From one avid reader, a social worker:
A tip to help children become accustomed to chewing and
eating solids, which is also recommended for brain- damaged
children with this problem:
Tuck the food -- preferably chunky but soft food rather than
mashed -- into the child's cheek. The tongue is better able
to handle food from the side of the mouth.
And a series of tips adapted from BAYIT NE'EMAN:
* Suffering from cooking odors in the house (as from cabbage
etc.) -- and you don't want to add baking soda which tends to
destroy the vitamins?
In a small pot, boil up some sugar, water and cinnamon, and
the house will smell scrumptious. This can be poured over
yeast cake or other cakes as a glaze. Or into some tea.
For odors in the refrigerator -- and this worked for a fridge
that had not been in use for a while -- wet a wad or pad of
cotton, sprinkle generously with vanilla, and leave inside.
Indefinitely.
* Put a small plastic spoon in your containers of: coffee,
sugar, soup mix, salt, cocoa. Makes life easier and more
foolproof.
* End-of-the-year schoolbags can be washed in the machine!
Add some fabric softener for last rinse. Also, wash those
winter jackets now, if you haven't yet!
* Stains on your iron? Put some steel wool on a piece of
material and iron away those stains.
* Do you also get annoyed by the cling-wrap plastic that
clings to itself! Try putting the roll in the freezer.
* The unsliced yellow cheese you bought for pizza has become
hard. Designate a potato peeler for dairy, put on a few drops
of oil and shave off the hard cheese.
* Add some vinegar to the final rinse of a dark wash. Good
for the colors / good for the machine! Also good to add
vinegar to electric kettles, boil up (ratio one- to-five
water) and discard. Once a week/month.
* Your kitchen sink drain is malodorous? Pour a few teaspoons
baking soda, add half a cup of vinegar. Let bubble up a few
minutes, then rinse down.
* Store up on distilled water for your iron for the coming
year. Collect the water that drains from air conditioners
into bottles. It is pure.
* After you've cleaned your bathroom/kitchen tiles, smear
with floor wax to repel future dirt and water stains.
And a poem, for good measure, also a tip
Watch Your Step! or What's the Rush?
by A. Reader
(You know where you want to go. You see how far it is and
register the amount of time it will take to arrive. However,
have you taken all of the factors into account?
Remember: your head won't get there if your feet get
stuck!)
While navigating alleyways and narrow ancient streets,
Beware of jutting stones and cracking pavement 'neath your
feet.
The public works department has no need for being neat.
They rumple up the smoothest paths and don't admit defeat.
They'll come, create a parking space and cut the walk in
two.
There's no more space for buggies or the hopscotch children
drew.
The poles which held the street signs have been sawed off at
the base.
Except one inch which causes us to slow our harried pace.
Why should uneven asphalt lumps escape the naked eye?
You might just stub your toe on every bump while passing
by!
So that's why folk are always wending slowly down the
block!
You thought they needed time to think? They're just afraid to
walk!
I'd hate to tell how many times I've nearly fallen flat!
But which of us, consistently, with lightning speed
reacts?
And thus, I have decided to restrain my speeding gait.
I'll have to set out early if I don't like coming late.
Acquaintances have told me, "It's not safe to run so fast.
Let how you tread reflect the years accrued and pounds
amassed."
A striding gesture coupled with a swift and stronger flow,
Displays a sense of arrogance wherever we may go.
Besides a ritardando might just lend a sense of calm,
A bearing of nobility would do more good than harm.
So let's outwit the obstacles which lie in wait to trip.
Let's have no bruise, no twisted joint, scraped knee or
fractured hip!
Most elders slow their footsteps in an unfamiliar place,
The sage advice? Let's not rush in! Let's age with studied
grace!
And finally, another miscellaneous piece
The Egg Man Cometh
by S.W.
He's a short, very nondescript man, at whom one would not
even give a second glance, were it not for the huge pile of
cardboard egg trays he carries with him, tied up with a
string, almost his own height. (In Israel, eggs are sold in
trays of thirty eggs, six rows by five rows.)
Israel has passed a law this year requiring a 25 agora
deposit on disposable cans and bottles. Even in a depressed
economy, few people take advantage of the offer to actually
return these for the refund. As for the cardboard egg trays,
they are not even marketable! But our egg man -- and he
doesn't even sell eggs, only collects the cardboard -- has
found a unique outlet for them.
Apparently, if there are enough of them, they have their
price, and this man has made it worth his while to scour all
of Jerusalem's chareidi neighborhoods, where his `clients'
save them up for him to pick up.
Then, loaded down with 50-100, you'll see him traveling the
buses with his chest-high, bulky but not heavy bundle, and
you'll wonder. Until the time comes when you need a loan
desperately, and you've covered all the conventional
gemachim which lend out money in dollar denominations,
to be paid back starting the next month.
Mr. Goral has accumulated 160,000 shekel through the resale
of those egg cartons at 20 agorot per tray. (Any math
whizzes?) And this money is available in chunks of 2,500
shekel -- no matter whether the dollar is high or low -- to
be paid back beginning the FOLLOWING year! After you've
recovered from the wedding/bar mitzva or whatever.
The amazing ingenuity that can spawn new chessed. And
the blessed determination of those simple folk who make you
stand in awe and admiration.
Mi k'amcho Yisroel!
An honorable mention is also deserving to three or four
people who have decided to cash in on the disposables. People
won't go to the bother of getting them refunded for the 5
cents worth. But if the money is going to help support some
yeshiva or other worthy cause, they will go out of their way
to bring their bottles to drop- off stations, as they do.
I, personally, can say the same regarding the clothing
centers with which I am involved. People will definitely go
out of their way to bring even their shmattes,
thinking that the recycle man will devour everything and it
is a shame to throw it away. They will travel miles and pay
carfare, even cabfare, to get rid of their rags and hope
these will have some value, commercial or otherwise, for
someone. And so we accept the bad with the good, and there is
plenty of the latter for distribution to an ever growing
appreciative public.
