Ten things...

My daughter tagged me with this "Ten things I'd like to kick" meme. Problem is, I don't really do kicking. If she had asked for "Ten People Whose Carotid Artery I Would Like To Rip Out With My Fingernails" then we would have a list! But I know she's checking to see if I do it, so here are:

5 Petty Annoyances:

1) The repaving of my street, neccessiated by

2) The tearing up of my street. (Done over the past month, for no discernible reason.)

3) Christmas Carols. They get stuck in my head, words and all. 15 minutes in a mall and I'm "Dreaming of a White Christmas" for three days.

4) Library overdue fines.

5) People who never wash their coats. Some folks don't seem to realize that if you wear your coat all winter, it picks up sweat, which turns to major BO. You walk past someone like this in a store, and the whole aisle stinks. Put the damn thing in the laundry!

I'm not tagging anyone specific, because I'm pretty sure no one reads this anymore. First three commentors, consider yourselves tagged.

9/11 Happy Birthday?

Today is my daughter's birthday. Six years ago, after what would have to be termed a bare minimum of labour, I gave birth to a little girl who is the sweetest, friendliest, most light-filled of my children.

Five years ago, I was poking around online when the first unbelievable bulletins came over the Internet. I scooped her up and ran over to the school where my husband and the rest of the kids were. He was gathering the older kids and the teachers into the auditorium to say Tehillim. I remember turning to the English translation siddurim for the secular teachers, none of whom are Jewish. The nursery teacher was having hysterics, so I went to the classroom to sit with the kids. I told them there was a big fire in New York, that a plane had crashed into a building. My husband and son went outside to raise the flag.

How am I supposed to feel today? There is a special website for people like my daughter, birthdayspirit.org. Their motto is "Celebrating the goodness born on a tragic day." I guess that's us.

Back to Real Life

As you may have deduced from my absence from blogging, I did not have a computer at camp this year. I also did not have a bear in my cabin, though we did see a timber rattlesnake one day. other than that, I chased my kids, took them swimming in the Delaware River, treated mosquito bites, and generally did the camp thing for a month and a half. I brought the younger kids home with me, have to go back next week to get the older ones. There must be a better way to do this.

It's That Time of the Year Again

We're off to Boy Scout Camp again. Maybe I'll be posting from there, maybe not. Maybe my cabin will have a door that keeps the bear out, maybe not. Have a safe and healthy summer, everyone!

The Nachas Report

My daughter graduated from elementary school last night. She recieved an award for Excellence in Limudei Kodesh and one for Chumash. She was also listed on the program as being among the girls with perfect grades in Math, Language Arts, Torah B'al Peh, and Chumash for grades 7 and 8. And she also looked truly beautiful. How could I possibly deserve this one? Clearly she is a gift from G-d, as are her siblings. Their father and I just look at them sometimes and wonder how we got so lucky.

Are There Sheep In Your Dessert?

It's the time of the year when my long-suffering hubby has to grade term papers written by teenagers in the middle of the night the day they are due. Because the hour is so late and the writing is so rushed, these kids have no time to edit or proofread anything, so these papers are swarming with errors in grammar, spelling, logic and of course fact.

Some examples, drawn verbatim from this year's "final products":

...Moses led his flock of sheep into the dessert.

While Moses was taking care of his father-in-law, the priest of Midian's sheep...

At the age of 25, Rashi invented his own language, Old French...

Moses has several characteristics that combine to create an audacious devoted leader...

Rashi interoperated on the verse...

The original Bible that was printed in 1567 by Daniel Bomberg, included Rashi's commentaries.

My Feel Good Shiur

I was asked to be one of the speakers at or shul's Women's Shiur on the second Day of Shavuot. We were each supposed to pick one of the Ten Commandments to speak about. I wanted an easy one, so I picked Shabbat. Actually, I picked the easy side of Shabbat, the "Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it".

As I started researching this, I found that most of the mitzvot in this category are things we already do, which made this a real hit with the ladies. Shopping for Shabbat is part of the mitzva; we all do that. We clean our houses, set the table, change to Shabbat clothes; all taken care of.

It's even part of this mitzva to speak differently on Shabbat. Now, one angle on that is that since it is a mitzva for husband's and wives to be affectionate with each other on Shabbat, it is forbidden to fight with one's spouse on Shabbat or even on Friday afternoon! The other half of speaking differently is that we say "Shabbat Shalom" or "Good Shabbos" instead of our usual greetings. This is actually an observance of the mitzva of "Remembering Shabbat".

Don't you feel like you got that one for free?