Math in recent emails

"[...] the new baby, at birth, was 1.6 billion barn megaparsecs per hectare long, and had a mass of 44 thousand Joules squared per mega-electron-volt."¹

" 3. For any point in the sukkah, draw two perpendicular lines through that point. For that point in the sukkah to be kosher, two of the four ends must intersect a kosher wall, and a third must intersect either a wall or a line drawn as an imaginary continuation of a real wall."²

And people ask when they'll ever use this stuff :-).


¹ A birth announcement to the Tremont St. list.
² Sukkah requirements (by the rabbi) to the Harvard Hillel orthodox minyan list, along with an offer to check out any sukkot.

Almost Sukkot...

Sukkah: schach still up, sunshade and light not up. I found a timer this morning, so the light is fairly trivial, but the sunshade will take a bit of time. I hope the rain tapers off soon.

Lulav: I suppose I ought to pick it up this afternoon on the way home (still cranky they weren't available on the way home yesterday, as they were supposed to be). I hope there's a lovely etrog left (the most expensive fruit I buy all year).

Food: seven small round challahs are made. I have a pot of mushroom-barley soup with leeks and carrots, and a bowl of cran-apple sauce. Portions of salmon with mango chutney are already roasted, and a turkey meatloaf made (this time with the rest of the sunflower seed bread and most of a jar of pinjur). Salad fixings abound, and I've bought some things for dessert. Still to do: cook a chicken, make some veggie dishes. In a pinch, veggie dishes could be made on the holiday, but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

Also: I should do a load of laundry, and move the boxes from the living room into my bedroom. And put the rest of the groceries away. Oh, and pick up this week's farm share. No problem...

Stressed? Who's stressed?

Farm share, week 15

• a half-peck bag of fruit, including five brown pears (I forget what variety that is) and eight apples
  
• a head of lettuce
  
• a bunch of kale
  
• three cubanelle peppers
  
• a bunch of six carrots (a pound?)
  
• a small eggplant
  
• three beets
  
• two head of garlic
  
• two yellow onions
  
• an acorn squash

Calmer now: the lulav and etrog have been picked up, and they're nice looking. The chicken is in the oven. I'm about to sautee veggies and put up the sukkah light. (Really, I think Sukkot wins as the oddest holiday; even in Cambridge, land of the odd, I got some looks as I carried my lulav down the street.)

And the sun came out, and it's wonderfully brisk.

I'm going to be off-line until after Shabbat. Chag sameach to all who are celebrating.

Oooh! and Brandeis is having productions of lots of Stoppard this year, not only Arcadia, but also The Real Inspector Hound! W00t!