Another End of Weekend Post

After all the nonsense of Friday, this weekend turned out to be quite nice. I slept in on Saturday, and read a book of short stories about flying saucers (good old-style sci-fi: they were fun stories), and my parents came up mid-afternoon and hung out. Mom and I went for a walk, we talked, and it was nice. We went to the bookstore and for ice cream after Shabbos, and came home to go to sleep- only to find that Mom and Dad had forgotten to bring the thing that inflates the air mattress- so they went to a hotel instead.

THis morning they came and got me, we went into Brookline for bagels and to get a book for my sister: she'd wanted the first Harry Potter book in Hebrew (I just finished reading it, but I'm borrowing zodaicmg's copy, so...). They were out of book 1, so we got her book instead, after a brief cell-phone conference. And then we went to the Armenian Museum (on Rt 20 in Watertown) for a couple hours. It was really neat- apparently it's one of 3 Armenian museums in the US of A, and the largest of those- possibly the largest Armenian museum outside of Armenia. The gentleman who worked there gave us a nice background lecture, and occasionally popped up with information about whatever we were looking at: I learned some neat random things about dyes used in Armenian rugs, among other things- and I saw some zornas (they're shawn class instruments: double reeds, traditionally played in duet with a drum- the combination is quite loud), which was rather cool, I'd been curious- there was an Eastern one and a Western one so I got to see the differences (I never knew there Were two sorts of zornas before). And I also got to see the makings of an oud, and some of the tools used to make one. It was awfully neat. That museum has weird hours though...

And then we came back to the apartment, and Steve was assembling a table: we now have an actual real-and-true table, for the last month that I'm here. (Steve is living here next year, so it makes a lot of sense.) It's bright green, at least for the moment: it'll probably get repainted or covered with a table-cloth or both. But we have a very colorful kitchen for now. It's great.

And then I went out for dinner, back to Brookline, with tovah623, nahamu et al- one of whom was up here visiting for a few days. And that was a lot of fun: it was nice to get some unpressured social time. And we had an odd run-in with some Genesis kids while we were eating dinner, because we looked very Jewish. It was a good time.

And then I came home and talked to Dad on the phone about some logistics for next year. And soon I will go to sleep and will start the beginning of my next to last full week of work: well, if I have tisha b'av off, which I asked for, (and had better get: I don't know How I could work in telephone research that morning especially), it'll technically be my last full week of work. Here it goes...

Another End of Weekend Post

After all the nonsense of Friday, this weekend turned out to be quite nice. I slept in on Saturday, and read a book of short stories about flying saucers (good old-style sci-fi: they were fun stories), and my parents came up mid-afternoon and hung out. Mom and I went for a walk, we talked, and it was nice. We went to the bookstore and for ice cream after Shabbos, and came home to go to sleep- only to find that Mom and Dad had forgotten to bring the thing that inflates the air mattress- so they went to a hotel instead.

THis morning they came and got me, we went into Brookline for bagels and to get a book for my sister: she'd wanted the first Harry Potter book in Hebrew (I just finished reading it, but I'm borrowing zodaicmg's copy, so...). They were out of book 1, so we got her book instead, after a brief cell-phone conference. And then we went to the Armenian Museum (on Rt 20 in Watertown) for a couple hours. It was really neat- apparently it's one of 3 Armenian museums in the US of A, and the largest of those- possibly the largest Armenian museum outside of Armenia. The gentleman who worked there gave us a nice background lecture, and occasionally popped up with information about whatever we were looking at: I learned some neat random things about dyes used in Armenian rugs, among other things- and I saw some zornas (they're shawn class instruments: double reeds, traditionally played in duet with a drum- the combination is quite loud), which was rather cool, I'd been curious- there was an Eastern one and a Western one so I got to see the differences (I never knew there Were two sorts of zornas before). And I also got to see the makings of an oud, and some of the tools used to make one. It was awfully neat. That museum has weird hours though...

And then we came back to the apartment, and Steve was assembling a table: we now have an actual real-and-true table, for the last month that I'm here. (Steve is living here next year, so it makes a lot of sense.) It's bright green, at least for the moment: it'll probably get repainted or covered with a table-cloth or both. But we have a very colorful kitchen for now. It's great.

And then I went out for dinner, back to Brookline, with tovah623, nahamu et al- one of whom was up here visiting for a few days. And that was a lot of fun: it was nice to get some unpressured social time. And we had an odd run-in with some Genesis kids while we were eating dinner, because we looked very Jewish. It was a good time.

And then I came home and talked to Dad on the phone about some logistics for next year. And soon I will go to sleep and will start the beginning of my next to last full week of work: well, if I have tisha b'av off, which I asked for, (and had better get: I don't know How I could work in telephone research that morning especially), it'll technically be my last full week of work. Here it goes...