End of August
Sep. 2nd, 2002 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI can't believe it's Labor Day weekend and the summer's over.
Friday after work, a quick stop at the supermarket, where I discovered that the Stop&Shop with the kosher bakery in Allston no longer offers donuts. Instead, they have a (non-kosher) Dunkin Donuts in the store. I'm annoyed. Not that I got donuts there often, but enough.
Home to make the rest of Shabbat dinner. There was enough time to fit in my first games of Battle Line, a two-person game that I'm enjoying so far (I've managed to win a reasonable number of the games I've played, which of course makes it easier to enjoy... :-). Also noteworthy were the unexpected bouquet of flowers (thanks, H!), daisies and a rose that look lovely on my table.
And yes, the menu: challah, grape juice, vegetable soup (a puree of onion-garlic-carrot-delicata (etc), with some swiss chard cooked in it later. It was better once I thought to put in nutmeg...), mashed neeps, yellow and red tomato salad, roasted beets, white rice, roasted onions-red peppers-red and yellow tomatoes, steelhead trout (it's pink!) baked with mango-ginger chutney (from December), followed by a peach crumble. Ok, I think the concensus was that this was too much food for the assembled. OTOH, I have awesome leftovers...
I got u p early enough to make it to shul just about on time. The weather was perfect for a walk: brisk and cool. I was glad I'd worn a cardigan over my turtleneck, though amazed that I needed it. This was such October weather, not August. It was warmer by midday, but still not the hot steaminess that makes me slow down so much. It was great to walk so quickly, just because it felt good.
The double parasha didn't slow us down as much as the guy leading musaf using Carlebach tunes. I am still entertained seeing the guy who was gabbai this summer (Mike F), who is just about the tallest guy in the room, bending down to hear a name of a sick person (for a prayer for the sick) given to him by the shortest woman in shul, definitely under five feet tall. What makes it really cool is that both of them were wearing tallitot.
After the end of davening, but before setting up the room for kiddush, we said two Psalms for Israel, 120 and 121. It's amazing how 120 relates to the current situation in Israel.
Kiddush food this week was boring, but the conversation made up for it. I was surprised when some guy I didn't recognize came up to me; apparently he had been passing through two years ago, and had Shabbat dinner at my house. If I ever make it to Holland (I think it's Holland), I now have an invitation. I got a chance to hear about some dental woes, plans for the holidays, and camping in the Sierra Nevadas, as well.
I stayed for the rabbi's talk, on the topic of individual vs. communal repentance, whether the community's merits are more than just the sum of its residents' merits. Intertwined with that was the idea of using traits that might be seen as negative in a positive way (the classic example being someone with a desire to kill things becoming a shochet, ritual slaughterer). It was interesting, but his presentation was not as good as the previous week's, more like what I remember: not quite enough projection, swallowing some words, anticipating the laughs. A well thought out talk, just not as well orated as I'd like.
A nice, quiet afternoon of naps, reading, leftovers for lunch. Shabbat ebbed, and I made Havdalah.
And then off to the wilds of Dot, intrepidly making it to Bitty's party without a navigator with me. (I wish I knew the city better.) I saw lots of people, including Slinkr (heading out with K), Queue, Hrafn, Cthulhia, Bitty, Treacle_Well, ZZBottom, , BubbleBabble, and others with unknown LJ status. As promised, there were many grilled comestibles, and I discovered that I am a pork nugget coward (no big surprise there!). I ended up feeding Bitty's current addiction, by playing Euchre. After the second game, I headed home, trying to reverse the directions I'd used to get there, and failing miserably. Happily, this meant I went another way that turned out to be even quicker (Dot Ave not having too much traffic), plus avoided the highway. I don't think I could manage to go that way there, though. (Ah, for a city where directions are easily reversible!) And I made it home for the final minutes of August, too.
t
Friday after work, a quick stop at the supermarket, where I discovered that the Stop&Shop with the kosher bakery in Allston no longer offers donuts. Instead, they have a (non-kosher) Dunkin Donuts in the store. I'm annoyed. Not that I got donuts there often, but enough.
Home to make the rest of Shabbat dinner. There was enough time to fit in my first games of Battle Line, a two-person game that I'm enjoying so far (I've managed to win a reasonable number of the games I've played, which of course makes it easier to enjoy... :-). Also noteworthy were the unexpected bouquet of flowers (thanks, H!), daisies and a rose that look lovely on my table.
And yes, the menu: challah, grape juice, vegetable soup (a puree of onion-garlic-carrot-delicata (etc), with some swiss chard cooked in it later. It was better once I thought to put in nutmeg...), mashed neeps, yellow and red tomato salad, roasted beets, white rice, roasted onions-red peppers-red and yellow tomatoes, steelhead trout (it's pink!) baked with mango-ginger chutney (from December), followed by a peach crumble. Ok, I think the concensus was that this was too much food for the assembled. OTOH, I have awesome leftovers...
I got u p early enough to make it to shul just about on time. The weather was perfect for a walk: brisk and cool. I was glad I'd worn a cardigan over my turtleneck, though amazed that I needed it. This was such October weather, not August. It was warmer by midday, but still not the hot steaminess that makes me slow down so much. It was great to walk so quickly, just because it felt good.
The double parasha didn't slow us down as much as the guy leading musaf using Carlebach tunes. I am still entertained seeing the guy who was gabbai this summer (Mike F), who is just about the tallest guy in the room, bending down to hear a name of a sick person (for a prayer for the sick) given to him by the shortest woman in shul, definitely under five feet tall. What makes it really cool is that both of them were wearing tallitot.
After the end of davening, but before setting up the room for kiddush, we said two Psalms for Israel, 120 and 121. It's amazing how 120 relates to the current situation in Israel.
Kiddush food this week was boring, but the conversation made up for it. I was surprised when some guy I didn't recognize came up to me; apparently he had been passing through two years ago, and had Shabbat dinner at my house. If I ever make it to Holland (I think it's Holland), I now have an invitation. I got a chance to hear about some dental woes, plans for the holidays, and camping in the Sierra Nevadas, as well.
I stayed for the rabbi's talk, on the topic of individual vs. communal repentance, whether the community's merits are more than just the sum of its residents' merits. Intertwined with that was the idea of using traits that might be seen as negative in a positive way (the classic example being someone with a desire to kill things becoming a shochet, ritual slaughterer). It was interesting, but his presentation was not as good as the previous week's, more like what I remember: not quite enough projection, swallowing some words, anticipating the laughs. A well thought out talk, just not as well orated as I'd like.
A nice, quiet afternoon of naps, reading, leftovers for lunch. Shabbat ebbed, and I made Havdalah.
And then off to the wilds of Dot, intrepidly making it to Bitty's party without a navigator with me. (I wish I knew the city better.) I saw lots of people, including Slinkr (heading out with K), Queue, Hrafn, Cthulhia, Bitty, Treacle_Well, ZZBottom, , BubbleBabble, and others with unknown LJ status. As promised, there were many grilled comestibles, and I discovered that I am a pork nugget coward (no big surprise there!). I ended up feeding Bitty's current addiction, by playing Euchre. After the second game, I headed home, trying to reverse the directions I'd used to get there, and failing miserably. Happily, this meant I went another way that turned out to be even quicker (Dot Ave not having too much traffic), plus avoided the highway. I don't think I could manage to go that way there, though. (Ah, for a city where directions are easily reversible!) And I made it home for the final minutes of August, too.
t