Someone once told the anecdote of the woman who inherited her great grandmother’s roast pans along with her recipe. Take a large rump roast and cut it in half, put one half in each pan, and season well then cook. No one knew why the great grandmother had split the roast but each generation kept doing it because it was so delicious. Turns out the grandmother only had two small pans and not one large…
TGIF has come to represent many different acronyms – depending on the mood: THANK GOD I’M FABULOUS – is my default chant. THANK GOD IT’S FILM(NIGHT) – is Tin’s chant since Friday’s are movie night. THANK GOD I’M FINISHED – is my end of project whoop. After years of my prayers of asking for forgiveness, I’ve shifted all my prayers to avowing gratitude instead. I am thankful morning, noon and night. Gratitude oozes from my…
I was on Pinterest looking for natural hairstyles for my friend’s 14 year old daughter in hair crisis and I came across this site for Bald women. There were also tee shirts that said BALD IS BEAUTIFUL. We had just spent forty five minutes telling the 14 year old to embrace what is hers, to own it, to not want what she doesn’t have. So today, Friday, TGIF, thank god I’m fabulous day, I want…
I put tonight on my calendar along with the other events that I put on my calendar but never attend, but I knew I would go to this one, even if it meant Tin would be in tow. Right before the Dalai Lama arrived in New Orleans, Rodger Kamenetz wrote an essay about him that was so moving, I was compelled to learn more about Kamenetz. He is the author of The Jew in The…
I read the Obit today in the NYT for Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and I am once again wondering how to deal with the lack of greatness in a great man. Here you have the leading Torah authority in Israel and the world, a Sephardic* rabbi, which in and of itself is odd since like here in the U.S. it is those of European descent who claim authority over any ruling, and yet the turn towards…
When I was a child, my parents would take us to the Mardi Gras fountain on Lakeshore Drive and they would buy us an ice cream or popcorn and then we’d stroll around and around the fountain. I remember those visits as encompassing almost the sum total of my childhood. It would just have become dark, the humid air would still be warm from the day, the colors of the fountain were exciting and mesmerizing.…
A friend told me that in Greece when you say “Hello, how are you?” the response is ypoféroume (ipo fer me), which means in common speech, “We are fine.” But in reality its real translation is, “We are suffering.” So today, those of us about to die (at some point in life) salute you with ypoféroume. My life is fabulous, and still I suffer. I have too many people close to me who are battling…
The other night in the throes of two projects, I received a text from a friend’s fiancé asking me what I was doing. WORKING, I text back. He asked if I wanted to do something fun with my friend but I couldn’t tell her what it was, which was a burlesque dance class. Oh, alright I said. Not too thrilled about leaving my desk. My friend and I went to the class in the rain,…
I have on my blackboard in my kitchen C.S. Lewis’ quote that says: “Hardship prepares ordinary people for extraordinary lives.” That quote has sustained me through some troubled times and has actually come to make me view suffering, my own and others, as not as bad or not to be feared as I had previously thought. It is definitely worth noting that those of us who live in New Orleans have come to know transformation…