School

is overwhelming. The first week of orientation was wonderful, but absolutely draining. We had High Holiday prep, which meant literally going over each page of the prayerbook, singing specific bits of High Holiday music, and taking sessions on how to write a sermon. We had orientation for the Education program, for the Pulpit program, for the Liturgy (prayer services) program. We had tours of the library, of the American Jewish Archives, of the Skirball Center, of the Holocaust museum. We had presentations from Youth Programs, from the Rabbinical Student Association, from the Development Office. You name it, we covered it. Thankfully they fed us food throughout!

Every evening we had social programs, as well: dinner at the Dean's house, BBQ with the rabbinical and graduate students, pizza at a nice restaurant, and schmoozing with everyone.

One great thing to note: last year, before HUC officially started, Jonathan and I went on an archeological dig to Tel Dan. We made friends with an HUC Cincinnati Ancient Near East grad student who was on the dig for the experience. Lo and behold, who do we see at the BBQ but this same grad student and his wife! We talk a bit, and then tell them the area where we live. They say, oh, cool, we just moved from there. We tell them the specific area where we live. They say, cool, we were there too. We tell them the street where we live. They say, huh, is it house number X? We say yes, how did you know that? They laughed, and said, because we just moved out of there last month! They then proceeded to tell us all about our landlord. Apparently they moved out because it was too small after the recent birth of their second baby. Otherwise, they loved it. We promised to invite them over to Shabbat dinner soon so they can see what we've done with the furniture. :)

Picnics and prayerbooks

I start school tomorrow, yay! I’ve got the back-to-school itch. They’ve got us booked pretty solid this week, with dinners and BBQs and lunches and too many seminars and High Holy Day prep sessions to count (which is a good thing, as I need all the help I can get!). Jonathan’s going to get to work early so he can leave a bit before 5, and come to all the evening events with me.

Today was the "Shalom Cincy Newcomer’s Picnic," put on by the local Jewish Federation. We schmoozed, ate hot dogs, and met lots of new people. Then we did a very new-age couple-y thing: Carri, Scott, the baby and myself and Jonathan all went shopping together! We hit Costco, Target, Petsmart, and Michael’s, then treated ourselves to bagels at Marx Bagels. I love the suburbs; all the shops are in one area.

It’s a sad but true fact that I’m hopeless at home repairs and such. Jonathan, however, is not, and his honey-do list is slowly ebbing (yay window blinds are fixed!) Also, the projector and surround sound is now up and running. We celebrated by watching Top Gun, the most guy-type-sonic-boom movie ever made. I saw Volver, which I thought was amazing. (It must be stated again, I’m in love with Netflix.) I’ve been on a movie kick for some reason, maybe cuz of impending school. Either way, I haven’t read any fun books at ALL in the past week (Bible Prophets: Books Three and Self Guided Hineni: Hebrew Through Prayer don’t count).

In serious news, Jonathan’s mother had back surgery and it didn’t go very well. She was in rehab for the past week and a half but is now back in the hospital again. Everyone please think good thoughts.

Musings from a city girl

- Jonathan and I were eating dinner on the picnic table in the backyard when we saw some flashing dots. They were spinning wildly, and looked like a torch was lit ever-so-briefly. “Fireflies!” we realized.

- Walking in a part of town called Mt. Adams, we went near to the church (highest part of the mountain). And guess what was hanging from the doorways in the church? Bats.

- Today I spent all afternoon hanging out with Lisa (Tony, Jonathan’s coworker’s wife), and her two kids (6 and 9). We went to the community pool, and I dived, swam, played with the kids, and ate cherries and cheese sandwiches. I was also introduced to a whole new culture – moms and their kids at the pool on summer vacation. When we got back to Lisa and Tony’s house, we were sitting in their (huge) backyard talking and what do we see, standing not 30 yards from us? A mom and baby deer. “Oh yeah,” said Lisa casually, "the baby was born in the woodpile on our neighbor’s property.” For the first time in my life, I saw a deer in the wild. I also “smelled” a storm coming, and experienced thunder and lightning right before the rain hit.

This whole weather-wildlife thing is really miraculous. I can’t wait for fall, I’m told it’s beautiful.

OMG

My cat was so deeply asleep that he just slid off the back of the couch.

The joy of stress-free weekends

- We saw Bourne Ultimatum. Quite good, it was mindless fun.

- Joined Netflix, yay! Finally saw Y Tu Mama Tambien. Again good, but definitely not what I was expecting.

- My new fun book is Sex in History, by Reay Tannahill. It's a history book, textbook-like in parts, that covers the subject chronologically - I finished "Prehistoric World" and have now moved onto "Egypt, Ancient Near East, and Early Greece." It's fun; next I want to read her other book, Food in History.

- Still can't blow the shofar beyond a few sad little pbbbtthhhs. (And because I take no chances after last year's post... if that sounds dirty, read about shofars here)

- Learned disappointing lesson of the week: No matter how much time you spend in pajamas, there's always laundry to be done. Sigh.

Packages and shipments

Before we moved back to the States, we gave Savta our big black candelabrum because we didn't have room to take it back in our suitcases. She said that she would bring it with her next time she came, or ship it out. When we moved into Cincinnati, she reminded us of it, and said she would send out a package with the candelabrum and a "few other things" to help welcome us to our new house. I said sure, that'd be great. I was expecting a package.

The "few other things" arrived today. It wasn't a package - it was a 30-lb shipment! In it was everything from household items to Judaica to school supplies to tools. The list includes but is not limited to:

a wall clock with Hebrew letters as numbers
3 white tablecloths
matzah and challah covers
a mezuzah
kippot (plural of kippah)
traveling candlesticks
multiple organizing trays
3 packages of Israeli candy bars
a loofah and lotion and extra toothpaste
socks
packing tape
a pencil sharpener, pencils, highlighters, and colored pens
a set of pots and pans
a staple gun
a set of textbooks for teaching young children Hebrew
my very own set of Rummikub (yay!)
and more.

The best is the pillow below. You might recognize the picture - it was on our blog in January. :)

Daemon

Today I took some time out for some fun and followed a link that led me to a site that asks you questions about your personality and based on your answer you get assigned a Daemon. Mine was a tiger, though I was hoping for a lion (no surprise for those who know me). It can change though if people you know give different feedback about your daemon. Here is the link to see mine, and comment.

Everyone's cute when sleeping!

This is for Mara.

I was being boring and sitting on the couch reading email. The cats plopped down in the chair next to me so I could pet them. Then they crashed in the heat.

Of friendships and salad

I have to admit, being without a community here, and with Jonathan being gone most of the day, I’ve felt a bit lonely and out of sorts. But two wonderful things happened tonight that I want to share.

One, I got a phone call from Rebecca, my co-rabbinic student from Jerusalem who’s studying in LA. She was at a Temple Israel event! I talked to her, Rabbi Moskowitz, my mom, Chana, and felt SOOO much better afterwards, I can’t even tell you.

Two, Jonathan and I went to dinner tonight with one of his coworkers and his wife. They took us to a quaint little area with shops and restaurants, and then we browsed around. I feel like I got to know the city a bit more, as well as making new friends.

In other news, this week I met with the educator at the temple I’ll be working at, and I’m now sufficiently intimidated. I’ll be teaching 3rd grade on Sundays, about the 10 Commandments and prophets. On Tuesdays I’ll teach 4th/5th grade Hebrew. She wants regular lesson plans a week ahead of time, for both classes… yikes! I’m going to have to get a bit more organized.

Our duplex is now fully set up, and this past Friday was the first time in the history of my and Jonathan’s marriage that we got to have a full-on Shabbat with all the Jewish trappings. As in, I pulled out the white tablecloth we got at our wedding, covered the challah with the challah cover, laid out the kiddish cup and candlesticks, and actually made dinner. I’m sure all of you are just as shocked as Jonathan was.

(Okay, so to be totally completely honest, I prepared a salad for myself, and heated up frozen samosas with some rice and curry/chicken tikka masala leftovers for him, but it still worked.)

As you know I’m a big Israeli salad fan, but I went out on a limb and managed to recreate my favorite one that I ate in Greece:

It's a bed of lettuce with cucumber, yellow pepper, green onions, garlic cloves, kalamata olives, feta cheese, oregano, oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. I was out of tomato, but added some cold chicken for protein.

I was able to make it so easily because of my new joy of a cutting board. It has this wire mesh basket on one end, so you can scrape cuttings to the basket and they don’t fall in the sink. It’s also a great space saver, because you chop over the sink itself and still have room on the counters to do other things.



Oh yes, and one more thing. Perhaps one of the contributing factors to my depression was the overwhelming heat. It is so hot and muggy here, worse than anything I've ever experienced at home. Our air conditioner broke, and only got fixed yesterday. But yesterday morning before the guy came was awful - it hit a muggy 90s. Both cats gave up laying on the rugs and wood floor in favor of the bathroom tile:


Osher got IN the bathtub later on… and meowed pitifully when I kicked him out to take a shower. He and Simcha kept poking their noses in past the curtain, and didn't seem to mind at all when they got wet. Apparently even cats have their heat limit!

Apartment pictures

These are pretty self-explanatory.

Cats enjoying the new bed.

Dining room

Kitchen

Living room

More living room

Outside of house

For like 50 more photos of the entire house in insane detail, you can go here:
Pictures of the apartment.

(mainly this link is for Savta and my parents, but anyone else who's interested in the contents of our display cabinets, enjoy)