weekend
Busy weekend!
Our congregation follows the Israeli schedule, so we had Sh'mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah combined on Shabbat. Last time I went to my own congregation for this, they tended to emphasize Shmini Atzeret in the evening and Simchat Torah in the morning. This year, though, there was a lot of singing and carrying of torah scrolls (most people didn't actually dance) and so on. I felt much more included than I have in the past. (I started going to a different congregation for this particular holiday a couple years ago because I felt pushed away.)
But the evening was lots of fun (if too short), and there was a lot of ruach (spirit) in the room, and people were enjoying it. I apparently got "the heavy scroll" to carry, but it didn't bother me. Next time I will do a better job of keeping the yad (pointer, hung on the end by a chain) from flipping around and boinking people near me. :-)
The would-be convert I met a month or so ago was there, so we sat together and at the oneg we talked some. It was good to see her again.
I missed services Saturday morning (which included the b'nei mitzvah of my rabbi's twin sons) due to an SCA event. For most events I would have just gone late, but this was one I really wanted to be at. I regret the timing.
This event was the investiture of our new baron and baroness. Our barons and baronesses tend to have long terms (with the exception of the most recent, who held the position for about 3.5 years), so this doesn't happen often. And the people involved are friends.
The ceremony was nicely done. There was one odd bit that I assume was the result of people running on auto-pilot. The king placed the coronet on the new baron and then handed the baroness' coronet to him to put on the new baroness. This is appropriate for kings and queens, where the person who actually won the tournament gets to go first, but our baron and baroness were elected as an equal pair. The usual practice would be for the king and queen to place the coronets on both of them at the same time, but we don't have a queen. So I guess everyone fell back onto the other commonly-used model, but I think I was expecting the king to place both coronets himself. Just an anthropological note.
The king also gave out many well-deserved awards, including Keystones (service award) to my apprentice and several other good people. He also issued two writs for peerages for members of our barony; the pelican makes me especially happy, though I am certainly not unhappy with the laurel.
Baronial court had some fun bits, including a martial award for blackpaladin for serving as a "combat scribe". (Basically, he tends to get tapped at the very last minute to produce scrolls -- like an hour before court. And he does it. Well.)
And then there was the "ultimatum" delivered by the baron and baroness before the outgoing ones. The outgoing baron has a laurel for brewing, so his predecessors explained that their camp, the "old barone' rest home" has a "beer box", and y'know, now that he's an old baron and a brewing laurel, he should strongly consider helping to fill the box. They provided additional incentive, including a demonstration that the box could hold quite a bit of beer or one old retired baron. :-)
There were a lot of people at the event, including almost a dozen new student members. Arabella did a wonderful job in making sure they all had clothing, dishes, and transportation, and they seemed to be having a good time. I think this will be a good year for students.
The choir performed in the afternoon. The audience was fairly small and I thought we got a lukewarm reception, which is disappointing. I think we did a good job, even if most people at the event weren't there to hear it.
The food at this event was quite good, and the cooks did a very good job of providing for vegetarians. Most of the meat dishes that weren't "large chunk of meat" had vegetarian alternatives that we could go and get (the pea soup and the roasted veggies, for example). There was plenty of food and all the essentials were covered; this was not a "bread and rice" event for me.
Sunday afternoon my parents came to visit. They had never had Indian food before, so we took them to Sitar for lunch. We lucked into a buffet; I hadn't thought to ask if they did a lunch buffet on weekends. (I had called one other place that didn't, and then decided to just take them to Sitar and steer them through the menu.) There was a nice variety of food, including spicier dishes for my father (and me) and milder dishes for my mother (and Dani). As predicted, they both like tandoori chicken. To my surprise, my father did not like the green chutney -- though I think his reaction would have been different if his first encounter with it had not been by eating a spoonful of it directly. (I told him as we were going through the line that it was for putting on the bread, but I guess he forgot by the time we sat down.) They also have a nice zippy lentil soup that I'd be happy to have again.
How would you describe lassi to someone who had never encountered it before? We ended up telling them "just get this; you'll like it".
My father seems to like playing with my cats, especially Erik. This is something of a surprise, as he's really a dog person and insisted that their cat was my mother's cat, not his. (This was borne out in practice, too.) But Erik jumped up into his lap and settled in for a nap and my father not only let him but scritched and petted him too. Wow. (Their cat died a few years ago, but they still have a golden retriever.) I don't think my parents are going to get another cat any time soon, but it's still an interesting development.
We hosted Sunday dinner this week. Ralph, Lori, Mike, Paul, and Mary joined us. I made: baked salmon with a dijon sauce; baked acorn squash stuffed with apples and drizzled with maple syrup; salad; bread-machine bread; and pear upside-down cake. Things came out well, even though I had to guess on one aspect of the cake. (The instructions referred to both baking powder and baking soda, but the ingredient list only gave a quantity for the former. I decided that an accidental deletion from the list was more likely than an accidental insertion, which left the question of how much baking soda to use. I was in too much of a hurry for a proper search, so I found another cake recipe that seemed not dissimilar and used it for guidance.)
All in all, a fun and busy weekend.
Our congregation follows the Israeli schedule, so we had Sh'mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah combined on Shabbat. Last time I went to my own congregation for this, they tended to emphasize Shmini Atzeret in the evening and Simchat Torah in the morning. This year, though, there was a lot of singing and carrying of torah scrolls (most people didn't actually dance) and so on. I felt much more included than I have in the past. (I started going to a different congregation for this particular holiday a couple years ago because I felt pushed away.)
But the evening was lots of fun (if too short), and there was a lot of ruach (spirit) in the room, and people were enjoying it. I apparently got "the heavy scroll" to carry, but it didn't bother me. Next time I will do a better job of keeping the yad (pointer, hung on the end by a chain) from flipping around and boinking people near me. :-)
The would-be convert I met a month or so ago was there, so we sat together and at the oneg we talked some. It was good to see her again.
I missed services Saturday morning (which included the b'nei mitzvah of my rabbi's twin sons) due to an SCA event. For most events I would have just gone late, but this was one I really wanted to be at. I regret the timing.
This event was the investiture of our new baron and baroness. Our barons and baronesses tend to have long terms (with the exception of the most recent, who held the position for about 3.5 years), so this doesn't happen often. And the people involved are friends.
The ceremony was nicely done. There was one odd bit that I assume was the result of people running on auto-pilot. The king placed the coronet on the new baron and then handed the baroness' coronet to him to put on the new baroness. This is appropriate for kings and queens, where the person who actually won the tournament gets to go first, but our baron and baroness were elected as an equal pair. The usual practice would be for the king and queen to place the coronets on both of them at the same time, but we don't have a queen. So I guess everyone fell back onto the other commonly-used model, but I think I was expecting the king to place both coronets himself. Just an anthropological note.
The king also gave out many well-deserved awards, including Keystones (service award) to my apprentice and several other good people. He also issued two writs for peerages for members of our barony; the pelican makes me especially happy, though I am certainly not unhappy with the laurel.
Baronial court had some fun bits, including a martial award for blackpaladin for serving as a "combat scribe". (Basically, he tends to get tapped at the very last minute to produce scrolls -- like an hour before court. And he does it. Well.)
And then there was the "ultimatum" delivered by the baron and baroness before the outgoing ones. The outgoing baron has a laurel for brewing, so his predecessors explained that their camp, the "old barone' rest home" has a "beer box", and y'know, now that he's an old baron and a brewing laurel, he should strongly consider helping to fill the box. They provided additional incentive, including a demonstration that the box could hold quite a bit of beer or one old retired baron. :-)
There were a lot of people at the event, including almost a dozen new student members. Arabella did a wonderful job in making sure they all had clothing, dishes, and transportation, and they seemed to be having a good time. I think this will be a good year for students.
The choir performed in the afternoon. The audience was fairly small and I thought we got a lukewarm reception, which is disappointing. I think we did a good job, even if most people at the event weren't there to hear it.
The food at this event was quite good, and the cooks did a very good job of providing for vegetarians. Most of the meat dishes that weren't "large chunk of meat" had vegetarian alternatives that we could go and get (the pea soup and the roasted veggies, for example). There was plenty of food and all the essentials were covered; this was not a "bread and rice" event for me.
Sunday afternoon my parents came to visit. They had never had Indian food before, so we took them to Sitar for lunch. We lucked into a buffet; I hadn't thought to ask if they did a lunch buffet on weekends. (I had called one other place that didn't, and then decided to just take them to Sitar and steer them through the menu.) There was a nice variety of food, including spicier dishes for my father (and me) and milder dishes for my mother (and Dani). As predicted, they both like tandoori chicken. To my surprise, my father did not like the green chutney -- though I think his reaction would have been different if his first encounter with it had not been by eating a spoonful of it directly. (I told him as we were going through the line that it was for putting on the bread, but I guess he forgot by the time we sat down.) They also have a nice zippy lentil soup that I'd be happy to have again.
How would you describe lassi to someone who had never encountered it before? We ended up telling them "just get this; you'll like it".
My father seems to like playing with my cats, especially Erik. This is something of a surprise, as he's really a dog person and insisted that their cat was my mother's cat, not his. (This was borne out in practice, too.) But Erik jumped up into his lap and settled in for a nap and my father not only let him but scritched and petted him too. Wow. (Their cat died a few years ago, but they still have a golden retriever.) I don't think my parents are going to get another cat any time soon, but it's still an interesting development.
We hosted Sunday dinner this week. Ralph, Lori, Mike, Paul, and Mary joined us. I made: baked salmon with a dijon sauce; baked acorn squash stuffed with apples and drizzled with maple syrup; salad; bread-machine bread; and pear upside-down cake. Things came out well, even though I had to guess on one aspect of the cake. (The instructions referred to both baking powder and baking soda, but the ingredient list only gave a quantity for the former. I decided that an accidental deletion from the list was more likely than an accidental insertion, which left the question of how much baking soda to use. I was in too much of a hurry for a proper search, so I found another cake recipe that seemed not dissimilar and used it for guidance.)
All in all, a fun and busy weekend.