BLACK FRIDAY & OTHER THANKSGIVING DAY ANOMALIES

Hello my dear friends! I want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving day and the early date (on the Julian calendar) for Channukah this year of 5774.

I first would like to thank you for your continuing support and understanding throughout this past year. It has really been an up and down year for me with the positive news of publishing my first book and the more negative times of deep depressions and writer's block. Altogether, the year has been a great one with the birth of two great-grandchildren that are both doing very well and also receiving my first royalty check for the book. I have been blessed with the outline and first five chapters of my new book, THE GOD GAMES: Satan's Challenge. This book will focus on the history of Satan challenging God (ONE) for the right to rule Heaven and is about a second challenge to ONE, and His power, that stakes Satan against Thomas (Tom) Boyle (one of the energynauts from Legend of Kor) in a to-the-death struggle with the winner (if it is Satan)  taking control of Heaven and the Throne of ONE. There is time travel, teleportation, and shape-shifting  involved as the two combatants visit Vlad the Impaler, the Black Death, and other desperate times on Earth and in the Cosmos.

I particularly want to thank the Holy One for preserving William's life this year and for bringing him to a good state of health; a time of normality for both William, his Uncle David, myself, and the rest of the family. I also thank Him for giving me a return to good health and the ability to walk for a mile or two and take the bus to and from doctor's appointments, all things it has been 3 years since I was able to do.

Recovering health has been due to a dramatic change in my diet. I began eating the Paleo lifestyle (a back-to-basics plan that removes grains, dairy (except for butter), all sugars and sweeteners, and all processed food from my diet and replaces it with a diet that is composed of eating only meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, olive oil, and nuts. my blood sugars have dropped as has the amount of insulin I need to keep my blood sugars level. My high blood pressure and diabetic neuropathy pain have decreased and my stamina and energy has improved by 100%. Now I need to improve my exercise routine during this coming year and the weight will come off much faster.

I have found a new outlet for my writing skills with Zerys.com, a company that hires writers for freelance writing assignments on subjects with which they have some personal experience. It is my hope that I can gain some income to do marketing for my books and to support the writing process, i.e. adequate food and office supplies. It looks very promising and I recommend this company if you are a writer and need to make some money using the internet. There are so many gimmics and false leads for trying to make money on-line that I will keep you updated on this new prospect. When I have actually received a PayPal check for my writing then I will let you know for sure that this is a valid route.

Across America, on Thursday, we celebrate a special time to eat a huge meal and give thanks for all of the blessings that have been happening in our lives and the lives of all of those that we love. The traditional food includes a Turkey with stuffing, cranberries, potatoes, vegetables, salads, and a raft of luscious desserts beginning with Pumpkin pie and other pies and cakes and cookies. It is the one day that most Americans can eat a well-rounded meal. Social organizations such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross provide food for millions, and most people donate food and personal items to help out those less fortunate. It is a quiet family day that is rudely destroyed in the evening by most retail stores holding what they call a Black Friday which begins in some stores on Thanksgiving evening and in others about 5:00 a.m., or even earlier, on Friday morning. The stores discount many items by 60% or more and there is such a crowd that gathers for the first moment of opening that there is always someone, or many, who are crushed by the mobs as they all try to push through the door at the same moment. I have never been to a Black Friday because it sounds too scary for me, but I must admit that the bargains are awesome. Black Friday signals the beginning of the Christmas rush for buying gifts and services and for a lot of people it signals the time to break out the old Christmas tree and begin to decorate the house and yard for Christmas. I am an early bird for decorating and put up my Christmas decorations last week so that the grandchildren can enjoy it on Thanksgiving day.

Happy Thanksgiving, and if you are Jewish, Happy Channukah (which begins tomorrow evening at sundown)! I am going to be baking and cooking tomorrow so this will probably be my last blog until Friday morning when I will let you know how everything turns out for our family. I hope Thursday will be special for each one of you and that you will have family and friends to share the day with. God bless each one of you and your family and friends.

ADDRESSING THE 70s

Hello again my dear friends. I have been struggling with skin cancer, two surgeries, and a profound writer's block this month. I am so sorry for dropping the ball. I have been thinking of you during this time and felt as though I had nothing more to add, but at the same time kicking myself because I could not think of anything worthy of your time to write about. Since you are here today I want to apologize for my lapse into self-centeredness and begin all over anew.

To catch you up with life, all three of my daughter, Debby's, children have found the loves of their lives during this last two months. I think it is the very first time that I have seen my granddaughter, Laura's, face lit up with joy. Sheera seems so positive and happy, and James has found a lady who makes him truly ecstatic. I begin to see that Debby's life is also in a period of great change as she has filed for Disability and is getting good treatment for her Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia.

William's health continues to improve; he is growing up so fast and soon will be totally off of the cortizone and the anti-immunity medication.

The e-book, THE GOD GAMES: Legend of Kor, has not been moving too well lately, but it is going on sale at Amazon.com on November 25, 2013 and will be on sale for $ .99 (a 67% discount); until November 28th when it will be on sale for $1.99 (a 34% discount); and will remain on sale at this price until December 1st, 2013. The print copy of the book is also on sale at Amazon.com at a much-reduced price for the Holiday Season.

Currently, I am working on two books. The second book in the trilogy, THE GOD GAMES: Satan's Challenge is in the rough draft stage and consumes most of my time, and the third book in the trilogy, THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell, is in rough-draft form, has been edited, and is now in the revision and re-write stages. At the beginning of this process Heaven & Hell was to be the first book published, but at the advisement of my editor it is to be the last book of the trilogy.

I am contemplating my approaching 70th birthday in July. What a profound place in life. You have had many experiences and adventures: love and pain; new births and the death of so many family members and friends; I have acted with honor quite often, but I have also been extremely negative and often destructive to myself and others. What a mixed bag my life has been and I contemplate living to be 100 years old, or more. I finally have an answer to my diet problems and am living the paleo lifestyle which has caused my blood pressure to improve and bringing my AC1 (a measurement of your average blood glucose levels over a several-month span) down to 6.3 which is getting very close to normal levels. I believe that 5.0 is non-diabetic so that is my goal.

I still have not conquered my horrible habit of judging too quickly, but now when I make those snap-judgments I am aware of making them and so I stop myself and re-think my first impressions. I realize that the person I am judging may just turn out to become my best friend forever so I force myself to slow down and throw out first impressions and replace them with all of the good points that I see in the person. Usually the people I judge the harshest turn out to be absolutely excellent human beings, whereas the person I judge quickly to be of excellent quality turns out to be a really negative person under pressure. I have a hard time with gullibility and naivete and still spend too much time chasing rainbows that evaporate upon closer inspection.

This next six months I will be examining my life and sharing with you some of my thought processes as I continue to age and experience the positive and the negative that life can throw at you. One of the positive things happening in my heart is that I have come to a new appreciation of my adopted mom and all that she taught and instilled in me over the years. I realize that although the past had some really hard moments in it that I have been blessed to have learned about life at her knee for it is those hard-won lessons that have enabled me to reach 70 years of age and still have a positive view of life.

I will be back tomorrow and begin talking about the Holiday plans this year and also William is fast approaching his bar mitzvah and we will be planning what we will be teaching him so that he is aware of his responsibilities to God and can take his role as a man in Israel. Have a great day and know that you are very appreciated in my life and I am very thankful that you continue to return to this blog.                                                                                                                                                                                                   

PASSION OF THE PUERTO RICAN SOUL

No, I am not suddenly Puerto Rican but I would be honored to be able to say that I was.

My love affair with the Puerto Rican people started in 2005 when I came to live in New Jersey and met my new son-in-law who is Puerto Rican. But meeting Alex did not end there, he came with a wonderful family attached to him and as the years have passed they have become my family, my people, my heart. My son, David, and Alex broke up a couple of years ago, but our relationship is still as close as ever to him and to "our" family.

The holidays, the parties, the barbecues, the football games, the family from Grandma Isabel to the grand and great-grand children who run and play under such loving, protective love that they are truly free and chase each other and play video games...and sit near to the elders, or in their arms, and listen to the stories of family, friends, and great ideas and ideals.

I cherish the members of this family who have gone out of their way to honor and respect me and gave me the greatest gift of all...to be a member of their family. From my beloved sister, Marie, to my dear brother, Steve-who has been such a support and helped me to complete many ideas that are in my book-each member of the family has welcomed me in their own loving way and I would count myself lost if I could not spend some time with them. They allow me to soak up the love which permeates this family and then I go home and write like mad because they have inspired me to write about love and loyalty.

Am I saying that they do not have problems, challenges, or anger issues? No. They have the same rate of problems as any of us do, it is just that the strong web of family is like a trapeze-artist's safety-net beneath them, and leaves them free to fly as far as they can go and know that they will be supported every step along the way.  A very rich family are they; in love and loyalty.

Into this wonderful mixture that is my family, came baby Malachi, my great-grandson. Malachi's mother is from Puerto Rico and she has the same wonderful loving family structure as Alex's family. They opened up their arms to us and brought us into the family and now I have another sister, in Lula's (Malachi's mother's) mother and I am rejoicing that now I have a blood connection to Puerto Rico.

From my viewpoint, the great passion of the Puerto Rican soul is Family. Each Family member is deeply loved and their relationships are cherished and watered well. This is reflected in the music of Puerto Rico and the rhythms that inflame your very being. The second greatest passion is FOOD, and it is running neck to neck with Family. The food is to die for and is unique to the Island. Great bowls and trays of food are constantly refilled and every guest is treated with honor and respect. Lula and her mother prepared a feast to celebrate her upcoming baby and our first visit to their home. There were so many dishes of food, each one better than the last, and we stuffed ourselves and enjoyed every moment of it.

Thank you Puerto Rico for your people who have made us family, addicted us to their cuisine, and love us unconditionally. We love you!

GOG, THE SCOURGE OF ALL BEINGS NOT GREEN

GOG, is the ego-maniacal dictator of the land of Selve, a country (one of four) in the land of Kor. He believes that the green Selves are superior beings; with a higher intellect and superior strength than the citizens of Wale, Voun, and Emon. He has written a treatise that calls for the total extermination of the abhored orange Wales and his troops infiltrate the land of Wale to kill any Wale they happen across or to transport the Wales that they capture to a horrific concentration camp where they are forced to labor and at any sign of weakness they are killed and their bodies stacked like wood to extreme heights. To take care of all of these bodies, Gog orders his men to build two crematoriums to take care of all of the remains.

The lavender Vouns and the blue Emons are also hated, or rather, disregarded, and Gog's plans are to enslave all of these people and put them to work as personal slaves, or to do the labor in his gold and silver mines. He sends his troops into Voun and Emon to capture slaves and also to rape, pillage, and destroy their villages. The slaves are chained together and marched hundreds of miles to a Labor Camp several miles away from the death camp of the Wales. There, they are worked without break, and if they weaken they are shot on the spot and buried in deep pits.

Everyone on Kor, who is not a Selve, is terrified for their own lives and for the lives of their children, family, and friends. Since they are all peace loving and content to remain in their own countries and raise their families, they have never developed an army that could defend them, and even though the Wales have developed a small Army they do not have enough weaponry to protect their own lives, let alone to be able to reach out to their neighbors and help them.

Gog gloats over all of the death and destruction and seeks to make the conditions in the camps even more horrific. He addresses the people of Selve in large outdoor gatherings and stokes the flame of their rage against the Wales and the other inhabitants of Kor. He has a deep, well-modulated voice and a great stage presence and his goal during these rallies is to turn all Selves into hate machines that love only him and his message and to whip up the populace into wanting to rid Kor of all of the hated Wales. He promises that all Selves will receive a large plot of Walean land and property for their efforts, and he leads the people in the rant, "Whale the Wales! Whale the Wales!! Whale the Wales!!!" and the Selves scream back, "Gog! Gog! Gog!" until the stadium is rocked by the rage that has been built up in the people.

Gog, personally, is a very large man, and he has very great dreams and aims of being the sole ruler of Kor and all of her remaining people. We watch as his thought patterns become more and more radical and he becomes consumed by his hatred of the Wales. Gog hates the Wales because one of them had raped and murdered his first, adored, wife and he is in constant sorrow over his loss. He also hates the Wales and their hideous orange color because he is hiding a secret that one of his great-grandmothers was a Wale who had married his great-grandfather, a Selve. This happened at a time when there had been no inter-marriage among the four groups of Korians and he suffered the teasing and bullying of his classmates for having two such ignorant and crazy relatives. He vowed as a young child to become so powerful that he could bring death to anyone with the coloring of orange.

The one thing that Gog really loves is his beloved bathroom. This room has golden faucets and knobs, and can use both salt water and regular water as he chooses. His huge tub has a switch that can turn the bath into a large bubbling massage therapy pool. He spends a great deal of time in this tub pondering what his next move would be. His second favorite possession is a large swimming pool from which he directs his troops and contemplates his goals and ambitions. This pool also has the choice of salt or regular water and Gog prefers the salt water as it makes him very light and agile in the water.

To say more about Gog would reveal the plot lines in the book, but he is certainly the most evil and hated Korian and his subjects obey him out of a fear for their lives and also their own predilection for murder, rape, and pillaging which they consider to be the gravy, the best reward, that Gog allows them.

All of this genocide is noted by ONE and He sends His energynauts to sort out all of the problems and aid the three maligned groups in turning the tables on Gog.

THE GOD GAMES: Legend of Kor, is a book that studies man's inhumanity to man, and how just a few leaders demonstrate how to stop the carnage with courage, passion, and a love of ONE. The book keeps you on the edge of your seat and may give you a few gray hairs before the conclusion of the book.

Thank you for your patience and encouragement. The book was written with you in mind and will give you experiences that you will never forget.

                                                                ~~~~~~~~~~

You can find THE GOD GAMES: Legend of Kor, by D.R. Hirsch at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble (stores or .com), or on its website at: www.outskirtspress.com/thegodgames. It is in soft cover print form, as well as in e-book format. Thank you for your support and understanding, I hope that you will really live-in and enjoy the book.