiences, here and there, especially when the ex left us alone for a few hours, but that was about it. Deep inside I was hoping that befriending him would make him stop sitting on top of my head every night at 3 am.

A couple of months have passed, and we decided to move in together. There was no way Billy was coming to New York City, I thought. Living with me under one roof was not an option.
I knew the boyfriend would not be happy about it, but there was no way I was going to live with a cat, doesn’t matter what cat!! (quite naïve I was, wasn’t I…?)

Needless to say, after one short fiery conversation, I learned that Billy was here to stay. Billy was not going anywhere. Well, he was, actually. He was moving to New York! And was going to live with me! Despite the million conditions I laid out (for instance: I don’t take care of him, his poop, his anything), I wasn’t happy about the situation.

And then we fell in love…..Billy and I. I was, without a doubt, his new mommy.
He became the most gorgeous cat in the whole wide world. He was irresistible. And I was proud to have him and to show him off.

Billy. Billy loved to talk (or chirp), and we used to have lively discussions for hours.

Billy knew how to play fetch better than any dog I knew.

Billy was obsessed with my banana bread. I can still see him now, attacking it right as it comes out of the oven, acting like a sneaky panther, chirping like there’s no tomorrow.
And…passionately eating brown rice out of Chinese takeout. And…my biscotti. And pooping. He really liked to poop.

He didn’t like our fights. Fighting when Billy was around was tough. He would come between us and then it was hard not to laugh.

Billy made me laugh at times when no one else could.

When we broke up Billy went back to Maine. It tore my heart, I wanted to keep him, but that’s how it works: even though I became his mommy, he belonged to my ex first.
I would get updates about him once in while.
Now there will be no more updates. Billy is gone.
But he will always remain in my heart, and my happy memories of him will never go away.

The Pow(d)er of Love

I have my own private powder of love. Cinnamon- kee-naa-mon in Hebrew. Keee.Naa.Mon.
It’s sweet but it has this kinda sneaky quality….cunning. Scratch that. Don’t mean to give it a negative connotation. My point is that cinnamon is sophisticated and rich. You know? It doesn’t only represent one pure and simple flavor, or essence. It’s not like when you think of sweet- you think honey. Cinnamon is definitely not a second name for sweetness. No. It’s actually a spice. Now, you think spice, you think of something exotic. Even semi mysterious. Spice. Spices.

Being a spice means you must be creative. It’s not like you’ve all of a sudden emerged in this world. No. Somebody actually thought of you in advance, and decided that you must be here. Somebody consciously and meaningfully cultivated you.

With all due respect, what is honey? God wanted to show us what sweetness meant, so he brought us honey, you know? Simply to illustrate a point. That’s all. Then people started giving it all those medicinal qualities because they felt bad, because it didn’t look very appetizing …… you know, like this gross sticky sap you find on trees.

But cinnamon? Oh, No! It has class. Status. It’s deliciously fascinating. You wanna have a conversation with it. It takes you to places far far away, but it also elegantly and effortlessly brings you back home once it’s done with you. Grounds you right back into your center. You’re safe with it. It enters your soul majestically, just as it enters your stomach. It allows you to truly celebrate, but nothing too crazy or wild. I mean… no one is gonna think something is wrong with you. Because it’s ok!! It’s ok with cinnamon! You can be lusciously stimulated by it to your very core and still maintain your sense of normalcy. It’s the wackiest you can go within the realms of sanity. You will never be hospitalized because of cinnamon. Or be sent to jail.

When cinnamon is in the picture, you know that delightful spirits are coming your way. Thrill and pleasure. It’s crystal clear to you from the start that it’s going to be a profound and positive experience. And even though it’s so very predictable, it’s also always so very new. Because it comes to you with a different message each time you meet. It depends on where it catches you in your day (or night), what your state of mind is and what happened prior to that.

My cinnamon…. My kee-naa-mon. My cinnamon inspires me. And it makes my stomach smile.
It always appears exactly when I need it. And once it joins forces with my food or drink, I know there can be no evil in this world. It’s the taste of vitality and balanced confidence.

My cinnamon stops by and says hello to all of my senses, and while at it, it tells us (me and all my senses) that everything is going to be just fine.
Vigor. Courage. Elation. Fearlessness.
Peaceful and secure.

I am sprinkling my magic powder all over my soul and am as ready as can be to go swallow the whole world, one flavor at a time.

Yummy.

(for those who celebrate it, and for those who would like to...):
Happy Passover- Wishing you the deepest experience of liberation, from all negative forces, inside and out, and the most delectable immersion in Spring!!!