pocket1_pita | Recent Entries

The craziest thing happened yesterday.

So I was working from home and I wrote a post for my journal for the first time in a million years. And I was feeling all weepy and sad after writing it and my heart hurt. I had to go pick up Lilah for gymnastics. I was running late and had all my gear with me so that I could work at gymnastics. I was all frazzled and was walking across campus from the parking lot to the kindergarten aftercare when I ran into Rabbi Tsipi. Tsipi married us, she did Lilah’s baby naming, she’s a family friend and she’s the rabbi and Director of Judaic studies at Lilah’s school. I am not close to her or in her circle, but she is the closest thing I have to a spiritual advisor in my life. And she starts walking beside me and tells me how beautiful and bright my child is and tells me how lovely it is to see her at school. Then she asks how I am doing and how my health is and tells me that she says a misheberach for me all the time. And of course I say I am holding up which is what I always say. And then she told me a story of her friend who recently celebrated her 30th anniversary of having cancer. That she was diagnosed in her 20s and had a full hysterectomy and then they came back and took part of her liver and then about 4 years ago her pancreas. And she is alive and strong and vibrant. And that she has such a positive accepting attitude and just goes on with her life and that she sees the same thing in me and she knows that this is the reason that I have been able to come through so much.
That’s a rabbi. She knew. She doesn’t even know, not really. But she knew and she saw it in me and she took the moment to share the exact thing I needed to hear.

The last two weeks have been literally the most terrifying Of my entire life so far. I wouldn't have made it if not for valium. but yesterday was the Surgery and it went really well. It couldn't have gone any better. All of the disease was operable, with no metastasis. I kind of can't believe it. It's not just good news it is amazing Miraculous news. Now I'm lying in my private hospital room Watching the sunrise.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Current Location: US, California, Piedmont, Alameda, Grand Ave, 1658

I promised myself I would post at least once a week in 2013 and so far so good. I wish I didn't have such sad news to share. We had to say goodbye to Mazzy today, my sweet kitty that I have had since 1998. It's so sad to say goodbye to such and old friend. Mazzy was born in New York and lived in an alley behind a hospital. At some point she got in some kind of accident and broke a bunch of her teeth. A guy who worked there started feeding her and eventually took her in. Then he decided to go on an extended hiking trip on the Applachian Trail and he took Mazzy with him. She didn't like this much, so he took her to his friend's house in DC. The friend was my downstairs neighbor and she cried constantly. He asked me to watch her while he went on vacation and then he never came back. I'm not even really sure why I kept her as all she did was yowl and creep around the corners of the room. Except at night. Then she would snuggle into the crook of my knee and purr. I just tried to be really responsive to her and constantly show her love and affection. She was just often a bundle of nerves until we moved to California. She drove cross-country with me and Tseb. She's been to New Orleans and the Grand Canyon. Well, the parking lot of the Grand Canyon anyway. She's been to Zion National Park and Las Vegas. And when we moved to California she was really happy. She loved it here. A huge yard, a dog, warm all the time and she could come and go as she pleased and stalk the neighborhood. A few times a year she would bring me a mouse or a dragonfly or a small bird as a gift. When I was pregnant with Lilah she would sleep on my stomach curled up between my hips. She kept me company during the long nights of nursing. She would sit beside me on the pillow and just keep me company. She loved Micha. She loved Lilah. She loved Ari. And she loved me.

It is a solemn responsibility to give the animals who we adopt a good life. I know that I did everything right with this cat and that is a comfort. But it is a sad day and she was a great cat.

I'm crying a lot and watching cat videos on the internet. That cant be good so I'm going to pick up Lilah. Im not looking forward to breaking the news to her.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

I think it's best to just jump right in here and we can catch up later.

We spent New Year's up in Tahoe in a big nice house that I rented with 3 other families. Including our cousins Daniel and Kim from Davis. Daniel told a horrible story one night about how he killed his mom's cat by deciding to put her down while his mom was on vacation because he thought the cost to stabilize the cat to be excessive. And then proceeded to tell us that the vet tech (who he described as a "soft-hearted student") began begging him to release the cat to him so that she could run the tests required to stabilize the cat. So a veterinary nurse was begging him to let her save the cat but in Daniel's opinion the cat was not worth saving.

I was outraged and told him he needed to just stop talking. And didn't he spend $3000 on a hip operation for his 3 year old rottie? He said that was totally different. Ugh I was so mad. I loudly stated that I would happily pay $1000 to say goodbye to my cat in person.

So then I get home and holy crap my cat is dying! She hadn't had any food or water while we were gone, and had a raging tooth abcess and was on the verge of renal failure and sepsis and she was just a little 4 lb ball of teeth and fur and bones. And a fierce fierce will to live. We took her to the vet and after some abx she is good as new and I got to put my money where my mouth is.

My sweet Mazzycat is recovering at home and I swear cats are amazing animals. It's very hard to kill a cat. Mazzy just bounces right back and she seems totally fine.

LJ is driving me nuts so I started a tumblr. Kind of a CancerBlr really just focused on documenting my treatment. I got a lot out of reading other people's chemo blogs so I thought it would be good. This LJ will still be for more intimate things as tumblr doesn't have much in the way of privacy.

http://pocketpitaandbean.tumblr.com/

I'm just going to say this one thing about the earthquake and then I will shut my face.

Please take a look over your bed and ask yourself if you would be injured if that mirror or painting or whatever it is fell on your head in the night.

This PSA has been brought to you by the good people of California.

Time – Wee hours
Place – DJ and Diva’s guestroom
Location – Pack and Play

Lilah woke up while Pita was coming to bed after staying up way too late in the living room with his BFF. She asked for some water and they had the following conversation.

Lilah (drinking water) Aaaah. Water is good!
Pita: Yes, water is the best.
Lilah: (Seriously) No.
Pita: You disagree? Well , what do you like the best?
Lilah: Cottage cheese.

In the morning she woke me up.

Lilah: Hungry! (signs eating) Mommy, glasses.
Me: OK, sweetie, let me get my glasses. What do you want for breakfast?
Lilah: A egg. Blueberries. Cottage cheese.

GAH! She is so flipping cute! Can’t stand it!

I'm very sad to see Lost go, and at the same time I'm very happy to have it end. I thought last night's finale was

( Read more... )

A few years ago I sent my mother this on mother's day:

Dear Mama,

Mother's Day was a bit depressig for me this year. I wish I would get to be a mother already! I miss you very much and I can't wait to see you in a few short weeks. I love you mamale! Happy Mother's Day!

"The Lanyard"

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

And I got this back:

My dearest Maya,

I never heard of, tasted, smelled, fingered the texture of a “lanyard” but I would know how my heart would swell upon receiving the gift.

I never know what color the best lanyard should be or when they are best intertwined.

But I can picture a green summer afternoon with dragonflys and small fingers, braiding my guess of blues and orange, purples the color of wine.

I never was gifted a lanyard; were I, it probably would have gone to tie back my hair while I drip tub water on your back, lather soap bubbles on your chin.

I would have held it between my teeth to tickle your nose with to wake you up for milk and cookies. Would it have gone around my waist then (and not heavens NOW), I would have turned it into a sun-catcher, sequined, and dangling with crystal beads, to puzzle a fleeting winter cardinal. A lanyard MUST cross seasons, its colors a lifetime.

Most certainly, I would have hugged you in my delight at receiving my very own lanyard, handcrafted by the fingers I kiss, during a moment of (I deeply imagined, intense) homesickness.

My lanyard is you -- my precious gift on a late Spring day, many mother’s days ago.

Listen now, my Maya-le, my lanyard for you is the firmest belief that you, too, will be presented with one, braided with love and hope and the colors that come with its ripe season.

Keep loving, dear Maya, while awaiting your gift.

Carinosamente, mi amor,

Mama

How come we spent all that money for summer camps and I never got a friggin’ lanyard??? Thanks though for your lovely Mother's Day message. Be happy my love.

My dearest wish is that I can be to Lilah the mother that Pocketmom has been to me.

I loved last night's episode. LOVED

Sorry, but my LJ cut is not working so SKIP FOR SPOILERS!!!

I loved seeing Sawyer as a cop - a sad and lonely person just as he was when he landed on the Island. I loved the relationship with Miles, and the rage at Anthony Cooper. I’m surprised – but maybe I shouldn’t be – to see that LAPD actually have sex with people in their sting ops. And I really think that Miles was inappropriate to run his partner’s credit card. But OK, I’ll accept that as part of the story. I’m not sure where they are going with Sawyer and Kate here. Am I supposed to accept that less than 48 hours after his girlfriend of 3 years dies Sawyer is already mooning over Kate? That seems to be a stretch but whatever, I am sure Josh Holloway will sell it to me and I’ll buy it. I had my doubts that I would accept Sawyer and Juliet as a couple, but I loved them together too. This whole episode was just about how F’ed up Sawyer is with any kind of intimacy.

Smokey is turning out to be a great character. He is mostly evil, but we are finding out that he is that way for a reason. His mother was crazy. He has been imprisoned for centuries. He is casual about killing and violence, but he is rational too. If he is a god or a demon then killing humans might be regrettable but necessary and not something to feel bad about. Or maybe it’s just his nature – like Sayid. He may be so far past normal standards of good and evil that it has really ceased to matter to him anymore. Humans are pawns to him and not important. He killed all of those Ajira people, he drove Claire insane, he killed everyone at the Temple too. He will kill anyone he doesn’t need and manipulate anyone he needs.

I think that he started working Ben a long time ago. I don’t really understand how he fooled Richard into thinking that he was Jacob and was talking to Ben directly. That’s a part of the story that we haven’t seen yet. But Smokey’s machinations began with the eviction of the true leader – Widmore – and his replacement with a flawed leader – Ben. Ben wasn’t selected in the way that leaders are usually selected. He ousted Widmore in a coup and became the leader, but he never had access to Jacob. This gave Smokey the means to manipulate the Others particularly once Ben moved a group out of the Temple and into the Barracks. Was Widmore aware that he was helping Smokey when he helped Locke? I was pretty sure he was on Smokey’s side for a long time, but after thinking about it more last night I think he’s always been Jacob’s man.

Claire made me sad last night. The scene with the freaky skull-baby was sad and yeah, I can see how easy it would be to go insane if you lost your baby. Kate just can’t let her raise Aaron now. It’s not going to work out. I hope she isn’t going to attack Kate again, but I think she will. She is too crazy and she will have to die

The Bitch is Back

Hooray! Lost is back! Last Tuesday night I sat down with a bunch of friends for Lost and tacos. What a premiere! For 6 years now Lost has delivered the best entertainment on television. I’m thrilled with the way S6 is going and I am really hoping they don’t F it up. I know there were people who liked the way BSG turned out, but I am not one of them. I’ll say no more about that.

( Read more... )

How LOST characters explain how To Make a Sandwich on the Island:

Jack
1. Gather ingredients
2. Point gun at ingredients and shout “HOW DO I MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF YOU?!?!?”
3. Breathe heavily through your nose as though you were about to hit ingredients
4. Give up and make the sandwich yourself, and eat it bitterly

Kate
1. Make separate sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with jelly
2. Take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich, declaring it the best
3. Take a bite of the jelly sandwich, declaring it the best
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum
5. Follow peanut butter or jelly sandwich into grave danger

Sawyer
1. Throw the jar of jelly at wall, sneering “I don’t need no sandwich”
2. Call the mascot on the jar of peanut butter lots of clever nicknames
3. Huff and puff and stomp around and grumble a lot
4. When no one’s looking, make perfect, even, symmetrical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit in a corner, enjoying every bite

Locke
1. Sit idly by, believing that the ingredients will find a way to make a sandwich out of themselves
2. Lose faith and make the sandwich anyway
3. Realize that you were the instrument by which the ingredients chose to make a sandwich after all
4. Run around the room and grab everyone’s knives, insisting that their sandwiches will do the same in time

Hurley
1. Make sandwich
2. Eat sandwich
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 ad infinitum

Sayid
1. Procure 23 milligrams of uranium-20
2. Set hadron supercollider to eight megajoules
3. Program a sandwich-making macro using Cobol or Visual Basic
4. Act all tough-like

Desmond
1. Eat sandwich
2. Call the sandwich “brother”
3. Place peanut butter slice over jelly slice
4. Spread jelly on the other slice
5. Spread peanut butter on one slice
6. Take two slices of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly

Ben
1. Steal someone else’s sandwich
2. Claim you coerced them into making the sandwich for you all along
3. Say you’ll tell them everything if they make you another sandwich
4. Stare at them all creepy-like

Libby
1. Lay out plans for one of the most intricate, fascinating, and delicious sandwiches of all time
2. Just as you start making it, get shot

Danielle
1. Apply peanut butter
2. Disappear for eight months
3. Apply jelly
4. Disappear for eight months
5. Eat sandwich

Claire
1. Mmmmmmm, peanut butter

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse
1. Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
2. Have someone take a bite, then tell them it’s a baloney sandwich
3. Make up a whole bunch of other shit, then say you had planned it all along
4. Buy a few yachts

I never posted this back when I should have so...

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. I will try to make these be about or tailored to those five lucky people.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year
- You have no clue what it's going to be.
- Do not expect some beautiful Etsy-type creation. I'm not that good.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you!

It’s time to get a stroller and I am confused. I’d been all excited about the Baby Jogger City Mini (BJCM) because of the one-hand fold. Now I am reconsidering. Here’s our deal – Pita and I both run but we probably wouldn’t take Lilah running since that’s each of our special time with Ari. We go to several parks with gravel trails regularly and we go hiking pretty regularly too. We also only have 1 car so the stroller has to be public transportation compatible. I’m not interested in any stroller that needs to be deconstructed for folding. I don’t want a stroller to cost more than $400 (even that seems excessive, but we got some gifts from friends specifically for a stroller) but if you have a great recommendation talk to me about it.

I’m thinking about the BOB Revolution, the Baby Jogger City Elite or another one of their strollers and maybe the Valco Trimode although that breaks the bank a bit. Or is this silly and I do want an urban stroller like the BJCM?

Um, oh crap. I have not been around online at all. It's been like a million years since I last posted. I won't even try to bring you up to speed since there's not that much to say about maternity leave. I'm having a great time and I'm also bored. I go places. I've started running again and that's been good. It's been an intense family month with a bar mitzvah coming right after the holidays and Pita's grandfather getting sick again. He had a small stroke and is expected to make a good recovery, but he is 80 and we are all worried. I went into the office once and it was so great to see everyone that I stayed an embarrasingly long time. I've been hanging out with my friend Indigo who has a baby 1 month younger than Lilah. We go into the city and shop and go to museums and have elaborate lunches. My house is clean on a pretty regular basis.

Lilah is still pretty easygoing. She cries when she is tired and sometimes she cries a lot when she is tired. She is very social and has been really enjoying all of the parties and family events. She is extremely cute. She eats well, still sleeps well and seems to be healthy so far. She coos, reaches for things and puts them in her mouth. She is swaddled for sleeping and naps on her tummy. I think she weighs about 13 lbs now. She goes to sleep at 7-8 and sleep about 12 hours with one or two wakings, the first one at about 3-4.

She has a beautiful smile

She's a remarkably beautiful child. Here she is after a bath:

( More pictures of Lilah )

So Lost is over again for another 8 months. I feel sad, but not as bereft as usual probably because we are so close to the end now and we know so much more about the story. This wasn’t my favorite finale ever, and I am not happy about what has happened to my favorite character, Juliet. But I turned out to be right about what a chump Locke is, and I do love to be right. This episode saw two large pieces of the endgame slot into place as Jacob and The Adversary made their respective moves against the other. And we start to see (through a glass darkly) that each of the Losties has been moved purposefully towards this destination.

( Read more... )

This is the sweetest story!

Apparently, even in the gorilla world, practice makes perfect.

And that's good news for Hasani, the nearly 5-month-old gorilla born in captivity at the San Francisco Zoo who was abandoned by his mother hours after his birth.

Last week, the zookeepers who had tended to him 24/7 with feedings, cleanings, playtime and cuddles, turned over his care to a surrogate gorilla mom, Bawang.

She already raised three offspring of her own and her tried-and-true maternal instinct kicked in flawlessly.

"They're a perfect match," Corinne MacDonald, the zoo's curator of primates, said Monday.

Bawang also may have a special affinity for Hasani's plight. She, too, was hand-raised by zookeepers during her infancy at the Cincinnati Zoo.

The transition took place last Tuesday. "The first day, she was very hands-on," said Kathy Edwards, one of the gorilla keepers who watched the initial meeting through tears of joy. "It was just what we had hoped for."

A video captures the first day, showing Bawang gently - by gorilla standards - playing with her surrogate son, swinging him by his arms up over her head, snuggling with him on her lap, tossing wood wool over him, rubbing his belly and, most importantly, eliciting a smile.

Bawang has learned to carry Hasani to a mesh fence when a gorilla keeper shows up with his bottle and fresh fruit. As a reward, Bawang's sweet tooth is treated to a Gatorade and fruit treats.

"She's not like a helicopter mom who hovers all the time, but even if she's on the other side of the room, she always keeps an eye on him," MacDonald said.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

The video is really cute too - baby gorillas are very very cute!

( Read more... )

So here we are at the mid-season break. And not only that, but we now have less than 30 episodes of Lost left to tell the story. So what we have just seen in the last 3 episodes is the beginning of the endgame.

( Read more... )

Meh. I just don’t like Locke episodes that much.

( Read more... )

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pocket1_pita

September 2014

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pocketjournal

Recent Entries

Serendipity

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Farewell to Mazzy

Just jump right in

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Conversations with Lilah

Lost - The End

Mother's Day

Lost S6 Recon

Lost Season 6.1, 6.2

Lost Sandwiches

turnabout is fair play

Stroller Drama

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Lost 5.16-17 - The Incident

Baby Gorilla Adopted!

Bye Bye BSG

5.08 – LaFleur

Lost 5.07 – the Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

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September 2014

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