The staff lawyers will be happy that cred for the feature image goes to NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash.
I had intended to start writing at least twenty minutes before I did but I got lost in those Hubble shots and kept flipping through looking at pictures that amaze me.
Got distracted again by my friend Deborah Fish who made a comment about our trip to Israel and shook my head thinking about how much I remember 39 years later.
Got lost thinking about time in the Judean and Negev deserts when I would look up at the sky and wonder if the people who had walked in those same places as I was would stare at the same stars.
Deborah is one of those people where there is all sorts of crossover in people we know. It is kind of funny because she grew up in Tennessee and I in LA.
She went to Indiana for school, I went to Cal State Northridge and somehow she ended up in Cleveland and I ended up in Texas.
If you didn’t know anything about Jewish geography you might be surprised by the crossover especially because there is relatively limited time in which we were in the same place.
Technically there aren’t that many mutual friends but if you expand the tree branches slightly there is probably 100 people interconnected and that doesn’t include anyone we might know in common through university connections.
Deborah isn’t the only one where that spiderweb of connection goes but her tag on Facebook got me thinking and that spilled into the stars and the memory of 16 year-old Josh wondering who else had stared at the same stars.
Facebook Follies
Sometimes when I visit Facebook memories I come across some random updates and comments under them. I don’t always remember what the commentary was about or have any reference point to figure out what was going on.
If Facebook still exists when I die and I keep posting until then I expect there might be a bunch of those random remarks.
Got me thinking that if my kids do what I did and dig through old posts they are going to wonder what the hell was going on with their old man.
That made me snort because after Dad died I spent a few minutes revisiting his posts in various places online and didn’t come across anything that didn’t make sense to me. I knew exactly what he was saying or responding to.
My kids probably won’t be surprised that mine will be quite different and that’s ok. Dad and I share quite a few things in common but we’re also very different in other ways.
And hell, my kids may not care about it the way I did and I am ok with that too.
If you don’t pay attention to Israeli politics and affairs the photo above will be pretty random to you as well. Israel just recently decided that Haredi (Ultra Orthodox) men will no longer be exempt from the draft.
The soldier in the photo is Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. He is part of the IDF spokesperson’s division and is a common face during the current Israel Hamas war.
Akiva Shtisel is a fictional character from a television show called Shtisel. Until relatively recently you could find it on Netflix, with subtitles if needed.
You can call that a long way of saying the picture is supposed to be a joke. It made me snort and smile and that was worth quite a bit given the week I had.
Comfort Food
That is a Black Pastrami Reuben from Brent’s Deli, the Northridge location. It’s connected with a number of items I would call Jewish comfort food.
Wouldn’t dare eat it more than occasionally now because I have adjusted my diet but I would certainly consider visiting Brent’s on a more regular basis in general.
I could do nothing more than grab a cup of coffee and bathe in the presence of my people because delis like that are filled with a crowd of people that remind me of family and friends.
It’s a place where if I posed a question about whether you serve coffee at a Yom Kippur break fast there would be a series of strong opinions for and against.
A place where if you ask whether you should bring something to a dinner party being held at a house other than your own you would get a series of strong opinions.
Hell, there is probably not much you could ask there that wouldn’t generate strong opinions from whomever you asked.
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It is not uncommon to find me hanging out at one of the few delis here either. I use it as a remote office and sometimes engage in the same people watching I do at Brent’s, though the feeling is a bit different here.
Come Talk To Me
Somewhere close to 6 PM you might have heard me sound my barbaric yawp across the room and rooftops around me because I landed a plane that had lost all engines and instrument control.
Or if you prefer something different we can say the sea was angry my friends and I won a battle against a great beast.
Doesn’t matter what you call it because the bottom line is I fought through multiple and challenges and muscled my way to a win and positioned myself for some other big moves.
There was a moment in the midst of it when this song came on and I smiled because it has meaning to me. The lyrics have always spoken to me and the act of the players too.
Sometimes things happen and sometimes lightning strikes. I know these things because I have experienced magic and things that you can’t just explain.
I still believe in that.
And I also believe that sometimes you get from the bottom of the mountain to the top and then to the other side by putting one foot in front of the other.
As a writer I always pay attention to the words in a song and the music that accompanies it. Some ‘graphs jump out at me for a million different reasons.
I can imagine the moment
Breaking out through the silence
All the things that we both might say
And the heart, it will not be denied
‘Til we’re both on the same damn side
All the barriers blown away
Love the ambiguity there, you can use that in so many different ways. It is so damn descriptive and yet so very…open.
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