The Future is Here

G-d bless the Internet. When all of our electronics are working properly, and all the stars are aligned perfectly, magic can happen. Welcome to the future - the George Jetson Future!

Over the past couple of weeks we've helped some of our residents Skype with family members all over the world . (From Wikipedia: [Skype] allows users to communicate with peers by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. Phone calls may be placed to recipients on the traditional telephone networks. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free of charge.)

Here's one of our residents "playing" with his great grandson in Chicago, IL.

And here's another resident with her daughter talking to her family in London, England. That's our resident's great grandson on screen.

And this is George Jetson (seated) talking to Mr. Spacely, circa 1962, on what looks like Skype, about 40 years before Skype was invented.

George Jetson, modern day prophet.

Me? I'm still waiting for Rosie.

Happy New Year!

Still catching up on blogging...

Here are some images from our New Years party:

 This is one of my favorite shots from the evening. I'd ask you to come up with captions, but I think it speaks for itself.

The fabulous Logan Wells performed and provided some special lighting effects for one or two numbers,

I probably have footage on the Flip camera. One of thesed ays I may even download it and publish it here.

Finishing up Chanukah

Catching up on my blogging...

Just a few more images from Chanukah:

The 8th Annual "Rock For All Ages" Chanukah Concert 

with Noah Budin and the Promised Band

I had a little dreidle,

I couldn't make him go away...

The last night - always bittersweet.

Food For Thought

Our Yachad program, "Food For Thought," continues.

Yachad (the word means "together") is a group of special needs young adults and high school volunteers who meet once a week for Jewish themed activities.

It's a National organization with local chapters, and Sarah Taub has been this chapter's director for 25 years. Once a month, for the past 12 years, Sarah has brought the group here for inter-generational programming.

Our theme for this year is "Food for Thought," where we discuss the upcoming Torah portion for the next time they will be here, and create a "recipe" based on that portion. The recipe is more like a list of ingredients, and those ingredients are not necessarily based on any foods literally mentioned in the portion. They are based on a theme or an idea found in the portion.

(This is my daughter Rachel, an excellent baker and artist. She volunteered to decorate our food for this program, an essential element in this month's recipe, as you'll see.)

December’s Torah portion was the end of the Joseph story. The theme that emerged was the quality of something being hidden. Joseph’s identity is hidden from his brothers; Joseph hides a golden cup in Benjamin’s sack.

We talked about foods that have a “hidden” quality to them. Eggrolls and sushi, for instance, are wrapped foods, hiding some ingredients within. Carrot cake and zucchini muffins are sweet, dessert-like foods that “hide” unexpected savory vegetables in the batter. The “recipe” that we came up with was “Joseph’s Many Colored Sushi Cake,” and the mandatory ingredients were rice, zucchini, carrots, coffee and sprinkles.

The chefs came up with a cupcake recipe using the first four ingredients, and  Rachel and Marla decorated the cakes using sprinkles, frosting and candy to mimic the look of sushi.

Here is the finished product.

Here are some other moment from the evening:

Here is January's recipe:

And this is Breezy (the blonde on the left), one of the best dogs I know. Breezy is a therapy dog and comes to almost every Yachad program.

Can we get a little privacy please?