davidfcooper

This will be a very busy weekend, and since I will be off-line all day Sunday I am saying

Happy Birthday bethr !

in advance.


This evening we will brave NYC Friday evening traffic to attend my sister-in-law's adult bat-mitzvah in New Rochelle. Shoshana sewed her a new talit, and she will post a photo of Sharon wearing it on FB. We will no doubt get home quite late which means I won't get to bed until the wee hours of the morning. We plan to sleep late, skip Shabbat morning services and instead go straight to our shul's pot luck lunch at a member's home.

Sunday morning we're driving upstate to attend our PSJC's one day getaway (this year there will be no sleep over to make it more affordable in today's economy) and won't get home until evening; I hope we make it home by 7 PM so we're finished with dinner and I'm out of the shower by 9 PM for True Blood.

The clever amusing paintings of Matthew Myers are currently exhibited in the air conditioned basement room of our shul where services are held on hot summer days. It's nice to belong to a congregation that is comfortable enough with itself to display and enjoy Myers' work without worrying about the lack of gravitas in a place of prayer.

Two months ago I posted that we were trying out a new shul and thinking of switching. We indeed switched and are now members of PSJC. High Holiday services included more English than we would like, but on the other hand there is a warmth and enthusiasm that we found lacking at our old shul; Shoshana said she has not heard such enthusiastic singing since she was in temple youth group in high school. At Ne'ila service on Yom Kippur our Cantor used a Sephardi melody for Avenu Malkenu that I hadn't heard since attending services at the Reform temple where I grew up. We do miss our friends from our old shul and the comfort of seeing familiar faces among our fellow congregants; it will take a while to meet and get to know the PSJCers. On Rosh Hashana we had people over for lunch and we broke the Yom Kippur fast at the home of a new friend who lives only two blocks from us.

Our cat Sasson had a respiratory and eye infection, but after a course of antibiotics he's healthier than we've ever seen him. With hindsight we suspect he was not well when we got him, and despite the breeder's assurances we should have had him examined by a veterinarian back then. Sasson is addicted to Shoshana's pheromones; he follows her around the apartment like a puppy and loves smelling her clothing, especially her nightgown. When she's home he ignores me, but when she's at work my company suffices. This is a cat who clearly likes humans but according to the breeder dislikes other cats. I hoped I might toilet train him, but that effort has been aborted. The first step is to elevate his litter box to the level of the toilet seat. I put it on a milk crate, but once after using it Sasson perched himself on one edge of the litter box and knocked it over spilling its contents. After cleaning up (I was in the bedroom donning my compression stockings and could not help right away) Shoshana decided that the experiment was over.

bethr and I have yet to find a literary agent willing to represent I Am My Beloved's. We've done seven interviews so far and will be doing more soon, but we need a book contract with an advance to pay for travel beyond driving distance of our respective homes.

For the first time in several years Shoshana will not be exhibiting her paintings in the BWAC Fall Show. Over the summer she had a fight with BWAC's president and will not participate until he resigns or is voted out of office.