San Francisco, Here I Come!

photo from Hadassah Magazine

Well, this is a big week for me. I'll be heading to California on Friday morning so I can attend the premiere of THE DARKEST LIGHT on Sunday at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Having worked on this for the last few years, I have come to a deeper understanding of what happened to me and how it subtly impacted my life as a person and as a writer. There was an impact, it did influence my writing, and it made me wary of heavy-set men with big beards and flying tzitzit (fringes.) I'm not kidding about the last one. Unconsciously, I have always avoided standing near them, but that tiny action did not resonate until I was waiting to board a flight to Tel Aviv and I realized I was side-stepping away from the guy. Weird, huh? Maybe not so much. After what happened, Carlebach was just plain creepy for me. 

So, off to the City By The Bay to be part of a film that looks at the mess Carlebach left behind...including what to do about music that is so ubiquitous to our liturgy. Baby/bathwater? Something like that. No matter how I feel about the reason I'm going, I should probably admit to having a bit of a thing for San Francisco. Once upon a time I thought I might end up there. Until I went back for a family bar mitzvah last January, I'd not been back in 53 years. It's like being with an old lover you still adore; I fell for the city all over again. This will be a fast trip, but one of these days I'm gonna go spend some real time there. Of course, there is this Jewish cohousing project in Berkeley, the Berkeley Moshav, that looks mighty enticing.....

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

My personal Threads account that I almost never post to, was disabled this week. I really had to look hard to see the last thing I posted that didn't include pictures of my mirpeset....the little deck off the kitchen. The auto-nanny-bot didn't like a response to Lisa Demuth's ridiculous ad showing her as a superhero fighting fraud who was going to cut taxes and lower property tax for all. It sounded like she was running for junior high student council president making impossible promises. Plus, she stopped a sensible gun bill from making it out of committee...which is standard for a Republican except one of the supporters of that bill was a her own daughter:

Does she really think Minnesotans are that stupid? What's next, ice cream every day at lunch? Not only does this ad dance around plagiarism, it's also so racist I can't believe she put it out. Oh wait! Yes, I can. Her daughter is a school shooting survivor and she can't pull her head outta her ass far enough to get a gun bill to the floor. What an evil, evil person.

Yeah, maybe it was a bit over the top, but mine was not the only comment that followed that spaghetti lie of thought. Needless to say, she did not get the Independent Republican (Minnesota's GOP) endorsement but she's running in the primary regardless. Joining her in that bizarre field? Mike Lindell, the My Pillow whack-a-doodle MAGA election conspiracy guy, is also in the race.  Sounds like fun for the whole family! Pity that State Fair is after the primary. Those IR governor booths would be so much fun!

On a somewhat lighter note, The Wifely Person Speaks slides into another year of ranting on Sunday next. While I am at the premiere, I will be silently observing my Sweet 16 in the blog-o-sphere. Being that I've been at this for 16 years with nary a missed week, I am one seriously old person in this world. I thought I would write about my journey as a widow. That last just a couple of episodes before I was boring myself. Then, it became My Blog/My Rules. And I've never looked back. As of this moment, I have had 946,268 verified hits on the blog from all over the globe. Once upon a time I could tell when the Chinese firewall went down because I would get with Chinese identifiers. Same thing for Iran. A couple of high school English teachers in Ukraine had their classes reading the blog for several years before the war started. I loved their emails. I get regular hits from Israel, of course, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, India, and Indonesia. I have no idea why. 

I keep thinking I'm gonna stop one of these days, but every week there's a new outrage I want to fume about, so I keep going. Lucky you!

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Curious about that first dip in the 

algae filled waters of the interswamp? 

Here ya go. 

Monday, July 19, 2010: Welcome to my world