City Living Gripe #483

As my friend Arona already noted, we city folk don't always have it easy. Urban dwelling brings with it some surreal protocols and implications we must confront. Here's one that bothers me.

We are lucky enough to have a laundry room in our building (the fact that we don't have to schlep to the laundromat makes this a distinctly NY type of luck) that has five washing machines. Our building has 60 apartments. You do the math.

We're vigilant enough to catch a machine when its wash is done. The washes' owners, however, are not always so vigilant. What this means is that, as per building's consenual, tacit etiquette, we take the other person's clean laundry out of the machine and put it into an empty dryer (if there are no empty dryers, the wash goes on a table in the room). Now I know that these are freshly cleaned clothes we're talking about, but still- I don't want to be handling someone else unmentionables! There must be some evolutionary advantage to being repulsed by others' clothes (a.k.a. xenovestiphobia), but what could it possibly be if we're even disgusted by clean clothing? I'm open to hearing all forms of conjecture, speculation, and MAS on the topic.

We also had to deal with an urban laundry excursion when we were in San Francisco for vacation. Being soon after the 9 Days, we packed dirty laundry to wash at the beginning of our trip. We asked at our hotel and they directed us to the Brain Wash Cafe & Laundromat. We realized we weren't in the tourist part of town anymore when every storefront was a body shop- alternating car's and women's bodies (if ya know what I mean ;). I've never seen such a trendy laundromat; I guess that's the point. Our load was way under the minimum weight, but the heavy-lidded hipster behind the counter, apathetic and detesting of her bosses anyway, didn't even to try and make us pay the higher fee to meet the minimum.

Muslims excel in Jewish day school!

The Jewish school where half the pupils are Muslim
Some might call this article inspirational- I don't know if I'd go that far, but it is somewhat astounding. The two levels that get me are first, that the Muslim parents are so into enrolling their kids in a Jewish school and second, that other members of their community seem to be ok with it. Presumably, the Birmingham (UK) Muslim community is more moderate.

Thanks to Avi Z. for the link.

Wear Red Day 2007

I didn't think about my decision to wear a red sweater on February 2nd, I just pulled it out of the closet. I'm working Fridays doing research in a cardiovascular department of a major hospital. Someone popped her head in the room I was working in and, noting that I was wearing red, asked if I was wearing "for the cause."

Indeed, I wasn't, but what cause? Apparently, it was Wear Red Day, in support of women's heart disease awareness. Being a cardiology department, everyone's for this cause. We took a staff picture with all of us Redcoats. Afterwards, I got a red dress pin (aka a זונה* pin)

What was I doing that day? Proofreading my professor's chapter galleys, punctuation and all. Sound familiar? I present to you the Maestro, Victor Borge!

דרב אדא בר אהבה חזייה לההיא כותית דהות לבישא כרבלתא בשוקא סבר דבת ישראל היא קם קרעיה מינה אגלאי מילתא דכותית היא שיימוה בארבע מאה זוזי א"ל מה שמך אמרה ליה מתון אמר לה מתון מתון ארבע מאה זוזי שויא -ברכות דף כ,א

...with a little help from my friends

American עולה Harry, of The View From Here, reports on a blog of blacks who are friends of Israel. A small sampling includes Mike Tyson, P. Diddy, Mr. T, and Condoleeza Rice.

Good for the Jews?

Well we love you, too

Gesundheit!

We went to T's family for Shabbos, expecting to return sometime over the long weekend. It wasn't to be. Motza"sh, T sneezed and her back went out. The MRI on Sunday (try getting any medical care on a holiday weekend!) showed a herniated disc.

Here's where the Gushers come in, bear with me. You see, in between each vertebra in the spinal column is a disc that serves as a joint (to allow slight movement of the vertebrae), a ligament (to hold the vertebrae together), and a shock absorber (protecting each vertebra from everyday trauma).
The disc is like a jelly doughnut or a Gusher- it has a tough outside composed of several layers of fibrocartilage, and a viscous inside. When there's a tear in the outer layer, the inner gel prolapses, it slides out from its usual position and presses on a nerve root.

The result? Intense back and leg pain. So T's been in bed since then, except for the trip to the MRI and to go to the bathroom. I've been helping her all along (throwing out my back a bit in the process). She's getting better, ever so slowly. It's really tough for her, but she's reading her third book of the week and she's watched a few movies, so she manages to pass the time.

As for me, I'm going a bit stir crazy living here at my in-laws' for the week. Everyone asks how T is, what would she like, can they make her some food, etc. No one really asks about me, I sort of fade into the background. It'll be nice to have our life back.

Get it, back? Oy vey...

Turophiles, unite!

Behold
the
power
of
cheese!

There’s nothing quite like the feeling elicited by arriving home to find 12 lbs. of cheese on your doorstep. Cheese is not much more than curdled milk, but it can be oh so magical. Cabot Creamery produced a limited run, produced under OU supervision, of its award-winning sharp cheddar to test the kosher market demand. I took orders from neighbors in my building and ordered a case.

It arrived yesterday, all 18 bars of it. When people came to pick up their cheese (one person ordered 6 bars!), they were filled with joy. If you want to bring שמחה to someone’s life, give them cheese, please.

Discipline soured (check the date)

The pressure’s increasing, but I’m doing (mostly) ok.  It’s sort of like a black hole, increasingly great quantities of schoolwork are being squeezed into an ever-shrinking timeframe with deadlines approaching at nearly the speed of light.  Maybe as the deadlines get closer, time will slow down.  The deadlines will get closer and closer slower and slower, so that I’ll have an infinite amount of time to do less than infinite work.

YES! That is how I will get through grad school!  Unfortunately, it also means my internet connection will be equally lentitudinous (to use a seasonally appropriate word of different etymology than the Catholic season- huh?  Well, lentus in Latin means “slow,” whereas “Lent” is short for “Lenten,” which refers to spring in Old English, probably from langez in Middle High German means “long” because in the spring the days get longer).

You know, the whole point of this post was to toot my own horn that I worked all day Wednesday (except for a three-hour nap, but I needed that) instead of procrastinating.  But what happened?  I got caught up in etymological irrelevance and procrastinated my way over to the OED.

It’s because I’m tired.  I’ve been tired since yesterday afternoon, after a busy day.  But I did go to minyan today.  Yay me.

Shabbat Shalom, y’all    

A baker's life for me

It’s always exciting doing a מצוה for the first time, even if it is דרבנן. Last week my mother asked me about it and I realized it hadn’t even occurred to me. I guess taking challah is not just a feminist’s mitzvah. Or maybe the fact that I’m doing it is a feminist statement. Well, a masculist statement. Well, it just means that anyone can do whatever they want to do (within reason) without defining strict roles or chores for each gender, though I believe that some of these are strictly male or female, sometimes from a social perspective (a male parent can never be a mother) or religious (some prescriptives of the תורה and הלכה are not flexible or subject to human judgement).

Anyway, it all started with this from allrecipes.com:

Best Bread Machine Bread
Submitted by: Karen K "This recipe is easy and foolproof. It makes a very soft and tasty loaf of bread with a flaky crust."
Original recipe yield: 1 - 1 1/2 pound loaf.

INGREDIENTS:

1. 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)


2. 2 tablespoons white sugar


3. 1 (.25 ounce) package bread machine yeast


4. 1/4 cup vegetable oil


5. 3 cups bread flour


6. 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:
Place the water, sugar and yeast in the pan of the bread machine. Let the yeast dissolve and foam for 10 minutes. Add the oil, flour and salt to the yeast. Select Basic or White Bread setting, and press Start.

I added some chopped onion, thyme, and rosemary. We’ll see how it goes. We’re visiting friends and going to a shabbaton on Torah and environmentalism. Should be interesting.
G’bye!


Update: I goofed- the שעור for challah is 5 cups of flour. If you're baking with less than that, you don't take challah or make a bracha.

Like sand through the hourglass...

I feel like I’m falling behind in school. Now, my classmates generally feel the same way, but I really am in trouble. Sure, that’s what they all say.

In actuality, I’ll probably squeeze by like I always do. You see, I’m Mr. Last-Minute. I don’t know why I am, it just makes things more stressful, but that’s what I do and that’s what I’ve always done. When I should be working, I’m doing things like this (although I think I really don’t post to my blog enough) or just generally spacing out online, making myself more tired and lethargic.

This week was a doozy. Officially it’s Spring Break, but it’s more like a reading week, since we start midterms next week. I’ve been so draggy and lethargic all week. Let’s see, what did I do?
Monday- nuthin’
Tuesday- more nuthin’ (although I forced myself out to dinner with T when her two-week
crazy-making project at work was finished)
Wednesday- a little less nuthin’ (superficially reading a few pages of my notes)
Thursday- actual studying (though not much) and going to school for a Stats review

I kept to the apartment except to move the car for alternate side parking. The weather has been getting progressively nicer this week and I always am surprised my how nice and bright it is when I step outside. Out apartment is dim and gloomy, even with the lights on. When we move, it’s got to be somewhere with more natural light. This literal valley of shadows we live in presently is too much.

Basically, I felt this week like I was devoid of resources to deal with the world. I knew it wasn’t permanent, I just wanted the world to stop for a while until I caught up. Obviously this worries me in terms of school, but as I said before, I usually come out ok. It does strike me as a negative prognostic indicator for my ability to handle my responsibilities when we have a baby, בעזרת השם.
T’s work so far has really put me in the position of homemaker and keeper. Now, I’m also supposed to be doing my schoolwork. When we have a baby and she returns to work, I will have added responsibilities. Now, I know that all the millions of parents out there have responsibilities they didn’t used to. What worries me is that this new state of affairs will mean I have to be diligent all around in all my responsibilities, no time wasted.

The long and short of it is that this week showed me I have a long way to go in terms of discipline and diligence.