debka_notion

H and I went to the symphony last night, as we finally got the chance to use his parents' Hannukah present- $X to go to a cultural/art event. His grandparents apparently used to do about the same thing- send them some sum of money, with instructions to take the kids to the ballet. We'd originally gotten tickets to a performance in April, but as H ended up needing to be in transit to an interview that evening, this was the performance to which we could get substitute tickets. So we took a night off from sheva brachot meals, and had our first date night as married people.

It was lovely. While we'd listened to the music for the original concert we'd planned to go to, to get familiar with it, and hadn't managed the same diligence for this performance, it was Gershwin, and very accessible. (I'd guess that most people would find Gershwin favorites an easier unprepared listening experience than Stravinsky, but I suppose I could be wrong. Regardless, we did- although we'd listened to the Firebird enough times that I find myself humming itsy bits of the themes, now.)

In any case, we had a really nice time, and it was a lot of fun to dabble my toes in waters that used to be very familiar to my teenage self. Actually, it brought up all sorts of reminiscences of playing and going to concerts as a high school-er. I hadn't expected that, but it was rather interesting to see what sorts of memories popped up.

I'm getting married, in the morning. And now I'm supposed to sleep?

Yesterday was my last day at my internship. Last days are always a little odd for me- I never quite know what to do. I didn't want to start any new projects, but my old projects weren't quite going to take up the whole day. As it turns out, I started a new project anyways- but with every intention that it'd be a start for something for my mentor to work on, get other people's input on, etc. The real excitement of that project was that it was something that I thought up, totally on my own, suggested to her, and she said- "that's great, why don't you start writing it?". That's really exciting, as a mark of what I've learned.).

So I had lunch with my mentor, and got 2 books as goodbye presents- "The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food" from my mentor, and a book about different holiday customs from Jewish communities around the world, from the office. It's a book I used for a couple of pieces that I wrote during my time there- so it was both appropriate and pleasing, since I enjoyed it while I was working with it. (And now I get to read the whole thing, without just stealing extra reading moments while waiting for inspiration...)

I'm about to embark on the last leg of this trip- i.e. the flight back to CA. I've been in CT for a day and a half, which has been very quick, but very nice. Only one aspect was stressful (the hairdresser- more about that in a minute), and seeing my parents has been awesome. The whole thing has been:
1. Fly to Boston Motzei Shabbos, arriving Sunday morning
2. wedding Sunday in Boston, stay over with college friends,
3. Bus to NYC, Monday morning
4. Seamstress, last fitting for the wedding dress (this was a problem: she forgot to put me on her schedule, even though we made the appointment months ago. But she eventually fixed it, and all turned out fine in the end- but it was Not a pleasant hour, sitting there, waiting for her to do whatever work on it had to be done before I could have my last fitting, that I'd presume she'd have had done already, given that this fitting was Supposed to have been in January.) This was followed by a quick visit with cynara_linnaea, to check on the ketubah border, etc. It's Totally gorgeous.
5. Train to CT, Monday evening.
6. Various wedding errands at home, including: acquisition of chuppah pole makings, visit to the shul to assign locations for the various bits of the wedding, organize with the caterer, and pick tablecloth and napkin colors, etc.
The last of these was the hairdresser, which was awkward at times, although the hairdresser is very nice. Thankfully, my mother managed to get the ideas across to her, when she was tending to hear everything that I said as the exact Opposite of what I was trying to convey. We never Quite did the whole hairdo, but we got the idea, I think (I hope), and it should a. look good, and b. use a Ton of hairpins and hairspray. For this once, that is totally acceptable. (Although with the general "oh, you look so good with curls, you should think about doing that sometimes, for events" might not go Totally well with the intention for a bit more thorough head-covering, after the wedding. But we'll deal with that later, as I feel out what my requirements are going to be.
7. And here I am, off again. It's been really lovely to be with my family, and I'd have liked a bit longer with them- but I miss H, and am looking forward to being back with him. And now that school work is done, I'm going to be in serious wedding mode, I guess. Here we go!

I spent this weekend at my internship's annual Think Tank. It was fascinating, and sometimes baffling. Every time that I think that I have a handle on what they do, I find that there's this other goal, some of which seem like very messy matches with the rest of it. This conference was yet another piece. It was this odd mixture of people who work with unusual Jewish populations, and members of some of those populations, some of whom I have a hard time figuring out how to handle. In other words, many of them were well, of doubtful Jewish status, which I in theory knew to expect, but in practice, it was a bit harder to figure out than I thought it would be.

For example, at shabbos davening, while we had more People than we expected, identifying whether or not we had a minyan was difficult to do. On the other hand, besides the leyning, it was a perfectly kosher service, otherwise. (Torah reading was a mix of competent leyning, terrible leyning without any tune- just reading, incompetently, from the scroll, and one guy who pulled the trick my rabbi growing up did- read a phrase from the Torah, then translate, then back to the original text. It's effective, but oh Lordy, is it problematic.)

Still, having come there forewarned, I could push most of those sorts of doubts and concerns to the back of my mind, for the time. On the other hand, H couldn't, which gave me a way to sort of deal with the issues as I went, although it also took up a bunch of my emotional energy, in between what I was expending on not getting bothered, somewhere down below. The whole thing was exhausting, but quite interesting. I'm not quite hitting the place to Really process it yet, but hopefully soon...

Yesterday was my bridal shower. I was rather nervous when it started- I've only been to a few showers, and to be the bride is a different thing altogether. From there, things segued to some brief awkwardness, as I tried to interact with a variety of people who know me, or don't know me, from utterly different aspects of life, and had a Very awkward interaction with one of H's cousins, who seemed to be accusing me of losing, breaking or stealing some tea cups she said were in our house.

Then we did introductions, and got down to the business of opening presents- something I hadn't really been thinking about at all, beforehand. (Similarly, H was told to show up around 5, when the party was scheduled to end, which I think was to help take home the stuff, but he hadn't realized, and came by bike. So he had to go home and borrow his parents' car, and come back for me, the stuff, and his mom.) Opening gifts in front of everyone was a little strange, but everyone seemed to enjoy it, and their pleasure was infectious. (On the other hand, trying to balance between my usual habits of unwrapping things carefully enough to re-use the wrapping paper, etc, and trying to not make everyone wait too long while I fussed with wrappings felt very strange.)

It also helped that one woman came with her son, age 3-ish, who had a Wonderful time with all the discarded tissue paper. He took the occasional moment of attention off of me, which was sometimes useful. In that regard (constant attention, that is), it was good practice, I expect, for the wedding itself. And while it was lots of people, everyone was so amiable that it didn't get too overwhelming.

1. My folks sent me a package with a cord I left at home, and some other things, i.e. a shirt and some hair-style ideas for the wedding. H not only wanted to see the list of hair-styles (as in, called in to the other room to ask if he could look at them), but had an opinion.

2. We went to a sheva brachot last night, for a friend of H's. Not only was it a lot of fun (I was comfortable, I talked to people, I didn't feel like I was either sitting around alone or just H's tail!), I had this moment of realization (one of a string, but it's been a bit since I had one this strong)- we're getting married. In less than 3 months. Wow.

Yesterday was adventuresome, to say the least. It involved 2 coffeehouses, financial aid paperwork, printer, fax machine, taxes, and a Lot of walking. Then dinner with my future in-laws. That's the quick summary. Detail following.

1. Coffee-house 1: I met one of my teachers from the Gamliel Institute for coffee, to talk about life, rabbinical training, and how class is going for me. It was pleasant, if a bit formal and stilted. It takes me a while to really get comfortable with most of my teachers- it's a frustration of mine. I'm in graduate school, they don't necessarily need me to be a little "look what a good school-girl I am" figure any time we meet outside of our regular classroom. But I have a hard time breaking out of that, and really interacting comfortably and genuinely.

2. Walk to the library: lovely, and longer than usual, as the first coffeehouse was in the opposite direction from home.

3. Library: found good books. Realized I needed to absolutely have my financial aid stuff in by tomorrow (today now), so I was on a quest for printer and fax/scanner. I found the first at the library, did my paperwork. Realized I needed to have my taxes in too, for that. Found tax forms also at library. Luckily remembered my various information from having done the FAFSA last week. Did my taxes, for the very first time on my own. Ran off for...

4. Coffeehouse 2: I had a great meeting with one of the local Hillel staff, who's applying to JTS, to talk about JTS. Ostensibly. And really, we did some of that. But in between, we did a lot of just talking and getting to know each other. She's lovely. I hope JTS takes her, I think she'd do well there and for them. Found that she could let me use the fax machine at Hillel to send in my paperwork. Took a deep, relieved breath. Did so, concomitantly giving H's good friend a "what are you doing here, you're from my Other world" moment when he saw me there.

5. More walking. Google maps confuses me- how is a 25-30 minute walk, plus a 17-20 minute walk, added together, along the exact same route, supposed to be a 40-41 minute walk? It worked out, just fine, though.

6. Dinner at H's grandmother's, with her and with H's parents. Went on rather longer than expected, and was quite fun. H didn't get his scrabble game (the original reason we were planning to go to his grandmother's last night), but it seemed worth it.

7. Today: meeting with mentor, various readings and such for school, Gamliel tonight.

X Get Out (i.e. leave the house, work elsewhere)
-Get reading done for this week, as much as possible.
X Do Gamliel Institute homework.
-Write to zodiacmg
X post about the weekend (outdoors, future in-law relation, Shabbat and the entertaining of other generations)
X finish assembling alphabetical list of wedding guests
X assemble list of guests for whom we need email and/or snail mail addresses, divided by family
X straighten living room
X email re: other internship
-begin wording for save-the-date email?

Having been inspired by fiddle_dragon, I have finally embarked on making my first pair of socks. I have one done (after re-doing the heel about 3 times, I think), and am well into the second. I am quite excited.