First Philly Shabbat... and leadup
My first Shabbat here was great. Friday afternoon I went to Reading Terminal for vegetables. They have PHENOMENAL produce for cheaper than I've ever seen, and much of it is local. It's super awesome. Naomi and I left there with three hulking bags of veggies for $11. Unbelieveable.
Thursday I vacuumed my apartment for the second time because the carpet was just not drying, and I figured that'd help. I got up cups of dirt and huge balls of dog hair. I marched into the management office on Friday morning and told them that if that was as clean as shampooing could get that carpet, then they would need to replace it. The person I spoke to in the management office said they'd try to shampoo the carpet again before we worried about "other options." I agreed, since working through their protocol seems reasonable, and two dudes came Friday morning to shampoo my carpet again (despite the fact that it was STILL wet from the previous Friday when it'd been done the first time). That meant moving as much of my furniture as possible into places that are not carpet (kitchen + bathroom) so they could do a vaguely adequate job of RE-cleaning my carpeted living room and bedroom. The dudes that came were super nice and did a great job. My carpet is blue! Who knew? Until Friday morning, I'd thought it was grey. Pretty cool. Color changing carpet-- all you have to do is clean it. :) So moving around furniture was a pain, but the carpet is finally liveable even if it is still stained, and charred from the previous tenant. So... an adventure, but a seemingly productive one.
The moved around furniture meant my TINY kitchen having my rather large dining room table in it during the first part of my cooking on Friday. (Decidedly not fun.) But I got tired of dancing around the table eventually, and Naomi and I went to the grocery store for beans and dry goods which we couldn't get at Reading Terminal. The grocery we found was pretty good, roughly a Shopper's equivalent. And on the way home carrying as much as we humanly possibly could, I mentioned that it'd be pretty cool to have a grocery cart to carry my stuff back and forth in since I particularly hate carrying things in my hands. And then... two stores ahead of me was a hardware store. I stopped and got their smallest cart-- a 75lb capacity-- I think that'll do it for my 1 person household! :p That was the second good karma incident of the day. Earlier that morning I'd driven into University City to put my car in monthly parking at U Penn (cheaper by 50% than keeping it in Center City). I got into University Center, realized I was at the right intersection for the parking buracracy office, looked up, and there was a parking spot RIGHT THERE. Then the meter had 30mins on it, and then they gave me a parking spot literally across the street from the graduate school of education. So all told, a pretty good Friday morning. My house is stocked with food and dry goods, I have a grocery car, and a permenant parking place (not $15-20 a day like I had the first part of the week after move in.)
Getting into Shabbat was a bit nutty... it felt like Shabbat was coming in so late that Naomi and I meandered our way to and from the grocery. We stopped in a toy store because it had a bubble machiene outside, we stopped and stared in hippy looking store windows at the south edge of center city and generally scoped out that area as a possible neighborhood for Naomi. It was a really nice walk... but then it got to be candlelighting... the cooking was done, and most of the cleanup, but we couldn't find matches. I had literally just walked out of the shower and was in a towel. My stove wouldn't like with angel hair pasta or a candle (not hot enough, I guess). So Naomi met my neighbor, Nate, and he gave us matches. We lit JUST in time. Sorta stressful, but we pulled it off. We hung out briefly, ate dinner, and went to bed rather early. Learning a new city, moving in-- Mom in tow-- finding parking, and shopping and cooking for Shabbat had totally worn me out. There was a potluck at BZBI (local Conservative Synagogue where lots of 20 somethings go), which I will check out next time. There was no way I even could have been social Friday night.
Saturday lunch was great. Desh and Shoshana came over for lunch, and didn't even whine when I told them that I live on the 7th floor. Not knowing exactly what their practices are, I offered them the elevator or stairs, but they both wanted stairs. That was fun because it led to much joking about the strange doors (which are screwed shut) in my stairwell. Lunch was great. Desh and Shoshana are awesome and super easy to talk to, and talking Torah flowed into and out of the conversation all of which was frank and open, all of which I really appreciate. Then Naomi and napped and hung out and learned a bishul goy source sheet together until the end of Shabbat, which was a really nice way to bring Shabbat to a close. Having Desh and Shoshana over for lunch was especially nice because it helped me remember that I have more than one friend in this city, and Desh even agreed that I have an awesome minyan-having apartment (that made me happy!)
The only downside of this new place over Shabbat-- stupid oven. Things don't brown on top, so I have to figure out a new way to know when they're done. All the baked stuff was a bit overcooked, but I guess that is just part of the acclimating.
Thursday I vacuumed my apartment for the second time because the carpet was just not drying, and I figured that'd help. I got up cups of dirt and huge balls of dog hair. I marched into the management office on Friday morning and told them that if that was as clean as shampooing could get that carpet, then they would need to replace it. The person I spoke to in the management office said they'd try to shampoo the carpet again before we worried about "other options." I agreed, since working through their protocol seems reasonable, and two dudes came Friday morning to shampoo my carpet again (despite the fact that it was STILL wet from the previous Friday when it'd been done the first time). That meant moving as much of my furniture as possible into places that are not carpet (kitchen + bathroom) so they could do a vaguely adequate job of RE-cleaning my carpeted living room and bedroom. The dudes that came were super nice and did a great job. My carpet is blue! Who knew? Until Friday morning, I'd thought it was grey. Pretty cool. Color changing carpet-- all you have to do is clean it. :) So moving around furniture was a pain, but the carpet is finally liveable even if it is still stained, and charred from the previous tenant. So... an adventure, but a seemingly productive one.
The moved around furniture meant my TINY kitchen having my rather large dining room table in it during the first part of my cooking on Friday. (Decidedly not fun.) But I got tired of dancing around the table eventually, and Naomi and I went to the grocery store for beans and dry goods which we couldn't get at Reading Terminal. The grocery we found was pretty good, roughly a Shopper's equivalent. And on the way home carrying as much as we humanly possibly could, I mentioned that it'd be pretty cool to have a grocery cart to carry my stuff back and forth in since I particularly hate carrying things in my hands. And then... two stores ahead of me was a hardware store. I stopped and got their smallest cart-- a 75lb capacity-- I think that'll do it for my 1 person household! :p That was the second good karma incident of the day. Earlier that morning I'd driven into University City to put my car in monthly parking at U Penn (cheaper by 50% than keeping it in Center City). I got into University Center, realized I was at the right intersection for the parking buracracy office, looked up, and there was a parking spot RIGHT THERE. Then the meter had 30mins on it, and then they gave me a parking spot literally across the street from the graduate school of education. So all told, a pretty good Friday morning. My house is stocked with food and dry goods, I have a grocery car, and a permenant parking place (not $15-20 a day like I had the first part of the week after move in.)
Getting into Shabbat was a bit nutty... it felt like Shabbat was coming in so late that Naomi and I meandered our way to and from the grocery. We stopped in a toy store because it had a bubble machiene outside, we stopped and stared in hippy looking store windows at the south edge of center city and generally scoped out that area as a possible neighborhood for Naomi. It was a really nice walk... but then it got to be candlelighting... the cooking was done, and most of the cleanup, but we couldn't find matches. I had literally just walked out of the shower and was in a towel. My stove wouldn't like with angel hair pasta or a candle (not hot enough, I guess). So Naomi met my neighbor, Nate, and he gave us matches. We lit JUST in time. Sorta stressful, but we pulled it off. We hung out briefly, ate dinner, and went to bed rather early. Learning a new city, moving in-- Mom in tow-- finding parking, and shopping and cooking for Shabbat had totally worn me out. There was a potluck at BZBI (local Conservative Synagogue where lots of 20 somethings go), which I will check out next time. There was no way I even could have been social Friday night.
Saturday lunch was great. Desh and Shoshana came over for lunch, and didn't even whine when I told them that I live on the 7th floor. Not knowing exactly what their practices are, I offered them the elevator or stairs, but they both wanted stairs. That was fun because it led to much joking about the strange doors (which are screwed shut) in my stairwell. Lunch was great. Desh and Shoshana are awesome and super easy to talk to, and talking Torah flowed into and out of the conversation all of which was frank and open, all of which I really appreciate. Then Naomi and napped and hung out and learned a bishul goy source sheet together until the end of Shabbat, which was a really nice way to bring Shabbat to a close. Having Desh and Shoshana over for lunch was especially nice because it helped me remember that I have more than one friend in this city, and Desh even agreed that I have an awesome minyan-having apartment (that made me happy!)
The only downside of this new place over Shabbat-- stupid oven. Things don't brown on top, so I have to figure out a new way to know when they're done. All the baked stuff was a bit overcooked, but I guess that is just part of the acclimating.