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{{blog}} {{comment|February 2nd}}

Of my readers, some want more about “the situation” here, and some want less; I, for one, am happy to dish out less, this week. Deal with it.

Continuing last week’s rampage of reworking servers, this week I moved the [https://mechon-mamre.org Mechon Mamre] website to a different hosting service. In fact, I moved it to Linode, from which I had moved [https://8th-dev.com my own site] last week. As a result, it’s more reliable and a bit faster as well.

We’ve got a trip to AR coming up soon. Perhaps because of our many sins, Lufthansa messaged me to inform that the last leg of our trip (returning to IL) was canceled. They helpfully replaced the canceled flight with one departing an hour ''before'' we land. Not particularly useful, if I’m being completely honest.

So I called the Lufthansa IL office, and got a helpful South African sounding lady who rebooked the return legs on [https://www.swiss.com/il/en/homepage Swiss] and told me it was the same class etc., and that we were all set. But when I checked, I saw that our (kosher) meals were not selected, nor did we have any seats reserved (we had already paid for them on Lufthansa). So I called again, asking for English.

This time, a lady answered in what I believe was Hindi; she certainly didn’t speak English nor did she seem to understand it. I hung up, redialed, asked for English; this time, the person answering was a man speaking Hebrew. Fortunately, I speak Hebrew…

He had to wrangle with Swiss, and it took a while, but he did manage to get us seats (I had already arranged the meals). It was a long morning.

Not much stuff:
* [https://penamacorrespondent.blog/happy-birthday-to-me-2/ Happy birthday] to our friend, and many more!
* Survival Lily: the EU [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFRYhzDuEBM has banned cash payments] of 10,000 EUR or more. Here in IL we’ve got a similar law, but with a [https://www.pymnts.com/cash/2022/israels-lower-threshold-on-cash-transactions-takes-effect-next-week/ much lower limit].
* And [https://8th-dev.com/forum/index.php?topic=2802.0 another release of 8th] this week; the first of the civil year!

Yet a few more thoughts from our recent US trip, though not particularly new ones. Part of being a religious Jew is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amidah thrice-daily recitation] of prayers, during which we ask God to gather us in from the Exile, among other things. After having eaten bread, we say the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkat_Hamazon “grace after meals”] in which, again, we praise God for the Land (of Israel, just to be clear).

I have a difficult time understanding our religious brethren who remain in Exile despite the relative ease with which one can fulfill the command to “settle the Land”. Most particularly when we see history unfolding in less than stellar fashion. I know, everyone has their reasons; some of them very good reasons indeed. But can you, as a religious Jew, not look upon the events transpiring in the world today, and see that the words of our Prophets are being fulfilled? Time is getting short.

The weather was quite cold (for us), some rain, some hail, lots of wind. It’s cold enough that our non-insulated house is reaching thermal equilibrium with our refrigerator. Sure, I exaggerate — but not by very much. For ''shabbat'' we’ll have some rain, and chilly weather, beginning a slight warming trend through the week.

This ''shabbat''’s menu may have:<br>
homemade ''ḥalla'',
[https://forward.com/food/454457/harissa-honey-pargiyot-boneless-chicken-thighs/ ''ḥarissa pargiot''],
roasted potatoes,
roasted green beans,
chicken salad,
various ''salatim'',
and marble cake.
<br>

Until next time,<br>
''shabbat shalom''! <br>

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