Perpetual Motion

     Sometimes when I try to maximize my time it feels as though I am in perpetual motion . Whenever this happens it is a signal that I need to slow down  . Maximizing one's time is a good thing but perpetual motion is not. Perpetual motion is the quickest way to get a bad cold. As much as I would like to do EVERYTHING on my to do list I really need to be realistic. Sometimes its good to leave something over to do tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with realizing I can't  do EVERYTHING . I am only human.

Fill The Void

      I recently saw the movie  Israeli movie Fill The Void . Fill The Void is an Israeli movie about a chassidic family in Israel. The oldest daughter dies in childbirth and a shidduch between the the younger sister and her sister's widowed (not sure this is the right term) husband. The actual plot is not the point. The point of the movie is that it shows this family as real people and the thought processes they go through to make their decisions. It is also a film directed by an orthodox Jewish woman. I think that this movie shows religious Jews in a very positive light. Definitely five stars. 

Weight Watchers Events

     Every so often Weight Watchers will have a special event and usually it is on a Saturday. What's a frum Jew to do? The king's highway center in Brooklyn has always had a large frum clientele which over the years has grown . It has grown so much that they decided to have their speical event on a Thursday instead of a Saturday and they said that they would even have kosher cupcakes. If you ask me I think that moshiach is coming soon. Thursday  May 30 Weight watchers of kings highway will be having a special event between 3:30-6:30. For the rest of the country the special event will be held on a Saturday. 

Technology

     What an amazing world we live in. Not so many years ago communicating with those out of the country was an ordeal. Either you had to write via snail mail on an aero gram or you got someone to mail your letter when they flew to that country. Now there is e-mail and Skype . Suddenly the world is so much smaller. My friend in Israel just posted pictures from her daughter's bat mitzvah a few minutes ago  on Facebook and I just sent her my good wishes. When I was a kid these small things were unimaginable. I wonder what advancements the next 20 years will bring.

Hope is Amazing

This young man had cancer and passed away yesterday.. What an inspiration for living life with a good attitude.

Better Left to the Imagination

     Though I admire some people for their talents I would prefer not to meet them in person. Often those one looks up to do not measure up to one's admiration. They may be talented in some areas but they are still flawed mortals. This is not limited to the media. Long ago I met a rabbi who wrote books that I had really enjoyed at the time. When I met him I realized that he was a mere human. I suppose on the one hand that was good . One can be a mere human but aspire to much. At the time it just disappointed me. It should not have detracted from the greatness of his works, but it had. I would have preferred to have met him at a book event or a somewhere else where he was speaking so I could have just seen the smoke and mirrors and not seen the shlemiel he really was. Some things are better left to the imagination.

Love and the Media

When I first heard this song it reminded me of a lot of other love songs because there are so many phrases from other love songs I have heard over the years. It also is so true, People are always looking for a love that is like in the movies , a book or even a cliched love song. That said, its still an awesome song.

Buttons

     Whenever you get to know someone you get to know what they like and dislike as well as their strengths and weaknesses. If you are a smart you will use this to strengthen the intimacy of your friendship and not to bring the other person down. I dated someone once who was a master at getting to know me and using my insecurities to push my buttons. He thought that if he would point them out that I would choose him. What a joke . Why on earth would I choose someone who so casually disregarded my feelings? I don't need someone else to tell me what I feel insecure about. I can beat myself up emotionally all by myself. I don't need to marry someone who will take on that role.
    I have gone out with other guys who were lovely but  had no idea what makes me tick. It is too bad that the gift of getting to know someone else can wrench people apart instead of bring them together.

Favorite Questions

   One of my favorite question at singles events is the one when people ask if anyone actually meets at these things. Well  folks my answer is yes they do. Not all of the time, but some of the time. Sometimes people meet online and sometimes people get married from shadchanim but not always.
     I think that people like to put down singles events as a valid venue because they aren't always such fun to attend.
    Though we wish that there was one sure fire way to meet one's bashert, there is not.
     I can't say that I enjoy any of the venues for  possibly meeting my bashert, but I would like to meet him so I am willing to endure them. 

Shavuot

      Time passes so quickly. It seems it was just Pesach and now Shavuot is upon us. Wishing everyone a good holiday.

Rose Of Washington Square

     I used to think that Funny Girl and Funny Lady were the only Fanny Brice movies out there until I saw the movie Rose Of Washington Square.
      Fanny Brice was a Jewish stage actress in the early part of the 1900's through the 1930's. She also did radio in the 1930's  and 1940's playing a bratty toddler named Baby Snooks.
       Rose Of Washington was the 1939  goyish version of her life. Irish Alice Fae was Fanny and gentile and very handsome Tyrone Power played Fanny's no good husband Nicky Arnstein. Al Jolson was the only known Jewish actor in the movie though he did not play a Jew. He by the way was top rate. They did not use Fanny or Nicky's names but everyone knew that Rose Of Washington square was Fanny's life story. Fanny even sued them for making a film about her life without her as the star. They used Fanny Brice's signature songs much to her chagrin.
        Funny Girl and Funny Lady feature the very Jewish Barbara Streisand but oddly enough after reading Fanny Brice's biography and watching Rose Of Washington Square I realize that the  vintage 1939 version of the Fanny Brice story captures the life of Fanny Brice more accurately than the Streisand vehicles. Its funny how that is.
        I recommend the film Rose Of Washington Square. Its entertaining , tells a good story and fun to watch the old time music and dance numbers.

Buses

     As of last week Brooklyn city buses have a glass partition around the bus driver. I hope the glass is shatterproof. Its a little scary looking. Perhaps there have been a lot of attacks on bus drivers lately. I guess this will help protect the bus drivers.
     The single most scary thing that happens on  a New York City public bus is when a wheel chair passenger comes on board. The driver stops the bus and gets up out of his seat

to help the wheel chair passenger onto the bus. I am always afraid that the bus is going to be hijacked by another passenger while the bus driver is helping out the wheel chair person. I am not sure that a protective glass partition will protect against a hijacking while the bus driver is not in his seat and helping the wheel chair person.

The Ideal Age

      Recently most of the single's events I have attended have had an elderly age range. It has become downright depressing. Until last week. Last thursday I attended an event with an age range that I would have wished I would have found ten years ago. I was not the oldest person there, but if  I was ten years younger I would  have been in heaven. I saw some friends of mine who were about ten years younger than me who were very burnt out from  the scene. I can't blame them but it also made me sad. They were good catches and it made me sad that that they were so negative. The reality is that if you  don't find anyone before you are 35 it  becomes even more difficult. I wanted to say this, but I  held my tongue. I would never have wanted anyone to tell me this.  I also wanted to say that I found it hard to believe that they are having a hard time finding anyone to go out with. But I believe them. It is really hard to meet someone good . I also couldn't say much because I am still single and older than they are. The crazy part is that I am still optimistic after having my share of things not working out.
       
        

Women's Prayer Groups

     When I was 12 a good friend of mine was the first person I had ever met to have a bat mitzvah in a woman's prayer group. A few of my friends said that they davened at home before showing up to the bat mitzvah as protest. I remember at the time thinking that a women's prayer group was odd , but not much else. It was not much different than women just praying together . I guess the strangest part was hearing a woman read from the Torah.
      For me the issue of women's prayer groups is not so much whether or not they should read from the Torah with a bracha or if they should call themselves a minyan. I was never the type who wanted to read from the Torah, although the thought of being counted as part of a minyan seems kind of cool. In my mind going to shul is about being a part of the group, not about being separate  though the only shuls I attend have mechitzahs.  I attend shuls where I can see and hear what is going  on from my side of the mechitzah. If I went to a shul where this was not so and if there was a mechitzh kiddush I may think differently.
     My first Rosh Hashana in New York was spent at a shul in Boro Park where the women's section was a floor above the men's section. and there was a square the size of a small box cut into the floor of the women's section which was your only contact with what was going on in the men's section. All the women were chatting. I can't say that I blamed them. You could not hear or see anything that was going on in the men's section. It bothered me that I could not hear the shofar. I never went back there again.
     I have always attended Orthodox shuls so the idea of a mechitzah was never something that I had thought much about. As long as I was able to hear the service and have enough space to to sit in the women's section I was okay. When I went to the kotel it would always bother me that  I never was able to pray with a minyan.  I would always daven on my own. I could never tell what was going on in the men's section even when I knew that there was a minyan.