Busy Days, Etc
I’ve somehow managed to be remarkably busy of late. Thursday was Zimriyah, a sort of camp-wide choral concert by age-group, held at another location due to the ridiculous size of the thing (700ish kids, an average of a few parents a pop, staff, etc). So we had to pack up dinner for everyone and bring it there and set it up. The planning stage was a perfect model of stress for everyone. Once we were there and set up, it was actually rather fun and amusing, even if I was not particularly inspired by the actual event- it was cute, but it takes a lot for me to actually really Like choral music, and kids choral music is cute but well, ranging from indifferent to lousy from a musical perspective. I got a ride there from one of the women in the kitchen, and a ride back from one of the camp nursing staff, and her husband who works in the office, and their daughter and granddaughter, who is a camper here, and quite adorable.
Friday was notable for the fact that we got things done pretty efficiently, and that the guy who comes for most shabbatot and had said explicitly that he wasn’t going to come to camp that Shabbat decided to come anyways. This was rather reassuring, as I was nervous about being the sole consciously religious individual in the kitchen that Shabbat (our other guy was home for Shabbos), and Steve and I seem to make letting everyone know about candlelighting time and setting things up into a sort of dialogue that communicates to the other folks in the kitchen. Given Steve’s background, we also had a funny interaction about the use of hot water in the kitchen on Shabbat- I never do, he was. I asked what his reasoning was for finding that acceptable, he said “if you’re uncomfortable enough with it to ask, I’ll stop- it’s just what we do at home”. So- I can’t think of an excuse to do so relevant to this camp, but I’m curious now. I think it’s going to be a question for our friendly camp rabbi. I think I also have another about issues of kli rishon/kli sheini/etc (this involves technicalities of where cooking occurs, since one may not do cooking on Shabbat, although one may heat solids- not liquids)- they have a tendency to remove the cholent from the oven on Shabbat, and if it’s burnt, then add water, and I’m realizing now that that might well be halakhically iffy.
Sunday I spent a bit of time at the local street fair with friends, then waited for the bus (which was dramatically late) and went into NYC to meet [Bad username or site: ”doctor_nine” @ livejournal.com], whereupon we wandered pretty darn aimlessly, interspersed with sitting in a random (to us at least) park, and eventually eating dinner. This is pretty much our standard social activity, and has been since high school, so it was rather pleasing to maintain, even in a different location from usual.
On the way back, I spoke with both parents on the phone, and also with [Bad username or site: ”jakal88” @ livejournal.com] until the weather there started to interfere with his reception. And I found that there was someone else from camp also taking the same bus back, which was quite reasurring, as I still don’t so much recognize the stuff right before the stop (which is only sort of an actual bus stop) enough to ask for the bus to stop at the right place, and also because the bus driver decided to drive most of the route at 20mph, thus making what was supposed to be an hour and 20ish minute ride into a ride of closer to 2 hours. Not exactly what I wanted, but oh well. It was a day for poorly timed busrides, I suppose.
Today was a special Yom Yisrael (Israel Day) program, which involved a greater variety of food than usual, which I expected to be terribly stressful (due to needing to use stove space on the meat side of the kitchen to do dairy stuff- not a problem, especially since our stoves are all gas, but just with greater chances of something going on the wrong countertop, etc), but which ended up being pretty reasonable. And then at one point we even all got to sit down for a bit while the second or third batch of the potatoes for tomorrow’s lunch were baking, and chit-chatted, and Steve2 shared a favorite song of his about potatoes which we all found Totally hilarious- it’s to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance, and the beginning goes like this:
They’re red, they’re white, they’re brown.
They get that way underground.
They can’t have much to do,
So now they have blue ones too.
They have eyes but they do not have faces
I don't know if their feelings get hurt
By just hanging around in dark places
Where that only can stare at the dirt
The chorus is just “potato” repeated a lot. Go figure.
And then this evening, I took a bible test that I should have taken rather a while ago. I think I did reasonably- it was both easier and harder than I expected- at least, the essays threw me for a moment, but I think I produced some reasonable ones anyways, and the rest was pretty darn reasonable, although I'm currently feeling rather silly for not remembering who the heck a particular probably obscure biblical character is.
Friday was notable for the fact that we got things done pretty efficiently, and that the guy who comes for most shabbatot and had said explicitly that he wasn’t going to come to camp that Shabbat decided to come anyways. This was rather reassuring, as I was nervous about being the sole consciously religious individual in the kitchen that Shabbat (our other guy was home for Shabbos), and Steve and I seem to make letting everyone know about candlelighting time and setting things up into a sort of dialogue that communicates to the other folks in the kitchen. Given Steve’s background, we also had a funny interaction about the use of hot water in the kitchen on Shabbat- I never do, he was. I asked what his reasoning was for finding that acceptable, he said “if you’re uncomfortable enough with it to ask, I’ll stop- it’s just what we do at home”. So- I can’t think of an excuse to do so relevant to this camp, but I’m curious now. I think it’s going to be a question for our friendly camp rabbi. I think I also have another about issues of kli rishon/kli sheini/etc (this involves technicalities of where cooking occurs, since one may not do cooking on Shabbat, although one may heat solids- not liquids)- they have a tendency to remove the cholent from the oven on Shabbat, and if it’s burnt, then add water, and I’m realizing now that that might well be halakhically iffy.
Sunday I spent a bit of time at the local street fair with friends, then waited for the bus (which was dramatically late) and went into NYC to meet [Bad username or site: ”doctor_nine” @ livejournal.com], whereupon we wandered pretty darn aimlessly, interspersed with sitting in a random (to us at least) park, and eventually eating dinner. This is pretty much our standard social activity, and has been since high school, so it was rather pleasing to maintain, even in a different location from usual.
On the way back, I spoke with both parents on the phone, and also with [Bad username or site: ”jakal88” @ livejournal.com] until the weather there started to interfere with his reception. And I found that there was someone else from camp also taking the same bus back, which was quite reasurring, as I still don’t so much recognize the stuff right before the stop (which is only sort of an actual bus stop) enough to ask for the bus to stop at the right place, and also because the bus driver decided to drive most of the route at 20mph, thus making what was supposed to be an hour and 20ish minute ride into a ride of closer to 2 hours. Not exactly what I wanted, but oh well. It was a day for poorly timed busrides, I suppose.
Today was a special Yom Yisrael (Israel Day) program, which involved a greater variety of food than usual, which I expected to be terribly stressful (due to needing to use stove space on the meat side of the kitchen to do dairy stuff- not a problem, especially since our stoves are all gas, but just with greater chances of something going on the wrong countertop, etc), but which ended up being pretty reasonable. And then at one point we even all got to sit down for a bit while the second or third batch of the potatoes for tomorrow’s lunch were baking, and chit-chatted, and Steve2 shared a favorite song of his about potatoes which we all found Totally hilarious- it’s to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance, and the beginning goes like this:
They’re red, they’re white, they’re brown.
They get that way underground.
They can’t have much to do,
So now they have blue ones too.
They have eyes but they do not have faces
I don't know if their feelings get hurt
By just hanging around in dark places
Where that only can stare at the dirt
The chorus is just “potato” repeated a lot. Go figure.
And then this evening, I took a bible test that I should have taken rather a while ago. I think I did reasonably- it was both easier and harder than I expected- at least, the essays threw me for a moment, but I think I produced some reasonable ones anyways, and the rest was pretty darn reasonable, although I'm currently feeling rather silly for not remembering who the heck a particular probably obscure biblical character is.