Yom Huledet Sameach

Happy birthday to Morris (Mo) Lichtenstein, born October 26th at 10:18am. My congrats to Jamie and Brad in Boston!

And I have a question for you all - the day a baby is born is literally the "birth day," but is there a name for it? October 26, 2008 will technically be his first birthday, so is this his zero birthday? I never know what to call the year 0 either, since 1-999 is the first century...

EDIT: I agree with Holly, simplicity is best. The day you were born shall henceforth be known as "the day you were born," and the year 0 shall be known as "the year 0." Brilliance!

Another Friday already

How did it get to be Friday?! I realized I never even wrote about last Shabbat - Carl and Anne came over with their two young children, and we had a traditional dinner (no, not made by me), played with the cats, and got "baby" practice.

This week we're going with Jeffery to Olive Garden, one of my favorite restaurants. We were going to go there specifically because they had an $8 all-you-can-eat-pasta deal, but SIGH the sale ended... though since I had gotten my taste buds in a tither, we decided to go there anyway.

What else.... Jonathan took the day off today, sick. He went to the allergy doctor yesterday and found out that he's allergic to all midwestern flora and fauna (like ragweed, and certain pollens that they don't have in CA). So that explains all the sneezing. Anyway, they gave him three medications all at once yesterday, and it kind of did him in. But since I'm off of school on Fridays, at least I've been home to make him hot tea.

Oh! And speaking of Jonathan, he just got great news. Joe (as in Joe and Nicole, our upstairs neighbors last year) asked him to be a groomsman at their wedding! He's going to be Joe's ketubah witness as well. (The ketubah is the Jewish wedding contract which has to be signed by two Jews unrelated to the bride and groom.) Both are huge honors, and Jonathan's excited. Now I just need to get with Nicole and figure out how many days early we should arrive in Virginia for the wedding.

Other than that... I really don't want to write my Bible midterm or my next sermon. As a fan of productive procrastination, I've now done five loads of laundry, brushed the cats, vacuumed, reorganized my bookshelves, came up with an extra lesson plan for Sunday school, and moved all the summer clothes out of my closet (oh yes, and now I'm blogging). Unfortunately, my school to-do list remains untouched.

Alright. I can do this. Midterms, ahoy!

"You emptied your backpack?" said Simcha. "Perfect! Now there's room for me!"

Osher comes by to inspect the new arrangements.

Everyone I know, stay indoors

"Because of strong Santa Ana winds moving toward the coast, some of the worst smoke is accumulating many miles from fires, including in Long Beach, Simi Valley and the Riverside area." - from LA Times article

I'm doing fine here... just working hard on midterms. Sigh.

Fires

Even though home is nowhere near the burn area, my mom said she could smell the fires from our house. I know too many people who live in San Diego, Poway, Rancho.... good luck.

Good things and bad things

Good thing: Renaissance Faire! Or Festival, as they call it here. Men in kilts, turkey legs to eat, lots of things to see and tons of shops. The prices were exceedingly reasonable, and everyone was so nice. I even treated myself to a bellydancer's outfit (no, there is no picture) Jonathan and I had a mango smoothie to die for, and the layout was a simple circle, so even though it was a full 30 acres we didn't get lost once. Our favorite place was the candlemaker's shop, where the owner made beautiful candles to order while we watched. She said that it was the way a pyromaniac makes a living. :)

Bad thing: It just wasn't like home. The Faire here is more of a shopping extravaganza. There are no guilds, no people who work the booths wandering around in garb. It's very kid- and family-focused, so lots of carnival games and mazes but no risque shows (no risque period... one woman was wearing a shirt that said Abortion is Murder).

Ohio Festival has more shops than Southern CA Faire (and more than Northern Faires too, according to Jonathan), but not as much to do (e.g. no fencing booth, no man sandpainting, etc). Because of more lenient Ohio laws, and the culture here, there were three times as many weapons booths as at home. And the historicity was a bit loose; 16th-century garb was sold next to Gypsy outfits and pirate hats. I was also disappointed by the lack of Scottishness: no one spoke in brogue, and they had camel rides. (I'm still trying to figure out what camels had to do with Great Britain.)

String lady. She's alive, not a statue, and has adorned herself with more favors than God.

Renaissance dog.

Bad thing: There's been a drought in Ohio, so everyone keeps saying that fall is so boring this year, and that nothing changes color.

Good thing: I haven't noticed. I was reared in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv, two deserts. I think it's gorgeous, and can only imagine next year.

Driving to Faire.

Such pretty countryside.

See the horses? This is a half-hour out of downtown Cincinnati.

Good thing: Today at the end of Sunday school, one boisterous 3rd-grader said, "Aww, is it time to go already?" Another one invited me to the football game to see her cheer this afternoon.

Bad thing: A second boy was completely bored throughout class, no matter what we were doing. He's also been absent twice (out of 5 sessions) due to football. Guess I can't win them all.


Good thing: Package from Savta! Halloween candy from Jan!

Bad thing: Halloween candy is fattening.

Loot from Savta. One of the things she sent was a new toy for the cats. Simcha's on the chair, Osher's in the box. Savta's waving at everyone from the webcam on the laptop. Hi, Savta! (How I love technology.)

Good thing: I'm now completely caught up in my reading for every class. And Maura came over and we actually had fun studying for a quiz.

Bad thing: Said quiz is tomorrow at 8am. Sigh. And so the week begins...

House-cleaning, Peru, and Torah trope. Not necessarily in that order.

My goodness, almost a week since our last post?! Where does the time go.

Well, it's been an eventful week. I got through my Biblical Grammar midterm (let's just not talk about it), caught up on almost all of my readings, wrote some mini-papers for Hebrew Literature class, am learning Torah cantillation/trope, got paired with a third-year student mentor to answer my school questions, and today I brushed the cats so thoroughly that I took a kitten's worth of fur off of each of them.

In my education class we did this cool exercise on learning styles. Founded by Kolb, the Learning-Style Inventory classifies people as more than just visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. It tells you how you learn. For example, I'm an Assimilator, which means I learn best from reflective observation and abstract conceptualization. (In my eyes, it also means that I'm a Borg, but that's neither here nor there.) I highly recommend taking the test, if just for fun.

In non-school news, Maura and I went out for dinner two days ago, and voila, I have a new friend! We've sat by each other in classes for a year and a quarter now, in Israel and here, and we've only ever talked about school things. It was great to break out of the HUC mold, and transcend that friendship boundary into the personal. She's now my Torah cantillation partner, and we're going to work with each other on learning the daily nusach, the daily service melodies, as well (as opposed to the Shabbat or High Holiday or Purim melodies... sigh).

Maura also told me of a wondrous, fabulous, amazing, stupendous thing called the Fall Sale at Old Navy. Jonathan and I went last night and got 14 articles of clothing for $100! That includes a jean skirt and a nice skirt to wear on the bima ($1.97 each), 2 shirts ($3.97 each), and a jacket for Jonathan ($6). What bumped up the price dramatically was the thermal underwear and winter gear. (And just because I'm already complaining about the weather, do you know that yesterday the sun only came out for an hour and a half, and that it's still pitch black at 7am?? I'm having serious sun issues.)

The school bookstore is offering major discounts on lots of Jewish books, through a deal with a publisher. I'm trying not to go too crazy, because I don't need the books... and I probably won't be reading them anytime soon anyway. Actually, whatever I do read for fun lately is about as far away from Judaism as I can get. E.g. I'm halfway through Isabel Allende's Ines of My Soul, about conquistadors in 16th-century Peru and Chile. Allende also wrote The House of the Spirits and Daughter of Fortune, but this one is historical fiction, not magical realism, so I like it better.

And now I should be off. We're having an HUC grad student and his wife and kids over for dinner tonight - they're the ones who lived in our house last year, and who we first met at Tel Dan in Israel. I really do love having company over, but it does necessitate this pesky thing called vacuuming...

Man Shabbat

A couple of weeks ago, my darling wife was in Mattoon, Illinois leading Shabbat services. That left me alone to fend for myself that Shabbat. I called Jeffery as his fiance is out of town as well and collaborated with him in doing a "Man Shabbat."

So here's Shabbat, man style: I pulled out a couple of giant flares I got at the fireworks store in Indiana, a 2-liter jug of "Newman's Own" grape juice, and a pair of twisted garlic cheese sticks. We went out to the back driveway behind my house, lit the flares and sang the blessing. In the multi-colored sparkling glow, Jeffery popped open the jug and we sang the blessing over the "wine." We then pulled out the garlic cheese sticks and sang the motze. This was then all followed up by Jeffery and I lighting a bunch of questionably legal fireworks in my backyard. It was glorious.

To polish off the night we watched the movie "Transformers" on my DVD player. Which I later found out hasn't been released to DVD yet. I've decided not to pursue how Jeffery got a hold of a copy.

Oh... and we drank beer too.

So, all you females reading this are probably thinking that this is not unlike a Shabbat that a 14 year-old boy would plan, and you are probably right. Most things men think are cool are very similar to what 14 year-old boys would think are cool, except men involve more beer in their arrangements. I like to think that men figure out what is important at an earlier age than women.

The Reform movement is totally befuddled why there are so few men participating in the Jewish communities. If you want men involved, the answer is simple: just involve more incendiaries.

Yo, Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat candles

Scary Shabbat

Last night I joined Jonathan and about ten of his coworkers and their spouses at Kings Island, a 30-acre themepark. His boss had arranged for a free ticket for everyone under her jurisdiction as a "team building" exercise. It was great fun - we all went out to dinner at about 5:30, then showed up at the park at about 8pm for their "Halloween Haunt," in which nobody under 12 years old was admitted. Think Knott's Scary Farm, with fog machines and monsters wandering around and mazes with scary surprises hidden within. I definitely screamed a few times, but so did other people, so it was okay.

It's funny, on Thursday I'd been walking to the local coffee shop with a couple of HUC classmates, and I was saying how my social group was split in two: HUC people and Jonathan's work people. And it's so true; the conversations last night were so completely divergent from any HUC conversation that it was almost surreal. At HUC talk usually revolves around intricacies of Torah, Talmud, prayer, dealing with teachers, renting apartments, our childhoods and parents and siblings. With Jonathan's coworkers the conversations are on *raising* children, football and sports, dealing with bosses, mortgages, the medical industry, business mergers, politics and movies.

At HUC I feel older than many students, and among Jonathan's work group I feel younger and much less experienced in life (which I am, chronologically, since most of his work peers are in their 40s). Nobody's said anything about my youth directly, but it's easily apparent in conversations like "Yeah, I worked at King's Island in high school, in the 80's" (*looks at me and smiles*). I really do think it's good though, that we split our time between both social circles - it helps me branch out and not be "rabbinic" all the time, adds diversity to both of our lives, and exposes us to Cincinnati culture in a way that isn't apparent through HUC.

When we got home at 1:30am, the cats were *very* happy to see us. They came to the door to say hello, then, when we didn't do anything interesting, decided to go back to sleep. I think they take "cute" lessons at night when we're not here. How else can you explain it?


By the way, this is "off" position. When they're not sleeping they're jumping on bookshelves, wrestling, playing with cat toys, or running around the house playing tag. According to Kelly, the wife of one of Jonathan's coworkers, this greatly resembles her 5 and 7 year old, who are either asleep or making havoc. Apparently there's no gray area. So I guess the kitties really are good kid practice! In this picture Osher's on top, Simcha's on the bottom.

P.S. Did I mention that it was 41 degrees last night? That's nine degrees above freezing. I was bundled up in my warmest clothing and was still cold. Just shoot me come winter.

P.P.S. Shout-out to Elisa - so glad you're here! :)

Weird weather

It was in the high 80's yesterday. It was in the 60s today. One day difference. One day.

I don't get it.

The weekend and my annoyance at sports

My weekends seem longer than my weeks sometimes. Last Friday I drove the 4 1/2 hours to my pulpit, then had dinner with a congregant and led Simchat Torah services. It was quite fun, with lots of dancing to celebrate another cycle of finishing the Torah (you finish Deuteronomy and then start again with Genesis).

Saturday I teach adult education, and this week we took a field trip to the CANDLES Holocaust museum, founded by a woman who survived Auschwitz as a Mengele twin. It was heavy, and very powerful. Lunch before the museum was fun though: someone actually asked me, "Can I have shrimp around the rabbi?" And I realized that the rabbi was me! I quickly assured her that she could order anything she wanted and I wouldn't be offended.

Then there was the drive home, so I got back around 8pm. And taught Sunday school in the morning. And came home to do homework. Then it all began again on Monday. While I love going to Mattoon, I feel so drained of energy afterward. I think it's the driving more so than the services, but I need a weekend from my weekend nonetheless.

In other news, school is going well. The only thing I'm unhappy with is that our Bible, History, and Hebrew Lit classes (not to mention Hebrew Grammar) take a structuralist approach to everything. And I'm a post-modernist. (Not that this matters to many people, but I thought I'd put it out there.)

And last but not least, I hadn't realized how much Midwestern culture is defined by sports. People mention sports here all the time. At Sunday school a little boy seemed extra happy. Why, I asked? Because the Bengals (local football team) won. In my education class the prof talked about not telling a student they've gotten an answer "wrong," because then they'll feel badly and won't raise their hand again - the metaphor she used was that when a sports coach pulls a player out of the game, s/he put the player back in the game and not on the bench. In Mishnah class the prof was saying the common people followed some of the rules of the institution (of the rabbis) but not all... just like the Bengals follow the rules of the football, but badly.

The Cincinnati Bengals have now come up at Hebrew school, in four entirely separate classes (yes, I'm keeping count), and in many, many conversations. I don't care. Really. I don't. And in CA, it never seemed to matter. Yeah, the Dodgers and Angels existed, but most people couldn't tell you offhand who they played against last. I was talking to my cousin from Chicago and he says that this obsession with sports is common in the entire Midwest, because there isn't much else to do, so people fixate on the local competitions. I guess that makes sense.

And it should be noted, my cousin now lives in Boston.

The problem with smart cats

Our cats have little to no fear. They like to be with us at all times, sitting on our laps or meowing to play or to be petted. Nothing we’ve done so far has been able to stop them.

I got these popping rocks recently. They have a light coating of a mild form of gunpowder on them, and when you smack them together they make a noise like a toy cap gun. I thought I could use them when I was working from home to get them to stop pestering me without directly punishing them. But instead of being fearful of the noise, they come running from any corner of the house when they hear it. They think it's very cool and are mesmerized by the noise and sparks it emits.

It makes me feel both proud and frustrated. Even the vacuum only makes them slightly uncomfortable! I wonder if playing all those Star Trek episodes in my deep bass-emitting surround sound desensitized them to scary sounds and lights. I think we’ve raised geek cats.

They also love to jump places they shouldn't. To combat this, Michal and I did some research on the internet and found that one of the better recommended solutions is to use aluminum foil. The idea is that the sound the foil makes when you touch it will scare the kitties, or at least annoy them enough to make them want to get off of it. Michal and I put in place an intense program of covering the kitchen counter with foil, from end to end.

The result:

Osher began to entertain himself by jumping on the foil and pawing at it to make it make noise. It was as if he had aspirations to be a percussionist. Every time our backs were turned we would hear this "tappity tap tap tappity" sound. The foil seemed to actually
ENCOURAGE him to jump on the counter, rather than discourage it. The foil only worked in one way - it served as notice that he was on the counter. Thus, we ended the program.

Michal and I have been in discussion about getting “scat mats,” mats that give the cats a tiny shock when they jump onto them, but the expense is a bit high at this point. We decided we’ll have to be more irritated with them before we spend the $100 on it. I also can imagine the little boogers putting metal spoons on them to short out the batteries.

The score as of now: Cats 2, Humans 0.

Recent joys in my life

Highlights of the past few days:

1) Jonathan made apple crisp! Yum.

2) I loved the book Rashi's Daughters: Joheved, and its sequel. After I finished the second one last week, I found the author's website online, and wrote her an email asking her a bunch of detailed questions. She wrote back, and gave me her cell phone number! I called her yesterday. We had an amazing conversation about Talmud, women in history, and studying rabbinics. It felt surreal to be reading a book one day, and chatting casually with the woman who wrote it two days later!

3) Our rabbinics professor hosted a "dessert in the sukkah" get-together tonight. Jonathan and I arrived on the motorcycle, per a classmate's request. I hadn't realized how many people at HUC had no idea we (well, Jonathan) had the bike! Maura went for a ride, and she had a whole little crowd gathered around as she put on the helmet and got on. It was like Mara and Mark all over again, only in a different state with more people watching.

4) We switched internet providers, and our connection almost doubled in speed. This is good for things like watching YouTube videos, uploading pictures, and having better webcam quality.

5) Eating the apple crisp. It deserves a second mention. It was so gooood.......