Need to watch what/where I'm singing!

This past Shabbos, I was walking to shul with Tikvah. About halfway there, she asked if we could take a rest. The yard we stopped at had two large rocks we could sit on for a few moments. Tikvah asked me which rock I wanted to sit on. Suddenly I sang "I wanna ROCK, BAM!!!" Tikvah looked up in alarm, and asked me what that meant. I told her it was an old song that daddy used to listen to (by Twisted Sister), and since she had asked about the rocks, it just popped into my head and out of my mouth before I even thought about it.

We continued on to shul. Just as we arrived in the parking lot of the shul, Tikvah asked me why some people drive on Shabbos, and some (like us) do not. I explained how some people observed the mitzvah of keeping Shabbos more than others, just like some people keep kosher at home, but not outside the home, and some don't keep kosher at all, but we were still all Jews. And I said that in my earlier days, I used to drive to shul, but now I walked. Then again, the singing bug bit me, and I sang "Walk like a man, talk like a man..." (by the Four Seasons) Tikvah gave me another one of her looks. Oy. But more alarming, a shul member passed me on the ramp up to the shul. I could have sworn no one was around me before. How much of my singing did he hear?? Oh man, I need to muzzle myself before heading to shul again!!

That night I was curious; I went on YouTube and searched "I wanna Rock." Cool, they had the whole video on there. Tikvah climbed up in my lap and wanted to watch. Ahava either didn't like the music, or the video, and retreated to the kitchen. After watching that video, I also wanted to see "We're not gonna take it." Tikvah said the woman dressed very strangely. I had to tell her that Dee Snyder was a man, not a woman. She took it pretty well. But then at the dinner table I noticed that she kept singing "I'm not gonna take it..." Uh oh......

Writing, but for another blog...

I've been a bit quiet here, sorry. My more recent writings have been for BeyondBT. I made a post recently about Thanksgiving, posted here. I just finished another post and sent it in a few minutes ago. They'll let me know when it's up. I think it's a really good one, so I'll post a link here when they do so.

Hopefully now I can focus a little more attention back here! I'm sure I'll have some material to write about soon. Blogger-in-law is coming to visit from Israel, along with my wife's sister, and my first and only niece! Since they are coming, my parents-in-law are coming, as well as my other brother-in-law. That's (counting fingers) 10 people in our little townhouse!!! I better put in my reservation for a shower now!!

How to torment your mother...

I mentioned in this previous post that maybe I would post other ways I've tormented my poor mother. This one is my favorite! (which of course means it's probably pretty low on mom's list of wonderful life events...)

This happened about a year or so before my Bar Mitzvah, so I was 11 or 12 at the time. We were going to services one Friday night, for someone's Bar Mitzvah. We got about a mile down the road when my mother realized she forgot the Bar Mitzvah gift. As the president of the Sisterhood, she would present the Kiddish cup to the Bar Mitzvah boy. So dad turned the car around and home we went. Dad clicked on the garage door opener, and mom ran in the garage to the house. All the sudden we heard "Ahhh!" and saw my mom dance around a little bit. Trying to see what was going on, we looked more closely, and saw a snake slither out of the garage and into the grass. Mom composed herself, went into the house, and got the cup.

So now it's a little bit later, we are back on the road, heading to the synagogue. I look at my brother and give him the "shhhh" sign. I then slowly take off my leather belt. Then slowly, slowly, inch by inch, I push the belt up and over mom's sholder. Finally she glances down and... "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" Oh, that's what a blood curling scream is!!! Fortunately dad was able to keep from driving the car into a ditch during all this, and I of course got yelled at. (I think I saw a smile on dad's lips though... hmmmmm). I guess I'm just fortunate that the belt wasn't use to wack my hide after that!

Even now, almost 30 years later, when we go to the zoo with my mother (taking the kids) she'll pass on the reptile house and happily wait outside in the sun while the kids gawk at the snakes and everything else. Poor mom...

Who knows one?

There was a recent post on BeyondBT from Azreila Jaffe. (Side note, Ms. Jaffe wrote the book, "Two Jews Can Still Be a Mixed Marriage," a book Laya and I used before we got married to discuss several issues that we could see were approaching us, and I think it really got us off on the right foot in our marriage) Anyway, in her post, she discussed how she felt when she struggles to keep up, whether with the observant community, or with her children know that mom can't help them with their Hebrew homework.

The timing of the article was astonishing. Just two days before, I experienced the same thing with Tikvah. I've recently started taking Hebrew, and am working on learning the numbers. So I was sitting at the kitchen table reciting them. aH-aht, shtah-yem, shah-losh, etc. Each time I started, Tikvah would joyfully start to recite after me, but then overtake me, and reach es-air (10) before me. That includes taking time out to correct my pronunciation if I get something wrong on the way. That's when it hit me. I can take all the classes I want, study as much Hebrew as I can. Heck, I could even move to Israel and immerse myself in Hebrew (no, blogger-in-law, don't start getting excited, I'm talking theory here). But no matter what I do, Tikvah, and soon Ahava are always going to be ahead of me. I might have a slight lead now, but I've seen how fast they learn, once they start really working on Hebrew, they are going to rocket past me in no time flat. While I'm swelling with pride in my kids, I'm also starting to feel a bit of a deflated ego... Guess they'll be tutoring me soon enough!

Where (not) to put your beads...

Okay, we've got the computer back, and we're now working on making sure we have a back up of EVERYTHING, then we'll start putting it in full use. But for now I want to get this story out, since it happened two weeks ago already.

So it's Shabbos afternoon, and I got up from a nice 1 hour nap. I went down to see how Laya and the girls were doing. Tikvah (4) ran over to give me a hug, and commented, "Daddy, I have a bead stuck in my nose." I answered, "That's nice sweetie... ... ... Ummmmmm, did you just say you have a bead in your nose???" Yes, that's what she said.

"Okay, so how did that happen?" She just put it in, and now it won't come out. Huh... Okay, sit up here, and let me take a look. I don't see any bead. Are you sure it didn't fall out. No? Let's look again... I press against the side of her nostril, the back of her nose, have her breathe out of her nose hard, etc. I don't feel any beads in there. So we figured it probably fell out and she didn't notice.

Fast forward...

Havdalah is done... get the kids in their pajamas, brush their teeth, read them a story, sing a song and now into bed. I see Tikvah put her finger in her nose. Just before I can tell her to take her finger out of her nose, she says "Daddy!! I feel the bead!" Oh, I forgot all about the bead. I went and grabbed a flashlight and shined it right up her nose. And what do you know... there's some plastic in there. Oh boy. Where are the tweezers? I'm searching all over the house, then I finally find them. When I approach Tikvah, she gets wide eyed. "No, no, don't worry sweetie, this isn't gong to hurt, I'm just going to try to get the bead out." But every time I get the tweezers in her nostrils, she starts moving around and I'm afraid I'm just going to push it further in. I took a break to talk with Laya about a new strategy, and wondering how long do we try this before we give up and take her to the emergency room. (yeah, like we'd be a high priority to see a doctor???) In the meanwhile, I reminded Tikvah to breathe hard out of her nose. Suddenly she shouts out "It came out!!!" And so it did. Whew. Below is a picture of the bead and my pointer finger. I don't have a ruler handy, but I'd guess my fingernail is about a half inch long.

After this, of course the main question was "Why did you put a bead up your nose???" And in an answer that Bill Cosby made immortal, she replied "I don't know!" Every now and then, after the events, I've asked her if she has thoughts of putting anything in her nose. So far she insists that nothing else will go up there except for her finger. Oy, we still need to work on this.....

Still down...

The home computer is still down. We are working off a laptop, but definitely not as much processing power there. Hopefully I'll hear back soon about the computer. Long story short, the main hard drive was doing a slow nose dive. Hopefully the repair tech I brought it to had enough time to back up all the data (pictures, stories, etc.) that was on the drive. I have some of it backed up, but not all. :-(

Remember to back up your files!!

Just a public service reminder... remember to back up all those important files you have on your hard drive. Pictures, stories, webinfo, etc. Our computer konked out, it's now in the hands of someone more knowledgeable than I. I hope it is something simple, like the power supply, rather than something more damaging, like a hard drive crash. I had a post and picture that I was going to put up here about our adventures over the weekend, but things have been slightly postponed. I should still have the picture in my camera and will try to download it to my laptop so I can post from there. Let's just say it has to do with interesting places that kids decide to put different objects. :-)

Let's Dance!

Simchat Torah at my shul (a Chabad center) is always a rocking good time! When we dance with the Torah, we dance! This year in the days leading up to Simchat Torah, Tikvah was learning about it at school, and also Laya and I mentioned it several times (especially in the context of "If you want to have fun dancing at night, you are going to have to take a nap, otherwise you'll sleep right through it).

And she and Ahava did dance, mostly from on my shoulders, but they also joined in with some of the other young girls dancing around as well. But the "Kodak" moment for me (ummm, actually, can you have a Kodak moment on a Yom Tov/Shabbos when you can't actually use a camera?) was a little later on. They laid a Torah down on a table in the women's section, and the women formed a circle around it and were dancing around. Laya was sitting down with Ahava (one of both of them were probably worn out). Tikvah butted into the circle, took two of the women's hands apart and joined right in. It was all grown women, and Tikvah, and while she wasn't quite getting all the steps right, she was really getting into it with them.

Unfortunately soon after that, Ahava saw what was going on and ran up to join in. (She's a "Me-too" child, wants to do everything her big sister does). The problem is that Ahava ran up just as the women were shifting from one foot to the other which sort of resulted in a butt shift, and one woman accidentally sent her butt right into Ahava's face just as she was running up, causing her to bounce off and crash into the floor. I started a mental countdown, "5-4-3-2-1" "WWWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" One of the other ladies scooped her up and I waved her over to me. A little TLC from daddy (and mom came up soon afterwards as well) and she was raring to go again.

The other fun thing this year was the mix of singing and dancing. Usually at our Chabad center there are a good mix of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Lubavitch Jews. This year there were also several Yemenite Jews as well. When some of the bids for certain verses got into nice high numbers, they let out a good "Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi." Plus it was interesting to hear how they sang some of the verses. That's one fun thing about Chabad, you never know what type of person will come in next and what you'll learn from them. And in the end, it all blends in and we all have a meaningful and fun experience together.

Dougies is coming to Baltimore!

And I thought Subway's was exciting news...

I received some great news just before Yom Kippur. By reading Presence (specifically this post) I learned that Dougies is coming to Baltimore, at least as a mobile restaurant. For those who aren't familiar with it, Dougies is a great kosher BBQ restaurant. My wife (at the time my girlfriend) took me to the Dougies in Manhattan for my birthday, since I had mentioned that I like BBQ beef ribs. The ribs there were incredible. After we got married, we ate at the Brooklyn Dougies a few times when visiting her family in Boro Park. And when we did the Ride to Remember, Salute to Israel Parade out of Teaneck, we hit the Teaneck Dougies with my parents. The BBQ beef sub was so stuffed with beef that even as delicious as it was, I couldn't finish it! Right around when we got married, Laya asked the (manager? owner?) of Dougies if he'd open up a shop in DC or Baltimore. He just said something like "we'll see, some day maybe."
I guess we'll have to make visits to Baltimore a full day event now, lunch at Subways, and dinner at Dougies (or at least take out and bring home with us)!

I e-mailed the contact person for Dougies, and he said that after they get their business going, they want to add a second truck to hit the Rockville / Silver Spring area, which is a good bit closer to me.

This news didn't make my fast any easier, but it's certainly worth it! :-)

A few lines to add to the Al Chet this year

I wrote this last year when a Jewish e-mail list I'm on got a little heated up (and it was right near Yom Kippur too) These also work for web boards, and some blogs too.


-For the Sin we have committed before you for thread hijacking,
-And for the Sin we have committed before you for off subject posting.

-For the Sin we have committed before you by forwarding a story without checking http://www.snopes.com,
-And for the Sin we have committed before you by immediately forwarding an e-mail that says "FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!!!"

-For the Sin we have committed bfore you by not usng the spll checkur,
-And 4 the Sin we have committed b4 u by using werd acronyms.

-For the Sin we have committed before you by being too quick to flame others,
-And for the Sin we have committed before you by turning a blind eye to a flame war.

-For the Sin we have committed before you by not changing the subject line of an e-mail when writting about something completely different,
-And for the Sin we have committed before you by not putting in a subject line at all.

Nice that my co-workers think of me...

A few months ago, a co-worker brought in a bunch of donuts for us. She was baffled when I told her I couldn't take any. I explained that I keep kosher. She still seemed a bit confused, but accepted it. Today she sent out this e-mail...

Ladies and Gentlemen:
I brought in some Hebrew National Beef hotdogs, rolls, mustard, homemade chili, slaw, relish and potatoe salad and fruit. Plus the cherry cheesecake. All you would have do to is zap the hot dog and the chili in the microwave, if anyone is interested in lunch. I will be at a VTC in ... today, so it will sort of be self-serve. The containers are all in plastic bags in the refrig. Would anyone be able to set it out? I can put it up when I come down for ANOTHER meeting at 2:30.

Now, I can't say for sure that she was thinking of me, but she did specifically mention the Hebrew National hot dogs. (then, of course the cheesecake). Just checked, not a kosher cheesecake. Drat. :-)

Playing "What if" can sometime really cause headaches!!

I was recently talking to a friend about Goldwings. We are both thinking about getting one sometime in the near future. He said he never rode one and would like to do so, to make sure he liked the feel of the bike. I rode a friend's Wing, but only for about 10 miles or so, down to Walmart and back. But still enough to give me a big grin. :-) I suggested he look into EagleRider, which sometimes rents out Goldwings.

After that, I took a look myself. The local EagleRider does rent out Goldwings, at $150 a day. Yikes! I was looking around their site some more, and saw that they have some special prices on one way rentals, basically to move bikes into different locations in the country. Mostly from Orlando and Los Angeles to DC. Ho hum... Then I saw they also have some in Nashville, TN. Who knew they needed rentals down there? I looked down at the various time periods that they were offering, just out of curiosity. I saw they had one in late October. For some reason that rang a bell. Hmmm, a little more digging up and I found these posts from Kosherblog: Here and Here. A kosher BBQ contest being held in Memphis on Oct 21st. Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard. Hmmmm, wonder what flights to Nashville cost? Call up Orbitz.com... Yikes, unless I want 3 layovers, it's like $200. What's this? My fingers already typed up the Greyhound bus schedule... I could get an overnight bus there for $45. Let's see, if I left after work on Thursday, I could pick up the Goldwing in Nashville on Friday morning, ride around, then either crash at a cousin in Nashville, or ride over to Memphis. Either way, do the BBQ in Memphis on Sunday, and ride back Monday (maybe Tuesday too). Wow, this is great!

Then reality started sinking back in. That'd mean leaving my wife and kids alone for 5 days or so; during school too. Hmmm, a little bit selfish I guess, especially since they probably wouldn't be going on the Ride to Remember in Omaha next May. Sometimes it's nice to dream, and with internet research now, I can fill in the details on the dream so easily. Flight availability, costs, schedules, same with trains and buses, hotel reservations. I had even thrown up a few routes from Memphis back home on Google Maps. It makes the dream even more tempting. But the priorities (family!) come first.

And Laya, since I know you are reading this... it's NOT meant to try to nudge me into sending me off. I was just thinking about how even 10 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to pull together all this information, schedules, prices, availability, maps, etc., in a matter of just a few minutes, and that's what I'm mainly talking about. But hopefully you'll excuse me if I try to make BBQ Brisket that Sunday! :-)

Bribery works...

Now that Tikvah is 4, the doctor wanted to do a blood screening, and since our home was built before 1978, that includes a check for lead. She was annoyed enough at the shots she got, I knew the blood draw wasn't going to be any fun. First off, there was no way Laya would do this. She has trypanophobia, an extreme and irrational fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles. So if she were with Tikvah, she'd freak out, which wouldn't help Tikvah any. So I took her. Before we left home, I snuck something into my shirt pocket. I gave Tikvah a brief explaination of what was going to happen, but didn't go into a lot of detail that would only scare her more. I filled out the paperwork and when the time came, we went into the lab. Tikvah started to get nervous and paced the room a little bit. But then she saw the Cinderella stickers. "Oh, Cinderella!" The phlebotomist gave her a couple of stickers to help calm her down. She sat on my lap, and started to whimper a little bit. I kept reassuring her, and directed her to look somewhere else, not at her arm.

Of course, the moment the needle went in, she cried and cried. They didn't take a lot of blood, but it took about 15-20 seconds to get what they needed. As soon as she finished, the phlebotomist put a band-aid on Tikvah and said she was all set. But Tikvah kept on crying. I then reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a strawberry lollipop. "Do you want a lollipop?" As soon as she saw it, she said "yes" and stopped crying immediately. Not even a whimper afterwards! The change was so sudden, the phlebotomist laughed. So I guess a little bribery is okay... :-)

Volume Control

You know, sometimes it's nice to wear hearing aids. Yes, most of the time it's a pain; while they do enable me to hear, it's not perfect. Especially in loud situations like a restaurant, or a meeting where several people are talking. But last night it came in handy. I was on my way to a Ride for Kids meeting (I'm on the Task Force helping to plan the event), and stopped in at the Ben Yehuda kosher pizza shop to grab some dinner. The meetings are in Maryland, so while it's a pain to schlep out there, at least I get to have a choice of a few kosher places. Anyway, it was someone's birthday, so there were about 20 kids (maybe in the 7-10 year old range) running around, screaming, etc. I just turned off my hearing aids and enjoyed my book and calzone.

Come to think of it, this came in handy earlier as well. I'd turn my hearing aids down when in the car with my parents, reading my book as we went various places. It was so bad that just before I turned 16, I realized I didn't know how to get ANYWHERE, so need to put the book down and watch where we were going. One time I also turned my hearing aids down (or off) when my mother was scolding me for something I did (I have no idea what it was now...). Once she realized what happened, oy, I got a double lecture! (and she made sure my hands didn't get anywhere near the aids) :-) Hmmm, maybe I should write about the other ways I tormented my poor mother...

The Jury

I know I just sent a post in a few hours ago, but I just got this and wanted to post it, and comment too. I was raised with dogs, my family had (that I can remember) 2 Collies (Heidi and King), and 2 Bichon Frises, (Muffin and Marshmallow). My parents have another dog now, a mix breed, looks like mostly terrier, name Farfel. I don't currently have a dog, maybe when the kids get a little older, but I'm still a dog lover. Mickey, the Bichon who lives in the same courtyard as I do, knows that he can run over to me any time for a big petting session. :-)

Anyway, it's because of this that I'm always upset when I hear about people who engage in dogfighting. And when it's someone like a famous football player, that kids look up to, and want to be like, it makes the crime even worse.