Woof. Yesterday was a bit hectic, hence no update. And it wasn't only work, though
that was a major part of it; there's nothing like getting home from a major road
trip on Monday and having to prepare to fly out on Friday. Last weekend's trip was
fun, but also unexpectedly expensive, in that I lost both my sunglass case with
two pair of spare lenses and the charger for my PDA. I must have left the charger
in a hotel room but my best guess is that the sunglass case jumped out of Rudder's
truck when the door was open.
This weekend, I'm planning to take my
extended family out for dinner on Saturday night. The 'rents don't quite seem to
understand that saying a restaurant has reasonable prices is not a sufficient
recommendation, if you can't also say that they have better than "reasonable"
food. Especially when you're going out to celebrate a special occasion. So can
anyone recommend a *good* restaurant in Northeast Philadelphia? I'd settle for one
in Center City, if it has parking.
As I've mentioned before, we're
flying in for my mother's bat mitzvah. Several people have asked me why an older
woman would have a ceremony which is usually held for 12 or 13-year-old girls. The
short answer is that she didn't have one when she was younger -- this was a time
when at least some people, including my grandparents, thought it was less
important to educate girls than boys. I think I've come up with a better analogy,
though, for why this is important to her. It's not like being born again, in some
Christian denominations, which is meant to symbolize a great change in a person's
life. It's more like renewing a marriage vow after years of committment, standing
up literally "in front of God and everybody" and reconfirming explicitly and out
loud something that is important to her. And in a way, even though my mother is
well past puberty and and the theoretical onset of adulthood, I think it's a rite
of passage for her. Now she's not only a Jew by birth but one by study and by
choice, able to participate in all aspects of of the religion even to the
fundemental one of reading Torah. Even if she never does that again.