Project Bubbah!!!...בּוּבָּה

Bubbah was the way we called our grandmother Etko when we were growing up. All of those years of calling her that and we never knew that we were saying the wrong word. My first cousins used to call her Bobe so why did our parents tell us to call her Bubbah Etko instead of Bobe I will never know, they are both Angels as is Bobe Etko. When I lived in Israel is when I found out what the real meaning of the word Bubbah is in Hebrew.

Hebrew and Yiddish are two completely different languages, not all Jewish people speak both, I don't know the history of it because it's not really that important to me but I've read here and there that Yiddish was used by Azquenazi Jews in some parts of Europe whereas Hebrew was used more in places like Italy and Spain by Sephardic Jews, maybe I'm wrong but I do notice knowing a little bit of both, more Hebrew for me, that they do have some similarities in a few words, I wasn't raised in a Jewish parroquial school like my cousins were and where they teach you Hebrew as a second language, I was raised in a bilingual English/Spanish school and Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents who spoke only Yiddish, so Bubbah supposedly was the Yiddish version of Bobe,  so if my grandma Etko who came from Poland and didn't speak Spanish very well said that, I certainly believed her.

The real meaning of the word bubbah in Hebrew is doll, now what that has to do with grandma I don't know, but what I do know is what my intuition is telling me.

I think that word was placed by my own intention when I entered this realm because I've been entertaining this idea for a few years now and I think I'm just going to express my idea to the Universe to make it Manifest once and for all.

I'm very partial to older people for many reasons, because I wasn't there when my Bubbah Etko passed away nor was I sitting right next to my own mother Bobe Sarah holding here hand and telling her how much I was going to miss her, because I couldn't take care of them and I don't know if I told them enough how much I loved them and how grateful I am to have been a part of their Life Adventure. Because most people focus on youth, the new generations, the future of the world and those who are on their way out sometimes get neglected and left alone to die a slow and lonely death.

Even if you're lucky enough to get to an old age where your children go visit you at a Home for the Aged every weekend and the place is all fancy and you have a nurse next to your bed all day, you are basically a prisoner there till the day you die and what I want more than anything in this world is create a Campaign to help ease some of the pain that comes with just sitting there waiting to die and each day that passes is the same. I want to bring them some comfort and joy.

Even if you have activities in the Retirement Home and food is good and you don't have to cook it it's still the same life every day. I am such a free spirit that I could never wind up in a place like that, I just want to live as long as I am still able to enjoy that freedom and can take care of myself. 

I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, not even a social worker but I would challenge all of those communities to do a test on this Project I call Project Bubbah!

It's a very simple project. My desire is to get sponsors, I would like to create a Bubbah! - Doll that we can donate to all of the Residents that live in Retirement homes. Every one of them would receive a doll that they will personally name. There will be a small ceremony for each Adoption and a Birth certificate with the name of the Adoptive Parent and the name of the Bubbah! The certificate will be framed and hung in their room with a picture of themselves with their Bubbah. 

If you cried like I did in the scene where Tom Hanks realizes that he has just lost Wilson, his Best Friend, his Only Friend and Companion for four lonely years and he starts apologizing to him as he sees him drifting away in a desperate attempt to rescue him, you know how powerful it can be to have something, even an inanimate object that you grant the power to take your loneliness away.

So today I declare my Intention to the Universe, I bow to do whatever it takes to create this project and see it through to completion.

No matter how much I've done so far for this project that lives right in the center of my heart and is an important component of my "Bucket List, I declare today Project Bubbah Launching Day!!!...בּוּבָּה 

And let the Games Begin... Do I hear a Hurray out there?

Hugs xoxo

@nit@

I Have a Dream TOO!!!

My Dream is to bring happiness to as many people as I can. I want to see what makes people happy and help them reach that.

In my work I feel like the "Latino Ellen", I go around the schools and medical clinics getting in my car from one to the other, spending sometimes hours with a student's mom or a patient so I can translate and they can understand what is happening around them. It's scary not to know when you're at the doctor what they are going to do to you and why, or what is wrong with you. You can't even express what you feel. I love my job, I believe I'm doing a lot of good and earning a living with dignity, but I'm just one woman going around all these places to help one person at a time and I can't even buy a house or help my daughter pay her student loans!!!

I want to help MANY!!! That's the beginning of my Dream but it doesn't stop there...

My Dream is that Ellen will read this and decide that I sound like the real deal, like I could be her PERFECT Latino/Senior Citizen Correspondent. That she hires me to work for her out of anywhere she wants me to be, I'll move there trust me. That she believes I can be awesome at finding ways of bringing a lot of happiness to different groups of people I believe can use it the most.

For one I want to go to as many Retirement Homes as I can and get a toy company to donate dolls for this cause. I want to bring elder people a doll for adoption. We will give her/him a name, make a little ceremony and have that be this old person's companion for the rest of their lives. I believe this is a very powerful way to feel as if you're not alone. Just look at the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away and tell me if you didn't cry when Wilson got pulled away by the Ocean.  And he was just a torn up ball.

The other thing I want to do is change the way that older people remain secluded from the rest of the world without any young life around, without any animals around. I believe some of the nursing homes would welcome pets. A few dogs and cats would be the world's best medicine for the elder. There are therapy dogs that we can train to help soothe them and give them company and all the dogs would be rescued from shelters and very loved by so many.

My dad recently passed away and I was not able to see him again, my brother had to bury him alone. My heart shivers when I think of him in this lovely Retirement Center all alone surrounded by strangers just waiting to die for years.

I also believe there could be a combination of Retirement Communities that include a daycare inside. The elders that are able and willing can meet with the parents of these children and see if they can be mentors somehow. Include them as a part of their daily program.

A lot of older people that live in nursing homes have many talents they would still love to use even teach like playing an instrument or playing board games, sewing, knitting, doing crafts. A combination of the right person matched with the right child could work for both and the parents are gifting their child with the love of an older person who still has so much of it to give.

The children are the ones that get the most attention and that's to be understood, but older people don't stop wanting, needing, dreaming, wishing when we get old and our bodies don't want to do what our minds and our hearts still want. And usually there's never anyone around who wants to help an older adult.

And my dream continues with my beloved Latino Community. Although I was raised by all European Jews I was born and lived in Mexico for the first 26 yrs. of my life so  I became part of the culture that surrounded me. I love the traditions adore the food and many of the wonderful artistic creative traits that we get exposed to and raised with.

I have lived in the United States since 1979, I feel proud to have both be a part of my makeup and I want to share the wisdom I've acquired in my journey with the Latino community. There are things I have witnessed in all my years here that I believe could be tweaked in order for the portion of the Latino Community who is struggling to have more success.

So that's my Dream Ellen, I wanna be the Jewish Bobe giving guidance and gifts and hugs as well as represent the Latino Community through the eyes of a grateful foreigner who grew up there and was always welcomed with open arms.

So give me a call Ellen or send me an e-mail at youneedanita@gmail.com.

I'll be ANXIOUSLY waiting!

I Have a Dream TOO!!!

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

It's All in a Day...

We may all think that it's about this history we are writing about our lives, we hold on to the past as if that was going to determine what today will bring and we reach to the future as if that is supposed to give any meaning to today, yes this today, right here and right now but it isn't about the history or the adventure, drama, comedy, terror, love, hate, poverty, wealth, knowledge, ignorance, it's not about any of that its just all in a day, whatever today brings that's what it is about because we don't have anything else, this may be it or this may be the beginning of a "Magical Mystery Ride".

If I were to go back and use then what I know now to make a decision all over again I think I would have been afraid to take some of the risks that I took that brought to my reality so many repressed and unfulfilled dreams to come true that even with the risks I took I would have never wanted to miss. I visited places and did things that were not even in my wildest dreams.

It's those experiences that have allowed me to continue to be a risk taker, a wild dreamer, a dream chaser. I Dare to Dream was the name I adopted more than 10 years ago. I even had a collection of license plates that I personalized for years that said idaretodream because that describes me to perfection. Well that and "Parallel Parked in a Perpendicular World" that too, but that's too long for a license plate so instead I used it for the Title of my Blog ;)

It took me years to understand the concept of Here and Now, not that I'm a moron, I know what it means but I didn't know quite how to apply it to my life I only knew how to worry and be in fear, that was familiar to me, but to release fear that was a whole different story. No matter how many books I would read they were all too technical for me, so to understand it I decided to write about it myself the way I perceived it and little by little it began to make sense to the point where I can't think the way I did for most of my life. I have tested myself with real challenges and I just can't seem to go back to the way I used to feel when something challenging comes my way.

I finally get that when you believe it you will see it instead of the other way around as we were told growing up, looking back at my life it was always that way but I never knew it was I who was being the creator of my own reality. When you understand that you stop living in pain or being a victim of a reality you are creating.

It's All in a Day... Go take it on!

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

Everywhere I look, I find LOVE...

Would you believe I took this photograph off my patio floor?
My cute little 'Wish Granters' (is there such a word?) jajaja
All I know is that LOVE IS EVERYWHERE, you just have to be ready and able to give it!

My love to everyone out there.

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

Life on Broadway

‎'LIFE ON BROADWAY" With this posting I started my Blog back on December 2007, I created this blog just to express to myself the way I was feeling and to be the witness to my own life adventure, since all of a sudden I found myself playing totally different roles to those I had played my whole life...

 A lot has changed since and I'm so glad I've been keeping track =) 

Hugs xoxo 
Anita

December 17, 2007

"Life on Broadway"

I’m 22 years old and I’m about to start playing my first “Adult” role, in a way I’ve been preparing for this role my whole life, so when the Rabbi said “I now pronounce you husband and wife” I know I’m ready for the part.

We live in a small studio apartment where we can barely store the few things that we have, we save the change because sometimes we don’t have enough money to take the bus to work, but we make every day an adventure, because we know that the role we are playing is just preparing us for bigger and better ones.

We have places to go, people to meet along the way and a lot to learn, and we try to stay true and focused and in total alignment with our dreams.

The years go by and as we begin to feel comfortable with the roles we’ve been playing, we audition for more challenging parts and hope that we can play them just as well and enjoy them just as much, and all of a sudden we find ourselves winning awards, buying our dream home, taking the trips, buying the clothes for each one of the parts we are playing, raising the kids, running the businesses, and we forget about the small studio apartment and the bowl of change, it feels good to have more, it begins to take precedent over the dream, so since it feels so good, what about having more, I’m sure it will feel better, and we begin to forget where we came from, how far we’ve come, and most of all, we forget to be grateful for what we have, instead we are never content because we always want more, and one day I turn 52 and it was all gone. Don’t ask me where it all went, all I knew is that it was no longer mine, none of it, well maybe a few photo albums and knick knacks that tell the story of my life.

Now I’m 55, back in a lovely 3 story townhouse, I call it my fancy Hotel Suite, not ready to unpack here and get all comfortable because it’s just a brief moment of my life. I have a new career that I like. My children just completed High School; my daughter will be going to a great University and my son and I will soon pack and continue our journey.

What happens to us when we find ourselves in situations like this is that we simply forget how to play the roles. We already played them at least once, if not many more times, and not because I’m 55 does it mean I can’t play the role anymore, we can play ANY role we want, and we must, if we want to see ourselves playing every role we want before we die and fulfilling every dream. So here is the formula that works for me.For the fulfillment of all your dreams all you have to do is remember that
“The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing, The Main Thing!”~Anita~
Do you know what “The Main Thing” is for you? I do! 
Directions:

If you think of life as a 'Broadway Play', you can clearly see how perfectly it is all orchestrated.

We spend our lives either auditioning for a part, or rehearsing a part, or playing the part. And hopefully as we get older, we pick the parts that we would like to play so that night after night, and day after day, when we are up on that stage, we can not only enjoy the role that we are playing, but so that the people who are watching us, enjoy it so much, that we can get standing ovations and derive harmony from this in all aspects of our lives.

So while you get offered the role you want to play, this is what you have to do:

Act the part
Act as if you are already there
Act proud
Act wealthy
Act happy
Act funny
Act energetic
Act generous
Act honest
Act spiritual
But most of all act grateful

And then by Miracle, the part will come, and you’ll already be an expert at how to enjoy this game of life, because of how well you rehearsed and acted even before you were offered to “Play the Part.”

So like they say “Fake it till you Make It!” and don’t ever look back, you might be missing something that’s right in front of you. 

What part should I audition for now?.... 
@nit@