Getting Things Done

September 16, 2001-Preparing for a New Year

David finally has his sermons done. High Holiday services tomorrow night will start at 6:30pm. It makes it a little awkward for dinner. Before is too early and after is too late. I think we’ll probably split our meal. We’ll do kiddush, motze, and soup before services and the rest after. We’re doing this for logistical reasons, but also so that our Yom Tov dinner doesn’t resemble our usual meal at home with our family. We weren’t invited to anyone’s home in the evening due to the timing, but we’re going to lunch at a home after services on Tuesday. For all of you who play the game of which congregation gets out of services earlier we will win hands down this year. We’ll be out fourteen hours ahead of you.

At Sunday School this morning David realized the Australian kids have no grip on where things are in the U.S. Now that the two Californians have joined the school and the terrorist attacks were on everyone’s mind, the kids were eager to learn whether the attack was near the new students’ home. They got a lesson in geography as well as world affairs. Another set of facts they enjoyed playing with was the time difference.

Last night there was a havdalah service and meet-the-rabbi session. We gave the congregation our gift of a Don Drumm Shabbat platter. They seemed to like it and the gesture. We also gave them a book about Akron with lots of photos of historic buildings including Temple Israel. I learned a bit more about a charming newlywed couple in their 60’s or 70’s, married eighteen months, Sophia and Ferdy. She’s Australian and he’s Columbian and had been living in Miami, Florida. They met over the Internet on a Jewish singles chat line put together by a woman in Israel.

Scoping It Out

I asked for directions the other day and ran into another Aussie slang term. Aside from not being able to discern the directions due to a thick accent and rapid speech, I had to translate her terminology. I heard something about “left at the lolly shop.” As I walked in the general direction in which she had pointed, I noticed a candy store. Yep, a lolly shop is a candy store. Yesterday afternoon we took another walk along the beach. This was our first daylight stroll. It was extremely windy so the waves were churning. Still, they’re not a good surfing size here. As we walked we heard a squeaky sound. We’d noticed this when we walked at night in our tennis shoes, but today we had Tevas on. Since it wasn’t our shoes and it most definitely wasn’t our imagination, we surmised that it must be the sand. Indeed, they have squeaky sand here. I’ve never heard this phenomenon on any beach I’ve walked on. It’s another Australian anomaly.

We walked over to a kebab stand for lunch. I hesitated patronizing them. I didn’t know if they were friend or foe. Their menu had grape leaves they called “sarmas.” I said I’d heard that food called “dolmathes” in Greek and was curious what language “sarma” was. It’s Kurdish. The kebabs, which we call gyros, were delicious.

We decided to go over to the outdoor market to search out toiletries at a discount. I mentioned we’d gone last weekend and they had everything including the kitchen sink, but no socks. I stand corrected. They have socks.

David mentioned something that made me feel a little better about people here not calling to see if our family was OK after the terrorist attack. We never called Israelis who we knew in Akron after their many terrorist bombings. Now I feel as if we’re very self- involved.

Toby