Happy Birthday Bloggers!

I want to say a HUGE "Happy Birthday" and "Yom Huledet Sameach" to two of my most favorite bloggers and friends: Kate and Vicki.

Getcher party on girls!

Sick, but Happy.

As my bestie Marissa would say, I'm a downed critter.

I spent the entire afternoon in bed (wait, de ja vu -- didn't this happen during the High Holidays?), after a less than stellar visit to my doctor's office this morning. I woke up congested on Friday and whatever I have has gotten worse as the days have gone on. Saturday I woke up with what felt like strep. Today I went straight to the doctor, they did the usual swab, asked the usual irrelevant questions, and shoved an antibiotic at me. I'm still unclear whether she said to take them now or start later, so I went with it and took it today. I've had probably two to three dozen cups of tea over the past two days, countless glasses of orange juice, and several bowls of soup. Sigh. So much to do, so sick, so little time, so not enough energy.

At any rate, the one highlight to my super-long and super-sick weekend was the most amazing surprise: a surprise birthday party! Yes, my birthday came over the chagim without much fanfare, and I went with it. After all, turning 27 isn't a huge thing. It's a nice, divisible number, sure, but that's about it. I was filling really ill Friday, but we had friends over for dinner anyhow, because I thought it was just a really bad allergy day. Afterward, we were to meet some friends at their place for dessert, and I advised Evan that we couldn't be there long -- I really just didn't feel well. We walked over, schlepped up the stairs, threw open the door, and "SURPRISE!" "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" I looked around, confused, mostly because there was another surprise party the next day for a friend in the complex. And then, after a few awkward seconds, I realized it was me. I blame the allergy meds for making me both loopy and slow. All of our closest friends were there and many of them went out of their way to make me gluten-free desserts! There were gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and brownies and an amazing trifle made by my awesome friend, who is behind Modestly Fashioned, and, who, by the way, was the hostess with the mostest who helped Tuvia coordinate everything.

I was, in a word, overwhelmed. The first thing I thought was, here's to all those naysayers who think the apartment community in Teaneck isn't the warmest, friendliest, most welcoming group of people you've ever met. They really are those people. I've never in my life felt so loved, and for that, I'm so thankful. I really do have the greatest crop of friends, and without them my feeling sick would be so much worse than it actually is.

Of course, there are no pictures, because it was on Shabbos and we were camera-less. But, you can imagine. Jews, Shabbos, lots of nosh, booze (thanks for the mixed drinks, D), and more. So thank you awesome Teaneck friends, and, of course, my darling husband Tuvia who managed to keep the entire thing from me (which is what happens when I am so busy that I can't notice all the weird things missing from the house or my husband's wacky schedule).

Here's to another year older, and, hopefully, less sick. Of course, that comes next week.

Yom Huledet Sameach to Me!

Yes. It's my birthday. Wahoo! The big Two-Six. What happens when you turn 26? Not a whole lot. So I'll just sit by and wait for 30, the next big thing. My inbox is exploding with Facebook Wall birthday wishes, my Twitter runneth over with kind wishes, and even the blogging universe (Thanks TMC and Heather!) have sent me their tidings.

What to say as I turn 26? I have the world's greatest friends. You guys rock, and I'm continually blessed as a result. What a way to start 5770. I kind of like that my birthday falls during the holidays because it's like starting anew, and anew, and anew. But it also makes celebrating hard (who wants more cake after Rosh Hashanah and break-the-fast babkas and treats!?). There are also no kosher restaurants to dine at around these parts, which is a little bummer, but I'll survive.

I do, however, have to share the most awesome gift EVER that I received from Tuvia (and his mum!). Yes, this gift is seriously the most thoughtful gift ever. Why? Because it takes me back to being a kid, and it's the kind of gift I'd never in a million years expect to get. I got the American Girl's new Rebecca doll, which I blogged about in the past. She's their first Jewish doll to be released with her own story, accessories, and American Girl life! So why's she so special to me?

Here's the story.

When I was a kid, I started to get the American Girl doll catalog in the mail. I'd sit down with it, circling all the books and dolls and accessories that I wanted. This was in the late 1980s, early 1990s, when I was still living in Missouri. They even came out with a special "make a doll that looks like you" feature in the catalog, and I dreamed of having my own doll. Even if I couldn't make one (they were more expensive), I could at least get Molly because her and I were practically twins (brown hair, glasses, pale, geeky). But as much as I prodded my parents, they could never afford the dolls. So every month when we'd visit my parents in Branson, Missouri, we'd go to Silver Dollar City (a very old tyme themepark with train robbers, glass blowing, and hot s'mores during the winter), I'd spend what little money I had on purchasing American Girl collectors cards. I also managed to get a couple of Addy books along the way. But I never got a doll, while some of my other friends did. It was depressing, but I eventually stopped looking at the catalog and moved on. My dreams would never be realized -- after all, you hit a point when dolls become a thing of the past.

So when I saw the Rebecca box and the box with her Shabbat set (challah! hot water urn! tea! challah cover!), I was elated. It was such a special and thoughtful gift, a gift unlike I would expect or ever think of receiving.

The rest of my birthday will be routine. No big parties, no big celebrations. No cakes, no surprises. I'll be teaching a review session at 6 p.m., schlepping into Manchester after that, and hopefully decorating Tuvia's sukkah with him. Chances are I'll curl into bed with my Ancient Fictions book or some Midrashic gem and wrestle myself to sleep with dreams of where I'll be in another year -- Jerusalem? Graduate school? Married? With child? This is the fun of life. Never planning ahead, taking it all in stride, and enjoying every moment surrounded by friends and loved ones.

Amen!

PS: I forgot to wish Elie Wiesel, my very own birthday buddy, a Yom Huledet Sameach last night. Curses!

Parshah Eikev and my Jewish birthday!

CHEERFUL COMPANY AND A MERRY TIME ARE AHEAD FOR YOU.

That was my fortune today with my orange/sweet and sour chicken from Panda Express. So here I am, sitting outside attempting to make friends with other students in the little quad area of the graduate housing complex. I suppose that's a start, eh?

I sat down last night and read this week's Torah portion, as well as some more in Rabbi Marc D. Angel's new novel The Search Committee. I also somehow stumbled upon Chabad.org's nifty Jewish birthday calculator. In fact, I think it's pretty awesome that my Jewish birthday is 23 Tishrei, and the Torah portion is Bereishit -- the first parshah of the Jewish year! And my "normal" calendar birthday, September 30, is the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year. That's new beginnings, fresh starts, like a rebirth of sorts, and I think that's so appropriate considering my path and how I got here and where I've ended up.Throw that into how I'm starting a new leg to my journey in life and wow, beautiful happenstance all around.

So a few words on this week's portion, Eikev, which is Deut. 7:12-11:25. Right off the bat, Moses is saying that only if the Israelites heed the commandments and laws of G-d will they really be taken care of.

And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers. (7:12)

But then, Moses says:

Do not say to yourself, when the Lord, your God, has repelled them from before you, saying, "Because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me to possess this land," and [that] because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord drives them out from before you. Not because of your righteousness or because of the honesty of your heart, do you come to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and in order to establish the matter that the Lord swore to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You shall know that, not because of your righteousness, the Lord, your God, gives you this land to possess it; for you are a stiffnecked people. (9:4-6)

So my beefs here are as follows. The parshah starts out essentially by saying that G-d will only grant kindness if we do EXACTLY as he commands. This implies a cause-effect relationship: you do bad, G-d punishes, you do good, G-d bestows kindness. Of course, this is problematic in a pluralistic Jewish society and it definitely gives weight to those who follow the commandments completely and utterly strictly, with no room for evolution or interpretation, and unless the commandments are followed most precisely, then of course there will be no kindness. This is equally powerful for those who suggest that the reason Israel has not been fully returned is because we have not followed the commandments to perfection. It "proves" that this is all just punishment, right? This is problematic, and I'm not sure how to resolve it. 

But then in the second set of text we see that G-d isn't repelling our enemies because of our good and accurate following of the commandments and laws, but rather because they are wicked. So if G-d intends to drive them out because of their own wickedness, what is the point of following the commandments? If the land becomes ours because of the faults of others, then do we really need to follow the laws? Of course there is a lot more that comes out of following the mitzvot than merely the acquisition of land. 

Of course, then there's "For the Lord, your God, is God of gods and the Lord of the lords, the great mighty and awesome God, Who will show no favor, nor will He take a bribe" (10:17), which sort of contradicts the whole "chosen" people idea that we are to be a light unto the nations, perhaps a holier nation than others so that we can lead by example. Of course, I'm not saying here that the Jewish nation is "better" than other nations, because that's the oft quoted bit about why people don't like Jews, because we think we're "better" than others because of the notion of being a chosen nation. But in reality, it does suggest that the Jewish nation is favored as being an example to other nations. It doesn't imply better, just different, but still it suggests a certain amount of favorability.

But in truth, this entire parshah is a reminder to us that we are an obnoxious, hard to please, frustrating group of people who need to climb off our high horse and see what good might befall us should we opt to follow the commandments and do our part to look into the WHY of the commandments that G-d placed upon us. I'm a firm believer that history repeats, repeats, repeats. People never really change, and we all tend toward making the same mistakes of our forebears. The scenery might change, there might be more technology, buildings are bigger and business is bigger and our clothes are finer, but in reality, the human mind continues to function in the ways it has in the past. In this, I mean, that the commandments of yore are still applicable today. We just have to figure out how to adjust our lives to fit the commandments and not the other way around. 

We are a stiffnecked people, indeed, so let's figure it out. 

Potpourri.

Birthday funnel cake!


Yesterday Ian and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo -- probably the best zoo I've been to second only to the Omaha Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska (I've been to Denver, Springfield, Tulsa, Kansas City, Washington D.C., etc.) -- for my birthday. And the Lincoln Park Zoo is FREE. Yes, it is FREE, folks. Not a penny is put out when you walk into one of the many wide-open entrances. It was clean, the animals were aplenty and lively, it was just beautiful. Here are a few photos of my favorite exhibits at just about every zoo: meerkatz and gorillas.

Then there was this guy, a red panda, that completely posed for me; it was beautiful!

Then we went up to Northwestern to this little peninsula with a beautiful view of the downtown skyline, not to mention some snazzy rocks that are decorated with proposals and other happy things and lots of boats.
For more fun photos of my zoo and Evanston adventures ... visit my Flickr!

Today (my actual birthday) wasn't so much fun. Lots of things swirling about resulted in me sleeping much of the day and only really enjoying the day long enough to hit up Wildfire for some dinner, which was wonderful; the joint makes me feel like I'm in the 1940s and should be wearing a snazzy cocktail dress. Ian made the weekend truly great for me, and for that I thank you.

So here's to possible massive changes in the near future. Cheers to all!

This is ... PHOTO HEAVY!

Read on for the dad files, Ian's birthday cake and FRIED PICKLES!

So an addition to the dad files is below. I got a new shipment of mail (credit card offers, etc.) that went to my parents house, and of course there was an envelope filled with coupons from dad. The thing about this envelope though ... this was a special envelope. This envelope was BIG doins. Why, you ask, would an envelope be such big doins? Just take a look. It not only had the pork and beans (for Ian) and Hebrew National hot dogs (for the Hebrew in the house) ...

It had both our names! That's like ... huge! Well, in my mind it is. For years I've gotten the coupon envelope with just my name. But now it's for the both of us. And on that note, I'll mention that we saved $4.00 at the store today thanks to dad coupons :D

On another note, I made Ian a cake for his birthday (which was Aug. 20) last night. It was white cake with chocolate frosting. Of course it was nothing like the homemade goods that Christy recently dished out, but it was something! I made myself a piping bag and even wrote on it ... and I'll be the first to admit it was a lot more delicious than these photos make it appear!


And some post-cake-making carnage!

And that's what yesterday was, in addition to paying a visit to Uber Burger up in Evanston where I found my FAVORITE memory food ... fried pickles! Now, when I lived in the dorms, there were fried pickles. But they were frozen and they were in spear form. When I was a kid living in Joplin, Mo., we used to go down to Arkansas to the AQ Chicken House and that's where I was first exposed to fried pickles. It's one of those foods that sticks with you and you crave it when you get the slight hint of a certain smell like buttermilk and pickles and fry grease. Maybe I'm the only one who has this kind of experience, but it's THE ultimate comfort food for me. The best thing about Uber Burger is that they make them in-house. They're not frozen or freeze dried. No sir, they're fresh out of the barrel and put into the grease with their homemade recipe of batter. Served up with some ranch dressing, it absolutely made my day. Perhaps my month.


Folks, if you haven't done fried pickles, I can't express how greatly you're missing out. They're so ... so good ... crispy, tangy, comfort home style food.