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Happy Birthday, bethbethbeth!

Random thoughts

In about an hour, it will be Tisha B'Av - one of the major fast days. We'll be eating Sarah's Pasta for dinner - a dish I invented for a friend who preferred fish to meat and who was coming to Shabbat dinner with almost no notice. I'll give the recipe after the fast. :)

It's odd. Tomorrow is a fast day, but it's not a Biblical holiday. This means that there are no restrictions as to"work". One can drive a car, turn on and off lights, cook, spend money, write, use the computer - all those things. But even so, the stores in my neighborhood were all closed or closing as I came home just after 5PM - my employers having let me go home a bit early today. And all for the same reason. We all had to finish eating by 8PM, so dinner must be cooked before then, and it has to be substantial enough to last us. Last year, this took me totally by surprise. I got home at my normal time, about 6PM, and was shocked to see the supermarkets closed. I had to improvise my dinner - although using fresh salmon instead of canned was actually an improvement. This year, I made sure to have all I needed already.

On the other side of the coin, ( Harry Potter thoughts. )