His Dark Materials trilogy

I just finished The Amber Spyglass, the third in Philip Pullman's series. What an amazing trilogy! I HIGHLY recommend them to everyone. (The first book, The Golden Compass, came out this summer as a movie). Antonio, you were completely right, it's an athiest's dream. I hope they make more movies, though it would be so expensive. The worlds are just as elaborate as in Lord of the Rings.

Oh, and on another note, I've been loving vanilla pudding. In an attempt to be healthy I've been trying to cut down on ice cream (aren't we all?) and pudding is actually a good creamy substitute! Who woulda thunk it?!

Random things

1) Don't you just hate it when the day your Sunday school session is being observed by your Education teacher is the day that your lesson plan flops, the kids are antsy, and you feel overwhelmingly tired of teaching?

2) We got a coffee table! Hooray for Craigslist.

3) I've decided that I'm just against translation. Yup, don't like it. Am not good at it. Don't wanna do it. Thank God for computer programs like Bibleworks.

4) The cats are losing weight. Who knew stairs would be so helpful?!

5) We bought a new PS3. Hooray for tax return money and an incorporated Blu-Ray player. Jonathan is so thrilled he is beyond words.

House pictures. Finally.

Here is the front of our house.


All other pictures are here. I didn't take any of the kitchen cuz it's way too messy. Sorry. Besides the house ones, here is one of Paul, Lisa, myself, and Jonathan.




Cute kitties!



Jonathan with a fur Simcha collar.

Winter snowstorm!

It is officially a winter storm alert here in Cincinnati. Freezing temperatures, 4 inches of snow sticking to the ground, rain and slush and hail oh my. Jonathan picked me up from school yesterday and it took us 40 minutes to get home (it usually takes 10). My student pulpit was cancelled this weekend, so all of a sudden I'm free. And no one else I know is going either. Who knew there was such a thing as a "snow weekend"?

When Jonathan and I pulled up to our house, we couldn't make it up our snow-filled driveway. We had just decided to park in front of the house when a neighbor came over and offered to give us a push. With his help we made it, and we got to know a new neighbor, too. Osher tried to run out the back door when we came in, but he only made it about six steps (cute little cat tracks in the snow) before he stopped, looked at us, meowed, and came back in.

Monday was an absolutely wonderful day. I had the day off even though Jonathan had to work, and we had dinner with Paul and Lisa. We hadn't seen each other since 2002 but it was like no time had passed. We all wanted to stay longer talking, but between work and school in the morning for us, and jet lag for them, the evening ended at about 10pm. Paul and I of course schmoozed it up, and we were gratified to see how well Lisa and Jonathan were getting along. At one point Lisa was telling the story of how Paul said to me, "I once told a past girlfriend she'd make a better rabbi than a rebbitzin, and now she's in rabbinical school!" Jonathan turned to Lisa and said, "Well, I don't speak Hebrew. But I DO like to host. And I make good cookies!" And Lisa said, "So do I!" And we all cracked up.

Wednesday I ventured out on my own, driving Jonathan to work in the morning and taking TWO AND A HALF HOURS to get back because of the snow. I could have gone from my hometown to Mexico in the time it took me to get to HUC. I missed my first class completely (my prof was not happy since there had been a quiz). But it was necessary, as I had to stop by the local City Hall to fill in our water application, figure out local taxes, go to the bank and grocery shopping and other things like that. Then I picked him up at the end of the day, and mercifully that was just the normal freeway commute.

Today, since I have it off unexpectedly, my goal is to take pictures of the house. So you all know, actually cleaning the house is not a part of this plan. So they will be messy pictures, but pictures nonetheless. :)

An actual long-ish update

We literally just have one box left to unpack! And my office is complete. The only thing now is to hang picture frames, and I think we'll do that starting on Wednesday (dinner plans Monday and Jonathan gets home late on Tuesdays). So far it's been a busy day filled with chores: Jonathan fixed one of the doors that wasn't closing properly, I swept and he vacuumed, he organized the living room TV area, I brushed the cats and clipped their claws, we went to the old apartment to clean it up, went grocery shopping, and more.

Friday kind of sucked. I felt sick and Jonathan had his release, a big computer install thing he was in charge of. After going to work all day he came home and took a nap, then led the call from 11pm-4am. I tried to stay up with him but fell asleep at 2.

We had postponed Valentine's Day til Saturday and it was beautiful. Mush, romance, FABULOUS food at Dewey's (I know it's not traditional gourmet, but OH it was perfect), and then a movie on our new screen. We're such homebodies, I loved it.

The cats are sufficiently intrigued with life. Today was so nice I opened all the windows. And it was quite windy, so they've been glued to the window frames poking their noses out. At least they didn't miss us much. :)

About dinner tomorrow, I'm quite looking forward to it! My friend Paul was ordained from HUC a few years ago and now serves a pulpit in Australia. We haven't seen each other in six years, since I graduated from college. He's never met Jonathan and I've never met his fiance either, so the four of us are going to go out for Thai and have a good long catch-up session.

Holly is coming in two weeks, hooray! And we've planned a house-warming party on March 1st, so she can meet everyone and be part of the new house festivities. I can also see Gregory for the first time! And Jonathan and I can see how the cats react to a baby in residence.

What else? Um, I finished a very good book for school, Memoirs of Gluckl of Hameln. I'd read excerpts before but never the whole thing. It's the diary of a Jewish woman in the late 1600s in North Germany. Her husband dies when eight of her twelve children are still living at home, and she takes over their money-lending and merchant business. It's fascinating to see how Judaism was incorporated into this woman's life, and things like the plague and wars are mentioned as a backdrop to events like her daughter's wedding and traveling for her work. It makes me want to learn more about the time period. I give my history professor props for assigning it, there are much more boring options out there he could have given us instead.

I've also started on The Golden Compass, sent to me by Becca. I saw the movie and of course now need to read the original. Does anyone else have any recommendations? I've been sadly bereft of fun books lately, moving and school has eaten up all my free time. I think I'd like to read Foreskin's Lament. I read this book review months ago, and it was just chosen as the HUC book club's latest. Has anyone here read it?

Anyway, off to dinner.

Life summary in five points

1) I found my calendar!!! Hooray! It was in a box.

2) Bookshelves are all up. Unpacking to commence this weekend.

3) Jonathan's work is in high gear. Ah, to have a husband with free time...

4) We had to get a new humidifier for downstairs. The cats were starting to smell burnt. This is not a good thing.

5) Skyline chili is surprisingly good. We're now big fans. Does this mean we've acculturated?

The end.

Coming together

Our 52" LCD screen is up. As are half of my office bookshelves. And tomorrow looks like it may be a snow day. Hooray!

Why I like HUC

This was my email to professors:

Hi Professor X, Rabbi Y, and Cantor Z,

I most likely won't be in class tomorrow. I'm very sorry, and I'll be sure to get the notes from someone. My husband and I just bought a house, and there are some problems. The electrician is coming tomorrow and I don't know when he's going to be done, but I expect to be stuck here for most of the day (he has to take off part of a wall to fix the wiring).

Thank you for your understanding,
Michal

(Also, they're delivering the DVD screen tomorrow and the carpenter is coming to put in the shelves, so I wanted to be here anyway.)

This response was waiting for me an hour later from Rabbi Y:

Michal --- As some wag once said, "A house is a bottomless pit." You need to do what you need to do!

People are so nice. :)

Home, albeit disorganized

First, a big thank-you to Sarah, who is my morning carpool to school! I think I'm going to work out permanent arrangements with a few other people to take me back in the afternoons, too. Now that I'm no longer within walking distance, I stay at school from 8am-4pm, through all of my classes and lunch. But Josh was so sweet... "as long as we're here, you'll never have to take the bus." (Which is good, since the bus is a 4 block walk.)

The house is coming together slowly but surely. You all know me... I'm a nester. I'm having trouble not being nested. Our goal has been to work on one room every day, and so far our bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen are completely put together. The dining room used to be done, too, but we noticed this terrible smell of mold. We realized it was coming from the wood table itself! Thinking back on it, Penske gave us old and gross moving blankets, and we think the musty smell must have attached itself to all of our wood. We're not so pleased. So, Jonathan is now re-Pledging everything for the fourth time while I keep on organizing the other rooms. Bookshelves are going to be built in my office this weekend, which I think is exciting... soon I'll have a working library!

The cats are adjusting much better than I would have expected. We made the conscious decision to put their cat bed on the bottom floor, when our bedroom is on the second floor. We knew that they were finally feeling comfortable when they started sleeping downstairs.

Jonathan continues to work hard and I'm keeping up with schoolwork. Although it IS a difficult choice in terms of time... to translate Psalm 104 or to unpack boxes? Unpacking has been winning out, as of late. :)

I'm Home

Though our move was to officially take place Saturday, we had a ton of prep to do Friday to make sure it would go smoothly, starting with picking up the rented 24-foot moving truck (which is glorious fun to back up). Jeffery, Michal, and I then moved all the boxes in the house into the truck so the paid movers would only spend their hourly rate time on actually moving the big heavy things. Then, with the help of one of Jeffery’s fellow law students, who was bribed with pancakes, we moved the rest of our new furniture from Kentucky into the house to the first floor, again in prep for the movers to move them into their respective places on the floors above.

Come morning at 7 AM, Michal and I did last minute prep; I taped down the drawers on the desk and took apart a few of the larger pieces of furniture so they would fit through the door. At the same time, Michal was moving the small loose furniture items (like lamps and chairs) to a staging area in front of the house so the movers could be unhindered in moving the larger items (like the lazy boys, couch, and desks). The kitties had been cordoned off to the bathroom as one of our first steps and had been mewing their discontent with the whole affair nonstop. Once I finished with my task, I went and brought the truck in front of the house. Around 9:30 people started showing up. Jenn was first, then the movers, then Matt, then Carl. Work was split between the HUC contingent (Carl, Matt, Jenn, Michal) and the movers (Dennis and his side kick, Will) with me coordinating the movers and Michal coordinating the HUC labor.

The movers, true to their word, didn’t dally and started hauling large objects with inhuman strength and amazing speed into the truck. In about an hour they had every large object out and packed securely in the truck. They then started to pack the boxes and smaller objects with a skill that would intimidate a Tetris master. By this time, the HUC contingent had finished emptying the contents of the basement and garage to the driveway. To be productive, the HUC arm of the move filled their personal cars with items and drove off to the new house while I finished with the movers.

By the time the movers finished, the truck was filled from floor to ceiling, back to front with all of our material possessions. I told them to break for lunch and I would take the truck over to the new house.

For those who have never driven a truck of 24 feet in length or larger, I should tell you that it is almost nothing like driving a car. You don’t so much drive a truck of this size, as you do operate it. Stopping and turning, especially when fully loaded, and especially on the hills of Cincinnati, require the planning and charting of an orbital satellite trajectory. Backing up in the narrow Cincinnati streets is a two-person operation as you are doing it almost completely blind to what is behind you. You can do NOTHING quickly in the truck. If you are going 25 miles an hour, and a car darts in front of you, you are going to continue 25 MPH through said foolish car, leaving a car-shaped pancake in your wake. Despite all this, and perhaps even because of it, I actually came to really enjoy driving it. When I had to at last turn it in at the end of the move I knew I would miss the rumbling of its diesel engine and the hissing of its compressed air breaks.

Oh, and hydraulic lift gates on trucks are one of the coolest things on the planet.

Matt, Carl and Jenn continued to help with the unloading at the new house but ended their shift around noon, only to be replaced by the afternoon shift of Ari, his girlfriend Xandi, Josh, and of course Jeffery. We continued full throttle with the transition of objects from the truck to the house. The movers continued to move large objects from the truck to the upper floors of the house with the magical properties of watching someone push a square peg into a round hole. Which, as it turns out, is quite possible if you angle it right and grunt a lot.

We had some moving guest appearances of our lovely Sarah and her husband Chris (who is really cool because he still collects Star Wars toys because it’s his ‘work’). Jessica showed up unexpectedly and helped out quite a lot with the boxes in the back of the truck.

I need to break here and say a big thank you to all who helped. Every one of you contributed to the success of this move. Matt was always looking for ways to help with thoughtfulness and concern. Jenn was willing to do whatever we asked quickly and efficiently. Carl took on anything you threw at him with a charming smile that made you happy he was there. Josh kept you laughing even while you were breaking your back moving things. Sarah inspired us to buy this house. Ari moved boxes like a Spartan wages battle. Xandy chose to spend her day off helping her boyfriend move his classmate (and, for the record, held her own among the men in hard labor). Jessica braved the hydraulic lift and carried so many boxes it substituted for her daily gym workout. I also wanted to thank our professional moving team, Dennis and Will. They worked hard and had the most undesired task of getting Michal’s desk to the 3^rd floor, something I was sure was impossible. But most importantly, I have to give my greatest thanks award to Jeffery, who saved this move from disaster. Whenever we came across an impossible situation he would some how always make it work. He lifted furniture like he had superhuman strength. He worked until 2 in the morning on Friday to assure we could complete everything on Saturday. He found a way to save us huge sums of money with the truck rental (I will always use Penske from now on). Most importantly, however, we knew if we told Jeffery to do something, it would get done, no matter what it took.

When it was all done we said thank you and goodbye to everyone, doling out pizza like it was money, and with the help of Jeffrey, I returned the truck. That night I picked up our very panicked cats from their deserted location. I was greeted with many nuzzles of love and thankfulness of my return that were soon followed by meows of “don’t you ever do that again!” They hate travel so in the middle of a major pet session, I swooped them into their travel cases. By the time they realized what I had done they were already in the car on their way to their new home.

Michal and I released them when I got to the house and their reactions ranged from fear to awe. Osher immediately started exploring the perimeter, getting a lay of the land, while Simcha followed a few yards behind, tail fluffed out in stress, sniffing everything. They were both wide-eyed and amazed. Simcha would greet and nuzzle every old piece of furniture we had brought over like a drowning victim does a life preserver. Osher spent all night exploring the house, amazed by the attribute of its stairs. Simcha cried all night wanting to be back to his familiar home. We knew it would be a matter time before he would embrace our new house, but we had not expected it to be this traumatic for him. We started to wonder if the transition connected him back to when he was abandoned as a kitten, before we found him in Jerusalem. Regardless, it was a long night. Only this morning did he finally fall asleep and is starting to accept his new home. He currently is passed out on his cat castle.

Up to this point I have been so focused on getting things done that I haven’t had time to realize what I have done or why I’m doing it. It is only now, in the aftermath of the move, having spent the night in the new house and seeing all my furniture lit up by the morning light from the windows that I have finally really realized: I’m Home.