TheBanyanTree: Something new has been added

[Kitty Park]

Hey, Tobie—
I meant that I am happy that you now have a blog and a place where I can easily
find material you write. Therefore, I hope you are happy having your blog,
because I am happy to visit it.

I, too, have a blog which is just a record of special family moments.
There are some words, but these days, mostly photos.  Technology has made
it possible to scrapbook electronically, saving the time it took to cut and
paste as well shelf space.

Kitty
kcp-parkplace.blogspot.com


On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 4:20 PM tobie--- via TheBanyanTree <
thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> wrote:

> Say Kitty,
>
>         Do you mean that you have a blog and it works for you or do you
> mean that my blog works for you? I hope it’s the former. I wanna go
> there——especially after you’ve said all those nice things.
>
>         By the way, my perpetual efforts to keep life livable are paying
> off in that I’m not dead yet. I am not dead to the world while I’m alive
> and I’m not deceased either. It’s the dead to the world while you’re alive
> that is the worst. And I’ve never been that.
>
> Tobie
>
> > On Oct 26, 2022, at 5:57 AM, Kitty Park via TheBanyanTree <
> thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> wrote:
> >
> > I hope the blog works for you, because it works for me!  Discovering and
> > reading your periodic posts to Banyan Tree is like learning I have just
> won
> > an all-expenses-paid trip to an out-of-this-world destination.  You
> > repeatedly make lemonade out of lemons, albeit probably lacking
> sufficient
> > sugar to your taste in the end, but still palatable. And five stars for
> > your perpetual efforts to keep life livable.
> >
> > I’ve bookmarked your blog. After reading there about searching for
> > appropriate housing for Meyshe, I backtracked to your welcoming message.
> As
> > you continue journaling and sharing thoughts and experiences, I will be
> > watching for updates.
> >
> > Kitty Park
> > kcp-parkplace.blogspot.com
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 4:26 PM tobie--- via TheBanyanTree <
> > thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello Tree Dwellers all,
> >>
> >>        So much has happened to me in the past few years that it would be
> >> impossible to catch everyone up. So I won’t try. Well, maybe I will over
> >> time, but I can’t count on anything. That seems to be a constant. Kind
> of
> >> Zen, isn’t it. No permanence.
> >>
> >>        Since I was ten, or was I nine, I’ve kept a journal. The
> bookcases
> >> are heavy with 200 page five subject spiral binders of my writing…….I
> >> doin’t write much about the seventeen gentleman callers, but thoughts,
> >> mostly my hair brained ideas. But plenty enough news I suppose. A few
> years
> >> ago I signed on to a quasi literary agency, more like a service:
> Writer’s
> >> Relief. What they do is what I know I’m not going to do….ever….it’s just
> >> not in me. They do the research finding the likely publications that
> would
> >> want to publish my pieces. They put together cover letters. They send
> out
> >> the piece to twenty five likely publications. They field the rejections
> and
> >> acceptances. So I’ve got numerous pieces published in a variety of
> literary
> >> journals. Mostly with a readership consisting of the people in the
> >> journalism and English departments that publish the literary journal.
> It’s
> >> probably a requirement for graduation: Take Journalism/English 105 B:
> How
> >> to publish a literary journal online. The students posing as editors
> >> probably read it. And whoever has a piece being published in it reads
> it.
> >> But they’ll read their own piece and skip the others. Parents of the
> >> writers—they’ll read it. So my work is read by maybe 25 people who got
> lost
> >> trying to find another piece that their friend, Nigel, got accepted.
> >> Anyway, Writers Relief keeps track of it all. Would I do any of that?
> Never
> >> have——and that was when I wasn’t as busy as I am now. I’m working harder
> >> now than I ever have in my life. Part of that is because I’m alone
> without
> >> support. No family. No partner. Friends distanced because of the
> pandemic.
> >> So I’m it. IT. It can drive you nuts, or it would if I weren’t there
> >> already. I’m making it sound funny, but it isn’t. Life is a constant
> >> surprise. Would I ever have thought I’d be here, as circumstances are,
> at
> >> 75? (yup. 75).
> >>
> >>        Meyshe and I live together. Feyna stopped taking her meds, to
> >> paranoid and discarded her friends, got a divorce, moved to Oregon and
> is
> >> only in contact with Meyshe. God knows what’s going on with her. The
> rest
> >> of my family disappeared in ugly ways after my mother died. We got
> kicked
> >> out of the house where we’d taken care of her for fourteen years and
> this
> >> was in the midst of the pandemic. My brother, the successor trustee
> (don’t
> >> ever do this. do not assign one of your children to be the executor.
> Toxic
> >> stuff) ordered us out of the house because he wanted it sold for the
> money.
> >> He didn’t care that we hadn’t even been vaccinated yet. But I held him
> off.
> >> It wouldn’t look very good for him to kick an old woman with her
> autistic
> >> son out on the street in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe even he
> wouldn’t
> >> have been able to live with that……..nah. He’d live with it. He’s smart.
> He
> >> knows how to rationalize.
> >>
> >>        In this swamp of changes I thought I needed to do something more
> >> direct than having someone submit my writing and then waiting to see if
> >> anything was accepted for publication. So I decided to start a blog. I’m
> >> not on any social media. Won’t go on Facebook. I can’t forgive
> Zuckerberg
> >> for helping Trump get elected and hiding behind freedom of the press.
> >> (remember shouting FIRE in a crowded theater). I found people to design
> the
> >> blog and then it sat there without a post for months and months while
> the
> >> world popped and bubbled around me. I just posted my first entry to the
> >> blog today. The Writers Relief people also had posted an article that
> was
> >> written about Meyshe and me in the Northern California Jewish Weekly in
> >> January. He looks so handsome in the photograph. Serious. Sad. Aware.
> >>
> >>        Here’s the blog address: tobieheleneshapiro.com          I
> figure
> >> I’ll post once a week for now.  If you feel like checking it out, go
> right
> >> ahead.
> >>
> >> It’s nearly one o’clock PM and I’m shot. Not much sleep last night.
> >>
> >>        OH! And we got a cat! Her name is Tziptkeh. She’s about 9 months
> >> old, a calico/tortoise shell mix. Smart.  Beautiful. a kid.
> destructive. It
> >> got a lot better when I accepted that the house is hers not mine. She
> likes
> >> classical music and she likes me to sing to her. And I thought I was
> done
> >> raising toddlers.
> >>
> >> Love,
> >>
> >> Tobie
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Humans think they're so smart!   But it's taken them 100,000 years to
> >> destroy the planet.             THS, 2014
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Tobie Shapiro
> >> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Need to change your name, email address, or password? Or have you
> >> forgotten your password? Go here:
> >> http://lists.remsset.com/listinfo.cgi/thebanyantree-remsset.com
> >>
> >
> > Need to change your name, email address, or password? Or have you
> forgotten your password? Go here:
> http://lists.remsset.com/listinfo.cgi/thebanyantree-remsset.com
>
> "Seek and Ye shall find."     Old proverb
>
> "The truth shall set you free."    Old proverb
>
> "What you don't know can't hurt you."    Old proverb
>
> "Ignorance is bliss."  Old proverb
>
>
>
> Tobie Shapiro
> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
>
>
>
>
> Need to change your name, email address, or password? Or have you
> forgotten your password? Go here:
> http://lists.remsset.com/listinfo.cgi/thebanyantree-remsset.com
>