Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement

Tonight begins the most solemn day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur.  The fast begins about 6:15 as we drive from the restaurant to the synagogue.  We will break the fast in the building at about 8 p.m. tomorrow night.

In between will be lengthy, marathon sessions of praying for forgiveness against our fellow man and against God.  We have been working on asking for forgiveness from our friends and family since Rosh Hashanah ended.  Beginning tonight, we are trying to make everything right with God in order to be written AND SEALED in the Book of Life for another year.  I know that some of this is probably just metaphors, but it's hard to resist the image of God with the Book open all day and then as sundown approaches, he is slowly closing the Book and closing the Gate to Him until next year.  Everyone hurries to get their last prayers in before it is all closed up, praying fervently that our names are written in there before the Book is closed.

During the day today, Mark and I have done some errands and then went to Sea World to renew our annual passes and have another free lunch on our Passholder Dining plan.  Unfortunately, our favorite counter service restaurant, the Spice Mill, has dropped the vegetarian chili and substituted either a fried fish sandwich or a chickpea burger sandwich.  We both ordered the fried fish, which comes with fries and then we took a garden salad and coffee as our side and drink.  Mark was smart, as usual, and ate none of the bun and half the fries.  I was not smart and ate everything.  Oh, my! It was delicious.  I can't remember the last time I ate a fried fish sandwich.  This piece of fish was so long that it could have used two buns to hold it.  Instead, I cut it in half and ate two open-faced sandwiches.  So, I was just not making good choices. It's very hard to put the calories into the Lose It app for restaurant food, but as near as I could program it, I had about 800 calories and 92 carbs.  That's WAY too many carbs, so I'm going to test my blood sugar soon when it's two hours after the meal just to see what happened.  It would not be too many calories if that was my one big meal of the day, and I ate a salad with a can of tuna on it like I sometimes do for lunch.  Unfortunately, at 5 p.m. we are driving down the road a mile or so and eating dinner at Landry's, our Erev Yom Kippur tradition for these six years.  This year we have vowed to skip the bread, appetizers, and desserts. I will also skip the alcohol.  That should all help my carb count a little bit.

Meanwhile, if I have not asked yet, please forgive me for anything I may have said or done, either knowingly or unknowingly, this past year that hurt your feelings, offended you, or in anyway upset you.  I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and I promise to try my best to do better in the future.

We had a great time at Amatista Cookhouse for dinner last night at Universal Resort for the Magical Dining in the Sapphire Falls hotel.  I did not overdo it there and made reasonable choices.  The Blue Man Group show was outstanding.  Here are some pictures from the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party and our night at Universal Resorts.  There will be no more blogs until Sunday afternoon at the earliest.

For those who are observing Yom Kippur, may you have an easy and meaningful fast, and may you be SEALED in the Book of Life for another year.

Weight report and family physician visit

My weight this morning was excellent.  I weighed in at 267.4, a loss of SIX and a HALF pounds for the week.  That's insane.  I know there had to be some water retention that decided to leave, but we also walked nearly 7 miles at the Magic Kingdom between 5:30 and 11:30 p.m. for the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

I did collect the candy after all.  At 10:15 at night, I only had two little packs of Skittles in my bag, and I ate them as a snack during the fireworks because I was genuinely hungry.  We hit up some trick-or-treat areas after the fireworks, so I did end up with a full bag of candy eventually. Then at 11:30 on the tram out to the parking lot, I ate a tiny mini-Milky Way.  I gave everything in my bag that had nuts in it to Mark, but on the last couple of candy stops, I asked them not to give me things with nuts.  When I got home, I put the bag in the spare bedroom so I don't have to look at it.  I'm sure if I just have one or two small pieces at bedtime as a snack, like Mark does, it will not be a problem.  The problem is sitting with the bag on my lap in front of the TV and eating non-stop through an entire TV show.  Trust me!  I've done it.  There will be no candy tonight, however.
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Needless to say, I was very encouraged with this weight loss.  I've now lost 28 1/2 pounds since the end of a cruise on March 14.  That's 4-5 pounds per month, so it's not fast, but it's steady and healthy.  If I can get through all of our parties, restaurants, and cruises and continue a pound a week, I will be very happy.

I am proud of myself for successfully eating out four times this week and still losing 6 1/2 pounds.  Wow!

This upcoming week will have an equal number of challenges, and then we go on the Canadian cruise for two weeks.  I am just going to try very, very hard!

We have company coming for dinner in about twenty minutes.  Mark has made a Diabetic Living brisket recipe with cooked carrots, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.  We have two kinds of parve cookies, Vegan Rugelach and Linzer Tortes. Mark is going to plate my food, so that I only get the exact amount that I'm entitled to.  I have already programmed that in plus one of each kind of cookie.  As long as I don't reach for seconds on anything, today will also be a good day.

We just got back from seeing the family physician about the pre-diabetes, my sugar numbers, and my thirst.  When Mark saw her back in June, we were not that impressed, but today she seemed much nicer and more friendly.  She took a lot of time with me.  She was not too concerned about my blood sugar numbers because she saw that I was down 14 pounds from when I saw the Nurse Practitioner in July. She also explained my thirst, which started around August 11 or 12, by the two new meds I started taking on August 10.  There was ten days of prednisone then, too.  She said both the generic Xantac and the Flonase are types of antihistamines which are going to dry me out.  Well, duh!  Never even thought of that.  In general my blood work wasn't bad.  I was surprised by my blood pressure, 148/66.  That was definitely not normal for me.  She said she would take it again before I left, but we all forgot to do that.  I might take it at home tomorrow morning or maybe later tonight after the company  leaves.

In general, I thought it was a good visit.  She spent a lot of time counseling me on food intake. Mark and I already knew almost all that she said.  She would not designate an amount of carbs that I should consume at each meal or even daily. She felt that I should eat far more calories than I am, maybe as high as 2000.  I told her I was sure that would NOT work for me, but she was not convinced.  She suggested I spread my calories more evenly through the day, 450 at each meal and two 200 calorie snacks for a total of 1750 calories.  I have no intention of doing that, although I did agree that I could work on spreading the numbers out a little better than I have been doing. When eating in restaurants, more calories come at dinner, obviously.  When I'm at home, I could increase breakfast and lunch a little bit without breaking the whole diet plan.

In the upcoming week, I will be either eating out or hosting friends for a dinner party EIGHT times!  It is certainly going to be a challenge.  I'll be sure to report back next Wednesday about where my weight and blood sugar numbers stand.

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

This evening we are going to the Magic Kingdom's party.  We have gone three times in the past, but this year we were supposed to be there with Evey and Eric on Sept. 12.  Unfortunately, we stayed in Maryland to avoid Hurricane Irma, and Evey and Eric went by themselves.  Disney let us change our tickets without a penalty, so tonight is the night. I hope to get lots of pictures and put some up tomorrow morning.

We have a NARFE Board Meeting in Lakeland at 11 a.m. with lunch, the Big Catch Salad, at Beef O'Brady's.  Then we are going to the president's home for Mark to have a tutorial session for a while about taking over as president.  Mark is the nominee to be the Strawberry Chapter's next president.  Go, Mark!

After that tutorial, we are driving straight to the Magic Kingdom.  We plan to eat dinner at the Columbia Harbor House where we can get either vegetarian chili or a salmon plate with broccoli.  Either of those should be fine.  When you are at the party, the crowds are lower making it easy to walk on most rides.  There are special shows and parades and lots of special Photopass opportunities.  Sadly, there are also lots of special Halloween snacks to buy and a bag to fill up with pounds and pounds of candy handed out at various stations.  Since I'm desperately trying to lose weight and avoid full-blown diabetes, eating snacks and gathering candy would be STUPID!

Mark always gets the candy.  He eats maybe one or two small pieces for a night time snack, which makes his candy bag last over a year.  I'm pretty sure last year's bag is not empty up there in the pantry.  I, on the other hand, finished my huge bag of candy in about a week because I would eat ten or twelve pieces at a time, sometimes more than once in a day.  Binge-eating at its finest!

So, right now my plan is to concentrate on shows and photos and buy NO special snacks and get NO candy.  i really don't think I can control eating the candy in small amounts like Mark does so why even bring it into the house as a temptation?

I'll see tonight if I can do it. Wish me luck!

This morning I am quite happy because despite eating out Saturday and Sunday nights, I am down again this morning.  In fact, I cracked the ceiling of the 270s and hit 269.4 this morning!  I am very, very excited about that.  Yesterday I had an excellent day of under 1200 calories and only 103 carbs. I was very active with a doctor's appointment, Mah Jongg, a lot of little jobs in the house, and then a choir rehearsal.  When I went to bed, I was EXHAUSTED.  I'm sure that all helped.  Today there will be a huge amount of walking around the Magic Kingdom, so that's going to help a lot.  I shall make the official Wednesday report tomorrow morning, and I hope it's the same as today and not higher.  I know for sure that the Big Catch Salad at Beef O'Brady's is VERY salty, so I could retain some fluid.  We shall see.

Vocal Nodes update and Shingles

Don't panic!  I don't have shingles!  I did get the shingles vaccine today, however, and it's been something I've been meaning to do for a long time.  I happened to be in CVS, so I asked if Medicare covered it and how much it would cost.  Medicare covers all but $45.46, and they had the vaccine ready.  I thought that was a good price because before I had Medicare, my insurance did not cover any of it.  The cost was around $300 without insurance.  I'm pretty happy that I did it because back in the early 1980s, I did get the shingles when Lowell got the chicken pox.  I have no desire to get it again!

It was also all GOOD NEWS from the ENT.  Well, no, the singing voice is not back yet, but it is improving.  He did not do the endoscope to look at it today, but he will do it in six weeks when I return on November 3.  He said in 17 years at that practice, he has only had 3 patients that did not recover from vocal nodes with the same conservative treatment he is using on me, although it takes three to four months.  Next time if they are not gone, I will continue the treatment but also start the speech therapy twice a week for six weeks, which Medicare will cover.

So the conservative treatment consists of Flonase, Xantac, NO SINGING, minimal talking or at least stop when I feel the voice is getting tired or harder to produce a tone, and TONS of water for constant hydration.  He did say if I have a drink or two on the cruise ship that's okay as long as whenever I take an alcoholic drink be sure to follow it with an equal amount of water.  Whiskey and a water chaser, right?  I can do that!  Also he's okay with having TWO cups of coffee in the morning with two cups of water afterwards, AND he said he's okay with my one cup of decaf around 3 or 4 in the afternoon with a cup of water.  BUT absolutely nothing but water after dinner.  Last night I had a decaf in the restaurant at 7:15 p.m. and I woke up several times during the night with my entire mouth dry as a bone.  He blamed that decaf for that effect.

Anyway, I can continue this regiment for up to four months if I can have my singing voice back at the end of that time.  He saw no reason why I would not be able to sing normally once the nodes are completely gone.

All good news!

Now I'm going to go play Mah Jongg.  Maybe I'll even win some games today.

Great show. Great dinner. Great friends. Up a pound.

The production of Hunchback of Notre Dame far exceeded our expectations.  The Winter Haven theater has won many National awards for their performances, even though it is a community theater where everyone is a volunteer.  Amazing. Dinner with Donna and Alan was also excellent, and we always have a good time hanging out with them.  We all loved the show and the whole evening.

Although I tried to calculate my calories as accurately as possible and stayed at 1417 for the day, I am still up one pound today.  I am hoping that it is just water retention because we are going out to dinner again today.

This afternoon we are going to the Garden Theater in Winter Garden with Ed and Susie to see Jesus Christ, Superstar, the first show of our six show season at the Garden Theater.  This is our second year of buying the season ticket package to this theater.  We really love their productions.

Usually we eat lunch before the show, but this time we are going to have dinner after the show.  This is Magical Dining month in Orlando.  Many restaurants participate in this event where a prixe fixe menu costs $35 per person, and part of that price is donated to charity.  We have chosen to go to Hemingway's in the Grand Hyatt near WDW.  Our dinner choices are limited, so we are having a Caesar Salad, Grilled Grouper with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus, and a Key Lime Tart.  This is not a chain restaurant, so I could not find any nutritional data.  I just did what I did for last night's dinner: researched all the listings of those foods in my Lose It! data base, threw out the highest and lowest examples based on calorie counts, logged in one that seemed close to the highest calorie count and resembled the description of what we are going to eat as closely as possible.  I have done that, so the dinner could be 1023 calories and 77 carbs.  I can handle that as long as breakfast and lunch are low.  For breakfast I had my sugar free Greek yogurt and a sugar free Ensure drink.  That came to 160 calories and 10 carbs.  Lunch will be a can of low sodium tuna and a can of low sodium green beans for 190 calories and 11 carbs.  It's hard to do better than that for those meals.  Then almost all my calories and carbs for the day are coming at dinner.  It's not optimal to cram all your carbs and calories into one meal at night, but when you are eating out with unknown foods, I feel that it's best to try to save it all up for that one meal.  If I'm hungry later tonight after dinner, I have programmed sugar free jello for a snack.  My total calories for today will be 1453 and the carbs will be only 98.

Meanwhile this morning my blood sugar was 114 this morning.  My total carbs were 103 yesterday and 1417 calories.  Of course, those were just my best guesses, like today will be.  Not knowing exactly what you are eating is difficult.

Rosh Hashanah debriefing! Sorry, but this is long and doesn't even have any pictures!

Why is it that every single year both Mark and I forget how long Rosh Hashanah services last?

Both days we left the house about 8 a.m. in order to allow a little extra time for rush hour and still arrive at the 9 a.m. start time.  Services started promptly and then ended promptly at 2:05 p.m. both days.

Yup, that's a FIVE HOUR marathon of praying!

At least my little choir had to go up five times on each day to sing, so I couldn't get too complacent or nod off in my seat lest I miss our cue.  LOL

On Thursday, because we somehow never remember this five hour length, we ate breakfast at 7 a.m. and got home at 3 p.m.  We were both STARVING and EXHAUSTED.  We quickly ate lunch and then promptly fell asleep until about 5 p.m.

On Friday we were smarter.  We each packed a half sandwich in a cooler pack to eat as soon as we got in the car.  What a difference that little snack made!  We came home, ate the rest of our lunch, and then drove up the street to Barb and Ed's house to deliver some little special Baltimore snacks to them that we brought back from Maryland.  We stayed, visiting, catching up, and generally having a heck of a good time for over two hours.  I was never even sleepy!  It was a much better day.

Maybe next year, we'll remember!

Also, because as we drove home yesterday after 2 p.m. and ran into some small traffic back ups as we worked our way past the Hotel Boulevard entrance to WDW, we remembered that we had decided not to book two nights in a local hotel for Yom Kippur.  We thought we'd just save money and drive on home.  HA!  Seems like a good idea until it's after 2 in the afternoon, you're tired, and there's a WDW back up, and on Yom Kippur you have to turn right around after an hour at home resting to go back for the evening service.  So Mark booked us two nights in the same hotel we used the last two Yom Kippurs, the Comfort Inn on Palm Parkway.  That's only one mile from the synagogue and comes before any of the WDW traffic!  Now we can get back to the hotel next week for an afternoon nap in between the five hour morning service and the three and a half hour evening service, not to mention the night BEFORE when we are at the synagogue for about three hours.  Yeah, Yom Kippur is not just a 26 hour fast, it's also a marathon of time in the synagogue praying.  But asking God for another year of life is pretty important, wouldn't you say?

My eating and weight are both doing very well.  I have kept my calories well below the allowed amount, averaging about 1200 each day starting with this past Tuesday, our first full day at home.  This morning I weighed 270!  I was beyond thrilled.  It's only a little longer before I'll be back in the 260s, which I haven't been since August of last year.

Sadly, my excellent days of controlling everything and eating at home are ending today.  Beginning today, eight of the next nine days involves at least dinner out.  Some of the days have lunch and dinner out.  Never good for me.  If I'm not careful,  I'll easily gain a pound a day or more and undo all this work.  That would make me very sad, hopefully sad enough to make good choices.  Of course when eating out, even when you think you are making the best choices, hidden sodium and carbs used in the cooking that you don't know about or see will still sneak some weight back on.

My goal for the next nine days is to stay the same.  If I can report that a week from Tuesday, October 2, I still weigh only 270, I will take that as a huge win!  It doesn't stop there, though.  The next night we have company coming for dinner.  Two days later we are eating dinner out and six days later, on October 8, we are flying to Quebec City where we will spend two nights in a hotel before boarding the Holland America Zuiderdam for a 12 day cruise down to Fort Lauderdale.  Geez.  I love all the things we do in our Florida retirement life, but it is NOT conducive to weight loss!  LOL

Meanwhile, the sugars are still above normal every single time.  I had a blood draw from Quest on Tuesday morning.  I got a call from the doctor on Wednesday with the results. I was shocked at the fast turn around.  It actually took several more days for it to be posted on my Quest Portal.  The doctor reported my fasting blood sugar at 106, while I had gotten a 112 at home that morning before I went to Quest.  Of course, home test kits are never going to be as accurate.  My A1C was 5.7, which was absolutely the lowest one I had had in THREE years!

This new doctor does not know my record though.  They said OMG!  5.7 that's HIGH!  106 that's HIGH!.  Pre-diabetes.  Get on to a low carb diet.  I said thank you.  I know I have an appointment on Wednesday to meet with the doctor and discuss all this. I have had higher A1Cs every time, and I've had a 106 fasting in the past, but it's always been followed up with a 98 or so.  I have waffled slightly above and slightly below 100 for three years.  My previous family physician just pooh-poohed all of this because the numbers were so close.  Also the A1C thing is because the bar has been lowered.  5.7 used to be considered normal.  Now it's the number that is the border.  The new guidelines say to be under 5.7 and I was right on it.  Still, as I said, it's the lowest one I've ever had.

What is really different this time, is that I have been testing every day once or twice at home, so I know I never go below 100 any more in the morning or any other time of day.  That is concerning.

None of this means I'm a diabetic.  Pre-diabetes just means that if I continue to go the way I've been going, I could become a diabetic.  So I am NOT continuing that way.  I'm lowering my carbs, and I'm lowering my weight.  I know with every confidence that this will give me perfect numbers in the long run with no sign of diabetes.  That's the goal.

To meet that goal is to learn to overcome my biggest weaknesses, eating out or eating at dinner parties.  Half of my time in Florida is doing one of those things, maybe more than half.  I have mastered good eating in the home.  In fact, I have mastered that a long time ago.  I must work harder on the other two places because they are very hard.  I still love to eat and love to eat large quantities of food.  That might never change!  LOL!  Making good choices like no sugary alcoholic drinks, big salads for lunches instead of sandwiches and fries, limiting dessert to none or a bite or two for a taste, skipping the bread basket, THESE are the things I need to master next.

So today is Shabbat.  Off we go to synagogue for a third day in a row.  The good news is that regular Saturday morning services only last two and a half hours, and we usually get there an hour late!  They also have kiddush, some light foods, right after services.  This is one place where I easily avoid the food.  For years I have not gone to that food table except to take a small bite of ritual challah, which I have actually programmed in my Lose It! app.

Tonight we are starting our eating out by going to Donna and Alan's house.  She is making an asparagus and mushroom quiche, carrot and pineapple slaw, and ice cream for dessert.  We are bringing the ice cream, so I've programmed that.  It's so hard to figure out foods that you did not cook.  To estimate it, I search through the Lose It! apps program for all the quiches. I discard all the highest and lowest calorie ones.  Then I look for one that sounds the closest to this one, pick one whose calories are about 2/3 of the way to the highest one, and then choose the one that also gives a all the nutritional info instead of just saying n/a, which many do.  I picked an Asparagus Quiche where 1/5 of a pie is a serving and gives 400 calories, 16 carbs.  I picked a carrot slaw of a 1/2 cup serving for 140 calories and 15 carbs.  We are bringing the ice cream, which is Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate with a 1/2 cup serving, 160 calories  and 16 carbs.  If this bears any resemblance to what I'm actually going to eat, then my diner will have 700 calories and 47 carbs.  That's a good dinner!

We are having dinner with them because after dinner we are driving to the Winter Haven theater to see the new live production of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame.  This live show started in Germany where it was very successful and ran for several years; however, when it came to the USA, it never found success and never made it to Broadway.  The original composer and lyricist wrote some additional songs, which are great.  Mark bought the soundtrack album, so we've been listening to it.  I don't know why it couldn't make it to Broadway, but at least it's now making its way around the community theater circuit.  We will see it again in May at the Garden Theater, too.  Very exciting!

Time to go to shul, so I will close this very long blog now.  Have a great day and eat healthy!

Erev Rosh Hashanah. L'Shana Tovah to all.

Tonight begins the important Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year.  Tomorrow and Friday, Mark and I will head out to our Orlando synagogue, SOJC, over near WDW, for two days of very long services.  They typically begin at 9 a.m. and go to about 1:30 p.m.  During the services, we will all thank God for his many blessings to us and the world and fervently pray for peace and prosperity for both us and the world. We tell ourselves and God that He is our King and we re-establish that relationship with Him.  This is essentially what we pray at every Shabbat service, but during the holidays there are more of these kind of prayers and the added element of asking for these blessings to last for us especially through another year. We pledge to forgive ourselves our sins and forgive others, although there are more of those prayers on Yom Kippur next week. We blow the Shofar to signify a new beginning, a wake up call in a way.

I wish everyone I know, both family and friends, Jews and non-Jews alike, that we all have a beautiful, happy, and prosperous New Year, that we all think about our lives and our relationship with God in order to make our little part of the world a better place. To all, I say L'Shana Tovah, a Happy New Year, to everyone.  May it be a sweet New Year for all!  I especially pray this for all of those in the USA and the Caribbean islands who have been affected by the many hurricanes this season and the people of Mexico who have been devastated by two recent earthquakes.

My little choir will sing five times on each day, so we had our final rehearsal tonight.  Our Cantor took a photo of them last night to put up on Facebook.  This morning I downloaded the photo to my laptop because I thought I could put it up here.  Hm...couldn't figure that out, so I just took a photo on my phone of the photo from my laptop and put it into Picasa the usual way just so I could put it up in this blog.

It's also Weigh-in Wednesday, and I am 273.9 this morning, which is a gain of 2 1/2 pounds for the week.  That is so sad.  My average calories for the week were about 1650 per day.  It's not a number that should bring on a a good weight loss, but it doesn't seem like enough to cause such a big weigh gain either.  I would like to think that I could maintain my weight with that number.

It was a tough week because we ate out four times and had a big party at Cindy's house last Wednesday night when I definitely over did it.  Yesterday I was up a bit more than today, so I lost a little water weight yesterday because my calories were only 1295, the lowest of any day in the week.

Also my grand experiment yesterday of keeping the carbs super low in order to get a normal fasting blood sugar reading did not work at all.  I had only 84 carbs for the day yesterday.  That's the first time I've been under 100, or maybe even under 120.  My sugar this morning was 111, not what I was hoping for.  Mark has suggested that it might be because I did not eat a bedtime snack or any carbs after dinner.  He has found that if he does not have some carbs, maybe 20-25 or so, around 11 pm., his sugars are high in the morning due to Dawning Syndrome, or his liver releasing sugar after a long fast.  Tonight I will eat my Arctic Zero, 28 carbs and 147 calories, at 10 p.m.  I'll report tomorrow morning how that may have affected my morning reading.

It may not even be healthy to go lower than 84 carbs in a day, even though I know it can be done, and many people following at Atkins diet for weight loss regularly do it. I recently read that the brain requires 130 carbs a day just to function efficiently.  I won't be trying to go super low carb for awhile because the High Holidays will be bringing additional carbs at dinner.

Mark has done a great job of picking low carb, soft main dishes for us.  I got that temporary crown yesterday, which is less secure than the old permanent filling, so I have to be careful not to break it for the next five weeks.  But each meal of Rosh Hashanah will involve some challah, apples, and honey.  Even if I eat only a little bit of those things, it's still carbs.  We are definitely NOT having our traditional Rosh Hashanah dinners tonight and tomorrow night.  I don't know if Mark is sad about that or not, although I think I am a little bit.  Everybody has special holiday foods that they enjoy and look forward to eating.  This year, none of those are happening.

Our typical Rosh Hashanah dinner would be the following:
Wine
Apple slices dipped in honey
Raisin Challah, preferably in a round loaf
Chopped Liver
Matzo Ball soup
Gefilte Fish
Main Entree consisting of chicken, potato kugel, and a vegetable
Honey Cake for dessert

Well, THAT'S not happening this year.  I am not calculating the calories in carbs in all of that, but I am sure the carbs are in the hundreds and the calories in the thousands, just for DINNER!

Instead tonight's menu is more like any other dinner we would have in a week:
Wine for Mark only (I'm still off alcohol for the vocal nodes)
Apples and honey, a carefully measured, small amount of only 1 T of honey and 1/8 of a small apple
A small amount of regular challah, just one ounce that I'll carefully weigh out
Shakshuka (eggs poached in spaghetti sauce, very soft to eat)
Cooked spinach

What a difference!  Tonight's meal will not feel at all like Rosh Hashanah except for the apples and honey.  The good news is that this dinner will have only 55.6 carbs and 526 calories.  Quite a difference!

If I don't eat anything I have not programmed today, my calories will be 1221 and the carbs will be 110.  Eating the Arctic Zero tonight will be a good experiment for Mark's theory of morning sugar levels.

My only concern now is that no matter what I do, these sugars will not change because I do NOT have diabetes. There are several other things that can cause excessive thirst and elevated sugar levels.  I have an appointment with my new family physician next Wednesday, and I hope she will agree to run some tests to rule those other things out before settling on a diagnosis of pre-diabetes.

My numbers are not high enough for diabetes, but neither are they normal.  These numbers will not cause any long term damage to any organs in my body, and at 67 years old, I will probably die before those numbers could EVER have an impact on them.  What pre-diabetes really means is that if I do not change my eating habits significantly, then actual diabetes is the logical conclusion.  Even if I ran numbers of 140-200 every day, all day, at my age any damage to the internal organs like kidneys or eyes might not take effect before I am gone.

The whole thing always comes back to weight.  As a person who has been overweight and/or obese her whole life, I would totally expect to be a Type II diabetic at this age, and only serious weight loss will reverse those numbers.  That is what I think is really the issue, so I just have to do three basic things: exercise more, keep the carbs low, keep the fats low.  Holidays, restaurants, dinner parties, vacations, and especially cruises all conspire against me!  THAT is my real challenge, controlling those situations as well as I control my eating at home.

Meanwhile, once more, L'Shana Tovah, may you all have a blessed, peaceful, happy, and sweet New Year!

Back home.

We took the auto train back.  It arrived on time about 9 a.m. in Sanford yesterday, but we were among the final ten out of over three hundred cars to get called.  That meant we sat in the station until 11:15. Crazy.  By the time we made several stops on the way home, including lunch at Perkins, it was about 3:30 and we were exhausted.  It took several more hours to unload the car and get everything put away.  I ended up going to bed about 10:30, which is an hour early for me.

Today I had a 7 a.m. fasting blood draw for the doctor's appointment next week to discuss my potential diabetes.  This morning my sugar was 112, a very good number for me lately.  I had only 127 carbs yesterday.  Back on Sept. 9 I had a 122 fasting sugar after only 121 carbs the day before, and on Sept. 7,  I had only 91 carbs with a fasting sugar the next morning of 117. On Sept. 4, I had a whopping 175 carbs and my sugar reading the next morning was only 111.  So I'm not sure there's a great correlation.  Today I'm having an excellent day with only 82 carbs for the whole day, 1215 calories.  I'm very curious to see what the fasting reading tomorrow morning will be.  I have been hoping that I'd find that magic number of carbs to eat that would give me reading 100 or less in the morning.  Maybe 82 will be it!  Weight loss is the real answer, but that's slow.

Then at 10 a.m. I had a dentist appointment to get the crown for that molar that had the root canal back on August 24.  I was supposed to go back in three weeks to get the permanent crown, but we will already be gone to Canada, so I'm going back on Oct. 23, the day after the cruise ends.  That means babying this temporary crown, which is more fragile than the permanent filling that had been in there, for five weeks.  Again I'm going on soft foods, nothing sticky or crunchy.  She said don't chew on that side at all!  HAHA!  I reminded her that I have no teeth on the other side, so that's the ONLY side I can chew on.  So she just said be extra careful!  That's what I'll have to do.

And tonight my SOJC choir will have its final choir rehearsal before the High Holiday performances on Thursday and Friday.  They missed a lot of rehearsals because we were gone for three weeks instead of one week due to the hurricane.  At least the two newest hurricanes out there are going to miss Florida.  Sadly, that is not true for some of the same islands that Irma hit.

We're finally going home.

I have been so busy and having so much fun that I never sat down to write a blog since Wednesday. Now it's Sunday and we are boarding the auto train for home.  

We had a wonderful time with Jon and Jen Wednesday night, but I forgot to take a picture of them. Last night we had a great time with Lowell and Emily at the Vegan restaurant Great Sage, but I also forgot to take a picture.  Friday night we had a great time at Rabbi Saul's house for dinner, but, yes, you guessed it, no picture. Oh, well.

Thursday we also bought some plastic flowers at Walmart to put on the pets' graves. They look nice and will make it easy to find them next time.

So now we are packing and cleaning in order to meet Virginia friends, John and Bev, for lunch at a Subway near the train station.

So our 8 day trip turned into 18, but we are finally going home.

Here is a picture of our visit to Irene and Gary and one of the plastic flowers on Ace and Sirikit's graves.  Next blog will be written in Florida!

Oh, one thing before the pictures.  I lost control of my eating Wednesday night with Jon and Jen, and the Tofu Stir Fry last night at Great Sage was super salty.  So this morning I am up FIVE and a HALF pounds. I'm sure it's water retention.  At least, that's what I hope.  This morning I weighed 276.8, which is actually the same as when we left to come up here.  On Wednesday, August 30, I reported a weight of 276.7 just before we drove off to get on the north bound train.  I even said I was happy with that weight because it was the same as the week before.  LOL  So on this trip I had actually dropped 5.4 pounds in two and a half weeks, which would have been great, and now I've blown that in just the last days.  Some of it is water retention, I'm sure, because the tofu stir fry was super salty.  I will be good on the train, and maybe after I'm home, I can report in the next blog that the five pounds are gone again.  We shall see.

Mark, me, cousin Irene Smith, and her husband Gary.

Harley, Irene and Gary's kitty.

 

And here are a few of the Photopass pictures from Evey and Eric's WDW vacation.  They had a most marvelous time.  The park was not damaged by the hurricane and the crowds were exceedingly light. It never even rained on them at all. They were there from last Tuesday, but they arrived back home last night.

Fun times.

Evey ad Eric are having a blast today on their second day at WDW.  I'm so happy for them.

Mark and I went up to Woodlawn to visit my cousins Irene and Gary. It's been a couple of years since we were up there, and Gary was at work last time, too.   This time they were both home, and we had about 90 minutes to catch up on everything. It was delightful.

Now we are home, and I'm on hold trying to figure out why my special Happy Anniversary gift wasn't delivered to Evey and Eric in their All Star Sports room last night.  UGH.  The guest services person said it might have been because of the hurricane, which I understand.  She's currently got me back on hold trying to find out what happened.  Hopefully, it will be delivered tonight.

And around 6 p.m. Jon and Jen are coming here for a spicy chili dinner.  Looking forward to both the visit and the chili!

It's weigh-in Wednesday, so I'm happy to report that I'm 271.4, which is what I said on Monday.  I was up a little yesterday and back down today.  It's fabulous because it represents a 3.8 pound loss for the week!  I haven't had a week like that in a very long time.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from our visit today with Irene and dinner tonight with Jon and Jen.

EUREKA!

Yesterday we did a little shopping before lunch, and then headed to the two pet cemeteries.  It was an interesting and somewhat frustrating experience. Brandy and Casey are buried at Meadowridge Memorial Park in Eldridge, which is mostly for people but has a lovely pet section.  They are easy to find and well maintained.

The older two pets, Sirikit and Ace, are buried across the street at Rosa Bonheur.  That was the very first pet cemetery in the USA in the early days, around the 1930s.  Not long after Ace was buried, the owner absconded with funds.  It fell into a legal hole from which it never recovered.  Now it is mowed by volunteers, but there is no one living in the house anymore or taking in new pets.  2013 was the last time we were there.  This time we found Ace right away, but we dug up other people's pets for nearly two hours and never found Sirikit.  We gave up, and I felt terrible.

Once we got home, I found some photos from 2013, so we went back today thinking we could triangulate the location based on those photos. That was not so easy to do!  It took about 90 minutes and another dozen holes dug before we were about to give up.  I decided to stick the spade down just one final time, and EUREKA.  I hit something, and it turned out to be Sirikit!  What a miracle!

Thursday we are going back with some kind of pole or flag or flower to put next to them to make it easier to find the next time.  We also asked the people at Meadowridge to give me an estimate on how much it would cost to move Ace and Sirikit over to join Brandy and Casey.  I am eagerly awaiting an email from them.

Quite a day!

Meanwhile, my fasting blood sugar this morning was 120.  I can almost predict it now.  Yesterday, I ate 1303 calories, 153 carbs.  This morning the pound and a half I reported gone yesterday have returned, but in the long scheme of things, that's to be expected.  Tomorrow is the official weigh-in, so we'll see what happens.  Today I will be eating a little more than yesterday, 1350 calories, 158 carbs.

Here are some pictures from our cemetery adventures.

We both shed a few tears over crazy Casey.

The word Ace showed through the grass, so he was easy to find and clean up.

One of many fruitless digging attempts on Monday.

We were so close several times on Monday, but we just couldn't do it.

Then today, after 90 minutes, we found her.

Mark got some tissues from the car and cleaned the dirt away as best he could.

Hopefully this shot of me pointing to Sirikit with Ace behind my left shoulder will help in the future if  the thatch grows over it so much again.

It's all good news.

Hurricane Irma was a crazy old girl whose course changed every day, sometimes every hour.  Now that she's in the north of Florida, our neighbors are out inspecting their homes and assessing damage. We have seen several Facebook posts about trees down, maybe a few roof tiles blown away, but mostly our neighborhood came through very well.  They didn't even lose power, and that was my biggest concern.

Our awesome next-door neighbors, Ken and Luanne, actually checked on our lanai for us.  It is still standing, and so is theirs!  No trees even went down in our yards, although one went down out by the street in the neighbor's yard on the other side of them.  I heard there is a tree down blocking the street up by the Palms, about a mile from our house.  All in all, we will all probably be getting our roofs inspected just in case, but in general we can count our blessings!

In other good news, I have lost another 1.6 pounds since yesterday!  This morning the scale reported my weight at 271.4.  WOW!  After so many weeks of nothing happening, suddenly my body seems to be making up for lost time.  Nice.  I have no complaints.

My fasting blood sugar was 114, still above normal for a non-diabetic, definitely in the pre-diabetic range.  This has been consistent since I first started testing. I'm glad I have that doctor appointment to discuss this later in September.  I'm doing all I can do, watching my carbs and calories and losing weight.

Yesterday we had a wonderful time going to see the movie with my student/friends Jon and Jen.  We will see them again on Wednesday for dinner here at the house.  Then we had dinner at Seasons 52, which might now be my favorite restaurant.  I ate only exactly what I had planned.  It also helped that this restaurant did NOT put any bread and butter on the table. In the past, that might have made me sad, but now it made me glad!  LOL!

Today we will have a low-key day.  We want to do some shopping and go to the pet cemetery to visit our four pets.  Two of them are in a great people/pet cemetery that is regularly kept up.  Two of them are in a pets-only cemetery across the street from the other one that fell on hard times, and no one keeps it up.  We haven't visited in three years, and the last time we had a hard time finding the graves because the thatchy grass had grown over the plaques on the ground. Once we found them, we cleared them off by hand, but this time we are taking clippers, a spade, and a trowel to make the job easier.  We just hope we can find them.

Irma is in the Keys.

Carol and Abdul were great yesterday and put up the shutters and completely cleared the lanai.  That's now a worry that is off the table.

Meanwhile, the track has gone a bit further west.  Orlando is not taking a direct hit, although Tampa is.  Our area will probably have winds only up to 64 mph over night tonight, which does not worry me at all with all the preparations Carol and Abdul have done.  The power could go out, but we shall see about that tomorrow.

This morning I had a fasting blood sugar of 122, not at all good.  I had all my meals at home, but I did eat more challah than I should have at lunch.  My total calories yesterday were only 1210 and the total carbs were 121.  That's an excellent day in anybody's book.  I didn't eat anything after 8:30 last night because we had dinner late, at 8 p.m.  At this point, the only way these sugar numbers are going down is probably after a significant weight loss, which takes time.  This morning I was down another half pound to an even 273.  That's an important number to me because it was the weight I was in August of 2015 when we went to Hawaii.  I gained very little weight on that trip, only about a pound and a half, so that was great for me.  So my first mini-goal for this round of weight loss was to hit that number again.  Now my second mini-goal is to get to 255.  That's what I weighed at Lowell's wedding on July 12, 2014.  18 pounds to go to make that goal, and I'm going to try very hard to make it.

Most weight loss studies show that a 10% loss in weight makes a huge difference in health.  For me that would depend on when you count it from.  On March 14, after the fifth cruise in three months, I hit my peak for this year, 295.  In fact that's the peak for the last EIGHT years because that was the weight I had in the doctor's office in April of 2009 when I was recently down from my all-time high of 322.  If I count the 10% from the 295 in March, then I needed to lose 29.5 pounds, and I have actually now lost 22 pounds from that, an average of nearly a pound a week.  That's not fast, but I guess it's still acceptable.  So in seven and a half more pounds, at 265.5, I will make that 10%.  I will not be satisfied with that, but it's an excellent start.

Unfortunately, if I continue to lose at about a pound a week, it will take about 8 weeks to do that.  In the next 8 weeks I have a Magical Dining night, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succoth, and a 12 night cruise out of Quebec City.  NONE of these things in the past have been conducive to weight loss for me.  These are HUGE challenges.  Perhaps worrying about the blood sugars will keep me honest.

Today we are meeting former students of mine, Jon Neale and his sister Jen.  I taught both of them at Woodlawn High School back in the early 1990s.  We bonded over our mutual love of Star Trek back then, and we have remained friends ever since!  Today we are going to see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on the big screen at Arundel Mills Mall.  We have both seen it many times, but Jon said he had never seen it on a big screen. That did it for me!  His birthday is Thursday, so I am taking him and Jen to the movies and buying all their snacks as a birthday present.  It will be like old times watching a Star Trek movie with the two of them.

After the movie, we are meeting Lowell, Emily, and her parents, Phil and Pat, at Seasons 52 in Columbia.  I have already checked out the menu, which posted calorie counts.  I will have the grilled trout with mashed potatoes and veggies for 490 calories and 28 carbs.  That's great.  Mark is having the same.  Then we plan to split the cannoli dessert, giving us each another 15 carbs.  If there is nothing else, then my dinner is only 43 carbs and 565 calories. That's perfect.  My day today will be 1335 calories and 149 carbs, another great day.  I expect to have a blood sugar in the 110-120 range again, but I really believe there is nothing I can do about it until more weight is lost or the doctor decides to put me on some meds.  I see the doctor on September 27.  Between now and then, I will continue to try to lose weight and count every calorie and carb so that I have lots of ammunition to show her that I'm doing my best.

OKAY Irma!  Bring it on.  We are all waiting to see what you are going to do tonight.

Hurricane Irma is getting closer.

This is a SCARY storm.  I am safe and snug in Cindy's house in the Baltimore area, but I am very worried about our relatives, friends, synagogue members, and all of our neighbors in the Kissimmee/Poinciana/Orlando area.

Yesterday the track shifted slightly westward bringing a direct hit over our house.  Then it was reported that it was going to be a Cat 5 hitting Miami and probably a FOUR on our house.  We started to really worry then because we didn't have the hurricane shutters up or the lanai cleared.  I contacted my cleaning team, Carol and Abdul, and offered them a little more money than I had already offered my handyman, who could not do it since he had five other houses to do.  Lo and Behold!  They happened to be off work today and were more than happy to go do it.  God Bless Carol and Abdul!!

Now this morning the track is moving even more to the west putting Tampa under the direct hit at a Cat 3.  We are now on the east side winds, which are going to be high plus a high chance of tornadoes, too.  Geez.  Well, I don't know if that's better or worse for our neighborhood, but at least we will have done all we can do to prepare.

The roads in Florida are clogged and barely moving as people try to evacuate.  There are many mandatory evacuations from all the Keys and south Florida like Miami and other places there.  There is no gas, no water, barely any other supplies.  Airlines have sent out their last flight last night.  As many people as could be flew out.  Airlines sent bigger planes in to max the numbers, and yet many people could not get a flight at all and are now hunkering down in shelters.  Shelters quickly filled to capacity, so new ones had to be opened. Tourists and residents alike are just doing their best to stay safe in the path of this monstrous storm.

Many of our favorite Caribbean ports have been completely destroyed especially Grand Turk, St. Martin, and St. Bart.  Also the US and British Virgin Islands are in a shambles.  I wonder how long it will be before the cruise ships will be able to go back to those places.  The airport on St. Martin is destroyed!  This is just such a tragedy.  Last I heard there have been 21 deaths, but everyone anticipates that number will be higher eventually.  Everyone is praying for Florida.

All the major theme parks are closing later today and staying closed through Monday.  This is unprecedented for them, having never closed more than a day for any storm before.  That just shows how horrible they anticipate this one is going to be.

Still, Evey and Eric have changed their flight to go through Detroit instead of Atlanta, which is expected to be under the remnants of Irma on Tuesday as a Tropical Storm, and will land in Orlando on Tuesday morning around 11 a.m.  Who knows if there will be power or water?  Maybe their flight may yet be canceled.  Who really knows?  When they changed their Magical Express bus with Disney, the lady was confident that they would have no problems and have a great vacation. I hope she is right.  Sadly, we will not be seeing them and enjoying the parks with them as we had originally planned.  I just hope that if they are determined to do this, it goes well for them.  WDW has its own power plant, so they can possibly keep power going when the rest of greater Orlando has no power.

We are scheduled to return next Sunday, the 17th, and we are fervently hoping that the power and water are working by then and that we have an intact house to go home to.

Finally, there's good news and bad news for me here in Maryland.

The good news is that I've lost almost two pounds since Wednesday!  I'm only 273.5 this morning, which surprised me because I had a lot of sodium yesterday.  I played Mah Jongg at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt with my Mishkan Torah synagogue friends, so we all ate lunch while we played.  I got the portobello mushroom sandwich with cheese, pesto, lettuce, tomato, and onion, and it came with a big pile of sweet potato fries.  I ate every last bite, and it was delicious.  I tried to estimate the calories and carbs, but that is always so hard.  My best guess was 775 calories and 85 carbs.  Ha! 85-100 carbs is Mark's daily allotment of carbs, and I ate it at lunch.  My total carbs yesterday were 167.

That is probably why the bad news is bad.  My fasting blood sugar was 117 today.  I have not had a normal reading, that is 100 or less, since I first thought about the thirst and urination back on August 29.  That was the day I tested for the first time and got 120 fasting.  This is the twelfth morning that I have been above 100, and once it was as high as 129.  Clearly, if I'm not a full blown diabetic, I am at least in the pre diabetes stages.  The only fix for that is weight loss, so I will continue to work on that.  I also have an appointment with my new family doctor on September 27.  I will continue to test several times a day and log it all in as well as keep my calories and carbs low, despite what I just did yesterday, and see if I can lose a few more pounds by then.  I want to be able to say to her that I am doing my best so far.  Even though my carbs were high yesterday, I did keep my calories right on the target amount of 1516 for the day.  So that's something.

This morning we are heading out soon to Mishkan Torah for services with Rabbi Saul again.  We visited them in their new home, the house provided by the synagogue for the rabbi, and then we went to lunch at Max's where Rudy also joined us.  I ordered the chicken vegetable soup and the hamburger patty with lettuce, tomato, and broccoli, no bun.  That was an excellent choice.  I am concentrating on trying to make better restaurant choices, and I admit to being disappointed that I failed at that yesterday.  So, pick myself up and move on.  Right?  I have spent a lifetime beating myself up about poor choices and binge-eating, and that just leads to feelings of guilt, depression, and more eating.  I'm trying to turn that around, although I admit it's very, very hard.

Let me close with prayers for the state of Florida and all of our friends and relatives.  Dear Lord, if it be Your will, please hold our friends and relatives and everyone in the path of Hurricane Irma in Your arms and bring them through this storm safely.

"Of course you can change your ticket without charge. We know it's coming."

That was what Amtrak told me this morning when I called to inquire about changing our auto train ticket from this Friday to Sunday the 17th.  He even said that if we change our mind again and don't want to go back on the 17th, no problem.  Call, change, no charge!  I love Amtrak!

The decision to stay put in Maryland instead of heading home and into Hurricane Irma created a whole host of other changes.  We are spending the day calling doctors to change appointments, pharmacies to get prescriptions sent up to the local CVS, emailing to change all of our social obligations like Mah Jongg games, dinners out, and WDW plans.  Evey and Eric are supposed to fly in on Tuesday the 12th for four nights and lots of plans.  We were going to join them for most of the plans.  At this point, we are now out of their plans, but she has not cancelled.  She plans to wait until Friday to see and make a decision.  Friday was too late for us to change Amtrak since that was the day we were scheduled on the train.  I feel that we have let a lot of people down, including Evey and Eric, but we just felt that we needed to err on the side of safety.  Now we can only pray that all of our friends and neighbors in Irma's path have their hurricane supplies laid in and come through it safely.  Who knows what the hurricane will really bring.  It's very frightening.

 Meanwhile, it is also weigh-in Wednesday. Finally, it was good.  I am officially down 1 and 1/2 pounds for the week, and I'm thrilled.  It's been so hard to lose any weight lately, so this was very nice.  I was 275.2 this morning, down from 277 yesterday morning and 276.7 last Wednesday.  I hope it continues!

Also this morning I got a fasting blood sugar of 129, which could mean that I am officially a diabetic IF I get a reading that high again.  Two in a row gives the official diagnosis, and 126 was the cut-off number.  I passed that today.  I have had slightly high sugars every time that I have tested, both fasting and after meals.  Nothing good. I'm very unhappy about this.  Type II diabetics who are overweight can usually undo all of the problems just by losing weight, so clearly that is the first line of defense.  I can only say that I am trying to do that.

My excessive thirst and consequently frequent urination has continued, and the blood sugar numbers do not seem to be high enough to justify how bad the thirst and excessive urination has become.  So I googled other possibilities for that.  There are dozens!  Two seem likely if it's not just Type II diabetes, but I'm not getting alarmed about either one yet.  I am planning on calling my doctor today to schedule an appointment to discuss this when I get back after the hurricane.  There really isn't anything else I can do at this point.

It's Labor Day! It's Evey and Eric's sixth anniversary!

I have not posted since Friday.  That usually means I've been busy and having a great time.  This is no exception.

Saturday we went to Mishkan Torah because Rabbi Saul is there now!  It was exciting, wonderful, and even comforting to hear Saul's voice davening the morning service.  We really enjoyed the entire service and the chance to visit with old friends.  After service, Rabbi Saul led a Torah discussion.  Mark stayed the whole time, but I could only stay twenty minutes because I was scheduled to play Mah Jongg at Annie H.'s house at 1 p.m.

I went to Annie's house, where there were seven of us playing.  I was the ONLY one who did not win a single game.  Ouch!  I predicted that, though, because I had won six games on Monday.  Robin, who had been having a long dry spell, broke that spell by winning FIVE games in a ROW!  She won a few after that, too, I think.  Anyway, the point was to have fun and be with friends, and I certainly did do that.

I also over ate like crazy!  Arlene had made a special cinnamon challah loaf that I had specifically requested. I literally, and I mean that LITERALLY, ate three-quarters of the entire loaf by myself.  Unbelievably delicious.  I ate a scoop of whitefish salad, a little bean dip, and a little hummus, along with one slice of regular challah, and a cookie.  If I had not eaten so much cinnamon challah, the lunch would not have been too bad!  LOL!

We left Annie's at 4 and headed back to Cindy's for a brief respite before heading to Lowell's in-laws, Phil and Pat.  Surprise!  They had brought their two dogs, Trillian and Ozma.  They were adorable, and we had never seen them running like crazy through a big open yard, so that was a lot of fun.  Phil grilled salmon and there were baked potatoes, salad, bread, and my asparagus.  Emily and Lowell had brought a giant fruit tart for dessert that was spectacular.  This was our first time at their house, and it was warm, cozy, inviting, and loving.  We had a blast.

Of course, Sunday was the main event, the reason we are here, the wedding of Ilan Oresky and Kat Haynos.  They were married in the Willard Hotel, just two blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.  It was really beautiful, and since Saul and Phyllis were only allowed to invite 30 people, we felt especially honored to be included in that group.

Today I weighed 277, which I think is okay after the weekend.  I also have not tested my blood for two days, but my last test was normal and I have not been experiencing the intense thirst.  I have now  bought my own blood sugar monitor, and today I plan to set it up so that I can test whenever I want without bothering Mark.  Also later today Cindy will join us to go to a movie at the local theater.  We plan to see The Hitman's Bodyguard.

And before I forget, Happy Anniversary to Mr. and Mrs. Eric Gaertner.  Today is their SIXTH anniversary.  Time really does fly.  Also, they have actually been together as a couple for 12 years.  Amazing.  Wishing them many more decades of happiness.

Here are a few pictures from dinner Saturday night, the wedding, and Evey and Eric.

Lowell and his dog Ozma.

Cindy took this one at her house before we left for the wedding.

Kat and Ilan

Xenia and Joel Oresky

Louis Rosen and girlfriend Brook.

Jeremiah Oresky, cousin of the groom, with Mark.

Good friends, Jeff and Mark.

The first dance as a married couple.

Rabbi Saul did kiddish and ha-motzi and gave a lovely speech to the bride and groom.

Father and daughter dance.

Mother and son dance

And Happy Anniversary to Evey and Eric.

Pictures from a trip to WDW back in 2013.