ten weird things/habits about yourself

(ah these drafts do come in handy. Anne (Dakato Blue Eyes) over at What's on my mind tagged me for this meme and i just discovered that it was a saved draft from Aug '06 when some other nice person must've tagged me.)

1) I have what I've heard called a Transition problem or in plain English, i can't get out of my own way. I invariable have to come back in the house at least once for something I've forgotten. Forget it when I have to pack for a trip.( I have dreams about forgetting things - usually my hair products and make up).
2) I hate dinner time unless we are eating out. I wait to the last minute to even think about it then just go into panic mode and usually order take out.
3) I clean house ADD style, jumping from room to room, floor to floor - it never looks like i did anything.
4) I hate to fly. I used to just have copious cocktails at the Airport bar, but then they kinda frown at children sitting at the bar.
5) I hate to food shop. I rarely have a list or even look to see what we need. I just kind of wing it and when I can't stand being in the store anymore I just leave. Hence I shop several times a week- and hence the take out.
6)I love to dream (cept for the nightmares), just hate to sleep.
7) world class procrastinator and time waster.
8) I like dancing around the house. (old dancing queens die hard)
9) I never finish projects. (just start a new one)
10) Prince charming grown up blues: even tho i know he doesn't exist, I'm still hoping he'll come take me away from all this. (yes probably the weirdest of them all since i'm married).

Tagging any & all takers, just leave a link in comments.

Joke Friday

Butch the rooster,

John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets" and eight or ten roosters, whose job was to fertilize the eggs.

The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer's favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! John went to investigate.

The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John's amazement, Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the Boone County Fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result...

The judges not only awarded Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly Butch was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

American Idol

I stopped watching the show this year, was bored/sick of it, no one appealed to me, seemed talented, was growing tired of the judges - always the same. Then the other night my 13 yr. old who had also stopped watching it had it on, told me Bono was going to be on ( our favorite). And there was Ben Stiller being Ben Stiller ( very funny) and Ellen and House(love him!) and countless other celebs. But then the piece de la resistance- the African Childrens Choir ( what happy smiling faces and beautiful voices). The film clips of the orphans and sick mothers was extremely moving. My son was moved as well, he said to me, maybe I should donate my 200 dollars ( the money he has saved for a Kayak); but i told him that i would go to the website and donate with my credit card. The next morning he asked me if I had. I did but still feel like we should do more. If you can Please go here and help save children in poverty in the US(Katrina flood victims) and Africa(orphans/some with HIV or Malaria.)
Thank you.

New York state of mind



Hero

(similar but different - more about the holocaust survivor that gave his life. I decided to post this because of when looking up some of the site meter info I came upon this hateful/horrid/antisemtic site with multiply comments that left me with a very bad feeling.The last article of the three makes some interesting points about the VT massacre, violence and evil.)

BY CRUEL FATE, A SURVIVOR DIES A HERO

Gabrielle Birkner
New York Sun, April 18, 2007

In a cruel twist of fate, an engineering lecturer who survived the Holocaust and fled communist Romania was shot dead Monday morning during the massacre that killed 32 at Virginia Tech.

Witnesses have said Liviu Librescu, 76, died trying to keep the gunman out of his second-floor classroom and that his efforts may have saved the lives of some of his students, whom he encouraged to escape through the windows. "He certainly showed his true character trying to protect the kids," an engineering professor at Virginia Tech, Joseph Schetz, told The New York Sun. "I'm not surprised by what he did. He was a people person." A makeshift shrine with flowers and a photograph of Librescu was set up on the Blacksburg, Va., campus yesterday.

Librescu was one of two Virginia Tech faculty members who were killed when a 23-year-old student from South Korea, Cho Seung-Hui, went on a shooting rampage in a dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, and in classrooms at Norris Hall. The head of the engineering science and mechanics department, Ishwar Puri, said of Librescu: "He was an exceptionally tolerant man who mentored scholars from all over our troubled world."

Librescu survived the Holocaust in a labor camp in Transnistria and in a Jewish ghetto in Focsani, Romania. After World War II, he studied in Romania, earning degrees in aeronautical engineering and a doctorate in fluid mechanics. He worked for the state aerospace agency but faced roadblocks in Romania because he refused to pledge allegiance to the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

After Prime Minister Begin of Israel intervened on behalf of Jews living in Romania, Librescu and his family were allowed to immigrate to Israel in 1978. There he worked at Israeli universities before taking what was to be a sabbatical year at Virginia Tech more than 20 years ago. He instead decided to put down roots.

An engineering professor at Virginia Tech who had known Librescu for about two decades, Rakesh Kapania, said his colleague "was not known to speak about his past." In an interview, Mr. Kapania said Librescu was a "good teacher" and a "kind-hearted person" who would be missed by his colleagues and students. A longtime lecturer at the university, Librescu was teaching a class this semester in solid mechanics. He was a frequent contributor to academic journals and was to deliver the keynote lecture at a scientific conference in Taipei, Taiwan, in June.

"I know he did very good research," an engineering professor at Virginia Tech, Mayuresh Patil, said. "You can look at his list of publications. He was very prolific." Mr. Patil, 33, said Librecu was well-liked by his younger colleagues because he was supportive of their research but never patronizing. "He was a well-known, well-respected guy," Mr. Patil, who first met Librescu about 10 years ago, said.

Librescu is survived by his wife, Marlena Librescu, and two sons, Arieh Librescu and Joseph Librescu. "I lost my best friend," Mrs. Librescu said yesterday. "He was a great person who loved teaching more than anything." Librescu will be buried in Israel.


PROFESSOR’S VIOLENT DEATH CAME WHERE HE SOUGHT PEACE

Colin Moynihan
New York Times, April 19, 2007

Prof. Liviu Librescu faced many trials in his 76 years, growing up and living in Romania. There were the Nazis, who imprisoned his family when he was a child. Then there was the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, which forbade him from working when he refused to join the Communist Party.

But it was a trial in a most unlikely place that proved to be deadly. On Monday, Professor Librescu faced danger when a student armed with pistols and the determination to kill approached the room where the professor was teaching a class in solid mechanics.

Professor Librescu never moved from the door of Room 204 in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech, witnesses said, even as the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was shooting. Directing his students to escape through windows, Professor Librescu was fatally shot.

Yesterday, a funeral was held for the professor in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Professor Librescu’s body was taken there by Chesed Shel Emes, a Jewish organization that specializes in helping people in times of trauma, said Rabbi Edgar Gluck, a member of the group, who said that the professor had been struck by five bullets. The professor’s body was to be flown to Israel last night and he will be buried before sundown today in Raanana, near Tel Aviv, Rabbi Gluck said.

About 300 people showed up at the Shomrei Hachomos, an Orthodox chapel. They arrived to recognize a remarkable, resilient life and an act of courage that ended that life. “This was a man who gave his ultimate for his fellow man,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn told the mourners. “He gave his life for his students.”

In Blacksburg, Va., one of those students, Caroline Merrey, 22, described some of the chaos that unfolded inside Room 204. “We had heard the gunfire coming from the classroom behind us, and we just reacted to it and headed for the windows,” Ms. Merrey said. “Professor Librescu never made an attempt to leave.” Ms. Merrey said she and about 20 other students scrambled through the windows as Professor Librescu shouted for them to hurry. She said she felt sure his actions helped save lives.

“He’s a part of my life now and forever,” she said. “I’m changed. I’m not the person I was before Monday.”

Speaking to a reporter by telephone from Israel, Professor Librescu’s son, Yossi Librescu, 40, a computer engineer, said he took some solace in the appreciation being expressed for his father. “He was passionate about life,” Mr. Librescu said. “He had no fear of death.”

He said that his father was born in Romania in 1930. After surviving the Holocaust, Mr. Librescu said, his father became a refusenik in Romania and lost his job as an aerospace engineer. But in 1976, Liviu Librescu secretly published a book in Norway that advanced a theory of aerospace technology that grabbed the attention of others in the field. In 1978, after lobbying by groups in Israel, he was permitted to leave Romania and settle there. He began teaching at Virginia Tech in 1985, university officials said.

Mr. Librescu said that the bucolic environs of Blacksburg provided a respite from the rigors of his father’s earlier life. His house was built on the edge of a forest and he took long walks daily, enjoying nature. He listened to classical music and settled into the calm, productive rhythms of his new existence. “He found Virginia to be a place that allowed him to be inspired,” Mr. Librescu said.

Professor Librescu’s coffin, draped in black cloth, was wheeled into the chapel just after 2 p.m. Mr. Hikind spoke briefly and another man sang a sad lament in Hebrew. At 2:18, several men lifted the coffin to their shoulders and carried it outside.

The professor’s wife, Marlena, stood outside and spoke about her husband. “His life was only his family and his students,” Ms. Librescu said. “Everybody told me he was like a father.”

Down the block, men dressed in black marched toward New Utrecht Avenue, carrying the coffin. As the N train screeched overhead, the words of the Kaddish were recited.

“He was always, always helping,” Ms. Librescu said. “But he was not able to help himself.”


NO POLICY CAN OUTWIT THE GRIM REAPER

David Frum
Daily Telegraph, April 18, 2007

A quiet spring day on a rural campus—then suddenly shots, shouting, chaos, death. Our minds cannot absorb such fathomless violence. We need to impose order on it, find explanations. And so, within minutes of the mass murder at Virginia Tech University, a great conversation erupted as Americans—and the rest of the world—tried to make sense of the senseless.

It was a classic American crime: an angry loner, enraged by the failure of a love affair, turns his anger on the world around him. Think of John Muhammad, the Washington sniper of 2001; John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan; Charles Whitman, the clocktower killer at the University of Texas, whose 1966 rampage was until this week the deadliest campus crime in US history.

Such stories are too random and terrifying for the mind to absorb. So, instead, we attempt to squeeze these crimes into our pre-existing categories and use them to advance our ideological agendas and thereby apportion blame. In the hours since Monday's attacks, three such categories have been presented to the American public.

The one probably most familiar to British audiences attributes killings such as those at Virginia Tech to the easy availability of firearms in the US. There is some truth in this. The murderer, Cho Seung-Hui, appears to have legally purchased a Glock 9mm automatic pistol shortly before the attack. Had it been more difficult to buy such a weapon, perhaps his crime could have been prevented—or at least rendered less lethal.

There is also an element of plausibility to the second explanation—the feminist one. Even in countries where guns are difficult to obtain, male sexual jealousy does daily, deadly damage. The British Home Office contends that domestic violence kills more young women worldwide than war, cancer and motor vehicle accidents.

Then there's the third and final explanation—immigration. Seung-Hui was a Korean-born resident alien. Aliens increasingly drive the US crime problem: about one third of California's prison population is first- or second-generation immigrant, as is 29 per cent of the federal prison population. Salvadoran and other Central American gangs commit the worst violence in many American cities. The finger of blame is easily pointed.

So which shall we blame? Guns? The male psyche? Immigration? None of the above? Or some of all of the above?…

[But] why are we blaming anything or anyone for this crime other than the criminal himself?

Crime can be reduced. Since 1990, the number of homicides in the US has been cut from almost 25,000 a year to about 15,000. Schools have launched programmes to predict potentially violent students. Some require transparent backpacks, and others have instituted sophisticated psychological profiling. All will pounce on any student joke about copy-catting Columbine. Meanwhile, many local police departments have attempted to modernise their tactics.

America will try to learn lessons from this latest tragedy too. But there is no escaping the hardest lesson: that death lies waiting around the corner for us all. No public policy can rescue us from that grim human fact—or the equally fearful obligation to walk with courage under the burden of the reality of evil.

Not a joke friday

READ THIS. LET IT REALLY SINK IN. THEN CHOOSE.

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, "I don't get it!

You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

He replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood.

I choose to be in a good mood."

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes, it is," he said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life."

I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter," he replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

He continued, "..the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine.But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said John. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity'."

Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

The Big Apple



Just Awful

(Someone sent this to me in an email. My heart goes out to the families of those killed and hurt.)

Holocaust survivor killed in Virginia massacre

One of victims in Virginia Tech shooting rampage Monday is Prof Liviu Librescu, senior researcher at university. Librescu was killed after he stayed behind his class to block door and protect students. Massacre claimed lives of 32 people. Prof Librescu and his wife are both Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978.

WASHINGTON – Prof Liviu Librescu, a senior researcher and lecturer at Virginia Tech, is among the 32 people who were killed during a shooting rampage at the university Monday.

His wife, Marlina, and two sons, Arieh and Joe, have already begun making arrangements for his burial in Israel.

One of Prof Librescu's students, Alec Calhoun, who was with him at the classroom when the shooting started, told AP that at about 9:05 am, he and classmates heard "a thunderous sound from the classroom next door, what sounded like an enormous hammer."

When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, they started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of the room.

Calhoun said that just before he climbed out the window, he turned to look at the professor (Librescu), who had stayed behind to block the door.

Librescu's wife drove him to work on Monday, and he was killed about an hour later. His daughter-in-law Ayala, who is married to his son, Joe, told Ynet: "I heard he blocked the door of the classroom he was teaching… he must have realized that the murderer was approaching. He saved his students and was killed by gunshots."

"He has been teaching there for 20 years, and was a senior, world-renowned lecturer. He is the professor with the highest number of publications in the history of Virginia Tech. In the past, he taught at Tel Aviv University and the Technion," she added.

Ayala said that her father-in-law was passionate about his research and a dedicated family man.

A true gentleman

Prof Librescu and his wife are both Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978.

Librescu was an accomplished scientist in Romania, and the Communist regime had tried to prevent him from making aliyah to Israel. He was allowed to leave the country only after the Israeli prime minister at the time Menachem Begin appealed the matter to President Nicolae Ceausescu.

Several years later, Librescu left for a sabbatical in the United States and has remained there since. His first son, Arieh, lives in Israel, while his other son, Joe, resides in the US. "I understand from friends that my father was a hero," the son Joe told Ynet. "In fact, by blocking the door with his body he saved all the students who were in the classroom."

Joe said that his parents were very happy in the United States, where they have been living since 1984. "He and my mom led a simple life, at a pastoral place in West Virginia, between hills and mountains, and he loved the school in which he taught."

"He is scientist who did not work for money, but for the pleasure he got from his occupation," he added.

Mariah

I woke,like i usually do, in the middle of the night. Sometimes it's because I'm hot and have to throw the blankets off (curses to menopause), other times to go to the bathroom (curses to my aging bladder),or i've woken because of my new ailments: pain in my arm or discomfort of my ? reflux problem ( damn stress and infirmity) and other times its my damn mind - i just start thinking.
Tonite it was all of the above. I woke up, threw off the down comforter, went to the bathroom, went to lie back down and felt the annoying feeling in my throat and started thinking.
I noticed the light on the clock next to my bed was flashing and from the hallway I noticed a light on downstairs and wondered what light had been left on. I thought it was a light in the living room but when i went down there i saw that the light was coming from the sunroom, which was odd because the french doors were closed and we don't really use that room in the winter. My son & I had been out at the Yom Ha-Shoah ceremony and come up here to the den after eating our subs at the kitchen island. When my husband came home from work, he also came up here to the smallest room in the house and the one most used. I opened the doors and shut it off and proceeded to the kitchen to let the dog out who now thought it was time to get up and get fed. I reset the flashing clocks on the stove and microwave and went back up after feeding puppy of course. Then I got back in bed and realized the futility of my actually sleeping, so i came in the den to write down some of the ideas flashing through my head.
This post was supposed to be about the hour i spent lying in bed, before i got up, listening to the wind.

YOM HA-SHOAH

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY


ZACHOR
"Remember"

Joke Saturday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg%20

I was hoping for a hyperlink at least. :(

No Joke

I wanted to post this great UTube video; but it seems that I can't get it to work with the new Google Blogger. anyone out there know what I'm doing wrong? it used to be so simple.

NY NY




I Love New York



Yes, I did choose this title to attract hits. It could've been "On the road again", which my sweet son was singing as we pulled out of the driveway. I was still in my post packing tizzy and already worrying about what I'd forgotten that I had to ask him what he just sang. I asked him,"where have you heard that song? do you know who it's by?" and he said no, he's just heard me singing it. who knew cornyness is an inherited trait?

We took off an hour late because of my packing phobia. I put it off til the last minute. Then I couldn't even find the overnight/wkend nylon bags that i like to use for short trips and frantically searched the attic twice and ripped apart the guest/den closet ( and left everything in it's tornado like state, i might add). I found them after we had devised alternates of course! They were buried under some stuff , which i found when i went looking for a lost pocketbook.
which brings me to another reason why i am so lame at packing, it's because, i don't get much practice, i hardly go anywhere. And when i'm home, i usually wear uniforms to work and then my uniform here - jeans and whatever to clean, paint, garden, hang around the house. It is really hard to come up with "outfits" when you don't really have any. when you buy things because they are on sale and you need new jeans, or pants or buy a random top cause you like it. Go try and figure out what to pack from the odd assortment. And then there are all the products to bring and hair clips to manage the unruly hair and what about accessories?
Anyway I really needed to get away and we had a great time in NY and NJ. I won't promise to tell you more later because we all know I never finish anything. But I will post some pics. Tomorrow, I promise, really.
Oh yeah and Happy Birthday Annie Lamott!!

Joke Friday

(Wow, where did that week go? getting really behind on my posts here. Well, here's a short but cute one for you.)

A husband and wife are in bed together. She feels his hand against her shoulder. “Oh honey, that feels good” she says.

His hand moves to her back. “Gee, honey that feels wonderful.” She says.

His hand moves to her leg. “Oh, honey, don’t stop.” She begs.

But he stops…………………

“Why did you stop?” she cries???



“ I found the remote…”