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Where does the time go?

Wow. Apparently the last time I posted here was almost four years ago. I knew it was a long time but that's REALLY long. How to catch up on the past four years.....it's a mix of "stuff." I am still self-employed, so 17 years now and still going. In fact, business is getting better. I have been adopted, several years apart, by two different cats who ran away from two different homes in my neighborhood and came to live with me, one female and one male. The female was 10 when she ran away to my house and the male was three. He is now 10 and she is 11. It's a happy furry home.

There has also been a series of deaths in my life, which seems to be happening more as I get older. My mother passed away three years ago. Two friends, one of them a best friend, passed away within the last couple of years. One close friend has moved several states away. And my beloved Leonard Cohen recently left this planet. Life is constantly moving with the river currents, steady but sure to change.

I am less apt to be spontaneous and get out of the house. I'm happy in my little home with the cats. My main regular excitement is that two friends and I are watching one season of Game of Thrones per month until the new season starts. We watch the season in a day and eat our way through the episodes. Compared to the monstrosity that is about to take over the presidency, beheadings and gorings and burnings are a pleasant distraction.

I really don't have that much more to say than I did four years ago, except maybe to plug Coursera, which is a free online university with professors from universities all over the world teaching all kinds of courses. Currently I'm taking one on Memory and Movies. I recommend checking the site out: coursera.org. Oh, and I have a new tattoo, one year old. She's a great white shark named Joan Rivers.

And, hey, how about that election?

See you all in another four years or so.
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Mr. Rogers

A very courageous man died today.

He wasn't known to a lot of people. He lived in a small town of about 1,200 in Canada. He was a short, but very stocky and muscled man - not very talkative. He and his wife and my parents became friends years ago, only to find out that somehow his wife and my father had known each other before.

I have eight tattoos. The only time I was ever ashamed of them was sitting at a dinner table with my parents and this man and his wife. As I looked down, I saw the numbers on his arm. I wanted to cover every tattoo on my body, feeling shame that I so lightly had myself inked for pleasure when he was forced to have his out of pain and torture.

He lived through three or four (maybe five) concentration camps. One day the Germans put a group of men (including him) on a train to take them to the town center. They all knew what the outcome would be and some of them decided to try to escape.

He shot and killed a Nazi guard and jumped from the train, breaking his arm. He never did see a doctor to get it fixed. He fled and later went to Israel to serve in the Israeli Navy.

He never spoke about those times. In this past year, after living through a past that most would never survive, he lost a sister, a daughter and a niece, and almost lost his wife. This morning all his battles were over.

Zvi, you can rest now, without ever having another nightmare. You were a hero and you were very loved. Wherever you are is a safer place now because you are there.

Shalom, and may God always be with you.
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tail

(no subject)

Abby, I know you are grateful I took you in during a bitter cold winter and gave you a home. I know you are already very bonded to me and want to make me happy. I'm glad you finally feel like this is truly home.

But if I find one more freshly-killed rat at the foot of my bed, I will have a psychotic break.
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