Rosh Hashanah and Continuing

Leading Rosh HaShanah services went rather better than I expected.  I stayed almost perfectly within my set amount of time (right on time the first day, having started 5 minutes late to give folks a bit of a chance to show up, 10 minutes late the second day, having not had a minyan until partway through the shacharit amidah, which meant that we did a full repetition unlike the day before- note that my task was to have RH services in 3 hours- otherwise I would not want to do such a thing in general and especially not for one of the yamim noraim.  (For those not deeply ensconced in a brand of Judaism related to the one I prefer- the central section of prayers is customarily done quietly on your own and then again by the person leading, out loud for the whole community, and on the high holy days, there are all sorts of special poetic inserts for the repetition that you miss by not repeating it.)  My whole thing was riddled with flaws, many of which I was quite aware of, but which weren't terrible for a first time, and which the congregation didn't seem to notice.  This may have been helped by my congregation's demographics: we had about 30 people the first day and about 15 the second day, I think the youngest person was nearing 60 and many of the folks were significantly older than that, and many of them were 3 day a year Jews or close to it (quite likely 3 days plus the shabbatot near yahrtzeits).  Given all of that, they didn't do much participation, but were generous with the compliments afterwards- which was an ego boost that probably helped me significantly when doing it again the second day. 

I ran into several folks who I actually knew, mostly while attending afternoon and evening services at the nearest Conservative synagogue.  I had not been expecting to see anyone I knew, but instead saw one JTS professor (who took time the second day to stop in and listen to me leading services for about 20 minutes on her way to shul- I should email her for feedback.   I've never even taken a class with her, at least yet, but we often sit in the same row at mincha at school, and it was a really lovely thing for her to have done- a little extra nerve-wracking, but worth it.), two folks I knew from college (one from either end, as it were- one who was a senior my freshman year, and another who was a freshman my senior year), and one guy whom I met at a KOACH Kallah and have run into in various other contexts since.  The rabbi of the shul there was also very welcoming, and I rather enjoyed watching his style- it was certainly not my style, and it occasionally made me rather nuts, but it was worth watching.  He did good explanations.  

The second day, I walked from the VA hospital (1st and 23rd) to have lunch with friends on the Upper West Side (noam_rion and his lovely wife who lacks a livejournal).  The walk was quite nice for the first 4ish miles, but the last few got quite tiring- I can still feel my muscles a bit today.  This is the first time that I've been able to feel a result in my muscles from walking in Quite a long time- it was somewhere between 5.5 and 6 miles.  It was a delightful lunch (and Dairy, which was an additional delight after 3 meat meals of varying quality- none bad, but the first two were certainly lacking in imagination beyond what was basically meat and potatoes), and it was wonderful to see them (especially since I hadn't seen them since their wedding, as they'd been in Israel, and now I'm about to leave for a school year) as well as their other guests.  It took me a while to extract myself after yontif was over, as being with folks was lovely and I was quite worn out from the weekend. 

Eventually I got myself back downtown (by subway- I'm not totally insane), gathered my things, and started to leave, calling my folks to find out if I should come home then (it being rather later than I'd expected), or stay over with my very kind lunch hosts.  Well, my phone battery promptly died, so I returned to the VA hospital, where I tried to plug my phone in, but it wasn't letting me call while doing that.  So I was sitting there getting anxious, when the security guard came by to see if I was having trouble, and he directed me to the pay phone (I used a pay phone for the first time in Quite a long time), which nicely solved my problems- although it meant that I didn't call jakal88 (whose phone number I really ought to memorize and/or keep somewhere other than my phone and my computer) until significantly later than we usually talk these days.  He is very calm and patient about these sorts of adventures that occasionally happen to me in regards to travel and the like- it is a trait that I am trying to learn, but does not come easily to me.  So I stayed over in NYC, and returned home today, thus avoiding traveling late-ish at night, having a pleasant conversation with a random guy on the bus and subway on the way back (a not terribly involved Jewish airplane steward or whatever the current PC term is, going uptown to visit a friend who was visiting the city), and got some more time with my hosts- and managed to be somewhere where I could charge my phone to call my boyfriend.  

I found the whole weekend much more tiring than I somehow expected, but quite worthwhile.  Now- Yom Kippur prep, packing, other preparations for Israel, and somehow arranging how we'll manage sukkot, since I'm leaving during hol hamoed, and expect to probably be home for the beginning of the holiday.  This may involve a very last minute and almost certainly quite ram-shackle sukkah in our backyard.  Eeep.