Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Platinum Club Party!



OK. So, uploading videos to YouTube can take a long time, especially when, for some unknown reason, my laptop computer seemingly will not hold a connection to the Internet for longer than a few minutes. But, enough about me. We're here to see some pictures and images from our great Platinum Club bash. (For more info on the Platinum Club, see may last post from March 23.)

 It's a seven and a half minute video, so you may want to break it up during your day. But, it's video montage of just some of the fun we had over an hour and a half of partying.

http://youtu.be/0aOQd5FC1Qc

As usual, if you at our blog site, you should be able to view the video right here. If you are a subscriber and are viewing this in your email, click the link above, and it will take you to YouTube.

Thanks to Menorah Park, Myers, Wiggins, and the Day Center and their staff member for bringing their Platinum Club members to the party and for participating with us!

We were celebrating this resident's 100th birthday!
She knew Abraham Lincoln and...


No, wait. This was a different program.

Here's the birthday girl:



My mother taught me to always take pictures of the food. 
This is a true fact.

Here are some of our honored guests.





I have no good explanation for this picture below.



Ladies and Gentleman, Jake and Elwood, The Schmooze Brothers:

Friday, March 23, 2012

100 Springs

Yesterday, we celebrated another 100th birthday here at Stone Gardens. In fact, people from all over campus came for a Platinum Club party. The Platinum Club is a newly formed group comprised of Menorah Park residents 97 years and up. When there's a milestone birthday, the club has a party. Since our resident was the one with the birthday, we hosted the party.

I have a video, but it seems to take a very long time to upload to YouTube. It's uploading now, but I am running out of time. I'll post more about the party, along with the video, as soon as I am able.

In the meantime, Spring is officially here (although it has been Summer-like weather for the last couple of weeks) and I took a few photos around the Gardens.
Enjoy!







 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Yachad - Moses Makes Pizza

So G-d and Moses walk into the Tent of Meeting, and G-d says, "I'm hungry. Go get some fine flour, really good olive oil, and frankincense and whip us up some grub." And Moses says, "Where am I going to get frankincense this time of day?" And G-d says...

OK. Not really.

But in this week's Torah Portion, Vayikra, G-d does explain to Moses how to prepare several animal and meal offerings including a sin offering, a guilt offering, and a peace offering. So, riffing on those themes last month, we came up with our "recipe" for this month. (For an explanation of Yachad and our "Food For Thought" program, see the blog post from Feb. 23, 2012.)


 We came up with "Moshe's Supreme Sacrificial Dessert Pizza."


Chef Anthony Folisi in our Dietary Department created our pizzas using a sweet cookie dough crust. The "sin" pizza has chocolate and whipped cream, the "guilt" pizza has candy and nuts, and the "peace" pizza is an apple pie pizza. (All ingredients are parve.)


And we ate them.





Then we talked about next month. But, since the Torah portions for next month deal with  things like impurity, blood, and leprosy, we decided not to base recipes on them.
The night that we meet in April is the night before Yom Haatzmaut, Israel's Independence Day. So, we are basing our recipes Israel. Not Israeli food, necessarily, but foods based on images that we looked at having to do with Israel - the flag, the Wall, the desert, the beach, the Dead Sea, and so on. I don't actually know what we've come up with yet, but I'll let you know next month.


We also had some special visitors. The baby belongs to the woman sitting in the back on the left. She's the Assistant Director of Cleveland Yachad.



And then, of course, Breezy the wonder dog. Breezy, it was announced, is pregnant and this will be her last Yachad meeting until September. Mazel Tov, Breezy!



Monday, March 12, 2012

Spring is In the Air

When you hear these four little words, you know spring is here and summer's not far behind:

Pitchers and catchers report.



Or, you might hear that one word - Orchidmania.

Well, OK, it's a compound word: orchid and mania. But, it happens every February and March at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and we go almost every year.


Here are some photos from our recent excursion. I almost always like to take pictures of residents in action, but at this event, I get to pretend I'm a nature photographer. Like Ansel Adams. Only in color. And indoors. And not as good.










Cleveland, Ohio really is a gem. We are so fortunate to have these wonderful museums, facilities, events and some of the best arts in the world (think Cleveland Orchestra) right in our back yard.
(Notice I didn't say sports? There's always next year! Notice how I say that even before the season starts?)

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Purim Come, Purim Go

Purim came and went. Here are some photos:



These are my two bosses.
No punchline necessary.





Making Shalach Manos bags.





Rabbi and Mrs. Karp at the Megillah reading.







Somebody please needs to caption this one:





Best costume award goes to...
Larry Betlejewski (on the left)