Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas - and I learned on Turner Classic Films who died this year - Barbara Harris, Send in the Clowns - Daily Vitamins

Am sipping on Starbucks now.

On Christmas Day, I sent out one of my email alerts. Twas a prayer from New Directions.

Thanks to Judy L for reviewing the below poem and adding the part about Love.

PRAYER FOR OUR PEOPLE

In the beginning when God created the Universe
Did He or She create mental illness?
Assuming the Almighty knows all,
Has He been beside us every step of the way?
Why, then, has it been so hard?
Why, then, do we often wish to take our own lives
and sometimes do?

New Directions arrived like a chariot
from the sun. It simply grew, like
wildflowers in a dark forest.

Help is at hand, it's simple.
Just ask.
The sound of the human voice pierces
the darkness, bringing peace to the
distressed.

David, Bruce, Ann. Tony. Where are you now?

Meditate. Do yoga. Ask for forgiveness
which holds us back. Call on Jehovah,
The Christ, Allah the Most High.

With Love from other people and love from ourselves
we will survive.

Wander the world in prayer. One day,
without even knowing it, you will be free.
Free as the gosling breaking from
its egg and starting life anew.

***
At ND, we have had people from the world over. A few come to mind: A gunmaker from East Germany; a woman hoping to join her husband in Honduras, a world capital of murder; Vietnam veterans; a ballerina on the run from her depression.

***
Tonight when I watched the PBS News Hour, I was introduced for the very first time to Michael Curry, the first African American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Read about him on Wiki here.

This man is a preacher! If I wasn't born a Jew, I might convert!

Watch him in action.

His new book is The Power of Love. The opposite of love, he says, is selfishness and self-interest.

Love will always win!

Thanks very much to Harriet Rellis who answered our call to do the new form to receive funding for our Verizon Bills and Comcast from Montgomery County Office of Behavioral Health.

Again, on PBS, remarkable films of 2018 were mentioned.

Here are a few: Barry Jenkins' Beale Street, based on a novel from ex-pat James Baldwin; Green Card about the relationship between a white bouncer and a black musician while touring the Jim Crow South; Roma (on Netflix);

The Rider, a cowboy film, and A Quiet Place (a post-apocolyptic horror film).

I've started about 40 Netflix films. Most are good, but forgettable. Including Bruce Springsteen on Broadway.

Last night I watched ROMA in its entirety.



Cleo, the servant, is part of the family, yet not really. Roger Ebert website gave it a top review.

I thought it was a study in the meaninglessness of existence.

Here are the vitamins I take every day:

Calcium - Magnesium - B-Complex - D

The list is so I - RZD - remember them.

What a delicious breakfast I had!

Nicole Deming made the greatest ham, so I included it with my usual egg breakfast.

When I asked her if she used cloves, she said, The Giant Supermarket added everything.

***
When I was a kid I worked with my dad at Majestic Specialties on Superior Avenue in Cleveland. He was so proud of me! I was his secretary. A bunch of 'the boys' and me would go out to lunch at a nearby dive.

That's where I discovered my love of ham.

Harold Wittes, Harvey Siegelman, Gene Hexter, Morty Shesol (still alive)

The mail just came.



How The Brain Changes During Alzheimer's Disease.

On my fridge, I have Shirley Sanders' photo on there when she was well. Early onset she has.

***
Sarah sent me great photos of my four days in Brooklyn.

Where they went is a great mystery to me.

Scuse me while I try to find them.

Sarah made my bed every nite on her comfy blue couch. I slept like a log!

 Ethan's Boston Piano, a step down from a Steinway Grand.

 Invitation to a bat mitzvah. This is my bedside table, where I kept important things. It's actually in front of me.

 Modern dining room set, their interior decorator picked out for them. They wandered around after a fire damaged everything in their apartment.

 Sarah's book-filled study. I found a Ralph Waldo Emerson book I looked at. It was so awful, I couldn't put it down, trying hard to find something good.

 Every morning my feet would creak on the floor as I passed the kitchen. Below is a Buddha-like statement on the wall opposite the kitchen.

Where does YOUR home creak? My room often does as does my upstairs office.

 Ethan's dad Sherman Iverson was a painter. He loved cars, as do I. I've got a calendar of vintage cars from REMS Auto. Was gonna mail Ethan an extra calendar but decided enough is enough.

 Sherman liked painting reflections, as does my Facebook buddy Bill Hess. But I'm no longer on Facebook. Too hard keeping up with people plus the continuing data-snatching of the a-holes in charge.

 Sarah doing yoga on the comfortable blue rug. Truthfully? When I came into my living room this morning, which is where I blog, I thought, What a colorless rug! It is.

 Here's Gordon with his pooch Alice. Gordon has two teenage daughters. Sarah rustled up some grub for us. Alice - or was it me - kept begging for more.

 Can't see the above photo.

 Here's the Japanese coach at Atlas Cops n Kids, Sarah's boxing gym.

 The boxers all practice fine etiquette. And are good sports.

 A series of pulsating notes prepare the boxers for fights.

 Here's my little girl.

 Point to where we are, I said to Say (my nickname for her).

 This is THE best Chinese restaurant I've ever eaten at. The place is huge! I sat next to the window and was freezing. When I went to the bathroom, my butt was as cold as ice. I ordered hot mushroom soup to warm me up but it took terribly long to come.

Below is the media man.

 In honor of my friends The Fleishers.

 Luis Hernandez, the roommate from.... heaven!

 Luis brought home leftovers from an Indian restaurant. Yum!!!!



Luis Aparicio, Venezuelan-born short stop of the Cleveland Indians, still alive today at 84.

Jonathan from Dominican Republic drove me home. The rain pounded down and you couldn't see the car in front of you. I kept my mouth shut and gripped the gripper in the back seat. At one point, his car slid.

You felt that, he said.

Of course I felt it, I said.

He pulled over as he was taught in his UBER class to make sure nuffin was wrong with his tires.

How bout we go slower, I said.



Au revoir Barbara Harris. Dead of lung cancer at 83.