Song of the Week -

It's All Coming Back to Me Now ~ MeatLoaf



Its All Coming Back To Me Now

Songwriters: Steinman, Jim;

There were nights when the wind was so cold
That my body froze in bed if I just listened
To it right outside the window
There were days when the sun was so cruel
That all the tears turned to dust and
I just knew my eyes were drying up forever

I finished crying in the instant that you left
And I can't remember where or when or how
And I banished every memory you and I have ever made

But when you touch me like this
(Touch me like this)
And you hold me like that
(Hold me like that)
I just have to admit
That it's all coming back to me

When I touch you like this
(Touch you like this)
And I hold you like that
(Hold you like that)
It's so hard to believe
But it's all coming back to me now

It's all coming back
It's all coming back to me now

There were moments of gold and there were flashes of light
There were things I'd never do again
But then they'd always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than any laws allow, maybe baby

If I kiss you like this
(Kiss you like this)
And if you whisper like that
(Whisper like that)
It was lost long ago
But it's all coming back to me

If you want me like this
(If you want me like this)
And if you need me like that
(If you need me like that)
It was dead long ago
But it's all coming back to me

It's so hard to resist
And it's all coming back to me
I can barely recall
But it's all coming back to me now

But you were history with the slamming of the door
And I made myself so strong again somehow
And I never wasted any of my time on you since then

But if I touch you like this
(Touch you like this)
And if you kiss me like that
(Kiss me like that)
It was so long ago
But it's all coming back to me

If you touch me like this
(Touch me like this)
And if I kiss you like that
(Kiss you like that)
It was gone with the wind
But it's all coming back to me now

It's all coming back
It's all coming back to me now

There were moments of gold and there were flashes of light
There were things we'd never do again
But then they'd always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than all your laws allow, baby, baby, baby

When you touch me like this
(Touch me like this)
And when you hold me like that
(Hold me like that)
It was gone with the wind
But it's all coming back to me

When you see me like this
(See me like this)
And when I see you like that
(See you like that)
Then we see what we want to see
All coming back to me

The flesh and the fantasies
All coming back to me
I can barley recall
But it's all coming back to me now

If you forgive me all this
(Forgive me all this)
If I forgive you all that
(Forgive you all that)
We forgive and forget
And it's all coming back to me now

It's all coming back to me now
(When I touch you like this)
It's all coming back to me now
(And if you do it like this)
It's all coming back to me now
And if we

these lyrics were last corrected by F.Bennett

Apologies to my Loyal Fans...LOL

I have had THE WORST sinus infection and bronchitis that is just kicking my boo-tay! I have been on antibiotics - and feeling better, but with the allergies and wind, my body is just not cooperating. NOTE TO SELF: drink more water when traveling, and less coffee.

I have written a couple things that need tweeked and have about 30 pics to go through and load up here. When I get to Kansas (yup, following the Yellow Brick, er, KS400 to Oswego), I plan to hole up in my room for a couple days and get this all updated and pretty. And get well, too. After Hanukkah (I found a hanukkiyah - 9 branched candle holder - at a local store - Yeah me!), I am hoping to get to Tennessee and Florida to visit Dana and Michelle (TN) and Laynee, Marina and Sheila (FL).

The Israel trip is in the final stages of planning. Rabbi has the credit card and is charging the plane tickets today and will do my reservation for the apartment as well. Looks like I will be in Jerusalem from April 1-29, then off to India for a week (Mumbai), then back to Tel Aviv for three days of museum hopping before returning to LAX and then back to Kansas - or somewhere. I still have TWO sisters in Nebraska and a brother in Wyoming waiting for a visit. And a bunch of friends east of Iowa that would also like to see me. I am just TOO durn loveable...LOL

Now Tina (T2) is taking me out to Mimi's Cafe for dinner.

GPS Girl's Detour to Vail Colorado

Y'all are gonna think I'm nuts. (Those of you with empirical evidence, please put you hands down!)

The GPS decided it didn't like the crappy snow and ice. She kept telling me to take exits in Vail. The frist time, I took the exit, re-programmed her and started out again. I ignored her the second exit, which was a Rest Area. Then, with visibility to about 25 feet, she tricked me. She turned me around and I was going the wrong way on the freeway. For those unbelievers, I, during the snow storm, pulled over TWICE and I called my son, Anil and he HEARD GPS Girl tell me to take the Vail exits. Twice.

So I did. And now I will be stuck here until around noon tomorrow, according to the hotel clerk. Lucky me, I had a free night on hotels.com. So - Holiday Inn in Vail for $50. SWEET, and they have an indoor spa, workout room and laundry so I can wash all my clothes. Also, in room massage...it was a hectic drive arguing with the GPS. She is such a brat. She just wanted to stay in a nice hotel. She really loved the Holiday Inn in Sacramento, I guess. Maybe when I go to sleep, she will be texting with the phone or tweeting with the tube. It is a big, sleek flat screen. Dunno. Who can figure out machines these days?

Sucks to be me, but - heh, you are all in your nice warm houses enjoying yourself. I should make the best of today, right?

Off to get hot chocolate and pop corn and warn up by the fireplace in the lobby...

A Quickie for My Friends

Getting myself organized to continue onto Colorado Springs - 1177 miles according to Yahoo maps. Probably make it to Brigham City UT, unless I stop for tourista junk like yesterday. Uhh, yeah, there is a REALLY GOOD chance that will happen...LOL

Yesterday, I only drove for 4 hours. I stopped at Multinomah Falls, OR JUST for a POTTY STOP at the Fish Hatchery. Hermann the Seventy Year Old Sturgeon and I made friends. I am hoping Blogger will let me post his smiley face tonight when I stop. Or not. The hotel in Brigham City has a SPA tub. And my achey old bones might trump posting the stories I am working on.

Previews:
1. Adventures of Sherri and the Killer Fridge
2. Hermann's Harem
3. The Dalles - Oregon

Time to get my boo-tay in the car and on the road. I promised my trucker son that I would do very little driving in the dark. He said old people should be tucked in bed by then...

Another Pesach Moment - 11/10/2010

Pesach (Passover) is my hands-down, all-around favorite holiday in the world. It is better than Hanukkah with the latkes, gelt, presents and menorahs. It is better than Shavuot when we received Torah. It is better than Purim with the costumes, partying and Megillah. It is even better than Shabbat when we rest and look forward to the coming of Moshiach. To me, Pesach is the seminal moment in the history of the Jewish people.

Besides being the holiday when I let Rabbi know that I wanted to begin the formal process to convert to Judaism, which was a BIG deal, Pesach was the birth of the nation of Israel.

Now, most people would have you believe that we became a cohesive group at the time of Jacob (Israel) with the 12 tribes and all of that. It’s a good point, BUT we were still divided – fighting over who was loved or honored more by Jacob. Nope.

It was also not, in my not so humble opinion, when we receive Torah at Mount Sinai at Shavuot. No, it was definitely Pesach.

Here we were in Egypt – Slaves. Look at this: We were beaten down, made to work for Pharaoh building cities, not to the honor and glory of God – a god that we didn’t even know personally, might I add, just some ”deity” that we blindly obeyed out of tradition. A god that took us from the high position of relatives of Joseph, the second most powerful man in the country,  to a place of abject poverty and humiliation. A god that left us in the clutches of evil, allowed our children to be murdered and enslaved, that wore us down to such a point  that we even, at one point, decided to divorce our spouses and stop having CHILDREN, ensuring that our people would die out. Oh, of course there were glimmers of hope, when occasionally one of our children would throw us a crumb of hope: like when the women would look into our copper mirrors and see beauty instead of the dust of the rock quarries and slurry pits. But it was a bleak, seemingly hopeless existence.

Then along comes this nut-job, Moses. He tells us that there is more than the pits and quarries and cities of Pharaoh. More than the temples of Isis and Ra and Horeb, that there is a god that we will follow and He will make our lives good, that we will find happiness, freedom and hope for a better time for our children. Uh-huh, sure we say to ourselves. Then Moses does these magic tricks that trump the magic of the House of Pharaoh. Did we REALLY believe that it would get better? Nope. We just knew dying the desert as free people would be better than the whips and chains of the Egyptians. So, we left. We left behind all that we knew as slaves – the unrelenting bone-breaking labors of the taskmasters. Instead of having no straw to make bricks, we grasped at the straws of hope that we were offered by the itinerant basket-case of Moses, who finally is blamed for the death of Pharaoh’s only son, because you KNOW the stinking Egyptian son of bird-head wouldn’t ever believe that there is a god greater than himself. Great, now we are really in for it, we think.

And then, miracle of miracles, Pharaoh tells us to leave. Get out fast. Get your stuff together now and get the hell out of his country. So we do. We gather up our meager things – the cooking pots, the chamber pots, the little bits of food, clothes and furniture, throw them into whatever conveyances are parked in the slave section – even commandeering some Egyptians’ stuff and leave. Did we know where we were going? No. Not.A.Clue. Did we know how long it would take to get there? Had no idea it would take 40 years. Would we have gone if we’d have known the mental and emotional anguish that would chase us down? Nope.  

Just like a mental patient that knows he’s had enough. We were done with Egypt. Through. Completely finished with Pharaoh, with pain, with worry and fear of beatings, rapes and death. We left it behind in the moments when we left Egypt. Of course, we Jews revisit these issues every generation because God-forbid the nations leave our nation in peace.

And we all revisit these emotions on a smaller scale in our lives. Leaving home as a teenager. Going to school – and changing schools. Our first jobs. Getting married (we eloped on 11/10/2010), and God-forbid, getting divorced. The life-alterations, the deaths of loved ones or dreams, that occur that may leave us bereft of hope, our lives transformed into a vision so utterly different from our initial hopes, shattering dreams or aspirations so that we don’t recognize even our own selves – until we arrive at a place of acceptance of the metamorphosis of our souls into what God pictured. It is true that the journey is more important than the arrival because, in a sense, just like the Hebrew slaves in the desert, we will never really “arrive” in this world, we will continue to travel, forever hoping to arrive.

And I have experienced this on a physical level - as a military brat, leaving behind the familiar every few years; as a bride, exploring the scary new world of marriage; as a widow, navigating the place of aloneness and loss that even bestest friends in the whole world can't fathom.

So I will be driving again on Thursday. And down the road, I will have another Pesach moment, I am sure.

J

Chehalis, WA, Sherri and her Restaurant

Okay, I found Sherri (Widda Posse member) and her son, Israel. Actually, I got here last week. Brought the rain with me, too, which means that as it passes over the Rockies, it will be snowing like the dickens when I leave for Colorado on Thursday. But to the events of the last few days...

Sherri, who is the owner and chef of L'Amore de Scotty in Chehalis, has decided that she likes having me cook Indian food. But just for her and her family. She fed me for two days, so I guess it is only fair. My two favorites so far are:

Breakfast on Sunday morning: Stuffed French Toast

Three slices of French toast hold awesome cream cheese filling and are topped with sliced bananas, strawberries and blueberry compote. Served with one egg. YUM!

Dinner on Thursday night: Croque Champignons - Sautéed mushrooms, swiss & dijon mustard on toasted sourdough, topped with alfredo sauce & gruyere cheese and put under the boiler until golden bubbly! I had this with homemade potato and leek soup that had some fancy-schmancy French name, but I inhaled it anyway.

Here is her shameless plug:

L'amour de Scotty Family Restaurant & Bakery
(http://www.lamourdescotty.com/)
263 NW Chehalis Ave.
Chehalis, WA 98532
360-740-9227

She is also opening a pastry shop inside Catty Wampus in Centralia. I decided to stay a couple extra days to help her get that ready to open by baking a TRILLION cookies (oh okay, maybe just a few dozen!) for opening day this week. She is also making pink champagne cupcakes, scones, her yummy cheesecakes and other assorted pastries. I had forgotten how much work it is to open a new business. UGH! Since it will be inside an antique shop, it should be very interesting to see how well it will do.

Izzy is so adorable, even when he is being annoying. He is developmentally delayed, but is doing pretty well in seventh grade (I think). He and Blue (his corgie dog) are quite a team when they are together. I may not get to the picture posting project until I am travelling again, but I PROMISE I will get the Izzy and Blue pic up.

Off to bed. Sherri is running me ragged...LOL...and I have a cold that is just slowing us down. I am thinking I will hold back some of the kosher chicken and make some soup for myself tomorrow. That, along with the saline rinse, decongestants and antihistamines will hopefully knock this out before I leave for Colorado.

Song of the Week - I Love This Bar (for Sherri in WA)

Toby Keith ~ I Love This Bar (For L'Amoure de Scottie and Sherri)



We got winners, we got losers
Chain smokers and boozers
And we got yuppies, we got bikers
We got thristy hitchhikers
And the girls next door dress up like movie stars

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

We got cowboys, we got truckers
Broken-hearted fools and suckers
And we got hustlers, we got fighters
Early birds and all-nighters
And the veterans talk about their battle scars

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

[Chorus:]
I love this bar
It's my kind of place
Just walkin' through the front door
Puts a big smile on my face
It ain't too far, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

I've seen short skirts, we got high-techs
Blue-collar boys and rednecks
And we got lovers, lots of lookers
And I've even seen dancing girls and hookers
And we like to drink our beer from a mason jar

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Yes I do

I like my truck (I like my truck)
I like my girlfriend (I like my girlfriend)
I like to take her out to dinner
I like a movie now and then

But I love this bar
It's my kind of place
Just trollin' around the dance floor
Puts a big smile on my face
No cover charge, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

We got divorcees and a big bouncer man
An old jukebox and a real bad band
We got waitresses and we got barflies
A dumb-ass and a wise-guy
If you get too drunk just sleep out in your car

Reason number 672 why

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Play it on out boys
Beer-thirty's over
Got to take it on home

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
I just love it

YIKES! I got lost....Newsflash, it happens a lot...

Okay, drove down Folsum Street and ended up at the Capitol Building. Mess up or message from God? You decide.

Anywho, I walked from I Street and 3rd Street to the Capitol Building - about a mile or so from the hotel. I passed the ObamaBot Central Office for Sacramento a half a block into my trip.

Not one to let silly political stuff ruin a perfectly fine excursion...

It was a beautiful California day and I loved exploring the building. The Capitol has a floor of working museum rooms, plus the halls have kiosks for each of the counties in California. Some of the displays were VERY well put together. Did I take pics? I was going to bore y'all with the stats and pics of the County Kiosks, but flash f'ed em up. A couple of the museum pics turned out. (I took them before I was told flashes degraded the paints in the exhibits.) I will try to upload at my next stop, but Blogger seems to be having issues and I need to get going.

I seemed to have missed the Governor. He was in LA taking care of some "family" business. But his office staff was very helpful and encouraged me take a few pictures of the reception area to Auh-nold's office. They didn't turn out so well. Eh, maybe I will become better aquianted with the upload procedures tonight.

Back to the travelogue:

Room 105 is super interesting - well, it will be until September 2011. The Parks Department has an exhibit highlighting the State Parks and some of the history of our parks, plus they were giving out maps of the parks. There is an shadowbox with ranger and lifeguard patches from 1902. One of the quotes that resonated with me was from Newton Drury in 1951: "People have the right to use the parks, but no one has the right to use them up."


Room 103 - the Secretary of State office was decorated in 1902 style. I did get a couple pics. Again with Blogger being a butt.

The County Shadowboxes in the hallways was amazing. It brought back memories of conversations with Tuviya, who used to have a map of the counties with pins in the counties in which he had cases. There were only THREE of the 58 counties that had not hired him. Danged if I can remember which three they were, though. Some of the memorable cases from each county came to mind (like Allaway in Orange County) and things that we did in various places (Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and Orange Counties were our main stomping grounds, but we did meet in Kern County.)

Anyway, T was such a book hound and used to talk about the ag business and how important it is to California, and even the United States. If you look at the crops that are grown in the Central part of the state, you will be agog at how we have become used to foods around the country that are shipped out DAILY to all parts of the world. Stanislaus County alone produces from $7.2 to $16.8 BILLION in produce. Then there is Los Angeles County that has the 19th largest economy in the WORLD. Amazing the stuff I learned stopping to read the little signs.

Okay, I need a shower and to get out of here. The Redwoods are calling me..

Song of the Week - Folsum Prison Blues

Folsum Prison Blues


"Folsom Prison Blues"

I hear the train a comin'
It's rolling round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when,
I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on
But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone..
When I was just a baby my mama told me. Son,
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry..

I bet there's rich folks eating in a fancy dining car
They're probably drinkin' coffee and smoking big cigars.
Well I know I had it coming, I know I can't be free
But those people keep a movin'
And that's what tortures me...

Well if they freed me from this prison,
If that railroad train was mine
I bet I'd move it on a little farther down the line
Far from Folsom prison, that's where I want to stay
And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.....

[Thanks to thepheonixrevelation@yahoo.com, flamingogirl17@bellsouth.net for correcting these lyrics]

What should've been a Monday post...

It has been a week. I spend Thursday night through Monday morning hanging with my friends, Deb and Les and their three very busy cuties (HOW did they get to be TEENS?!!?)

 

Friday morning, I stopped in to the synagogue (CTJ) to see Rabbi. While I was waiting, I met the new Office Manager (my old job for YEARS), chatted with the caterer, Moira who had fallen down the stairs and sprained her ankle and met some of the other new staff members. Gosh, they sure are a lot nicer then I was  in the day...

 

Then Rabbi told me that a tour was probably not the best way for me to go. (Read: You - seriously - do not belong in polite society.  :-)  ) BUT he couched it by SAYING that I was so smart (*MUUUHHH*) that I would have more fun by renting an apartment in Jerusalem for a month and just doing day trips outside. Said it would cost about the same, just I'd have more freedom to do as I pleased and not be on a schedule. (Yeah, he REMEMBERED how often I showed up on time for work...)

 

On Friday afternoon, I tried out the GPS to get to Bob's Big Boy in Norco, CA to have lunch with my Widda Posse friends, Colleen and Stephan. Stephan is a Jaegermeister slurper and Colleen's favorite alcohol is beer, but since there was no alcohol, there were no arguments about the merits of their favorite beverages. (Which is good because I really like green tea, but chocolate martinis and Cadallac margaritas are yummy, too. And Debbie makes the BEST coffee. LOL) Bob's Big Boy food is what you'd expect, so I won't waste too much time posting on the texture of the fish-n-chips (*SNORT*). After lunch we went to Colleen's where they drank and I just enjoyed visiting with them. Oh, and Colleen's 5 year old daughter is SO adorable. Unfortunately the kitty hair got to me and I still have not found the three month supply of Alavert I packed in the car. May have to break down and stop at a drug store with my $4 off coupon.

 

Saturday was so peaceful. Debbie and I went to CTJ for services, and it just HAPPENED to be Scott Meyer's Bar Mitzvah. Geez, I could've sworn he was just knee-high to a grasshopper when I left. He read Torah beautifully and chanted the entire Haftarah with such a grown-up voice. Meryl and the entire mishpachah was justifiably proud. Then, just because Saul and Laura Rae are such great friends, too (they provided the "dowry" for me when Tuviya and I got married (a huge cow and a goat), we had big fun discussing the political crap o'the day. (Saul is in advertising and thanks you LA residents for not throwing out those mailers right away....he spends a butt-load o'time designing them!) We continued our FaceBook discussions at the luncheon and you would never know we had heated disagreements - *G*. Moira catered the buffet lunch and, it was most yummy. Mixed green salad with dried cranberried, home-made balsamic vinegrette, mandarin oranges and almond slivers. YUM. And her key lime bars, apple strudel bars and brownie. Yeah, I needed a walk. What I did was nap.

 

Halloween. Not a Jewish holiday. But I dressed up as Dorothy (Wizard of Oz). Pics to be posted later tonight. Manned the door with the humongous tub of chocolate which disappeared by 9PM. And I only at ONE piece. (I had a stash of mint chocolate in my room.)

I had a great time visiting my friend Janelle in Rancho Cordova, CA last night. Today, I am gonna at LEAST post the song of the week and a few words on the travels will be posted this evening.

Going to visit Folsum Prison and find a nice place in Sacramento to watch the POLs commit hari-kari at 8PM PST (when the voting sites all close in California). Then, in the AM will be on the road again to make my way up to see Sherri in WA state.