Lusty & Gay

[drankthetea]

Purim!

Thankfully, Purim is the sort of holiday during which one can laugh for no apparent reason.  Like when the congregation is singing about being gay, lusty, and loud.  Gay as in happy, lusty as in enthusiastic, so mind out of the gutters.

For excitement, I am going to make cookies.  I have some flour that I need to use up before the next Holiday of Unique Foods Thrusted Upon Us as a Reward for Not Being Annihilated.  Hammentaschen, to be precise.  This is my first time trying to do those in the kitchen, so this should be exciting (read: distressing for all housepets witnessing this).

In addition to getting the giggles about singing about being gay and lusty and loud, the following thoughts came through my mind during services:

• There is one person in the 'choir' who sings very opera like and I can't tell who it is.  There are three people up there, but they all move their lips the same.  I think I've figured it out, but then she sneezes and the LAAAA is still going on.
• Where on Earth does one get a fruitbasket that can be worn as a kippah?  Er, kippah that bears a striking resemblance to a fruit basket, I mean?
• There are about fourteen rows where we usually do the religious service.  Everyone clusters in rows 5-13, for some reason.  Even me.  The rabbi is not frightening, not even when I happen to run into him at the supermarket while wearing an Archgoat shirt showing a goat sacrificing someone.  Gotta love that.
• There is another service going on in a different room that follows a slightly different format (think:  if you didn't know where you were, and didn't notice the absence of the 'main course,' so to speak, you might think you were with the Episcopalians or something).  Both meet up for the bread and wine thing (just regular bread and wine, mind. Nothing unusual about it other than the wine is slightly chewy.)
• I wonder how quickly phlegm deteriorates the scroll and renders it unkosher?  Hebrew is not exactly a soft, tender language.  It makes German sound like the most sexy, loving language on the planet.
• It seems that the minhag in our congregation is to have everyone stand up or sit down at least once when it's not supposed to happen when there is a volunteer leading the service.  If a rabbi is leading the service, something goes in the wrong order.  Once, the mourner's kaddish almost came straight after the misheberach and the rabbi had to come up with some announcements and a song to kind of split things up.
• One lady always starts the Vishamru one beat early.  The melody we use is considerably faster and more cheery than the one we used here.  I don't know how one can sing the letter 'V' so loudly that everyone hears it.  Not 'Vi' but 'V.' 
  
• Regarding the Torah reading and the sermon/dvar torah afterwards, often I am struck by the differences in how things are taken by the people where I live and how we take them as a congregation.  Olives or baldness come up far more often than being gay or how horrid we all are (although being stubborn comes up.  Go figure).   Like that one thing that had nothing to do with gay people; it had everything to do with being a lousy host and being greedy.  Oh, and that whole thread thing which doesn't come up often since it's not exactly an orthodox congregation.
• If we are in the usual room, I find myself staring out the windows.  I like windows.
• Some of the names on the healing list are interesting.
  
• The ner tamid is always too bright to stare at, but this does not stop me from attempting it at least once or twice per service and then seeing spots for the next few minutes.
• If we are in the big room, I stare up for no apparent reason at what looks like an inverted soup bowl until I get slightly dizzy, whereupon I look towards the front and wonder how long it took the Sisterhood to needlepoint that huge tapestery in the front of the room.