REFLECTIONS ON OUR WAY OF LIFE BEFORE THE SPILL.

This is just so beautiful, Alice, it really struck me deeply.  Thank you.

I would like to get people together in fun little ways (or big ways) and have them make donations of money that would get passed along.  For instance, make the recipe you put on Lumigrate for your Uncle's famous dish and have people over and take the extra $ donated and sent it to the location you gave us a link for.  Or a book club, or if people play Bunco donate the winnings and serve Southern dishes that night.  Whatever your 'thing is', try to incorporate those concepts a bit but in the end get some dollars flowing that way to help. 

I personally believe that we need to be strengthening our physical communities.  As you know, I've been working via Lumigrate (and facebook) to strengthen the 'virtual community' with the Grate Group of Lumigrate to transition it to being more like an 'old fashioned' community, by having people truly get to know each other. But I so often hear now "I know someone across the country or around the world better than I know my own neighbors', and I am as guilty as anyone.  Yesterday when I pulled myself away from initially writing this to run off to meet up with a friend, I was a bit late because I saw a neighbor with all her stuff in her garage and posters outside drying out -- flooding from a dishwasher malfunction.  I stopped and talked.  When I moved to the 'hood' four years ago, she was one of the first people I met, including my immediate neighbor.   All these years later we've not gotten together as we had said we would because everyone has cars and we run off to do things with friends in other parts of town and don't make time to enjoy the people who live closest to us physically.   'Tis the season here in the US, as it is summer!  'Tis on my list, and perhaps I'll make something of a FUNdraiser event when it's time to help her move her stuff back and get the neighborhood involved.  There are always silver linings, and in this case, I hope that there are MANY that come from this enormous turning point in our country and Earth's life, through each of ours and how we change how we are "doing business" and be more conscious and conscientious. 

We're all in this together.  The link to where your recipe is: The forum is www.lumigrate.com/forums/preventive-medicine-concepts/nutrition/food/recipes (and from this area, scroll to the Topic that is titled 'Recipes for Meal Things -- From Our Readers/Users of Long Ago' You'll see several of Alice's.  AND Pablo Blanco's Souther Rock 'n' Rollin' Recipes are also Southern/US and appropriate for such gatherings, they're in that list as well! 

How we had these good southern connections forming a year ago is pretty neat and it comes in handy now! Our Dr. Spurlock is from Louisiana and another 'foodie' so maybe we'll get a recipe from him to add in somewhere. You'll see Deirdre Rawlings, ND, PhD/holistic nutrition adds some recipes as well for us to get going with; she's written a book about fibromyalgia that has a lot of very good general recipes for 'foodies', which require adaptations for people who follow the information she presents in the first part of the book related to food allergies. It's excellent for that reason, it's got the core information in the front then the recipes in the back half appeal to those who like to eat well and cook "normally"! So they buy the book for the recipes then get to thinking more about the concepts in the front/educational portion of the book.  

So please come back and 'stay tuned' here and to our facebook areas and we'll get through this together.  Thanks to Alice for the wonderful report from her back yard. 

Alice my dawlink!  Oy vey iz mir, shayna maydel (holy cow says I, pretty lady)!  That's as far as I get for Alabama speak, bubbeleh.  Beautifully written, Alice and quite poetic.  In my opinion, and I'm just an alta kaker (old geezer) the oil company hasn't done enough to rectify the mess they have on their hands and they've let down the whole country because of it.  Entire families are losing a great deal.  If there's no work, how would they pay their mortgages/rent, health insurance, groceries, doctor bills, car payments, school tuitions, clothing, propane (sorry but people use that), water, electric, and the list goes on.

As a kinder (child) we used to go to Coney Island.  Back then this was the place to be seen.  We'd get dressed up, bring our picnic baskets, a few dollars for the games and maybe for a Nedicks hotdog and sit on the beach to watch the waves, the people in the water, the sounds of the seagulls.  Much like the movie, "The Incredible Mr. Limpid" with Don Knots.  You should rent it; great movie.

Going to the beach during the war was a place we'd go to antloyf (escape) the reality of our lives.  During the High Holy Days we'd throw bread into the vaser (water) for each of our sins that the fish may take them away.  Man, according to The Origin of Man, came from the sea.  We need vaser in order to live since our bodies are made up of it.  The sea, the ocean and other vaser ways are often centers of romances, such as Alice's, "Old Man of the Sea", "Neptune", Atlantis, Bimini... are you getting the picture dawlinks?

Now this is what I think; I think donating is a groys (great) idea!  I donate to a lot of worthy causes that help a lot of folk.  By the way, bubelehs, did you know that the word "folk" was Yiddish for "people"?  Now you know.  Back to what we were kibbitzing about though, donating.  My dawlinks, it's not just money that's needed.  Food will be needed, as will clothing, including shoes, liblings.  Toiletries too.  Though this may sound petty to some, it's a mitzvah (a good deed) and you'll feel good, perhaps a little bit happier than usual (G-d willing).  It couldn't hurt!

Your

Yenta

I wanted to confess, I didn't get anything pulled together and 'off' related to getting a fundraiser going.  In early October I drove two days in a row, going to Salt Lake City for a medical appointment, then returned and a client an hour away's team wanted a meeting with me, so I drove and sat for two hours in a meeting then drove back. Oh, on the way back from Salt Lake I missed the turn for the shorter route, so it was dark by the time I got back home.  I'd been off of the biologically identical hormones I'd found to be helpful to me -- that was the reason for my appointment, and I NOW realize HOW MUCH hormones help with the laxity I have in my connective tissues.  Without them, I'm needing adjustments constantly, which has been the case since I had the whole hormone shift that is part of fibromyalgia -- it came on in my mid 30s and none of my providers believed me that my hormones weren't right, they said I was too young and my insurance wouldn't pay for testing at that young age.  It took me a while to find a woman OB/GYN who knew that women can have hormone issues at any age, and get tested and treated.  As time went on, the medical industry had the equivalent of the Gulf Oil Spill: changes made in the late 90s, just after I'd become an OT, lead to massive unemployment or underemployment.  I was unable to afford the things insurance wouldn't pay for, OR didn't look creatively enough at how to afford it.  Had I known how critical the biologically identicals were, I would have made different decisions I think.  But I really was struggling with being underpaid with bills that were created before the 'bust.  

Anyway, now that I was back on BioIDs for years recently and saw the improvement in my health, including not needing injections in my neck (very bad disks -- the injections would totally remove the FMS pain for about a month, it's like that one thing was sending off a cascade of all the problems), I was a big fan: I'm now reminded how much these are important for me since my health 'failed' after being off of them (again, a factor of finding a qualified provider at a time I had money to pay for their time/fees, the hormones themselves are not terribly expensive, though it does add up).  

So, I spent the fall of 2010 having to chase around problems until the hormones got thing 'stabilized' again, which took about two months. That included vertigo from the C1/2 going out and not being able to maintain once put in place -- again, I don't just let anyone mess with that area of my body! But I did do my share of talking this piece up, talking the concept up of the FUNdraiser to those who might want to do something like this, and we can only hope it tricked down.  

Hence, I wanted to give a SHOUT OUT at a year after to remind people that things are cleaned up -- things are back to 'normal' and carefully monitored and our support has been requested.  A good excuse for a Cocktail party (of the SHRIMP kind)! ???  (I shrimp) ~~  Mardy