Blog/April 2023/Apr 14th

Apr 14th

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It was quite a week. Since it was moʿed, we decided not to venture out on the roads. Knowing from past experience that everyone else in the country would be hithering and yonning, we took one for the team and did neither. A wise decision, indeed.

Instead of that, Esther cooked and read and longed for her knitting needles, while I did extensive refurbishing of the Mechon Mamre website. It now looks like it was designed in the past decade rather than 30 years ago.

In the meantime, an order I had placed for a beard-trimmer arrived — but instead of what I had ordered, I received a toaster. A very nice toaster, mind you, but useless for the purpose I had intended. Fortunately, I was able to get that sorted out, and some day in the near future I hope to receive the trimmer. Or, perhaps, a waffle-iron.

Second yom-ṭov of pesaḥ came, and — as everyone agrees — was almost an afterthought. The holidays passed too quickly, considering all the effort which went into preparing for them. As an added bonus, as soon as the holiday was over heavy rains commenced. Very heavy rains.

The rains were so heavy that we awakened in the morning to substantial leaks around the house. Given that just last year we had paid a considerable amount to seal the roof, we were not pleased. I then went up on the roof and saw a swimming-pool instead of a roof. The downspout was clogged, and water being very tricky, found every crack, crevasse, hole, and path available. Hence the interior leakages.

I unplugged the downspout, resulting in a veritable flood of water leaving my property. Two of my neighbors came over during this minor inundation to ask if I was experiencing a leak, and if they could help. It’s good to have neighbors, sometimes, even the nosey kind!

Various and sundry:

• An excellent video by Mallen Baker, on how we get fooled. Worth a watch.
• A cyber-attack on irrigation systems in the Upper Galilee left them “dysfunctional” [sic].
• Dr. Heying on how suspension of curiosity leads to serious adverse events.
• Monopoly: the other contact-sport.

I unwisely agreed to give a “devar-torah” tonight at shul. The one who asked me to do that said it had been five years since I had given one (I believe it was longer than that). So, abashed, I agreed. Now I have to come up with something not too short, not too long, not too offensive, not too controversial, in Hebrew. Why did I agree, again?

We need to replenish our larder, since we cleaned out the house before the holiday, and ate up most everything we had purchased for the holiday. We don’t even have yeast (not that we needed to get rid of it, but I thought it wise to get fresh yeast). So after breakfast, Esther and I will go food shopping despite the intense loathing with which we regard Friday shopping. #ThoughtsAndPrayers!

Fortunately, the rains stopped late yesterday, and we’re looking at a steady warming trend, peaking on Wednesday with a minor heat-wave. shabbat should be quite pleasant (excepting, of course, the aforementioned speech).

This shabbat, we’re back to almost normal. The menu includes:
store-bought ḥalla, baked chicken, various salatim, and some sort of dessert from our shopping-spree

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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