Blog/July 2012/July 6th
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< Blog | July 2012
| July 6th (See this week's devar torah) | Comments or questions? Click here! |
Hi, again!
It seems that God disapproves of the Aaron family leaving the Land of Israel. As we were concluding our (very nice) Friday night meal at Jeremy's grandmother's house, the storm clouds gathered over Baltimore. Jeremy was very excited, informing us it was a rare storm formation called a derecho, and would be extremely powerful -- and that we should wait until the thunderstorm passed and the rains subside, before walking back to the place we were staying. So we hunkered down in Grandma Lehmann's living room, gazing out the full-wall picture windows at the most incredible display of virtually continuous lightning, thunder and rain we had ever seen! In addition to the natural display of God's power, we also witnessed the explosion of a series of power transformers, quite a sight! After more than an hour, we finally figured things had "lightened up" enough for us to head for our accommodations.
It was still raining, though not heavily; and since we didn't mind a bit of moisture, we started trudging off to our place about two miles away. On the way, we encountered a scene of destruction: massive trees uprooted and blocking the streets, many (!) branches sheared off at the trunks and wide-area power outages. Finally, we made it to our abode after 1:30AM; it was pitch-black, hot and humid. Well, there are worse things in life: our landlord reported his son's neighbor's house and car were demolished by a falling tree, and he and his family were evacuated to an emergency shelter. Thank God we and those we know were safe.
Apparently, the storm killed over a dozen people in several states, and left millions without power. So again, thank God we escaped with only the inconvenience of no power (in the 100F+ heat and 50%+ humidity). We still have no power as I write these words on Sunday; according to the news we can glean, it may be up to a week before power is restored. Though this was a "freak storm", Baltimore residents apparently lose power every year for at least a week. Remind me: why do people live here? Must be they enjoy the sweltering weather.
UPDATE: as of Monday afternoon, our power was restored, but the synagogue where Daniela's wedding is to take place still doesn't have electricity.
Well. The wedding took place in the synagogue as planned, but the power had not been restored (and I'm not sure if it has been even now). Because of similar events in past years, the synagogue had backup generators feeding power to the building, but only some lights were on, as well as a number of powerful fans to circulate the air. All in all, the heat was bearable for most of the evening; but after 200+ people had contributed their body heat and exhalations for several hours, it was quite oppressive inside the hall. We tried to keep people well hydrated and that worked well for everyone except my daughter (the bride), who succumbed to dehydration and had to have an IV put in to rehydrate her. Yes, really.
Most of our family and many friends showed up, and we thank all those who were able and willing to make it, for your attendance at this event. For the rest of you, we will post official pictures when we've got some (probably not for quite some time) but you can suffice with a few amateur photos. Daniela looked like an angel! Here is the nuclear family, and the extended family. The bride being escorted and the lovely couple. B"H, it was a lovely event. B"H, we made it, our firstborn is now a married woman! I gave a short devar torah, which you can read here if you like.
As mentioned above, much of our family came for the wedding, so we had visitors from all over (including Argentina). Most of them showed up on Sunday, the rest on Monday; we had a major family reunion dinner then, and I hope they all enjoyed it. It was great to see everyone, and we look forward to having the next family reunion ... whenever that may be ... in the Land.
Post-wedding, there were the sheva berakhot meals in honor of the new couple, where special blessings are said. We're still in the midst of these as I write this. We're looking forward to a relatively quiet shabbat, though as of the moment we have no idea exactly where we will be eating -- we only know we will be eating out for all three meals. In the 108F (forecasted) heat. Oh, well...
Apart from the wedding and its attendant craziness, we went to see the Fourth of July fireworks in Baltimore Harbor. Y'all know how much I enjoy crowds, right? Well... it was crowded. And hot. And humid. And noisy. All the things I enjoy so much. Honestly, the fireworks display was not better than the Yom Ha'atsmaut display we just saw in Maale Adummim... but who's comparing?
We were going to go see the fireworks display with my family; but we couldn't all fit in one car, so we went in ours and I told them how to get where we were going. What I didn't count on was their inability to follow either my directions or those of their GPS device. The Harbor lies at the end of route 83; the freeway ends a few blocks from it, and I waited patiently for a bit for them to show up. When they didn't, I called and found out they had gone past our location and were headed on the freeway again towards Washington DC. I still don't know how that was possible, but there it is.
Eventually they did manage to get near us, but they parked in a hotel parking structure and viewed the remaining display from the roof. Since my Mom felt ill from the heat, they put her in the car with the air-conditioner running -- from which perch she couldn't see anything. Then Sarah and her cousin both had to "go" really badly ... so they hared off to find a restroom. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that Sarah has a very, very low opinion of Baltimorean hospitality. Then my sister also went off somewhere, and eventually my Mom was left all alone on the seventh floor of an almost empty parking structure, in a running car. She was not amused, to put it mildly.
All's well that ends well, they say; the family regrouped, my Mom was joined by her offspring and we trudged back to our car. For some reason, the Baltimore police refused to let us walk on one side of the street, so we were forced to detour to the other side. As we detoured around and came back to the original side we were on, not 100 meters from the cops, a man was urinating full Monty in plain sight of them. I suppose it was legal for him to do that, since none of the establishments there would allow one to do so in the ordinarily allocated places for such activity. Finally, we made it to the car and got back to our place -- late at night and sweaty, but safe and sound.
That's it for this week; we're still in the Exile for a couple more days, then we'll be heading back to the Land. God willing, we'll have more to tell you next week. But until then,
shabbat shalom!
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