Jew stuff!
I've always been a fan of showing off, comparative religion, so tonight I took navigatorsghost to the local Orthodox synagogue. It's small and student run, but it's got the basic components of a synagogue and suited our purposes.
Bad enough that being away from Friday night services so long has made me a bit rusty, although the patterns of the prayers are probably not going to fade from my mind until someone purees my brain, but the rabbi sounded like a Jewish Blurr. It made the first half of the service rather hard to follow, and they were using different tunes and books than I was used to. Still, I muddled through and navigatorsghost certainly seemed to enjoy herself.
The Torah portion that week was on leprosy and its relation to lashon hara, slander and gossip. I found this a bit ironic, given that I'm currently afflicted with some sort of strange skin condition that's slowly taking over the right side of my face and lower arm, and navigatorsghost later asked me privately if I'd been posting on fanficrants a lot lately. Obviously I should go sit outside the city walls for a while until it clears up.
Almost immediately after we got out of the chapel, however, we had a Random Encounter with a tornado of a woman who managed to pin us down and get us talking by virtue of my spoon necklace. Highlights of the conversation include the following:
"Tennessee? You mean, like Tennessee, Alabama?"
"Um...no, Tennesee is above Alabama."
"Ohhh, so it's racist but not as racist."
"...you know, I'm not even sure how to respond to that question."
[...]
"So, how did you guys meet?"
"Internet, actually."
"Oh, let me guess. LARPing, fanfiction--"
"Wow, do we just have geek signs on us or something?"
"Heh, no. I'm not that weird, but I hang out with a lot of weird people who do. I don't know why, I guess I'm just naturally attracted to them. I say these weird things all the time."
"..."
We hightailed it out the moment she went off to help with the drinks. I wouldn't so much call it the low point of the evening as the 'wtf' point. Don't think I'll be going back there again, it's a bit too college-student-aimed and the prayers aren't as enthusiastic as I'd enjoy, but it was a bit nice getting to pray again. I should drop in once or twice when I get back home; I need to practice for my brother's bar mitzvah.
Also on the way back we saw a guy pissing on the wall of the pub. That was kinda interesting.
Bad enough that being away from Friday night services so long has made me a bit rusty, although the patterns of the prayers are probably not going to fade from my mind until someone purees my brain, but the rabbi sounded like a Jewish Blurr. It made the first half of the service rather hard to follow, and they were using different tunes and books than I was used to. Still, I muddled through and navigatorsghost certainly seemed to enjoy herself.
The Torah portion that week was on leprosy and its relation to lashon hara, slander and gossip. I found this a bit ironic, given that I'm currently afflicted with some sort of strange skin condition that's slowly taking over the right side of my face and lower arm, and navigatorsghost later asked me privately if I'd been posting on fanficrants a lot lately. Obviously I should go sit outside the city walls for a while until it clears up.
Almost immediately after we got out of the chapel, however, we had a Random Encounter with a tornado of a woman who managed to pin us down and get us talking by virtue of my spoon necklace. Highlights of the conversation include the following:
"Tennessee? You mean, like Tennessee, Alabama?"
"Um...no, Tennesee is above Alabama."
"Ohhh, so it's racist but not as racist."
"...you know, I'm not even sure how to respond to that question."
[...]
"So, how did you guys meet?"
"Internet, actually."
"Oh, let me guess. LARPing, fanfiction--"
"Wow, do we just have geek signs on us or something?"
"Heh, no. I'm not that weird, but I hang out with a lot of weird people who do. I don't know why, I guess I'm just naturally attracted to them. I say these weird things all the time."
"..."
We hightailed it out the moment she went off to help with the drinks. I wouldn't so much call it the low point of the evening as the 'wtf' point. Don't think I'll be going back there again, it's a bit too college-student-aimed and the prayers aren't as enthusiastic as I'd enjoy, but it was a bit nice getting to pray again. I should drop in once or twice when I get back home; I need to practice for my brother's bar mitzvah.
Also on the way back we saw a guy pissing on the wall of the pub. That was kinda interesting.