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!

Will Beg for Shabbos!

Let's say, just by chance, that my birthday is September 30. Let's also say that the weekend prior to my birthday (which also happens to be Rosh Hashanah), I want to go to New York (because someone I know is coming in to town, but also ... ). I want to have a traditional shabbos. I want to be shomer shabbos to an absolute devotion. I want to go to shul and dine with a community and wake up and go back to shul and rest and read. I want to see how the good, observant, other New York half lives. Anyone got room for a Kosher Cornhusker in their Shabbos universe? I'm a maven with a transliterated Artscroll siddur :)

At any rate, my weekend was outstanding. The Conservative shul that Evan and I went to on Friday night was nice, albeit fairly small, but the rabbi had some interesting and significant things to say. The service was good and we capped the night with some Mexican food. We left Saturday morning for New York for the 1 p.m. Yankees game (second to last at the stadium!), and luckily the Yanks won. The sun was beating down, but the crowd was fun and the company was good. That evening we went to the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village for some comedy and before that we ate upstairs at the Olive Tree Cafe (owned by a nice Jewish woman), where I had some yummy falafel. After the comedy show (in which I got made fun of for being a Judaic studies student by a Jewish comedian), we met up with Evan's cousin and her friend for a drink and then headed back around 11 for Connecticut. And me? Well, I had gotten sort of ill -- what with the dehydration from the game and the liquor. Tea didn't help, but a lot of sleep did. So today, although I'm not feeling 100 percent, I feel about 75 percent better than I did last night. But overall, a good weekend.

I was reminded of how much I love New York -- it's little shops and grocery markets with fruit and flowers outside for all to see. People dressed to dazzle tromping around dirty streets trying to hail a cab. It's such a beautiful mess, New York is, but I still love it.

So I want to go back. Help a girl out?

The Kosher-Vegetarian-Academic Post!

I had written an entire post about going vegetarian this week and visiting the kosher dining hall (finally), but Blogger sucks and just lost my post, which, might I add, was beautifully written. So I'll just say a couple things and maybe elaborate next week: there's a nifty sink for ritual hand-washing, which I think is awesome; the food is good; they give you paper/plastic everything for assured kosher-ness!; one meal is meat, the other is dairy, so as a veggie, this doesn't bode well for me eating there every week; it takes about 15 minutes on a bus to get from here to there, which stinks. I also managed to go to the gym this past week after a random urge to do so. I'm calling my move to vegetarianism (plus a bit o' fish), which started randomly on Monday, as well as my gym excursion spontaneous healthful living.

In other, unrelated, news, I'm going to New York this weekend with Evan for a Yankees game (on Shabbat, argh). We are, however, going to a (conservative) shul in West Hartford tonight, so that has me all sorts of stoked. And now, to tie up the week and before bidding everyone a Shabbat Shalom, I give you some of the juicy goodness that I've been working on over the past week. Prepare for academic drooling (I sent my thoughts to the prof last night, so ... we'll see) behind this link. Yes, it's stuff I've been writing/working on. So enjoy it. I tried to post it here but Blogger is being a total pain in my tuches today.

So be well, and Shabbat shalom!