Tour de Worcester

I was talking with some other Worcester County natives the other day. We discussed how much there is to do in Worcester, if you know where to look. Perhaps there will be a day outing (or two) to the middle of our fair commonwealth.

Other ideas? Interested in coming (if it happens?)

• Worcester Art Museum (small but good, manageable size)
  
• Higgins Armory
  
• a nascent artist community InfiniteHotel mentioned
  
• Elm Park (first public park)
  
• Green Hill Park (they have a new(ish?) Vietnam memorial that's very cool)
  
• the Ecotarium (possibly; I haven't been there since at least two names ago, and the polar bears are very cool (er, not in the summer, when they look far more flattened by the heat than even me))
  
• [concerts and theater in parks, in the summer; too late for this year]

Theoretically, people could come see the house in Paxton I grew up in (that my dad built; I remember playing around the foundation when it was poured). I haven't been back since my parents moved out, 6 or 7 years ago now. I'm too unsure of what I'd find, of what it would feel like, and I'm not sure I want to overwrite some of the house memories with what actually is...

Then there's the tour I can't give anyone, made of memories no longer fleshed in buildings, ( Read more... )

R"H report

I tend to forget between times how time flows differently during a holiday. It stretches out calmly, but full, in a way Shabbat is not. The other place-time that this happens to me is at a con, though there it's much more frenetic, manic, not calming at all. Exciting, though. I like the slow time of chag, too. Somehow time seems more pliable, more filled with possibility, despite the halachic restrictions. There's time for flights of the mind, I suppose.

This year they set the room up differently, and I didn't like it. ( Read more... )

Services (other than the layout of the space) were good. I thought that everyone was pretty solid, though the one who led musaf the first day went more slowly than I'm used to. The ba'al tokea (shofar blower) was quite good.

Reminders for next year: drink a lot of water before services; I have a tendency towards dehydration when so much time is so ordered. Also, remember that comfortable shoes are extremely important if standing for all of repetition (plus Torah-reading). It doesn't matter what they look like if the feets are happy. Also, weigh lunch invitations carefully; it's harder to deal with a delayed lunch (aka breakfast) after long davening.

I looked at the program at services, and did a double-take: one of the kids I know is doing all the Torah reading on Y"K. Turns out it's his bar mitzvah. How can he be 13 already? I was just chasing him around kiddush and flinging him over my shoulder a little while ago! (OK, maybe not so little a while.)

I got to see glass pumpkins Friday. There was a tent set up in front of Kresge, sheltering tables crammed full of glass squash (most were pumpkins, but there were some summer squash and some other winter squashes). They were beautiful. Intense colors and color patterns, contrasting vine colors and textures, interesting shapes, calling out to be touched. Perhaps there will be a sale of useful glass objects (bowls, perhaps?) at a time when I could buy some.

So many people I haven't talked to in far too long. Must change that.

I made far too much food (surprise!). I need to figure out whether some of the leftovers should be frozen.

Random thoughts

I think I'm getting a bit stronger; the walk up all the stairs from the T in the morning is noticeably easier.

Also easier for me: reading magazines on the T, not books. I fall into books too completely, and being yanked out at my stop, no matter where I am in the book, isn't good. If I'm keeping an eye on the stops, then I can't focus wholly on the narrative.

I wish there were gaming tonight.

Someone put out a cake. It looks naked: all the (frosted, presumably) sides have been cut off, exposing the layers within, and the top layer of cake is mostly nude, too. I wonder whether a bunch of frosting-mad kids only wanted the sides. Poor cake, waking up to a classic confectionery nightmare. Or did it meet a gang of frosting-thieves in a dark alley late at night?