Random Details of Shabbos and Sunday

Shabbos was nicer than I expected. It was quiet, but I slept a lot, and had some nice conversations and reread a bunch of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, one of my favorite Heinlein books- a good plot, and no extraneous sex (see, sharonaf et al? There goes your excuse not to read it). And next time, I think I might add cranberries to the apple muffins.

The expedition to the shul in Waltham was a real interesting one- the rabbi there never, ever stops talking. And his commentary (to use Steve's nice term for it) isn't always quite so accurate- he definitely implied that the Amidah happens After shacharit, and he described P'sukei D'Zimra as "opening your heart to the Psalms". And there were some interesting mispronunciations all around. But it was really beautiful to watch the gentleman who did the layning and lead musaf- he seemed really dedicated and involved in what he was doing, and he must have been a really impressive chazzan once. (The gentleman can't be under 80.) It'll be interesting to be around there over the course of this summer. And it's a nice stroll too: I get in a nice walk without having to drag someone with me who isn't so interested in walking.

Today involved a shopping expedition to Brookline with the two current apartmentmates and Steve who lives upstairs. It worked out well, and we hit a surprising number of locations. We went to the Judaica shop and I got a matching set of gemaras to do some learning over the phone with zodiacmg- (they were on sale, so I feel less weird about shipping one across the country). And then we hit CVS on the way to Trader Joe's, and from there we had lunch, then to the kosher grocery (they had the sort of soy sauce my family likes, which is rather hard to find- talk about random finds, when the main part of the trip besides the talmud was for the other folks to stock up on meat). Then we split up briefly, and two of us went to the housewares store to find tupperware, and the other folks picked up take-out from another restaurant for dinner (more meat), and then we finally headed home. It's funny- I'm around that area so rarely in daylight that driving there I almost thought I'd taken a wrong turn, briefly. It's such a different feel, especially in the heat: cheerful and bustling, rather than calm and quiet.

I came home and called my folks who were visiting with one of Mom's college friends and her boyfriend, and they talked for quite a while about the exciting grilling techniques they were learning- apparently grilling fruit carmelizes the sugars, so they taste even sweeter.

Random Details of Shabbos and Sunday

Shabbos was nicer than I expected. It was quiet, but I slept a lot, and had some nice conversations and reread a bunch of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, one of my favorite Heinlein books- a good plot, and no extraneous sex (see, sharonaf et al? There goes your excuse not to read it). And next time, I think I might add cranberries to the apple muffins.

The expedition to the shul in Waltham was a real interesting one- the rabbi there never, ever stops talking. And his commentary (to use Steve's nice term for it) isn't always quite so accurate- he definitely implied that the Amidah happens After shacharit, and he described P'sukei D'Zimra as "opening your heart to the Psalms". And there were some interesting mispronunciations all around. But it was really beautiful to watch the gentleman who did the layning and lead musaf- he seemed really dedicated and involved in what he was doing, and he must have been a really impressive chazzan once. (The gentleman can't be under 80.) It'll be interesting to be around there over the course of this summer. And it's a nice stroll too: I get in a nice walk without having to drag someone with me who isn't so interested in walking.

Today involved a shopping expedition to Brookline with the two current apartmentmates and Steve who lives upstairs. It worked out well, and we hit a surprising number of locations. We went to the Judaica shop and I got a matching set of gemaras to do some learning over the phone with zodiacmg- (they were on sale, so I feel less weird about shipping one across the country). And then we hit CVS on the way to Trader Joe's, and from there we had lunch, then to the kosher grocery (they had the sort of soy sauce my family likes, which is rather hard to find- talk about random finds, when the main part of the trip besides the talmud was for the other folks to stock up on meat). Then we split up briefly, and two of us went to the housewares store to find tupperware, and the other folks picked up take-out from another restaurant for dinner (more meat), and then we finally headed home. It's funny- I'm around that area so rarely in daylight that driving there I almost thought I'd taken a wrong turn, briefly. It's such a different feel, especially in the heat: cheerful and bustling, rather than calm and quiet.

I came home and called my folks who were visiting with one of Mom's college friends and her boyfriend, and they talked for quite a while about the exciting grilling techniques they were learning- apparently grilling fruit carmelizes the sugars, so they taste even sweeter.