"Barukh atah Adonai ... "

I woke up a little after 9 this morning and thought, "Seriously?  But I only went to bed like 7 hours ago."  I didn't get up, but I clearly wasn't deeply asleep because about twenty minutes later I woke up to my phone vibrating on my bedside table.  It was Terry.

You may recall that last Saturday I was supposed to have lunch with Terry but he had a family emergency.  I called him on Thursday evening, and he couldn't talk because he was at a wine auction.  So I was glad to actually get to talk to him, even though phone conversations are never optimal for us as a mode of interaction.

I'd been planning to just come back another Saturday for a rescheduled lunch, but I have so much stuff to do that I think I'll just leave it until the next time I'm scheduled to be out there -- which is the last weekend in May.

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This week, my hair hit that point of desperately needing to be cut.  [The last time I got it cut was late December -- I'd been thinking about growing it out, but have firmly decided against that.]  I walked in to Salon Femia, where I've gotten decent cuts before.  I had a different woman this time, and I'm not sure that when I said I wanted something wash-n-wear that that really registered.  'Cause the end product I thought, "My hair does not naturally have that much volume, and I'm kind of freaked out."  It's calmer now, and I think it'll look fine with regular wash and air-dry.  She also gave me side sweep bangs, which are a mix of cool and annoying, but I'm not too stressed about that.

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65F at 12pm?  It felt significantly warmer than that.  It is nice to see people outside, cleaning and playing.  This warm weather saps my energy, though.

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I went to my mom's friend Susan's Passover seder tonight.  (Apparently this is her fortieth year hosting this seder.)  Every time someone mentioned that this was my first seder, I felt like those "Baby's First [Whatever]" books.

I was actually surprised at how familiar it felt.  At CAUMC Maundy Thursday service, Trelawney does the Jewish blessing when she lights the candles at the table; I know the Exodus story, of course; I read The Devil's Arithmetic when I was like 9 (I remember doing a book report on it in 4th grade) so I have some familiarity with the four questions, the hiding of the matzoh portion, the opening the door for Elijah; relatively recently I looked up what exactly the Four Questions are (it had come up in conversation somehow), and in the process I read the bit about the four different kinds of children; the bitter herb and the sweet are familiar from some sort of cultural osmosis.

One thing I was (pleasantly) surprised by was the bit about how we shouldn't rejoice at the destruction of our enemies (the ancient Egyptians or whomever) because they are God's children, too.

I totally want to edit their Haggadah, though, because if you've never been to a seder before there are places where you're unclear on what you're supposed to be doing (it reminded me of church bulletins -- and there were times when people like Susan would stumble over what we were supposed to be doing, which of course drove me extra-crazy), plus just typographical errors.  And sometimes there's just the transliteration for the Hebrew, which some of the Jews at the table stumbled over (said if it were the actual Hebrew they could read that no problem), so the Hebrew should be added in all the places it's absent.

The actual discussions during and after the meal didn't drive me too crazy -- despite politics featuring prominently.  It was kinda trippy that there were over a dozen people, many of them older, so people would hear bits of conversation and ask questions which had totally been answered like a minute earlier -- much like the last time we FA's went to Border Cafe and Cailin was talking to me and MaryAlice chimed in, saying exactly what Cailin had said earlier (in that instance it was because the environment was so noisy).  I commented as much to my mother, and then the same sort of thing happened and I just about died laughing -- I don't even remember what about it made me so punchy.

The seder started around 7pm, and around 11pm most people were dispersing.  My mom had driven in, so rather than my waiting for a 66 or doing the long route of Brookline Villlage (Green Line) to Park to Davis (Red Line), she drove me part of the way home (we ended up at Central Square, and I said she could just drop me there rather than having to mess around with going through Harvard Square).

I took the 66 from Harvard to get there, and I've rarely taken it past where it hits the B Line, so it was interesting paying attention to stuff.  As soon as you pass Now Entering Brookline or whatever the sign says, there are a whole bunch of Jewish stores and temples and stuff, which entertained me, like an unspoken subtitle to the Welcome sign.  (I also hadn't realized just how many restaurants there are on the Brighton Ave. stretch.  Nor that there are a million burrito joints everywhere -- the plethora of burrito joints is kind of a joke in davis_square, and there are an increasing number in Harvard Square though I tend to forget that since I don't actually live in Harvard Square, but it still threw me to see places on Brighton Ave./Harvard St. apparently selling primarily burritos etc.)

"there's still a little bit of you laced with my doubt"

A LOT of people at CHPC complimented my haircut, which was comforting.  (A number of people at CWM did, too.)
I sat down with Rachel, SarahG, and Gusti at Coffee Hour, and Gusti said something like, "Here's the woman with the fabulous haircut."  She and Sarah joked that now they feel like they need to get trendy haircuts, too; Gusti said she was thinking, "I wonder how that cut would look on me."  (Tonight it finally occurred to me that I think the person this haircut has been reminding me of is Rebecca -- the temp hired when Eric left.)
I'm not sure how I feel about the way it's cut/layered in the front, but I do mostly like the side-sweep bangs.

Alex asked how work was going, and I talked about the first year course seems to be going better than last year and how I'm glad about that even though none of my faculty are teaching in that course this year.  He said that meant I didn't have any of the "negative externalities" of stressed out faculty.  Terminology heart :)

Naila had a petition (from a State Rep or something) to oppose a measure to divest from Iran.  I didn't ask what her stance was on divesting from the Sudan.  I did ask Alex (since he's an I.R. person) what he thought about the petition; he said he didn't see anything that would come out of it besides a useless symbolic gesture.

Adult Ed was canceled, so I considered heading over to CAUMC for Coffee Hour after Trelawney's last Sunday as Young Adult Minister, but I stayed at CHPC instead.  Which I felt a bit bad about, especially since Trelawney didn't end up coming to CWM this evening, but CAUMC isn't really my church and I'm obviously going to the last small group with her as Leader (we will be continuing on with other people stepping up to lead in the interim before a replacement is hired, worry not).

Because of Carolyn, I'm now going to Handel's "Solomon" this Saturday at 8pm at Marsh Chapel (BU), which is supposed to be amazing.  Let me know if you want to go -- or if you'd be interested in having dinner with me, since I'm gonna be downtown all day and it's silly for me to go home just to come right back.

Also, we're talking about going out for Fellowship Dinner next Sunday because so many people will be away at GC.  I encourage local people to join us for that -- you're always welcome for Fellowship Dinner even if you didn't come to the worship service, but I figure you'll feel less out of place if you're just meeting us at a restaurant rather than walking into a church building.

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58F at 12:45pm?  Again I feel like weather.com lies -- though probably it's mostly the effect of being out in the sun and wearing ankle boots.  (I seriously need to get summer shoes.  I think I want fairly flat shoes, but I want significant soles -- so not so much ballet flats or "mary jane sport" -- since I do a lot of walking and am hard on my shoes, so I suspect I'll end up getting something like the 2.5" espadrille heel.)

via ann1962: http://walkscore.com/
    My current address scores a 68 (out of 100).  My parents' address (where I lived since age 11) scored 58, and the house we lived in before that a 62.  And people wonder why my default is to walk everywhere.  (Obviously it's imperfect -- I'm not sure that all the libraries on nearby Tufts campus are accessible to non-Tufts students, for example, and thus it's potentially disingenuous to include them as neighborhood resources -- but still.)

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I started reading remixredux08 (unsystematically -- though I've also begun bookmarking recced stories and remixes of fics by flisters/fics I've already read).  One rec so far:

[XMM] "Down and Out, But Not In Vegas (I Feel It All Remix)" by [anon]. Spoilers through X2.  Original: "Cabbages, Ginger Root and a Crucifix" by thelasteuropean
    I'd never really thought about the Phoenix bubbling up in Jean, but that's the focus of these two fics, and I really like the different takes (Scott in the original, Jean in the Remix) we get on the same story.  The Remix also ratchets up the angst quotient nicely.