Once again we arrive at that age-old fabrication called the "New Year." I'm ready for it, with a brand new wall calendar ready to go. But alas, that's all that will be new starting tomorrow, unless something wild and crazy happens to me today, which I doubt and definitely hope doesn't.
A new year is not really very new, except for those calendars. To make it more exciting, this year I purchased two wall calendars, one for the kitchen featuring Japanese Woodblock prints and the other for my art studio showing the paintings of Mark Rothko. I look forward to seeing both of those on a daily basis.
To ring in the same-as-always next year, my husband and I plan to have dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant where we dine about once a week, so nothing new there unless we break from tradition and order something different. (I might suggest that.)`
Like the Buddhists, or somebody like them I forget who, say: It's all one day. Sometimes it's dark outside and sometimes it's light outside. So I'm wishing a happy tonight and of course a happy tomorrow to all of my loyal friends who are reading this.
"CAKE PICNIC is a global cake festival and traveling picnic where strangers gather in beautiful parks to share whole cakes and create unforgettable memories. From London to Los Angeles, Manila to Melbourne, each CAKE PICNIC brings together bakers, cake-lovers, and joyful guests who believe that cake has the power to turn an ordinary afternoon into something extraordinary."The above paragraph is cut and pasted from "the official Cake Picnic" page. Apparently this Cake Picnic thing has gone viral, with people paying $50 for a ticket that will allow them to enter an outdoor venue, otherwise free to the public, and bring a cake to a picnic to meet people who also have brought a cake to the picnic.
Supposedly this is to facilitate friendships between members of the younger generations who, because of Covid and the societal destruction caused by social media, have lost the ability to interact with strangers, carry on face-to-face conversations and form in-person friendships.
According to an article in today's WSJ, the sad news is that these "cake picnics" have turned into little more than opportunities for people to post selfies with their cakes on Instagram, and thus make no new friends at all since that's what everyone else is doing too.
Here's an idea: Make a beautiful cake (see photo) and go to a public park on a lovely afternoon and put up a sign saying "Free Cake." That might get you a new friend for free.
Hedwig and her baby enjoying their garden, next door to a death camp.
I finally watched a film released in 2024 that I had long been wanting to see entitled "The Zone of Interest." Being a Jew who has dutifully seen every other Holocaust movie and TV series and visited the Holocaust Museums in Washington, DC, and in Israel, I expected it would be familiar territory: Evil Nazis, packed trains, gas showers, random shootings, starving prisoners digging their own graves, orange smoke rising from the crematoria — all of that. I was ready for it.
But I wasn’t. This movie is so different from the others depicting that horrible chapter of history, it’s in a category all its own. There was none of the usual stuff I mentioned above, except for muffled gunshots heard in the distance and a glimpse or two of a belching smokestack. Instead writer/director Jonathan Glazer went in a totally different direction, showing how ordinary Germans dealt with the mass extermination of human beings occurring right under their noses — in this case literally.
It's the true story of Rudolf Hoess, head commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, his wife Hedwig and their young children all living just on the other side of a simple wooden fence from the screams, smells and gunshots permeating their days and nights. Yet they are seemingly untouched, comfortably enjoying the high life in a lovely home staffed with numerous servants, as if nothing is at all out of the ordinary. It’s like, “Oh yeah, they’re killing Jews next door — when’s dinner? Do we have time for a swim in the pool?”
Half of me regrets seeing it because now I‘m more depressed about antisemitism than ever. And since it’s on the rise, I’m considering staying at home until there’s a pounding on the door and they come for me.
My other half is glad I saw it because The Zone of Interest is such an extraordinary piece of movie-making. The unusual editing and sound direction alone are such that there’s no looking away as chilling images are burned into your brain. The acting, despite it being in German and Polish with subtitles, is impressive. Every reviewer I have read used the word “haunting” to describe the film, and I guess I will too.
Unknown people have been eliminating some of my posts. I have no idea why, but I suspect it might be some censoring bot at Google.
For example, just a few days ago I wrote my Annual Christmas Letter, which was certainly innocuous. A day later it was "unpublished." The same thing happened about a week ago to another post.
In today's climate of censorship, it is pointless for me, or anyone, with views differing from those in control to speak out, speak the truth, or even speak at all. "Free speech" is a thing of the past.
I started this blog in 2007 and it's been a great run. Now, almost 20 years later, it's in serious trouble.
I have always believed in God. Not some old guy in a white robe with a long beard standing at the Pearly Gates, but definitely some sort of Being In Charge. However, lately not so much.
In fact, today was the day I stopped believing when I read about a nursing home in Pennsylvania where there was an explosion and two people died. Some sort of gas leak, or whatever. But anyway, two days before Christmas these people, ill and nearing the end, being cared for or so they thought, died violently, not peacefully, in an explosion. If there is a God, then in light of this and of course other heinous recent events, one must conclude that He/She/It is not very nice.
Now I've got to go and find Something Else to believe in, because if we are all just here running our own independent shows, that's very bad news.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this morning I was able to read about a 33-year-old mother of three who is currently near death in a coma after contracting a flesh-eating virus following her nose job and eyelid surgery in Vietnam, and a 34-year-old mother of two who died after having a butt lift and tummy tuck in Turkey. Both had travelled from their native countries to save money on the procedures.
Photos accompanying these articles show that both women were very pretty before they opted to make themselves even prettier, but on the cheap. Now one is dead and the other, if she survives, will be dealing with necrotic tissue on her hands, feet and face for "a very long time."
Somehow, many young people today value looks over substance. Still, I wonder why those two cared so much about their looks despite being married women with children. What was the goal -- a good selfie?
Apparently my husband and I really lucked out as parents. We had one child, now an adult, who has not slit our throats, shot us while we were sleeping, trashed our home or robbed us. Instead he is consistently loving and kind, calls and visits often, brings us gifts and wishes us only well.
Killing one's parents is called parricide, a crime that occurs approximately 20 times every year in America. Experts who study such things have concluded that the typical offender is an unmarried white male in his 20s or 30s, unemployed and living with his parents at the time of the offense.
Besides that heinous outcome of parenthood (recently suffered by entertainment icon Rob Reiner and his wife Michele), there is a growing presence of mothers online who are estranged from their adult children. Several of these women are profiled in today'sWall Street Journal, all claiming that despite having been perfect mothers their children despise them. More and more of them are coming out, posting videos on TikTok and even writing books on the subject.
With apologies to Shakespeare, I must say that the Internet is full of tales told by idiots, often signifying nothing. For example, Brian Wilson died on June 11, 2025, yet he's alive and well online six months later.
You'd think AOL would have heard that he died, being one of the first American web portals and online service providers based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. What started out as an email provider has morphed into a trash collector where you can still get mail and where I do still get my mail because A, who cares where you get your mail and B, I never get any mail anyway. So I see their trash stories frequently, and they are more laughable every day.
Like today's, about how famous musicians stay fit well into their later years, including Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Tony Bennett. And, believe it or not, Brian Wilson, about whom they write:
"Brian Wilson, the creative force behind The Beach Boys, has openly faced significant mental health challenges throughout his life. His ability to sustain his musical output and creativity relies heavily on proactive psychological care, incorporating regular therapy, structured routines, and personal practices (including specific types of meditation or calming activities) designed to manage anxiety and depression."
"Proactive attention to psychological well-being has fostered the emotional stability necessary to sustain his creative output and productivity over decades. His journey proves that addressing mental health is a foundational requirement for long-term artistic and personal endurance."
It must work for him since he's dead yet is still doing interviews from the Great Beyond. Talk about personal endurance!
Suddenly there is very bad news everywhere you look. Not that there has been such good news anywhere of late, but in the past couple of days society seems to be exploding, with shrapnel impaling all of us.
The recent shootings at Brown University in Providence, RI, and the terrorist-style antisemitic massacre on Australia's Bondi Beach were enough to make anyone fearful of setting foot outside. But then today we woke up to the news that a beloved Hollywood actor, director and comic genius was murdered, along with his wife, by their own son in their own home, pointing out that staying in isn't always safe either.
Making matters worse, those horrific slayings of Rob and Michele Reiner have brought to the forefront the possibility that our President is losing his mind, as Democrats have been saying about him for years. Being a Republican who has voted for Trump and agreed with his policies, I have often excused his bad behavior as typical political mudslinging. But Rob Reiner wasn't a politician, and thus Trump's heinous tweets on X about his death (Google it) seem cold-hearted and highly inappropriate for anyone to say, most of all a world leader.
Despite this being the season of Hanukah and Christmas, a time of happiness, joy and peace on Earth, much of humanity is spinning out of control. All we can do as individuals is find something that makes us feel better -- be it faith in God, a gym workout or an Entenmann's chocolate cake -- and hope that cooler heads will ultimately prevail.
