I'm at work

This is not a normal thing, as today is Thursday, and I do not work on Thursdays. I shop for groceries and plan for Shabbat and go to doctors and run other errands (and supervise the cleaning person), but I do not work.

I'm working today. jonbaker, armed with a note in Spanish, is waiting for the cleaning person. I'll get the laundry and do the shopping I need to do because this is the weekend of my brother-in-law's wedding. Which means a trip to Northern Massachusetts. We're staying in a B&B in Springfield, which is a couple blocks from Modern Orthodox synagogue. We have a dinner invitation and will take food for Shabbat lunch (and lunch for the road and dinner on Saturday and something to eat before the wedding on Sunday and then we need food for the trip home on Monday - the B&B provides a kosher continental breakfast.)

Saturday night, I've been invited to a "bachlorette party"in a bar, which I'll probably go to, while my husband joins the other men in watching the kids.

Would it be weird to take knitting? Or will a bar be too dark? Probably. I have no idea what this will be like, and I don't plan on drinking anything other than Diet Coke, since I'll have a 40 minute drive afterwards. But, you know. She'll be family and it would be weird of me not to go.

I *am* taking the knitting to the wedding, because it's a non-Orthodox (actually, non-religious) wedding. I don't do mixed dancing - and that includes being in the same circle as men. That's probably technically fine if I'm between two women, but what's to stop a man from getting between me and one of the other women? So, the best I can hope for is five minutes of dancing with Jocelyn, and what will I do the rest of the time? Jonathan is in the same boat. (And, no, I won't dance with him, either.)

It's one of the hardest things about non-Orthodox weddings, but there's nothing that can be done.

And honestly, there are worst things that can happen.

Like - last spring, we got a square of muslin in the mail from Jocelyn's sister. We were to decorate it, and send it back and it would be sewn into the chuppah. I know a lot of people think that's a wonderful thing, and I can understand that, though it's not my taste.

Jonathan worked very hard collecting and scanning family pictures and arranging them just so and then getting them on iron-on transfers and putting them on the muslin, and it looked lovely (I helped with the photo arranging.) His parents, conversely, wrote names on the square. We mailed them in, and Kim got them and sewed them all into the chuppah and backed it with batik that Jocelyn has brought from Africa and fedexed the chuppah to Mitch

Using the wrong address.

And they don't even know what the wrong address was (apparently, she didn't keep the receipt.) So this handmade, irreplaceable (even if there were time) work of love is lost. Which is sad and awful. They're going to use my brother-in-law's tallis on poles instead, but it won't be the same.

Breathing, breathing

I noticed this morning that my pda was not in my belt pouch. Okay, I figured I'd left it home. (It's always there, along with my cellphone, my pill case, a credit card, my bus pass and whatever notary money I've accumulated, plus some small change. If it's not in the case, it has to be home.)

Slightly annoying, as I do use information on it at work, but not the worst thing that could happen. I had jonbaker forward me the information I needed, and that was that. I had yesterday's comics there, so I knew I had lunch time reading, and I had my new sock on its extra long circular, so I knew I had something to do on the bus.

Then I came home and I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it anywhere - on the table, by the bed, between the beds, anywhere. We had the cleaning person come today, so she could have put it anywhere, but more likely in the same room she found it. But it was nowhere, and I was panicking. And I had to go shopping for dinner and for the trip.

So I did, hoping a little time would help. I walked back praying it was findable - and then I pledged tzedaka - a specific amount of tzedaka to a specific charity. If I found it. Because I couldn't lose it. I need it. I need the info, I need the reading material. I'm taking the WIP with me. And it's not replaceable, unless I get a used one. Palm isn't making Tungsten Cs any more. And Jonathan would be so disappointed.

And I came home and put away the groceries and searched again, and then I searched my purse. Where it never is. And which was a little heavier than usual, but it had a bunch of comics in it,so that would be that.

And there it was. I swear I kissed it.

And now the Hebrew Academy for Special Children has a bit more money than it would have for its summer camp.