One Coach Seat

And this is how I started my day. Glowing. Elated. In the world of Tyra Banks, I've got my smize on. Why so happy?


GAH! McKayla! Get off my back! Yes, my flight to Israel to become an Israeli and to fulfill the mitzvah of possessing the land of Israel is booked! I cannot explain how I feel about all of this, how smooth and quick it's moved. As my boss said, sometimes HaShem clears the leaves from the ground and the path is clear and you have no choice but to follow it. Life. Is. Happening! And soon!

When I got the email from Nefesh b'Nefesh, I rolled around in bed giggling to myself as I said Modah Ani, then crawled out of bed and took on the day, starting at the Farmers Market. If you want to start a day off right, start it at the market surrounded by fresh, local produce. It will put a bounce in your step and hope in your stomach.

And then I went to work, where I realized that there are way too many cups on my desk and the place is just a mess this week.

And, of course, I once again stayed late enough that the cleaning guy came in to empty the trash, at which point I realized I really should go home. But about an hour and a half before I went home, I made this video!


And then, my poor car, I took it home.

And now? I'm ready for Shabbos. Just a few days to go ...

A Cupcake in Your Eye!

Just finished my Shabbat cooking ... the highlight? Gluten-free cupcakes with some delicious Pillsbury frosting (I'm lazy). Here's Tuvia, er, a cupcake.

The rest of the menu? Carrot Kugel with a GF Chex topping, Corn Kugel, Acorn Squash a la Fall, Roasted Potato Wedges ... and ... what else? Oh right. A Chicken, Mushroom, Onion and Rice thing I threw together in a Dutch Oven. Overall, I'm crazy stoked. If they work well, and you're interested, recipes will fly at you!

Od pa'am, Shabbat Shalom!

SXSW Interactive: A Wrap-Up

Everything's bigger in Texas, including the fake hair on their airport bathroom mirrors!

Here I sit, coming to you live from BWI Airport near Baltimore, Maryland, with heavy thoughts on my mind. The most pressing, of course, is why on earth this airport doesn't have Kosher Vending machines. After all, the Baltimore/DC Jewish community is massive, and the kosher crowd in Baltimore alone calls for such amenities, right? Alas. I'll pull out my horribly squished PB&J (made in my hotel around 10 p.m. last night) and pray for tastiness. One thing's for sure: I can't wait for a home-cooked meal. And another thing's for sure: Next year, SXSW Interactive better prepare itself for some serious, rocking, Israeli and Jewish folks who will be chowing with a vengeance on kosher food every day of the week. Believe me, the vision is there, the passion is there, the drive is there -- we just have to start planning, and by that, I mean planning starting today. SXSW Interactive is big doins, and you have to represent early. More on the vision later, however. Right now? More on the past four days!

Last night, we ventured to H-E-B, a grocery store in Austin that touts a little kosher grill (something we don't even have in West Hartford). These folks, in addition to having a crapton of kosher goodies (again, more than we have in West Hartford), they have a grill where you can order fries, burgers, chicken wraps, pastrami, and more. It's like an actual restaurant in the grocery store, and there's even seating! What a novel concept, right? So I opted for the Spicy Buffalo Wrap with some Spicy Fries. Stay tuned for a Yelp! review. The coolest thing about eating there, however, was running into some Israeli musicians who also were getting dinner. They sat down with us, and we ate together, talking about SXSW and those darn dairy Wal-Mart bread crumbs (no good for schnitzel, you know). The funniest thing about last night eating there with them, however, were two things they said. One was that my Hebrew accent is French, and the other was that I don't look outright Orthodox with my "Sex and the City" haircut. That made me want to roll on the floor giggling, but I maintained my composure. I'll be honest: No one has EVER told me my haircut is Sex and the City. What do you guys think?

Yes, I was at a party with Ashton Kutcher, Evan Williams (of Twitter fame), and Gary V., and yes I missed the "secret" U2 concert that was played at a local bar (I don't even like U2, sacrilege, I know). I met longtime friend (FINALLY) @caro, and I spent a great deal of time at the @FourSquare party with Dave Weinberg and Leah Jones, among others, sipping mojitos (which some Israeli friends told me actually is pronounced "moCHito" with a chet) and talking aliyah and the height of Mr. Kutcher. I dropped names to get into parties, enjoyed my VIP status and the stack of free t-shirts I picked up, not to mention stickers and pins and free Starbucks VIA coffee mugs and free Skype goodies ... but is that why I went to SXSW Interactive? To get free schwag and party with celebrities at branded parties?

I met folks from Stickybits (software doesn't work on my phone), folks from Grizzly and StumbleUpon. I talked to folks at the Google booth and at Glass, and I even walked past the PayPal station to express my disconcern about my account issues (resulting in free beer). My time at SXSW Interactive was peppered with a mass of THINGS and STUFF and PEOPLE, all selling themselves and their brands. It was a big love fest of tech startups and tech giants. So?

I think it was the moments like those at the H-E-B grill that really stick with me. That and some of the panel moments. I was thinking in the shower the other night that what I learned in the community management session was true: You have to talk to your customers. Even I was saying that, but from the viewpoint of the customer, not the producer. So I realized something: I produce a product every week, and sometimes every day, that consumers -- that's YOU guys -- buy into. I've gotten kind of bad in the past about not responding to comments, and I realized that's bad customer service. I've taken months to respond to emails, that's also bad customer service. So I learned something: I gotta care more! I also came into contact with some amazing people with amazing ideas. We had Microsoft Israel in our Judaism 2.0 panel (check out more on that at www.bit.ly/judaism20), I met a social media god at HP, I listened to Gary V. preach the good word of customer service and building relationships and doing what you love. I met (finally) two rappers who schlepped around SXSW seriously rocking and making their presence known, simply by rapping questions!

Although SXSW Interactive was a flurry of STUFF and THINGS, it was also incredibly powerful in the way that it brought more than 15,000 people into a space and made them interact, whether on the web through Twitter in sessions or face-to-face in core conversations like ours. A lot of people call it a big circle jerk, big dogs like Evan Williams and Gary V. tooting their own horns, but isn't that what we can use as a model? People from nothing turning into something in a thriving world of Social Media and Web 2.0? Aren't they our role models for success in business and e-creation? I think so.

Overall, however, the thing just wore the heck out of me. I didn't go to the closing party last night because I was spent. I felt really old, really lame, and really tired. I don't know how some of these people do it; many of these tech folks are very married and very much parents. I walked away from the entire thing invigorated, excited, and ready to do more. Gary V. says don't quit your job and think you're going to change the world with your tech and social media, but I don't know how every person that listened to him talk couldn't really want to do that.

I know I did. (Thank HaShem I'm a student for life!)

So stay tuned for LOTS of photos, including probably my most favorite panel at SXSW Film, and the only Film one I went to, which included the cast of the NEW MacGruber movie. Seth Meyers showed up (awesome), and I have a picture with him. I'm such a Midwestern girl, unexposed to stars and stardom and celebrity. I'm a sucker for a picture with someone famous and hilarious. Oh, and Val Kilmer? Yikes. He's gone downhill, a lot. The upside? He's hilarious.

I Was An Israelite for 10 Days!

I lived in Israel for 10 days in Nachlaot, a neighborhood that includes the Machane Yehuda "shuk" and Ben Yehuda Street, that tourist trap with delicious confections and kitschy shopping. I say lived because that's what I did. There was an apartment on Yosef Chaim where I planted my head every night (except for a Shabbos spent out in Ramat Shlomo), it's where my clothes were hung, it was also where my toothbrush was. I didn't feel like I was visiting, I was living. I was an Israeli for a mere 10 days, and it felt marvelous.

I woke up each day and got ready in the world's smallest shower, brushed my teeth, walked on the cold floor, kissed the mezuzah, and schlepped off to one of the Yehudahs for breakfast. There were pastries, bagels, and interesting concoctions that you'd never find in the U.S. One morning I ate at Aroma in the "shuk," starting the day with an Iced Coffee (that's actually more like a frappucino -- there is no real iced coffee in Israel) and a sandwich comprising gigantic slices of white bread, an omelet, tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, and cheese. Oh, and there was also some cream cheese on there. Yes, you read that right. For breakfast. And? It was outstandingly delicious.

After food, Tuvia and I would schlep to our destination -- Caesaria, Tzfat, the Old City, the Jerusalem zoo, you name it. We ended up walking almost everywhere we went, but considering how much decadent food we ate there, I didn't shed a single pound. Thank you sufganiyot! In fact, I noshed a Roladen one that was Melon-Vodka flavored. That, folks, was rich and beautiful. After shopping and photos and a lot (we're talking knee-breaking) of schlepping, we'd hit up some deliciously kosher restaurant for lunch. This was probably the biggest treat of all -- kosher restaurants at every turn! Dairy! Meat! You name it. We ate a a falafel place, a schwarma place, an amazing burger place next to the Kotel, and even an Argentinian steakhouse near Ben Yehuda (it really wasn't that good). Our evenings were packed with meeting friends, family, and moonlighting at the Kotel, followed by more schwarma. Then, at night I'd crawl into bed, listening to the sounds of the small street, and -- as usual -- not sleep.

One of my favorite nights was spent listening to the street cats in an interesting chorus. At first, it was a loud, howling MEOWWWWWW. Then, surprisingly, came a wailing baby. I'm assuming the baby was woken up by this incredibly loud cat, but I can't be sure. Either way, the cat and the baby exchanged howls for about 10 minutes. Then, about two hours later, the cat was at it again -- this time with a dog. It was MEOWWWWWW! BARKKKKK! MEOWWWWWW! BARRKKKK! It got to the point where the choruses were too amusing to sleep, so I laughed. At every  hour of the day in that little room in Nachlaot, I heard the conversations of tourists, men singing outloud to themselves, children running along speaking Hebrew at a rate that I can only dream to reach. There were bikes and scooters zipping by in the alley, and one night the people across the way had their door wide open while they wined and dined, Fido sitting on the stoop watching passersby.

Spending so much time in the city -- I'd say about 3/5 of our time there was spent in Jerusalem proper -- allowed me to really experience what it must be like to live there. We walked through Machane Yehuda (the shuk) almost every day, including early in the morning when vegetables and bread were arriving on carts and in the evening when men were checking receipts and closing shop. The smells and the textures and the colors were something I could learn to live with, without a doubt. To be able to shop in a fresh market like that daily? Wow. Talk about a privilege. Also, being able to walk to the Kotel at midnight without a care or fear in the world was something unbelievably powerful. Come to think of it, being able to walk anywhere in Jerusalem at any hour felt so empowering. I felt safer in Israel than I ever felt in Chicago, Washington, or even Lincoln. I stood at a bus stop on a busy street at 12:30 in the morning, waiting a half-hour for a bus, people walking by, zipping by in cars and on bikes, and I didn't think twice about how late it was or where I was. I just knew I was safe.

After just two days, I felt relaxed. I knew the city from my trip there last December -- I knew where certain shops were, I knew how to get places, my internal compass was set back to Israel in no time. I felt so proud leading Tuvia all over the place in confidence. Jerusalem is my city, it's city plan mapped on my heart. It was a beautiful feeling. Did I mention that Jerusalemites love my hair? Yes, I got a lot of compliments. That, too, was a beautiful feeling!

I have much to say about the rest of the trip, outside of Jerusalem, but it will take some time. My photos are up (mostly) on Facebook, and I'll be throwing some up on Flickr, too. There are a lot -- about 1,001 of them. A lot from the Wedding, a lot from Caesaria, and an abundance of them from everything in between.

Stay tuned, as always! (And yes, in the shuk that is a baby being carted around in a ... well ... cart.) I leave you with this stellar Kashurt certificate to one of America's beloved restaurants at which, yes, Tuvia and I ate. And, for the record, it wasn't that great.

A Flashback!

I promise there's a RH post to come, but I will write it only once my face is looking better. It's put me in a crappy place having my face all bludgeoned up with hives and what have you. Luckily, I'm on prednisone now and hopefully my face will chipper up quickly.

But I thought I'd entertain you all in the meantime with an early photo of me. I suppose this photo might be an indication of my future almost-frummie lifestyle. Weird, isn't it? This is Freshman Homecoming, circa ... 1998 I think?

Yes, that's crushed velvet and a long, velvet black skirt. And that hair? I had that my entire life, until about 2001 when I chopped it all off. What a relief! And the guy next to me with the glasses and the black/white shirt and black pants is my older brother. Let's just say he looks nothing like that now. I think I resemble myself, right?

Happy trails!

EDIT: Just for kicks, here's me a mere year later!

תמונות!

יש לי תמונות חדשות בפליקר.

Middlebury Flickr Photos

והתמונה הכי טובה?

אתם רואים הדבורה?

Photo Me Once, Photo me Twice ...

Over the long weekend, Tuvia and I spent Shabbos in the Poconos, went to a Yankees vs. Phillies game on Sunday, and visited a flea market and a beautiful waterfall extravaganza near where Tuvia has a place in the Poconos called "Childs Park." I'd like to offer a simple series of photos that depict the weekend, for your viewing pleasure! Take note of the kosher options at Yankee Stadium -- they were DELICIOUS and abundant. Hallelulah!

Joseph Liebermann was there!

I can't wait to write about Shavuot ... but I'll actually be studying all night this week, participating in the community's interactions for the holiday and more. I'm so excited!

A Flickr Slideshow and a Promise to Return.

So I'm pretty beat from the 2.5 days of traveling non-stop. My stomach hates me for all the crud I ingested, and my body in general is fighting to stay awake. I managed without a nap today after moving everything into my graduate housing dorm, as well, so I think I'm really doing quite swell. But I managed to put up a bunch of photos on Flickr, and I had planned on doing a video blog (that is, a vlog) to sort of detail some things and to show you all my new digs in Storrs, CT, I'm just out of energy for the night. So, what you will get, is this fun little Flickr slideshow, generated using the fabulous Flickr Slideshow Generator. But please come back tomorrow, when surely, I'll have a lot to say (semi-)live in a vlog!

Note: That first picture? Chavi at 1 a.m. in Ohio, exhausted and wanting to sleep but finding her brain on overdrive. Sans glasses, sans makeup, lots of sleepy thrown on and you have Full Disclosure Me. 

Ruby Tuesday!

I present for your approval, another installment of Ruby Tuesday, a blog photo project where you post a photo with some red in it -- a lot or a little -- and the only catch is that it must be one of your very own. This photo is from the 3rd of July at Montrose Harbor and if you look carefully, you can see the red stripes of our very own American Flag, as well as some ruddy red boat bottoms.

It's Ruby Tuesday.

It's Ruby Tuesday (that means it's Tuesday and it's time to post a photo with some red in it), and me being the in-awe person that I am, I'm actually posting a photo taken by someone that is NOT me. This photo was actually taken by the blogger Mottel, and like all of his photos, it is outstandingly brilliant. I find myself wanting to crawl into each of his pictures for a mere moment to smell the aromas and feel the breeze or stillness of a room. At any rate, I hope you enjoy this photo, because by golly I know I do.

EDIT: Okay, okay. I feel bad. The rules are that it has to be one of my own ... so ... in addition to Mottel's beautiful photo with some ruby in it, here's one of mine. These are rows and rows of red chairs at the Pritzker Auditorium in Chicago, IL.

Photography break.

Black pipes and light from a desk lamp at Dollop Coffee in Buena Park, Chicago, IL.

Project Black, Chavi Style, Take III.

Rust.
Originally uploaded by kvetchingeditor

Here is more of the Project Black, this one is a picture I took Friday while waiting in the humidity at the Madison stop on the Green/Brown/Orange/Pink line in the Loop. Pigeons are such hideous, yet such beautiful, simple creatures. Rats with wings, but when they tilt their heads just so ... Don't forget to check out/join Project Black over at this blog.

Shalom!

Project Black, Chavi Style.

Taking part in Project Black, which I happened to hap' upon thanks to Ilana-Davita. For info on Project Black, check it out over on Anna Carson's photo blog.

This is my first photo posted for Project Black ... shadows of two teenage girls with the Chicago skyline lighting the background. And for kicks, here's a second one. That's my eternal black bag, portrait of a girl in a Red Roof Inn.

The World Wide Web and Chavi.

I have plenty of responding/writing to do about my Faith post, especially since I received several e-mails on the topic in addition to those in the comments field. Believe me, that will probably come Sunday night after some weekend reflection.

But for now, I wanted to post about my last night.

This whole Web 2.0 thing boggles my mind. Twitter, for example. I signed up for it eons ago, and only a couple months ago did I finally log back in and take the time to realize that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I was making it out to be. In fact, there wasn't much to it, and now I'm pleasantly addicted to it. It's sort of like when I got my BlackBerry and it took me a full two days to really feel like I was in sync with it, and not that I was too old and outside the generational gap for that kind of technology.
So last night I went to my first tech-style meetup: A Tweetup. It was at a bar in downtown Chicago on Clark Street and was instigated by some folks at the Chicago Tribune via Twitter and the Chicago Tribune site. The meetup was actually meant for folks of all e-stripes: Flickr users, bloggers, Twitter users, etc. And boy was the showing impressive. I showed up in time to get myself a fancy paper Chicago Tribune hat (which I proudly display here, of course), not to mention a prized "Spoiler Alert" sign held by a one Stephanie Izard -- Top Chef Chicago winner! It's probably as close as I'll ever get to Stephanie, so I'll take what I can get.

But Stephanie, if you're reading this (which you probably aren't), mazel tov on the win and THANK YOU for holding the "Spoiler Alert" sign. Yes, folks, I'm a huge geek.

After my time with the Twitterers and other folks, I headed up north to Belmont and Sheffield for a meetup hosted by OyChicago.com, a website for Jews "in the Loop." I ended up settling in nicely with a crowd of cool folks, including a super cool Sarah Follmer, who has written a few articles for OyChicago already. It was a pretty stellar time, organized by the awesome folks at OyChicago. I just wish I had eaten dinner so I could have stayed longer. But alas, I wasn't feeling so hot so heading out was only very natural. Did I mention that I was a featured Jew You Should Know on the OyChicago site? Yah. So I'm sort of almost but not really at all famous.

I have to say the Web world has swept me up and has me in its grips. I'm a contributor at HeatEatReview.com and JewsbyChoice.org, not to mention that I have this blog and my weight loss blog as well. Really, the e-world is my oyster and slowly but surely I'm taking it by storm. People recognize me on the street (and someone last night at the Tweetup knew me from an event I'd posted) from my "work" on Yelp.com, as well. I'm busy on Facebook and BrightKite, and my Flickr account is growing since I bought a Pro Account, and some of my photos were even used on a music blog!

It's such a big place, the web is. And I'm glad to be so interwoven into it all. Let's just hope that when I head back to school in a couple months I have the same amount of time to devote to these passions I have for social media and networking.