Listen to the Rain

We Chicagoans know enough not to trust the weather early in the year, and I doubt that it'll last longer than a couple weeks, but at least now much of next week has highs in the low 10s C. Today it was 11°C and sunny, so because I had to go grocery shopping anyway, I took a detour down to the beach. When I got there I thought I had missed the sun, but the clouds were just in the south. The sky to the north was blue, and as I walked out along a jetty extending out into Lake Michigan, I turned out and the the sun was shining brilliantly over the water:


Winter will soon reassert its grip, but I'll enjoy fool's spring while it lasts.

Yesterday was thosesocks's birthday party, and while we were originally going to play board games, some last-minute cancellations meant that only two guests could make it. Since the Betrayal at House on the Hill is far more hit and miss with fewer people, thosesocks suggested an "escape puzzle" that her mother had sent her when she was finished with it. I didn't know what an escape puzzle is, and to be honest, I still don't, because we spent six hours putting the puzzle together and when we got it all finished we declared victory and called it a night. But it looked great when it was done!

On Friday I went to Mishkan services, held at a place called Wilson Abbey that I guess was a performance space--with the hanging light globes and giant pillars, it definitely felt more reverential than the JCYS. Anyway, the point is that I was sitting at the table with britshlez afterwards and when nearly everyone was leaving, including the woman I met in January at a NIF lecture by a former Knesset member, some of the people who were packing away the food asked me if I wanted any. They gave me two giant sandwich bags full of pita bread and a big tub of tabouli, and also tried to pass off a big container of tahini, but I was nearly at the food limit already. It's a good thing that I just went to the Middle Eastern Grocery Store last week and bought a bunch of falafel and hummus, because now I have the rest of a meal thanks to closing down the oneg!

It was the first full Mishkan service that britshlez had gone to, and of course she said the melodies were weird. Judaism has standardized liturgies that have been mostly unchanged for centuries, and you can expect that if you go to a place using the same nusach that the form and text of the service is the same. But as soon as people open their mouths to sing, you're totally lost again. That's true even at Mishkan, where I never know what "Lecha Dodi" is going to sound like until it's started!

I still haven't been playing a lot of games--I'm two months behind on my Quest for Glory playthrough --but just today I bought two games on Steam that I first played in the early 90s. The first was Myst, which I've been wanting to replay for years but which has moved forward in my queue due to hanging out with thosesocks, who's a Myst superfan. The second is Master of Magic, which unexpectedly got a Steam release with Caster of Magic, a wide-ranging mod that's essentially equivalent to an expansion pack. When I was searching for a Master of Magic quote, I found an old post I wrote about Slytherine buying the rights, and I guess that this is the result. I spent about an hour playing today and it's still a ton of fun, so I'm happy with my $8! Though, I may be less happy with the $6 I spent on Myst when I'm banging my head against the puzzles again.

I bought a pair of house slippers after reading about how walking on wooden floors can damage socks (due to tiny splinters causing tearing). I walk around in socks all the time, so while living in Japan for years didn't make me take the plunge, all the socks I keep having to buy did. They look fuzzy and not at all stylish and usually I don't even bend my sartorial rules for lounging around at home alone, but I can make a single exception here. And they are comfy.

Time for bed so I can get a good start to my week. I hope everyone had a good weekend!