Iris Ruth Pastor

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My Terror Meter Is Vibrating Like Crazy

March 11, 2022March 11, 2022 Iris Ruth Pastor

My sister and her husband just spent a week with my husband and me at our home. They left yesterday morning.  Due to her “influence,” my closet is fuller with more stuff that I have few occasions to wear.My checking account balance is lower due to buying more stuff I have few occasions to wear.And Continue reading

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What Happens When the Neighbourhood “Changes“?

June 4, 2021June 4, 2021 Iris Ruth Pastor

What does the CEO of the Chobani Yogurt Empire, the brilliant inventor and physicist Albert Einstein, the founder of Google, the creator of blue jeans, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the first woman Secretary of State have in common?They were all immigrants. Fast forward to 2021. While in New Jersey a few weeks ago, I had a chance Continue reading

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What’s Guaranteed to Raise Your Spirits?

December 4, 2020December 29, 2020 Iris Ruth Pastor

What’s Guaranteed to Raise Your Spirits? I’ll give you a few hints. It’s available, cheap, accessible and effective. It’s HUMOR. Take the following joke as an example: My wife and I were sitting at a table at her high school reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his drink as he sat alone at a Continue reading

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Barring the Belly Button at Midlife and Beyond?

November 13, 2020December 29, 2020 Iris Ruth Pastor

Now that the election is over – though by some, the results are still being contested – maybe we can return to the more “important” things in life to consider, such as whether to bar or not bar our belly buttons at midlife and beyond. This is an important question – surfacing at least once Continue reading

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Inching Towards 70

June 18, 2019August 30, 2019 Iris Ruth Pastor

The column below is the one referred to in my last newsletter to you. It was requested by a publisher in New Zealand. I think it’s worth a re-run. And, by the way, you’ll now be getting my weekly newsletter on Tuesday’s, not Fridays. With traveling so much over the coming months, a Tuesday deadline was easier Continue reading

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Taming the Hunger Monster

April 27, 2019June 14, 2019 Iris Ruth Pastor

Like probably a gillion other people – in anticipation of indulging in huge holiday meals – I went into the Passover/Easter holidays weighing a tad bit less than usual and feeling a tad bit prouder of myself too. Looser jeans. More prominent cheekbones. More clothes in my closet I could actually wear in public. The Continue reading

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The End is Near

February 22, 2019February 27, 2019 Iris Ruth Pastor

          Even as a little baby, my son Harry was always looking out beyond his confines. He didn’t think out-of-the-box. For him, there was no box His television ad touting his qualifications to be Mayor of Tampa emphasizes he “has plans, not just slogans.” What the ad doesn’t say is that though Continue reading

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Doing Death Right

February 15, 2019February 27, 2019 Iris Ruth Pastor

I’m not proud to say that I found the year leading up to my mother’s death very grueling, aggravating, and stressful – not to mention agonizing – as I am sure she did too. The details of my personal journey with my mom as she faced her own demise are irrelevant. Everyone who has buried Continue reading

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I’m Taking a Break

July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 Iris Ruth Pastor

Well I had such a darn good time on my “Running Away from Home” trip that I decided to “run away” again. With my husband this time. The first stop is a tough one. We’ll be spending July in Cincinnati, Ohio – our hometown – for the first time without my mom there – and Continue reading

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Looking Fabulous at Any Age

June 29, 2018July 6, 2018 Iris Ruth Pastor

I went to see a very well-respected plastic surgeon over the winter because I, like the late Nora Ephron, “felt bad about my neck.” He told me that for $13,000 not only could he make my neck look like I was ten to fifteen years younger, but my whole face – from the skin under Continue reading

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Incidentally, Iris

For the past ten years, Iris’s “Incidentally Iris” column has appeared in The American Israelite, a weekly newspaper for Cincinnati’s Jewish community and the American Jewish community. Founded as The Israelite on July 15,1854, by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the paper today is the oldest English-Jewish weekly in America and the second oldest in the world. (The London Jewish Chronicle was founded in 1841.) Read Incidentally, Iris columns on The American Israelite