Tag Archive | "BIRTHDAY"

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Brightline Celebrates First Birthday Rail Service

Posted on 12 January 2019 by JLusk

Recaps its First Year of Service

MIAMI, Fla. (January 11, 2019) – Happy birthday Brightline! On January 13, Brightline is turning 1, and in honor of the big day, Brightline will be offering $10 fares on short segments for SMART service throughout the entire day. Birthday cupcakes and celebratory surprises will be offered to Brightline’s guests throughout the day. Since opening a year ago, Brightline has helped nearly 600,000 guests travel in a more convenient, efficient and productive way. By connecting Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Brightline has enabled locals and visitors to explore more culture, dining, arts and sporting events across South Florida. Brightline’s convenient, comfortable and reliable service has also served to connect friends and family throughout the region. “We’re beyond excited to celebrate Brightline’s birthday with our teammates and guests who have been part of this special journey,” said Patrick Goddard, Brightline’s president. “Our first year of operations was trail-blazing, and the future only gets brighter from here. Thank you to our friends, family and guests for helping us to transform transportation in the United States.” In just 365 days, Brightline has:

• Carried enough passengers to fill up 9 Super Bowl stadiums

• Traveled as many miles as 195 cross-country trips between Los Angeles and Miami

• Departed more than 8,000 trains

• Hosted 1,540 loving pets

• Had 16,984 excited children on board, and this doesn’t include our trips to the North Pole onboard the Polar Express

• Distributed more than 16,000 train pins

• Shared more than 150,000 pieces of safety literature

• Reduced greenhouse emissions

• Saved countless hours of precious time by transporting guests reliably and conveniently Brightline guests have come from far and wide, including 41 states and 34 different countries (including Japan and Australia) and six continents.

Guests are invited to help celebrate Brightline’s birthday on Sunday. $10 fare tickets can be purchase at gobrightline.com.

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Everything’s Coming Up Rosen: Another birthday – OMG … so many!

Posted on 04 April 2018 by LeslieM

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

Well, I am having another birthday this month. It‘s a biggie plus one — not a big deal. But, here’s the thing … after all these years, I’ve learned so much, not only about living, but living well. And now, I would like to start all over again.

But would I?

Mistakes, I have made, of course. Who hasn’t! But that’s part of the mix, and “starting all over,” with the aim of perfection, is destined to become a life without pain or challenge, kind of Barbie and Ken life. I’m not into boring.

So what’s my secret and what have I learned? My secret is not a secret. I have been blessed with just plain luck and the willingness to acknowledge that fact. I was born to two loving parents in the U.S.A., a minute before the great depression, at a time when unimagined evil was brewing in Europe. I didn’t know we were poor because all the people we knew were enduring the same economic struggle. We weren’t poverty-poor, just walk-instead-of-paying-for-a-bus poor.

And I was blessed with many genetic assets — none of which came to me as a result of any struggle or effort on my part, most importantly, good health for which I do take some slight responsibility in the sense that I adhere to the rules … in full recognition that some others who also adhere to the rules are just not as lucky. I have an even, calm temperament. It comes without effort. I am not even sure that I own a temper. I don’t crave sweets, alcohol or caffeine, and the one time I inhaled a cigarette at age 16, I choked with such fury that I swore I would never do it again, which inhibits my ability to get any of the oft-touted results of weed. By some standards, this could make me a bore. Luckily (again) I was born a good listener and most people need to feel heard. “Feeling heard” trumps being bored.

And, although I never knew it until someone pointed it out to me, my personal life philosophy is in direct compliance with the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. My own version of this is layered on the concept of expectations.

And this is the most important thing I have learned in all my many years … I am easily able to recognize the difference between reasonable expectations, as in it is reasonable to expect my friend to check her e-mail messages at least every few days, if not more often. She always promises to do so, but often it takes weeks … and realistic expectations, as in she simply will not check her messages frequently; to recognize that it is reasonable to expect your husband to join you at a family event but, in some cases, the reality is that he believes he has reasons for refusing.

I have learned to train myself to expect only what’s realistic, which eliminates a whole range of toxic emotions: disappointment, hurt, anger, rage and down the line from there. Sounds simple but too many people cannot distinguish the difference between reasonable and realistic, especially in their personal relationships. It’s worth working on.

Actually, I learned a lot more, so far, in this lifetime. For instance, I learned how to make a really good quiche today — my first. Every day, I learn something new. Life is good.

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Everything’s Coming Up Rosen: The tree – and my very big birthday

Posted on 05 April 2017 by LeslieM

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

My realtor’s car pulled into the parking space designated No. 606 and we both emerged from the vehicle, I – staring into the lipstick red blooming bougainvillea tree, demarking the end space in that section of the lot – immediately fell in love … with the tree. I didn’t need to see the apartment. I wanted to live near that tree. And to add to such largess, its twin sister stood straight and tall only feet from the front door.

With a short cursory look around, “I’ll take it” were the very words my realtor had hoped to hear. Within weeks, my precious “stuff” slinked easily into 1450 sq. ft., after having been surrounded [by additional stuff] and overstuffed into 3500 sq. ft., and I felt like twinkle toes.

That was almost three years ago; and, alas, the parking lot tree has since lost its bloom, its branches dry as a cadaver, standing sentinel over my parking space (which I never use since I have a garage). Every time I looked at it, I felt like crying. Every time guests parked there, I wanted to engage them in a hugging ceremony with me. Dead as the proverbial doornail, it might have been in a Vermont forest in mid January.

I mourned my tree for months, ambivalent about its presence. How long do you keep a dead body in full view? The sun burst on it, the clouds rained on it, but there it stood, motionless, bare and desolate.

And today, as I hauled my garbage to the dumpster abutting the space – OMG! — my tree was gone, a mere stump of it still snug in the earth. I stared at the emptiness and I heard my Ibis chirping nearby. I watched the mother duck-in-residence waddling in front of her babes on the parking lot. The scene was funereal.

Then, I had an out-of-body experience. Some other me – not the one I thought I knew — walked around among the various flowers and bushes in the community with a pan and a clipper and a trowel. I collected a variety of colorful flowers into the pan, pulled out a stool from my garage (I have an old cranky back that doesn’t take well to bending.) dragged my water hose to the spot, doused the earth around the stump, and proceeded to plant flowers around it. And, boy, did that make me feel good!

And here’s the thing. I wanted to write a thoughtful, insightful, philosophical piece about reaching my 90th birthday this month. I wanted to list everything I learned about life, to dispense my wisdom and advice, to pontificate on “my secrets” of longevity and to extoll with infinite gratitude the randomness of just plain good luck. But, instead, I wrote about my dead tree, and the joyousness of living flowers in its place.

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