Iris Ruth Pastor's Blog, page 30

Straws, plastic bags and bone broth!

Our small acts matter – they may not make the cover of a magazine or have a world-wide ripple effect but all of us performing positive actions adds up.

Here are some recent, if not unsurprising, headlines:

Coronavirus fears spark ‘panic buying’ of toilet paper, water, hand sanitizer​

Coronavirus live updates: New cases in South Korea surge 

FEMA preparing for possible coronavirus emergency declaration

In a world where we control so little, here’s how I exerted some control in just one week with teeny, tiny mouse steps.

STRAWS: Lunching with friends, we order the house specialty: oversized Margaritas. Each comes with a plastic straw – as did our ice water. One of my companions protests and nicely and politely tells the waitress to please relay our message to the owners: “No More Plastic Straws – treat the universe gently or we won’t be coming back.”

I vow to mimic this lesson.

PLASTIC BAGS: Tired of looking at my huge stash of plastic bags – collected from newspapers and retail shops over the last couple of months – I search for a destination for those bags. My first stop: Walgreens – no dispenser. I drive to Target. No dispensers visible. I ask and am directed to a spot – hidden away near the restrooms.

I drop off my stash and go on my merry way.

BONE BROTH: One of many things we CAN control is what we put in our mouths. Upon the recommendation of my friend Dr. Tanya Goldberg – and emboldened by tasting her delicious homemade bone broth – I decide to make my own. I buy the ingredients, hunt up my slow cooker and begin cutting and simmering. Voila: bone broth.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

3-4 lbs. of beef marrow and knuckle bones

2 lbs. short ribs

½ cup raw apple cider vinegar

4 quarts filtered water

3 celery stalks

3 carrots, halved

3 onions, quartered

A handful of fresh parsley

Sea salt

Directions:

Place bones in a pot or a crockpot, add apple cider vinegar and water and let sit for 1 hour so the vinegar can take the minerals out of the bones.

Add more water if needed to cover the bones.

Add the vegetables, bring to a boil and skim the scum from the top and discard.

Reduce to a low simmer, cover, and cook for 24-72 hours.

During the last ten minutes of cooking, throw in a handful of fresh parsley.

Cool broth. Strain. Make sure all marrow is knocked out of the bones and into the broth.

Add sea salt to taste.

Store in refrigerator up to 5-7 days or in the freezer up to 6 months.

Can also use in soups and stews.

Three things – two that help the environment – one that directly nourishes my family – I accomplished this week.

Positive actions keep us centered and optimistic that what comes our way, we will manage.

How are you changing your actions? Altering your environment? Making this world a better and healthier place to live?

I’d like to know. Because small acts matter.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

Finding Good Things About Cancer

National Cancer Awareness month is February. Hard not to be aware. Who among us has not been touched by cancer – invading our own bodies or those whom we love and adore?

Ever since my father-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer almost 25 years ago, I have been searching my brain trying to come up with some good things you can say about cancer. And, surprisingly, doing that very stressful stretch of time, I did find a few good things to say about cancer.

Having a family member with cancer increases your tolerance for waiting – for it is truly a waiting game. You wait for pathology reports to come back. You wait to see if the chemotherapy works. You wait to see if the patient has a good day, a bad day, a rough or easy day. You wait for signs of improvement or signs of decline. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Having a family member with cancer allows you to see how your spouse views his new responsibilities in regards to his parents. “Helping my parents through this crisis and taking an active part in the decision-making process allows me the privilege of giving back to my parents just a little of what they so generously gave me,” my husband tells me one night.

Having a family member with cancer allows you to see people you love but don’t usually get to spend much time with. Cousins, siblings, friends, children and nieces and nephews travel far distances to spend quality time with my father-in-law.

His take; he is going through treatment. And when the treatment is over, he will be better.

I’m not so complacent or trusting. I find myself doing all kinds of compulsive things to control my anxiety over the outcome.

I clean – anything and everything in sight. Dust encrusted window sills are scrubbed with a vengeance. Beds are pulled out and dust balls are viciously vacuumed into the sweeper. Canisters, knick-knacks, and pictures all get a swipe of my cloth.

I organize. I write down on my calendar every obligation I have in the coming months and feel an inner push to get everything synchronized and in working order. Long neglected eye glasses and rings go in for repair. Couches are professionally cleaned. The repair man is called for the washer and oven. My environment needs to be well oiled and running smoothly.

I cook – but not from a package and not from a box. Mashed potatoes from real potatoes – cole slaw from fat round balls of cabbage – cakes from Swanson cake flour. I set aside time to make bread – to knead the dough over and over again – to be lulled by the repetitive movements into momentary peace.

I create. I re-arrange furniture, re-mat pictures, plan a needlepoint pillow, plot out another flower bed, design a holiday card, go through my closet and innovatively put together outfits in a new way.

And over the years, I mindfully look for more good things to say about cancer. Which was a worthy endeavor – since three months later we buried my father-in-law and decades later, I’d lose my mom to pancreatic cancer too.

And the one lasting lesson I gleaned in retrospect: Live each experience to the fullest.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

Recovering from a Cringe-Worthy Event

Just last week a good buddy and I were discussing our binge-watching habits. His favorite show to binge on is “Expanse” – describing it as a cross between “Game of Thrones” and “Star Wars.”

“Geez,” I texted back, “Not my taste – I’m sticking with ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.’”

He was not surprised. “You remind me of her – your smartass humor and the totally genuine way you tell stories about your own experiences.  You connect to people!!! “

I kinda put our chat on the back burner because the staged reading of the play based on my book The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman was the next night.

How’d it go?

Think back in time to…

the date that bombed

the brilliant paper you wrote that got a C+

the bad wardrobe choice

the tasteless joke you told

The second reading of the play went very similar to both the above and the first staged reading in Los Angeles. The cast was great and the directing effective. But once again, I only could see the flaws in the written script, the missed opportunities for humor, the redundancies and the paralyzing amount of extraneous detail.

I took a risk and got a disappointing outcome.

I think about the marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

She takes chances and emotional gambles

She wants her voice to be heard

She embraces the idea that it’s never too late to find that voice

And an integral part of her success and drive is dependent on her ability to reach out to those she holds close and allow them to help her in her quest to be the best she can be.

Like Mrs. Maisel, I try to follow my heart, embrace my own authenticity and find my tribe. I constantly hone my craft, believe humor is healing, and that honestly fosters healthy relationships – though I – like Mrs. Maisel – clearly grapple with how much to reveal of personal entanglements.

Two days later, my Daily Calm app provides a respite from my dark ruminations. Tamara Levitt talks about the principle of change in the story: “Maybe”

There once was a farmer whose horse ran away.

Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

“Such bad fortune,” they said, full of sympathy.

“Maybe,” the farmer said.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three more horses.

“What great fortune,” the neighbors said.

“Maybe,” said the old man.

The following day the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the untamed horses.

He was thrown off and broke his leg, resulting in a life-long limp.

“What terrible fortune.” the neighbors said.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The next morning the army came through the farmer’s village to draft young able-bodied men for the war.

Seeing the farmer’s son’s leg, they passed him by.

The neighbors congratulated the farmer.

“What wonderful fortune,” they said.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

Tamara Levitt’s response: It’s hard to know which experiences will turn out to be fortuitous and which will be unfortunate because everything is constantly changing. All we can control is how we meet each moment. The bad news is nothing lasts forever. The good news is nothing lasts forever.

The staged reading was for me a cringe-worthy event but I’m not cringing any longer. Instead, I’m busily perusing the evaluation sheets from the theater goers, meeting with some attendees privately and holding three get-togethers at my house for free-fall feedback – and of course – I’m back at my computer re-creating, revising and re-writing once again.

The nature of change makes life impossible to predict. Who knows, maybe the third staged-reading will be celebration worthy. It’s wise to  suspend worry as to what the future holds – because you can be sure change is just around the corner.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

Love, Romance, Flowers and Dysfunction

I celebrate Valentine’s Day gleefully and joyously – but not because of love, romance and flowers. I celebrate this day as a day of reclaiming myself and revitalizing my spirit – of  freeing myself from a continual and long period of self-destruction and dysfunction – mired in a toxic relationship.

Eight years ago today – after bingeing and purging for 46 years – I kicked ED (eating disorder) out of my life. The local Fox affiliate recently did a story on eating disorders and I was part of the narrative.

https://www.fox13news.com/news/organization-offers-help-to-more-than-300000-in-bay-area-suffering-eating-disorders

“I hadn’t grasped the degree to which a sense of shame had insidiously undergirded my life. Now, it was gone, replaced by an unaccustomed pride,” so says Nancy Wartik recently in the New York Times about kicking her drinking problem.

Ditto.

Eating Disorders rob us of joy too. And 300,000 people in the Tampa Bay area alone are so afflicted.

My mindset now conforms to the Swedish philosophy of “Lagom,” meaning “just the right amount.” Lagom, further defined as in moderation and in balance, carries the connotation of appropriateness, although not necessarily perfection. Lagom underscroes the theory that ENOUGH is as good as a feast.

This mindset corresponds with my template of PYB – Preserving Your Bloom – using your talents and resources to be the best you can be – not perfect, but not good enough.

Speaking of slogans and templates for action, the Alliance for Eating Disorders sports this slogan:

These people are serious. Why? Here are some eye-popping stats:

13% of women over the age of 50 have symptoms of an eating disorder.

Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness – with nearly one person dying every hour as a direct result of their eating disorder.

At least 30 million Americans will experience a clinically significant eating disorder in their life time. (Thirty million? That’s roughly equivalent to more than 7 times the current population of Los Angeles!)

The Alliance for Eating Disorders is sponsoring an eating disorder awareness walk on March 1 at Raymond James Stadium. All proceeds stay local and fund two on-going weekly support groups – one in Pinellas for families whose loved ones struggle with Eating Disorders and one in Hillsborough for people struggling with ED.

I have signed up for the walk and pledged to raise a modest sum of $300. If you’d like to contribute, here’s the link:

https://allianceforeatingdisorders.salsalabs.org/2020tampa/p/irispastor/index.html

And, if you’d like to attend the staged reading of The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman on Monday, 2/17 at Stageworks Theatre in Tampa at 7pm, please RSVP to irisruthpastor@gmail.com. Admission is free, but space is now very limited.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

It’s 2AM.

2AM:  I’m too riled up to sleep. I toss and turn, but drowsiness evades me as my mind continues to race.

I go over the events of the last couple of months – replaying conversations with each of my five sons and my three daughters-in-law. Vividly re-living each interaction with every one of my six grandchildren, as we welcome in yet one more.

Nothing helps settle me down.

Unfamiliar and strange emotions wash over me. I get up, look anxiously at my watch, drink a full glass of water and lay back down. I think about the last time I saw my sister and how much fun we had watching OSU beat Michigan on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

More tossing and turning.

I doze and wake abruptly minutes later. I kick off the covers – twist my legs and arms into new positions – and begin reciting a list of all the states in the union in alphabetical order – an exercise that usually prompts the z’s to stealthily sneak in.

4AM:  Beset with shivers, I pull the covers back over me and once more – breathing deeply – will sleep to overtake my over stimulated senses. My mind whirls back to my husband and I at the Righteous Brothers concert, where we realized we haven’t “lost that lovin’ feelin’ “ after all.

6AM:  As the first rays of sunrise filter in through the bedroom blinds, I give up. I rise slowly – heading downstairs for my coffee machine – still puzzling over this newly felt emotion whose intensity kept me awake all night.

It’s not until I sit quietly at my kitchen table – fully aware of the dawning day – that the answer to why I spent a sleepless night comes to me.

I wasn’t worried.

Nor frustrated.

Nor agitated.

Feelings that often guarantee a poor night’s sleep for me.

    This was different.

Intense. Yes.

Disruptive. Yes.

But NOT bad.

It took me a while to process what was going on – to realize I was simply enveloped in a state of bliss.

It’s been such a long time since I’ve had such a strong, rich feeling of pure pleasure that I was slow to recognize the feeling: A Moment of Exquisite Happiness. Knowing it is fleeting – unsustainable – I steady myself and allow the ecstasy to flow through me.

Even if they do cause sleepless nights, here’s to joy.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom.

Iris Ruth Pastor

Stomach Churning Time

Ever committed to something with a mixed sense of dread and wild anticipation?

When my first grandchild was born, my son made the following observation on vulnerability and parenting: it’s like throwing your heart out the window – into a highly trafficked street – and hoping it successfully dodges all the cars.

Tee hee. I got it then and I get it now.

Palpitations. Anxiety. Stomach churning. Relentless pit in stomach. Can you relate?

I’m pushing past the fear and focusing on the target: the second staged reading of my play based on my book The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman.

Why is this so anxiety producing?

The Los Angeles staged reading in December went great and garnered constructive feedback that led to four feverish days of re-writing. The operative words are Los Angeles – 1000’s of miles away from Tampa – where I live. Where people know me. Where I am exposing a shameful and secret part of my life.

Reminders to self:

I am a resolutely brazen warrior queen (albeit with a queasy stomach).

We build community through shared experiences.

Change and evolving are vital to our being.

So, enough with my dysfunctional state of mind.

I and my LA based playwrights

Debra DeLiso and Lee Murphy

cordially invite you

to a stage reading

based on my book

The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman

Stageworks Theatre

1120 E. Kennedy Blvd

Tampa, FL 33602

Monday, Feb.17 at 7pm

Tickets are free,

but space is limited.

Please RSVP to me

by Tuesday, January 21

if you can attend

or cannot attend.

irisruthpastor@gmail.com

Here’s some relevant information:

What’s my stage reading going to look like?

My stage reading is a form of theatre without sets or full costumes. The actors will be reading from scripts and will be incorporating some stage movement.

What can I expect?

A warm welcome – and an 80-minute performance in comfortable seats. A unique theatrical experience. And a cash bar.

What do I need to do?

RSVP promptly. Show-up. Provide honest feedback of what works and what you’d like to see improved –anonymously if you prefer. (I’m not sensitive and I highly value comments.)

What’s optional?

A donation to Stageworks – a theatre that celebrates the human spirit and supports the presentation of live performances.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

Psychic Readings: facts, myths and a hands-on experience

Want to rile people up? Ask them how they would feel about having a physic reading? Here’s some highly censored reactions – edited for good taste:

     I’d be freaked out

     I’d be too afraid

     Creeps me out

     No possible way

So when a certain gut feeling urges me to get one, I book an appointment with a local psychic reader.

When we initially speak, she asks me to think about a few questions I want answered and to feel free to record our upcoming session.

Then I search the internet for more details on psychic readings.

One psychic says: “When I sit in front of someone, I go blank and I’m open to hearing whatever I’m supposed to hear. Stories, information, images, pictures, and symbols come up in my mind, which make no sense to me, but they make sense for the person sitting in front of me.”

Another reiterated the same:

“When I’m in a reading, I’m speaking with intelligences outside of myself, and transmitting information they give me.”

Here is one dramatic example from a Brooklyn psychic: “I had a phone call from a client, and I heard her say ‘Hi, honey’ to her husband. And I said, ‘Get off the phone and get him to the hospital right now.’ It was so loud in my head: Somebody just screamed ‘get him to the hospital.’ She was an old client of mine, so she said okay, and drove him to the hospital. As she got to the emergency room, he had a massive heart attack. And they saved him.”

She can’t explain how such information comes to her: “I don’t know where that came from. It just happened.”

My psychic reader lives on a nondescript street in a small ranch house with a big friendly dog. No crystal balls. No hanging beads. No burning incense or dipping oils for anointing. No Zen-like mood music wafting in the background. She ushers me into a small, neutrally decorated room and we sat across from each other at a simple wood table.

She explains that she will summon my guardians or guides and that she will tell me what she is “hearing” uncensored and then we can discuss what I find relevant. She also points out that she will often be looking off to the side – listening to voices I can’t hear.  She is explicit: she doesn’t predict or try to guess the future. She self-describes herself as a “channeler”.

We start with a welcoming prayer – and then she describes what she is seeing: a couple – a man and woman seeming to be parental figures – in the 1970’s or 1980’s – sitting around a round Formica table which is encased in some type of metal – with a coffee maker percolating nearby.

I am entranced. My mother had inherited from her mother a wrought iron, round table that she had in her kitchen from the 1970’s until her death in 2018. And much to my annoyance, she had replaced the glass top with a piece of thick, purple specked Formica. And always close by her table was a Farberware percolator brewing coffee.

Later in the reading, my psychic’s eyes open wide with astonishment and she bellows out: “I see a massive white owl enveloping you. You do something with healing, but not in the medical field and what you do touches many people. You are a writer who heals and you need to keep doing it.”

“What’s with the white owl?” I beseech her.

“The significance of the white owl,” she fires back with gusto, “is representative of wisdom and intuition and being hyper-observant of nuances. Your owl is very protective and gives you light and your light in turn shines outward.”

I leave the session having gleaned a myriad of details and nuances to ponder and sift through – providing me additional clarity as the days pass.

Skeptical? I respect that. Many are. How do psychic readers respond to skepticism? Not defensively. Here’s two responses:

     “I love skeptics! They’re only doubtful until something I’ve predicted comes true, and then they become believers. It’s been my experience that men can be the biggest skeptics, but once you tell them something that no one else could possibly know, they become your client for life! I have a lot of male clients.”

     “This stuff doesn’t have to be for everybody. I hope skeptics find what works for them. I don’t care how you get to your self-knowledge. Just get there, please.”

As for me, I’m looking for massive white stuffed fake owls to place in every room of my house. In this crazy world, I’ll take all real or imagined protection.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

Sometimes Less is More

Sometimes, less is more. I’m sure you all get that. Hence the brevity of this week’s newsletter.

Our family has two milestone events this week.

The first one occurred just 11 hours shy of the new decade. Our youngest son and daughter-in-law gave birth to an adorable baby girl on December 31st.

Our oldest granddaughter will be celebrating a Jewish rite of passage – her Bat Mitzvah – tomorrow.

Our hearts are filled with gratitude for the blessings in our lives.

Here’s wishing to you and those you love an abundance of joy and many blessings in 2020 too.

All Smiles,

Iris Ruth Pastor

What to do with the Mad, the Sad and the Bad?

It may seem a rather negative way to kick-off a New Year’s column, but let’s face it, big bad stuff happens:

A teen-age daughter develops Tourette’s

    A toddler begins stuttering

    A beloved relative passes away

    A spouse cheats

    A career ends in infamy

    A home is lost in bankruptcy

Even smaller bad stuff happens:

    Blowing a history test

    Not making the team

    Breaking a favorite knickknack

    The dry cleaner losing your cashmere sweater

     Putting a huge dent in your new car

How do we rebound? And what do we do with our feelings when the mad and the sad and the bad come along? What do we do when our emotions are out of control?

I know from experience the last thing we should do is turn our ugly, volatile feelings inward and wreak havoc on ourselves – nor dump those explosive emotions on those we love.

I was riding my bike one Sunday afternoon, listening to Terry Gross’s podcast “Fresh Air.” She was interviewing Marielle Heller, the director of the movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” – all about Mr. Fred Rogers.

She mentioned that before she started directing Tom Hanks (who plays Rogers) and the other actors, she visited the Buddhist Zen Center in Brooklyn. Heller learned it’s not about turning away from the pain, but embracing it fully – that is the goal of enlightenment. When we are able to feel all the pain, we are able to empathize with what others are going through. We become like a vessel to hold it. And when we are  enlightened, we are at peace.

Mr. Rogers’ gift to his young audiences was telling kids the truth. And tackling tough subjects.

What do you do when nothing seems to be working our right?

Here’s what Mr. Rogers had to say:

https://youtu.be/F9E-I7yBwIc

Fred Rogers was a sick child – often isolated and frequently bullied. And in his own head a lot – left to his own devices. Many speculate that his childhood experiences may be one reason he spent the rest of life trying to be both super connected and a source of relentless kindness.

I learned more about Mr. Rogers from an article written by Jeanne Marie Laskas in the New York Times Magazine.

A few of Fred Rogers’ thoughts worth carrying forth into the New Year:

I think the greatest thing about things is that they remind you of people. 

Even though Fred was sickly as a child with asthma and rheumatic fever, his grandfather told Fred: You’ve got to learn to do things for yourself.

He also told Fred: There’s only one person in the world like you and I happen to like you just the way you are. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEeEEc_djco

Fred said that went right into his heart and it never budged.

Fred Rogers explored the emotional landscape of kids and realized along with his lifetime collaborator, Margaret McFarland, that anything human is mentionable and anything mentionable is manageable. 

And that creativity fills the gap between what is and what might be.

May we all have a simple, manageable 2020 -buoyed by creativity and caring – and aimed at re-shaping a new and better world.

Adapting that mindset is the first thing – and maybe the only thing- on my 2020 New Year’s Resolution List

I hope it’s on yours too.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom,

Iris Ruth Pastor

The column no one will probably read

Who wants to plow through paragraph after paragraph about a first-time staged reading of a play based on a self-published book  – being “performed” in a small, nondescript theatre far from Hollywood’s glittering glamour?

Oh well – here goes:

Setting: 6pm on a cloudy evening in a 46-seat theatre on Victory Blvd., Burbank, California.

Program: First staged reading of “The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman” based on my book.

Three actors playing eight characters.

90 minutes – no intermission.

Reception in a tiny vestibule to follow.

The first and only rehearsal started at 2pm. By Page 23 in the script, the two playwrights realized that the actor playing “me” had the wrong version of the play. Without access to a Xerox machine, the playwrights frantically cut and pasted together an accurate script for the main character.

My two friends – Francine and Michele – and I arrive at the theatre at 5pm to chaos.

The door to the restroom (located outside, in the back alley) wouldn’t open. The person who was supposed to be setting up the wine, meat and cheese platters and crudités for the post-play reception never showed up and the usher wasn’t present because she lost her car keys.

Nevertheless, the theatre-goers filed in – actresses, film and production people, playwrights, small theatre owners and a random collection of folks I knew in the LA area.

I watched with glee as every available seat filled-up and every single person I invited showed up. The lights dimmed and the play started. I am wired.

From that moment on, I felt like I did when I stood under the wedding canopy and married my second husband. I knew it was a surreal and milestone moment. Part of me was fully participatory – drinking it all in. The other part of me was looking on as an ever-present observer.

What did I see?

   A fully engaged audience.

   No head nodding.

   No snores.

   No sneaking a look at an I phone.

What did I notice?

   When the audience laughed. Or didn’t.

   When the emphasis was off kilter.

   When there was too much repetition.

   When sequences didn’t seamlessly connect.

At the reception following the play: lots of congrats, hugging,  and “you are so brave to tell your story,” stuff. And picture snapping.

L to R: My friends Michele and Francine on each side of me, bookended by the playwrights Debra and Lee.

I left the theatre in an ambivalent, slightly manic mood. The event I had dreaded, looked forward too, and obsessed about was over. Staying up until 3am laughing and cackling with my friends after French Fries and burgers at the iconic “In & Out” burger place near the theatre mellowed out my mood.

The next morning, we met at one of the playwright’s homes – an eclectic Spanish mini villa in the Hollywood Hills – where she cooked each of us made-to-order omelets laced through with avocado and finely chopped scallions.

We then read the comment sheets out loud to each other – carefully compiling the data – in order to guide us in revisiting, revising, strengthening and beefing-up the script. And we strategized about our next moves forward.

Here’s some feedback:

What a moving evening of theatre. If that was only a staged reading, I am flabbergasted! The writing and acting were superb.

Iris came alive with all her love, longing, self-sacrificing nature, shame, guilt, fear and eventual courage. Her relationship with E.D. was explicitly clear. 

So many took the time to point out what could be improved upon and what was impactful. I think this endeavor is going to be okay. More than okay.

I love you all for being the oxygen in my tank – for being the cheerleaders in the stands. And having the courage to provide honest and helpful feedback. Even when you don’t read the column!

Thank you and keep PYB,

Iris Ruth Pastor