Good news, bad news, yesterday, today, and so forth

[xiphias]

I taught Hebrew school in the morning, on only about four hours' sleep. Fortunately, only two students showed up. We talked a little more about Channukah, about the laws of Channukah and when you light the Channukiah. Mentioned the Hillel/Shammai argument about which way you light the lights, talked about how you can have candles or oil lamps. Talked about how you're not allowed to use the lights from the Channukiah for any useful purpose, like reading by them or anything, and how one of the reasons for the shamas candle -- the one you light the other ones with -- was actually so that, if you forgot and accidentally were using the light from the Channukiah for something useful, you could say, oops, but I was really using the light from this EXTRA candle, not the light from the Channukah candles.

Did a little more with Hebrew, some drilling with letters and so forth. And sounding out the Channukah blessings, and Maoz Tzur. They actually didn't know Maoz Tzur, so, at snack, Mark and I taught the song.

After snack, I mentioned that we hadn't talked about the parsha for weeks and weeks, because of snow days, and special programs and so forth, and we were already up to Joseph, so we went quickly through a couple of the stories we'd missed, and, since there's no Hebrew School next week, we covered that parsha as well, at least briefly. Since we're into the stories they're already familiar with, we were able to just sort of touch on the high points. That's a lot of stuff -- Yosef is sold into slavery by his brothers, because they're jealous of him, ends up in Mitzraym, is thrown into jail for turning down Potaphar's wife, and interprets the baker and cupbearer's dreams. That's THIS week -- next week is Yosef becomes the most powerful man in Mitzraym, and meets his brothers again. . . .

After that, for T'filah, Rafi explained that, during Channukah, we say some extra prayers, and sing songs of praise. Since our T'filah at Hebrew School is only ten minutes, and is MASSIVELY abbriviated -- it's sort of a "some of your favorite moments from the weekday Shachrit service", just to sort of give the kids and idea that prayer is something that you do every day, and to get SOME basic familiarity with stuff -- we just added in a couple sentences from "Al Ha-Nisim", and Mark chose an excerpt of one of his favorite prayers from Hallel that he taught the kids.


Sunday afternoon, we lazed around for a bit, and did work around the house, and then headed out to Brookline, where we bought some kosher meat finally (I need to make stew soon. . . ), and Channukah candles, which we hadn't gotten bought before now (we were using leftover ones from extra boxes from last year, but they were getting REAL low), and went to Marty's Liquors, where we looked at all the neat stuff, and I bought a couple nip bottles of stuff that I hadn't had before.

See, a 1.75 liter bottle of Grey Goose is $42, which is more than I really want to pay for a bottle of something that I don't know if I like it. Even 1 liter bottles are like $30 or something. But the nip bottles are only like $5, so I felt I could safely try those.

Okay, I take back maybe 80% of the things I've said about "how come people drink expensive vodkas"?

Grey Goose is really good! Belvedere is also pretty good, but Grey Goose is better. I stand by my statement to the drunk college kids a month or so back that it's idiotic and borderline criminal to mix it with cranberry juice. Now that I've tried it, I'm frankly even more convinced of that.

In other news, Drambuie (which I'd never had before) is almost sickeningly sweet, but it gets a lot better if you cut it with a lot of scotch. Johnnie Walker Red label, preferably. It's a good use of blended scotch.

And Midori still tastes like watermellon Jolly Ranchers -- which is a flavor I dislike. But it's a really pretty bottle, so we'll need it if we ever make a nip bottle chess set.


We showed up relatively late at Mystery House for teddywolf's Games Night. Played House Special Munchkin, which bikergeek won. Had fun seeing people, and flirting, and schmoozing and so forth. Yay cool people that I like!

Which includes everybody who was there.

We went home on the earlyish side, and Lis went to sleep, and I stayed up and read and stuff. Then there was a knock on the door. . . .


It was Dave, our tenant. He'd come back from visiting his family in Providence, and he'd been up reading, and he heard a weird noise from the basement. . .

And there was water pouring out of the bottom of one of the water heaters.

I turned off the water, Dave turned off the gas, we discovered that it was the water heater for our apartment, Lis and mine.

I went to bed.


Today, I woke up, threw on pajamas and drove to the gym, where I showered. Then I got dressed, and came home. The showers at the gym aren't as good as ours, but the fact that they have a steam room makes up for a lot.

I came home and Lis and I went to doctor's appointments, just brief follow-up appointments -- we both tend to have 15 minute check-in appointments every three months or so to just track how we're doing on some of our ongoing issues. Mine are largely diet and exercise. I mentioned to my doctor my new diet -- "I only eat things I enjoy."

It's working. The main problem I have with my diet is eating unconciously -- eating without paying attention to what I'm eating, which means that I'm eating far too much of things which aren't that good for me anyway, and not even noticing that I'm doing it. Now, before I eat something, I have to stop myself, look at what I'm about to eat, and ask myself, "Am I really going to ENJOY eating that, or am I just eating that because it's THERE?"

I still eat too much junk food, and far too few vegetables. But it's a LOT better than it was. It's very difficult for me to do, though.

Then I dropped Lis off at work, and went home, and called plumbers. Lis suggested that I call Gray's Appliances, across the street, and ask them who they recommended as good plumbers. They gave me two names. Hinchey Brothers couldn't help -- they were swamped. They had FIVE water heaters blow out last night that they were dealing with. But Vaughn called me back, said he'd drop by, took a look at the water heater and told me, "Yup, it's dead." I asked, "When can you get a replacement by?" He said, "Probably take me almost an hour, but I'll be able to install it right after that."

A couple hours and $850 later, we now have a brand-new water heater.

Comments

[cellio]

"Probably take me almost an hour" is much better than I would have hoped for from any home-repair venture, let alone something big like a water heater. :-)

An Idea, maybe

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Please don't take this wrongly, as I don't know the specifics of how observant you are... This is just a thought that came to my mind when you wrote about dealing with "eating unconsciously", maybe if you make a conscious decision to actively take note of everything that you eat, you would have that much more incentive to notice this eating, so say the blessings on food, before you eat. This gives you a nice two for one gain ;-) being both aware of what you eat, and consciously thankful for it.

Just an idea.

I really like Drambuie. Do you think it is sweeter than Southern Comfort for instance?

Re: An Idea, maybe

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That's a damn good idea. . .

Re: An Idea, maybe

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Oh, a secondary followup:

One of the main reasons I don't say brachot is because I eat so much treif -- and, technically, one doesn't say brachot over treif food. But, well, nobody else I know follows that, and I know a lot of folks who do say brachot over treif.

As for Southern Comfort, I've actually never had it yet. I'm scared to try it, since I hear it tastes like Robitussin. . .

Drambuie is really good mixed with Dewars -- I'm drinking that right now.

Re: An Idea, maybe

[cellio]

One of the main reasons I don't say brachot is because I eat so much treif -- and, technically, one doesn't say brachot over treif food.

Are you sure about that? I was told that you do -- that is, even if you're eating stuff you're not supposed to eat, you should thank the provider.

(Pause...dig...)

Ok, Rambam says no bracha on treif, but the OU suggests that if the meal includes some kosher food, you should still make the bracha even if you're also going to eat treif. Thank you; I learned something new this morning.

Um

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

As cellio said, do you mean "trief" or not strictly kosher? Lobster would be the first, while non-Kosher Cheese would be the second, or anything prepared in a non-Kosher kitchen. There is a huge difference between these extremes. The second group still qualifies for a blessing.

When I was in high-school McDonald started their damned franchise here, and had a whole campaign on how all of the food they served, was made from kosher ingredients (this is important to many people here who don't keep strictly kosher). So my teacher-rabbi commented that it was highly ironic, as now would could actually have a cheese-burger that actually violated the meat-milk mixing prohibition. Because until then, all cheese-burgers were made from non-kosher meat, which being trief, can't qualify as "meant and milk".

The way I describe Southern Comfort to people who haven't tried it yet, is that because of it's sweetness, it is so smooth that you hardly notice how strong it is (80' or 100' proof), until it hits bottom, and smacks you up the head :-)

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Much sympathy re the water heater. Though I'm glad that, if there had to be an expense like that, it came after you'd found a job. And it was great to see you at games night.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It was good seeing you, too.

The way I think of it, $850 is what I made in the last two weeks when I was working all the time.

But, well, that means that we had he $850, because I spent the last two weeks working all the time.

[hodyesod.livejournal.com]

Do you like Campari? I never did like it but I have friends who swear by it. It's sour, so maybe you'd like it better than the sweet stuff you mentioned.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I've only had it once; I rather liked it. My mother-in-law can't stand it. . .