Under the Monkey Tree

That's all she wrote

2007-03-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm so done with this blog. Sorry to disappoint. I've started another elsewhere but I want to remain anonymous in it so I'm not handing out the address. Sorry. I have my baby blog for my family and friends and my other blog for me. Thanks for hanging with me this long.

CNN.com bites my a$$

2007-02-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

I've come to hate cnn.com, yet until recently continued to check there daily for my news. We don't have cable and only recently started getting the Globe and Mail, so a news junkie like me had toget her fix somewhere.

What was the problem? It isn't some rabid left vs. right reason (I'm not really that kind of person anyway). Rather it's their damn headlines. They tell way more than I want to know about articles that aren't even news anyway. I'm tired of surfing over only to be greeted by headlines such as "Dead dog found in dryer" or "Man eats longtime girlfriend for supper". I'm sick and horrified that the editorial assholes at CNN think that this is news. It's not even buried in the "Weird-ass Stories" section. It's right there in the list of headlines at the very top of the page! Plus, it's not like I have to even surf to the article for the gory details - everything I don't want to know is right there staring me in the face. Fuckers. Like I need even more things to be horrified about. Trust me, parenthood makes you ACUTELY aware of all the dangers in the world. I don't need to be reminded of horrific things that never entered my mind.

Solution? I'm trying to read the paper more often and I'm surfing to Wonkette.com for my political snark. The rest of the world be damned.

Rethinking

2007-02-04T07:52:00.000-08:00

So, I'm rethinking the purpose of this blog. I now maintain a separate blog of family news for friends and family members. I also have started a different anonymous blog about life with our son and being a new mom. What's left to talk about?

Politics, my friends. Issues of the day and my authoritative opinion on them. I realize this will not be popular with some of you. With others, I look forward to a whole new conversation (or perhaps a conversation more like the ones we had around the dining room table at Waters Road...).

You've been warned.

Finally arrived!

2006-12-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

He's here! After 3 days of unsuccessful induction attempts, our baby boy greeted the worldvia cesarean just after midnight on Monday, December 11 (20 Kislev) weighing 9 lbs 8 oz. We are enthralled. B;ezrat Hashem, his bris will be Monday morning here in Victoria.

Havin' a Baby

2006-12-10T06:11:00.000-08:00

I'm in the hospital to be induced this morning, b'ezrat Hashem. Apparently doctors don't like it when your blood pressure hits 160/100 and they think the little one would do better on the outside even though he/she is 2 weeks early at this point.

2006-11-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

We love this commercial

Enjoy.

Pumpkin, Krispy Kreme, and Waiting

2006-11-22T12:06:00.001-08:00

We're in the home stretch - the baby is due to arrive in just over four weeks. I've outgrown most of my shirts - am considering wearing mumus for the duration of the pregnancy. All is well, thank G-d, but we're getting impatient to meet our little one.

A few weeks ago, we heard a rumor that a Krispy Kreme location near Vancouver had gone kosher. We called up the local authorities (BC Kosher) who flatly denied it. Our friends at Kosher Vancouver (see link at right) did some leg work and found that the nearest kosher Kripy Kreme location in Canada is in Calgary - not exactly convenient. We were disappointed, but we know that this is for the best - I just don't need readily available donuts. There is a kosher Krispy Kreme in Seattle, but we haven't been there since we passed through on our honeymoon way-back-when. My Canadian permanent residency is still being processed and I'm a little afraid to leave the country for fear that they won't let me back in (on my temporary residency paper it says in bold type "DOES NOT GUARANTEE REENTRY". Ugh.

On the plus side, a brand-spanking new grocery store opened a few days ago about six blocks from our house. Not only will this be convenient, but it will hopefully get the baby and me out of the house on foot to run errand eventually. AND, this store is stocking an item I haven't been able to find yet in Canada - Libby's kosher solid pack pumpkin - yay!

Last Shabbos we had the other, non-rabbinical frum couple in town spend the night in our guest room. We had a lovely time getting to know them better. The wife is also American, so I indulged in a Thanksgiving style menu for Friday night - complete with green bean casserole and frozen fruit salad :).

I'm taking it easy these days and have to go now to put in a load of laundry before retiring to my bed to work on getting our wedding album in order. A real dollar store finally opened up here (Canadian "dollar" stores typically have almost nothing that is only a dollar) and I got some nift scrapbooking supplies there to help with the task.

Pumpkin, Krispy Kreme, and Waiting

2006-11-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

Doing What I Do Best

2006-11-14T01:21:00.000-08:00

It's 1:14 a.m. PST and I'm doing what I do best these days - amusing myself at strange hours because for one reason or another I can't sleep. This happened last night too, or rather this morning. Between 4-6 a.m., I was wide awake and trying not to make too much noise and wake up the husband. Then, I slept until 10. So, here I am...

Rain has come - endless amounts of it in drizzle and downpour. In moving some stuff out from under the deck, we knocked loose one of the drainpipes from the roof resulting in a partially flooded basement. Not something you want to mess with in a province where mildew is the provincial flower.

The rain does make for cozy days inside, though, the kind where you want to eat endless bowls of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Alas, there is work to do and, G-d willing, precious few weeks left in which to do it. On tomorrow's agenda? Finishing the window treatments in the bedroom and laundry. Wednesday: take old dishes to Goodwill and begin organizing kitchen and laundry. Thursday: Continue working on kitchen and set up spare room for Shabbos guests and laundry. Friday: Make Shabbos food before Shabbos starts at approximately 4:05 and try to have laundry put away. Fun, fun, fun.

We had a nice meal last Friday night at the home of the Other Orthodox Rabbi in town. It was a fun, heimishe crowd and the singing of familiar zemiros (Shabbos songs) made me nostalgic. Chabad sings some beautiful songs, but it's just not the same. A couple who attends the Other Shul will spend Shabbos by us this week since their rav and family are heading out of town for a few weeks. Looking forward to some afternoon rounds of Trivial Pursuit or Taboo (sans buzzer, of course).

Other than that, I'm, of course, pleased with the outcome of the election - not so much because the Dems took a majority in both houses, more because it will force some cooperation on the part of the two parties who have been at each other's throats for the past twelve years. I don't really think the Dems have any better solutions for solving the quagmire in Iraq, but at least maybe we can pitch some more ideas now instead of hurling blame. We'll see what happens.

My fingers and ankles are feeling evermore sausage-like. I wake up with swollen knuckles and toes. I ahd to abandon my rings last week for fear that they would have to be cut off if I didn't. I've also been fighting a head cold that has taken its sweet time to leave (over a week - not at all usual for me). Being up and around is actually the most comfortable position as long as I keep moving. Our walk home from dinner last Friday was over two miles and the only time I really felt the effects were on the uphills. I keep telling Soulmate that he'll need to get a crane in to hoist me out of bed, off the couch, and out of the bathtub eventually. On the plus side, our Little Rashi (as we've taken to calling him/her) provides me with lots of kicks, wiggles, and rolls to let me know that all is well, thank G-d.

I've finished my cinnamon tea and am going to try to go to sleep now. Much to Soulmate's (and my) displeasure, apparently I've started snoring quite loudly the past few weeks. Nothing says delicate femininity more than a wife who sounds like a buzzsaw half the night. Soulmate says it's no big deal (until it wakes him up, at least), but I confess to being quite embarrassed about the whole situation. G'night.

Come one, come all

2006-10-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy week here in Canadia. In anticipation of the delivery of our new bed, I tore up the carpet in the bedroom and painted. Now, a) I've painted plenty before and b) I'm really not stupid, so I'm going to offer you a tip that tripped even me up in spite of my husband's efforts to avoid the mishap. When painting a stippled ceiling, buy ceiling paint. There. I did not listen to my husband's advice and went ahead and used a Whole Gallon of paint on the ceiling of one 12'x12' room. Doh.

In any case, I then didn't have enough paint left over for the trim, so I had to go buy more this morning at the paint store. Grr.

The new bed is positively luxurious. I spent most of the weekend in dog-free, king-sized slumber. I haven't slept this well in months.

What's new in Jewish Victoria? The preschool is a raging success - at capacity for the year. The Hebrew school is growing. Two more Orthodox families are, G-d willing, moving to town within the next six months AND (here's the big news) the fine rabbi and his wife at the Other Orthodox Shul have built a mikveh in their basement (the first and only mikveh on Vancouver Island, I think - not counting the numerous lakes or the ocean). Life here is getting easier and easier.

In the past seven months, we've found sliced bread with hashgacha and a place to get meat at better prices than in Detroit. Heck, we even found kosher frozen unbaked croissants that are pareve, pas yisroel and delicious.

So, all those of you out there who wish there was a frum community on the edge of civilization replete with sunset vistas, mountains to climb, clean air, and heimishe people, we invite you to Victoria.

Propaganda? Do I care?

2006-10-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

I was listening to CBC this morning and they were interviewing a former employee of the Lincoln Group, a contractor in Iraq and elsewhere touting itself as a "strategic communications and public relations firm providing insight and influence in challenging and hostile environments".

The gentleman being interviewed said that news media in Iraq is, essentially, for hire. The Lincoln Group would receive "storyboards" (read: articles) from the U.S. Military. They would then transmit those storyboards to Iraqi journalists along with a certain sum of cash. The journalists would then see that the "storyboard" got published in whichever newspaper he worked for.

Now, my sensibilities about a free press and all that were initially offended at the idea that my government was paying to have propaganda published in Iraq. Then, I sat back and thought about it. I've come to some tentative conclusions:

If these newspapers are taking money from the U.S. Military, they will likely take it from anyone - propaganda runs both ways, after all.
Would the reporting be fair and unbiased if these papers were left to their own devices in Iraq, an environment permeated with terror? Probably not.
Having spent decades under the regime of Saddam Hussein who controlled all the media in Iraq, do Iraqis have a healthy suspicion that not everything they read in the paper is absolute truth? Probably.

So, I say keep the propaganda flowing. No doubt it's keeping some newspaper men (and women?) in food and clothes and it's probably not doing any real damage.

I Love Canada

2006-10-20T01:51:00.000-07:00

Update: The winner "Cows in the Closet". Thanks to BB and Mr. W for your participation.

Ok, just remember that I never claimed to be mature or politically correct. It's late and I can't come up with a caption for the photo. I'll post any good ones you send to me, though.

Calling Calgary

2006-10-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

Update: Mystery solved. As I suspected, someone who reads this blog found their way to the other blog during the 48 hour window of opportunity completely harmlessly. Can't be too paranoid though... ;)

We tried this once before and got no response, but I'd like to try again. One of you out there is visiting this blog from Calgary. Somehow, you also got through to our more personal baby blog. This is all fine and dandy and we certainly don't mind you reading our baby blog if it's only out of interest, but since you know so much about us, we'd like to know who you are. Originally, the baby blog was only intended to be sent to family and friends (i.e. people we know). Through a technical error on my part, for about 48 hours it was possible to access both blogs via my husband's profile. We fixed it ASAP to preserve some semblance of anonymity.

If you live in or near Calgary and you read this blog, email us at chossonhunt2005@yahoo.com - we just want to know who you are.

Finally

2006-10-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

I feel a little sheepish, but I'm glad all the yamim tovim are finally over. We haven't had a true "weekend" in over a month. I miss Sundays when we typically do a little shopping, take a drive, visit with the inlaws, etc. Now it's fall and Sunday afternoons are the perfect time to see movies. We bought passes to the IMAX at the BC Natural History Museum. IMAX movies are great - they average about an hour so even if the movie drags a little, it's not too long.

The last one we saw was NASCAR. Soulmate, lover of all things car-related, wanted to see it and I figured I might as well learn a little more about the NASCAR demographic. Lots of my former students were NASCAR fans and I had never quite understood exactly what was interesting about the sport - cars going around in circles at high speeds, what's the big deal? The movie left me even more mystified. Apparently there are people who take their yearly family vacation going to NASCAR races. They load up the Winnebago and truck it to wherever the race happens to be. Then, they barbecue, set up chairs on TOP of the Winnebago and watch the race. Ok. I still don't get it.

I was listening to the Diane Rehm show today on NPR. The discussion centered around the proposed "fence" along our border with Mexico. This older lady called in to say that the majority of immigrants coming to the US were high school dropouts (so???). She then went on to make the point that if we let in high school dropouts from Mexico, they will take jobs away from our own high school dropouts... Wha?????

Soulmate is on the other side of the province today for work. I dropped him off at the airport at 8 and with pick him up at 6:30 tonight. In the mean time, I'm going to put some of this nesting energy to work and start prepping the bedroom to be painted.

Island Life

2006-10-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

One of the things we put up with living on the island is that nearly all the good shopping is in Vancouver. As the crow flies, Vancouver is not far - maybe 40 miles. However, the crow is expensive, so we take the boat - about 75 minutes worth of driving and 1.75 hours on the ferry. This way, too, is expensive - round trip for the two of us yesterday was $114 (down from $128 at peak summer rates).

In spite of all this, our trip to Vancouver was a welcome distraction on chol hamoed. I've been missing Detroit more keenly this week. Sukkos, I've come to realize, is a very communal holiday if you're single. As a female, I was never obligated to build and eat in a sukkah, so I didn't. My neighbors two doors down invited me nearly every night of chol hamoed. Suppers were lively with all the boys home from yeshiva and usually a few out-of-town guests. I missed that this year. Soulmate and I built and enjoyed our sukkah, but we remained very concious that ours was one of perhaps 6 sukkahs in the entire city. In Detroit, you could hear your neighbor singing in his sukkah. Here, I'm sure the neighbors are panicking that the sukkah will be a permanent structure in the back yard.

Nothing like a little retail-therapy to give you a boost. We managed to score a dining room table from the "damaged" room at Ikea that will sit eight - there were no visible scratches or structural problems, so we paid for the table and left quickly before they could realize that we were getting a screaming deal. I also managed to find frozen, unbaked croissants. Soulmate had purchased a box at Costco last year. We discovered when we got married that they make an easy and ideal Shabbos breakfast treat when combined with butter and homemade strawberry jam. Alas, we ran out several weeks ago and have been having to subsist on homemade cinnamon buns. Costco no longer carries a kosher brand of croissants (at least not here) so we expanded our search. Fortunately, a new bakery opened in Vancouver a few weeks ago selling frozen unbaked croissants! We now have 3 dozen in the freezer and 10 proofing on the counter.

The leaves have started to turn here and the long-awaited winter rain is scheduled to arrive tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to snuggling inside and enjoying the mild temperatures. As Soulmate has been fond of annoucing when passing the outdoor thermometer when we leave the house, "It's two degrees cooler now than when I came to see you at Chanukah last year" (generally this comes up when the temp is in the mid-fifties - about average in the winter for around here). Who'd have thought that I would move to Canada and have to pack away my ful-length down-filled winter coat?

CIA: Kim Jong Il has a small missile

2006-10-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

As I've watched North Korea's Kim Jong Il prance across the screen in file footage this week in the wake of North Korea's nuclear weapons test, I wondered how the he** the rest of the world has tolerated this Napoleon-complexed dictator. Moreover, how has the brainwashed and starved North Korean populace tolerated it?

All that aside, what are we going to do now? Urge China and Japan to action? Enforce UN sanctions?

Two ideas have come to the attention of this blogger over the past 24 hours:

While the muckety-mucks at the UN debate, a "U.S. government official" (per CNN.com) announced that U.S. spy agencies (CIA?) have reached three possible conclusions as to why the nuclear weapons test appears to have been "relatively small":

The bomb was big and powerful and the test was conducted SO FAR underground that it didn't produce the seismic after-effects they would've predicted.
It wasn't really a nuclear test - it was just made to look like one. They actually conducted the test using conventional explosives.
My personal favorite: the test went awry and only a small explosion was produced. That's right, the CIA flipped ol' Kim Jong Il the bird by telling him that his missile was either very small or that it misfired. Soulmate has informed me that some Asian men are very self-concious about "missile" size so the CIA's accusation should cause even more consternation than it would in a country full of more well-endowed missiles...Granted, insulting foreign leaders isn't really a viable way to deal with the problem, but it sure is amusing.

Over at Blogblond, our own BB has some very interesting ideas about pitting the Iranians against the North Koreans. You have to read the post to appreciate its intricacy and beauty.

I'm off to eat Nutella directly out of the jar. Enjoy your Wednesday.

Starbucks Commits Genocide

2006-10-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

Do you remember those “Save the Children” ads where a celebrity would say that for the price of a cup of coffee each day, you can save the life of a child in a Third World country?

I started thinking the other day about all of the people in my office who go out for a latte, cappuccino, or mocha once or twice a day. These things cost 2 or 3 times the price of a regular cup of coffee. Based on this, each of them could save 2 children each. If you look at how many fluffy coffees Starbucks sells each day across North America, millions of children a year could be saved. Given the trend of the last 15 years of people abdicating personal responsibility more and more each day, Starbucks could be viewed as being responsible for the deaths of millions of Children a year.

It's all the same

2006-10-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

When I was an exchange student to Belgium way back in high school, one of the conclusions I reached was that everyone's family has a little bit of crazy. Some have more crazy than others, but everyone has at least a little.

Over the course of one year, I lived with three different families (as proscribed by the program I was with, Rotary International). In the first family, my host brother stole $500 from me to spend on gambling. His parents refused to admit that he had taken the money, I moved on, and a year later, he entered a program for help with his addiction.

My host-parents in Family #2 were a doctor (the mom) and a lawyer (the dad) who had their own dysfunctions. We once spent an entire Friday night delousing the entire family after one daughter brought lice home from school. Another time, I looked in the five-year-old's mouth and saw that nearly all his teeth were completely rotted out. They had been depending on him (or his older sisters?) to brush his own teeth. This familiy's advantage, however, was their warmth and ability to make everything fun. I always felt welcome and part of things.

Family #3 was a case unto itself. The family had recently reunited after the father spent three years living down the block with his mistress. The son, a tough and mouthy ten-year-old, regularly told his dad the French equivalent of "f- you". Can't say I blamed him.

But, this post isn't about families. It's about bureaucracy and how it's dealt with all over the world. After living in Canada for nearly eight months and reading Mia's trials and tribulation with first Hungarian, and now Swedish bureaucracy, I've come to some conclusions:

1) Bureaucracy is the universal language. Everyone wants to pass the buck and no civil servants anywhere are authorized to take responsibility for anything (like they want to anyway...)

2)No matter which form you fill out, it's always the wrong one...

3) Canadians are extraordinarily kind and patient. Everyone I've talked to, from the people at the national immigration center to the people at the provincial Ministry of Health have been sweet and lovely. They listen. They offer advice and understanding beyond the script provided to them. They can't always help, but they sure make you think that they wish they could.

In conclusion, Canada's bureaucracy, like families around the world, has it's own meshugass (craziness). But, Canadians really are kinder and gentler (for the most part - exceptions always exist) and that, I believe, makes all the difference.

Coming soon... Wells-Fargo bites my bum and other rants about one giant mortgage company's inability to give ANYONE a straight answer.

Early October Thoughts

2006-10-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

I've been missing my old blog. There, I was relatively anonymous. Here, we've been quite up-front about where we live which wouldn't be a big deal except there are, b'li ayin hara, five frum (Orthodox) couples here. I'm afraid to say anything controversial for fear that it will come back to haunt me.

I didn't go to shul at all yesterday. Dehydration can bring on contractions and at 28 weeks pregnant I didn't want to take any chances by getting sweaty doing things like standing and davening (praying). Instead, I spent the day in bed and on the couch thinking about the question of what to do with Jews who are non-observant. I read several chapters in a book on Ahavas Yisrael (loving your fellow Jew no matter what)

We are part of a Chabad congregation and the overwhelming majority of the congregants aren't frum at all. I mean, AT ALL. The other Shabbos I had to stop one woman in the congregation from adding water to the cooking cholent when she arrived at shul. Another woman asked me if she could take the kiddush leftovers to her son so that she wouldn't have to cook for him that afternoon (she was going to carry them to her car and drive them home Shabbos afternoon). I had no idea what to say. I told her to ask the rabbi since the leftovers technically belonged to the shul...

I have a hard time knowing when to educate and when to let it ride. Granted, it's not really my job to preach frumkeit in this situation, but I'm forced into the position quite often.

I spoke to the rabbi about this at one point after he gave a drash (sermon) that I was SURE was directed at me - tolerance toward one's fellow Jew no matter what level he's at. I hypothesized that perhaps it was easier for people who were FFB (people who were born Orthodox) to exercise this tolerance because they had never known differently. Those of us who are BT (didn't grow up Orthodox) conciously rejected the path that these very same non-observant congregants are on. How do you tolerate what you have deliberately and conciously rejected? It's tough. Very tough. Nevertheless, I have to keep working at it.

On top of all this, I'm generally cranky these days. It's hard to sleep when you're pregnant. Rolling over takes on a whole new dimension and your bladder fills much more quickly. My little soccer player likes to get up around 4am, so at least I'm not awake alone.

But, the weather is fine and life is easy. We're heading to Home Depot tonight to buy sukkah materials and look at paint samples for the bedroom. The Stinky Dog and her new sister the Little Woozle stole a whole chocolate cake off the counter last night and are feeling the consequences today (Stinky is living up to her name...). I'm off to try my hand yet again at bread starter.

Quote of the Day

2006-09-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

I read this and had to post it to the blog:
At least one U.S. Senator takes the Iranian threat very seriously. "I think he's a Hitler type of person," said Sen. George Voinovich (R.-Ohio) about Iranian President Ahmedinejad, adding, "I call him Ahmed-in-a-head."

- Chabad Chammer

Conspiracy Theory of the Day

2006-09-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a good conspiracy theory for a while, and so I thought that I should work on one.

I was reading an article yesterday that said that Jews for Jesus has a budget of 20 million dollars to spread their 'message'. I was trying to figure out how they could raise that much money, and then it came to me. Who is the primary supporter of terrorism in the world right now? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! My theory is that this is part of his plot to wipe out Israel. Considering that Iran is currently spending 200 million a year funding terror against the West, this is a subtle and particularly nasty way to gnaw away at the underpinnings of Western society.

- Chabad_Chammer

Political Update

2006-09-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

The latest round of primaries took place yesterday with some interesting results. We'll talk first about the SENATE:

Where Dems could pick up a seat:

Most Likely

Montana - Rep incumbent - race continues to be close. Dem is outpolling the Rep 48%-45% as of Aug 27.
Pennsylvania - Rep incumbent Rick Santorum is getting trounced by Dem challenger Robert Casey 38%-56% in an Aug 27 Gallup Poll. Santorum is the poster-boy for national anger at the Republican party. Too bad, I'll miss his frequent pompous appearances on CSPAN...not.

Tossup - ALL THREE seats currently held by Republicans (note that OH has moved into this category...)

Missouri - Research 2000 Poll shows Dem ahead 47%-46% as of Aug 31
RI - Dead even Aug 21 - Repub incumbent Lincoln Chafee won the primary and is running dead even with Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse. Chafee is fairly moderate, however, which may cause trouble for Dems wishing to upset him.
OH - Republican incumbent trailing in Aug 27 Gallup Poll 46%-40%. Oh sweet revenge... The Repub incumbent has twice as much cash-on-hand as the Dem here. If you were looking to contribute to a candidate this season, Sherrod Brown might be the one. Make a donation here.

A spot of worry?

NJ - Dem incumbent Robert Menendez is trailing his Repub challenger as of Aug 27 39%-43%. Menendez has nearly three times the cash-on-hand as his opponent and Repubs are unlikely to focus on this race in historically Democratic NJ. Any idea what's going on here, Woody?

Now for the HOUSE:

Not much change here. We will, however, move AZ8 from the Tossup column into the Likely Dem column as ultra-Conservative candidate Randy Graf defeated his more moderate counterpart in the primary yesterday. The Democratic candidate suddenly looks much more attractive to the hopefully reasonable people of southern Arizona.

Comments? Can you provide clarification? Let me know.

The War? On Terror

2006-09-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

I've heard the same theme about the War on Terror cropping up in various newsradio broadcasts and magazines over the past few weeks - reframing the struggle and declaring victory in the war on terror. I read a very interesting article "Declaring Victory" in The Atlantic Monthly September 2006 issue this past weekend and would urge you to run to the nearest bookstore/magazine stand to pick it up. If, for some reason, you can't do this, email me and I'll send you a copy. We've heard the Republican rhetoric on this for so long, it's exciting to see people standing up and saying "Hey, we're going about this important problem all wrong!" I hope the Dems are paying attention because this type of policy shift could spell major gains for them.

House of Representatives Races 2006

2006-09-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

The House is a little more difficult to make sense of since there are 435 seats and all of them are up for grabs. I'll keep trying over the next few weeks, but here's the low-down so far. Democrats have a much better shot at regaining the majority here than in the Senate. I'll try to keep you posted on seats that are likely to change hands. As in the Senate, very few Dem seats are threatened.

Total number of seats: 435

Current Breakdown
202 Dem seats
231 Rep seats
1 indep seat (VT)
1 vacant seat (TX22 Tom Delay's old seat)

Dems need to pick up 16 seats and not lose any to have a majority.

According to the New York Times:
189 Safe Dem seats
17 Leaning Dem seats

189+17=206 (remember, the Dems only currently hold 202 seats)
Which four are seen as likely to change? VT, IN8, NC11, IA1

16 Toss Up Seats - all are currently held by Republicans with the exception of TX22 - the seat from which Republican Tom DeLay resigned under pressure.

AZ8-Repub Primary Sept 12
CO7
CT2
CT4
FL2
IL6
IN2
IN9
NM1
NY24
OH15
OH18
PA6
TX22
VA2
WA8

Of the remaining seats,
21 Lean Rep
192 Safe Rep

Anysara Gets Political - U.S. Senate Races 2006

2006-08-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

So here I am in the wilds of Canada and I'm thinking about the 2006 Congressional Elections. While I was initially happy with President Bush's support of Israel during the recent escalation of conflict with Hezbollah, it's about the only thing he's done that has made me proud of my government in the past six years. I'm following the 2006 Congressional Elections and I'll be voting by absentee ballot in my home state because I'd like to see our government change a little. I will, in all likelyhood, vote Democrat and posts here will reflect that perspective.

With that disclaimer, here's the break down of U.S. Senate races:

Current seat holdings in the U.S. Senate:
44 Democratic seats
56 Republican seats

In order to take control of the Senate, Democrats need to hold all seats and pick up 7 seats from Republicans. While this is unlikely, few Demcratic seats are in danger (only Connecticut comes to mind due to the Lieberman debacle) and Dems stand a decent chance of picking up at least two seats.

Where Dems could pick up a seat:

Most Likely

Montana - Rep incumbent
Pennsylvania - Rep incumbent

Tossup - both seats currently held by Republicans

Missouri - Rasmussen Poll shows Republican ahead 46%-44% as of Aug 22
RI - Dead even Aug 21

Less Likely, But Possible

OH - Republican incumbent trailing in Aug 1 Rasmussen Poll 44%-42%. Oh sweet revenge...

Other Races to Watch

Minnesota - seat being vacated by a Dem - polls show race is leaning toward staying Dem
Maryland - seat being vacated by a Dem - No primary yet - Sept 12

Sources:
Washington Post Key Races 2006
New York Times 2006 Election Guide
*I did make an effort to find Election 2006 information from well-known conservative-leaning sites (i.e. the Wall Street Journal, Fox News), but I was unable to find anything comprehensive. I'll keep at it.

Anniversary #1

2006-08-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

Today is the start of a number of anniversaries that Soulmate and I will celebrate this year. One year ago tonight, Soulmate called. You may remember this Chosson Hunt post:

My soulmate called tonight.

It was cool and cloudy where he lives today so he spent the day tending his vegetable patch.

We talked about Jewish life in out-of-the-way places. He listened to me obsess about Maine and seemed genuinely pleased to do so.

I was cute and funny and asked good questions to get him to talk about himself.

If you haven't found your own Soulmate yet, may you merit it soon.

I have to go back to bed, now, though sleeping is a little more difficult when someone insists on kicking you in the kidneys incessantly...

WTF? The Israeli Government - A Partner in Terrorism?

2006-08-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

On the usual post-Shabbos surf of news websites I came across this gem at the JPost:

*****
Report: Prisoner swap deal underway
By JPOST.COM STAFF

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram said Sunday morning that according to high-ranking Egyptian sources, an exchange deal is set to take place between Israel and Hizbullah within the next two or three weeks, Israel Radio reported.

The first stage of the agreement would be the release of the two soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah last month, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the report said.

The next stage, the sources said, would be Israel's release of Palestinian prisoners a day or two after the soldiers are returned.

According to the newspaper, the same high-ranking Egyptian sources also said that a similar exchange would soon be agreed upon for Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in Gaza during a cross-border raid.

There is as yet no final draft of the agreement, the newspaper reported.

*****

What THE hell is going on? Great. How many people died in the latest conflict with Hezbollah? Thank you, Israeli government, for all those needless deaths. Sh*t, if they were going to exchange prisoners, they should've saved everyone the f***ing trouble and just swapped prisoners six weeks ago. After all, terrorism is about throwing a tantrum and getting your f***ing way, right? While you're at it, why don't you sign over Jerusalem, too, and save us any future suicide bombing attacks. WTF?

Nice to know that the Israeli government is out there protecting its citizens by providing human payola to the f***ing Palestinian mafia. Bastards.

Who the hell do they think they are?

2006-08-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

This post is outside the general scope of this blog, but I couldn't think of anyone to send a letter-to-the-editor to who would actually read what I have to say...

This past Sunday, an article appeared in the Globe and Mail called "Motherhood is Boring". I haven't read the actual article itself since GM wants your credit card info if you want to read their articles online. Bastards. So, I Googled the term and found loads of letters and blog entries on the topic directing me to the article in the Daily Mail which inspired the GM article. Since the Daily Mail is obvioudly less pretentious, they actually printed the article in question for consumption on their website.

Helen Kirwan-Taylor asserts that her children bore her to death. She refuses to take part in any school activities (they just don't interest her) and she's more likely to be found having her highlights done than at a child's birthday party. She claims that her children have gotten used to her not showing up to their cricket matches or school plays and that they don't mind. She admits that when her childred were younger, she threw herself into her work because any journalism assignment was much more titillating than her offspring.

This, my friends, is why people should have to be licensed to be parents.

She goes on to cite the extreme - as if there's no inbetween - of parents whose children throw tantrums at a dinner party and thus the parents of send their guests home rather than send the children to their rooms. She then goes on to claim that her children will be more 'balanced' because their indulged counterparts will grow up narcissistic and unable to function.

Now (take a breath), I do agree that the parents who sent the guests home rather than sending the children to their room are going way overboard (Assuming the situation was as simplistic as Ms. Kirwan-Taylor describes). Ms. Kirwan-Taylor is absolutely correct in her assertion that children whose parents spend their lives toting them to and from soccer practice, ballet, and swimming and generally catering to their every whim (crusts cut off) WILL grow up narcissistic and bratty.

Granted, I am not yet a parent. I have, however, been a teacher for seven years and have had the opportunity to observe first-hand the fruits of different parenting styles. Indulgent parents produce petulant children. Neglectful parents produce angry children who will do anything to get their parents attention. There is, however, a happy medium. Parenting is a delicate balance between meeting your needs and your children's needs. I'm sure that it's quite impossible at times. In those instances, your children's needs should nearly always trump your own.

At the recent opening of our new shul, several children were allowed to run amok screaming between the audience and the podium (where the mayor, rabbi, superintendent of schools, etc. were speaking). The parents sat calmly in the audience, quite obviously pretending that they had no children. Not only was it appallingly rude to everyone there, it was neglectful of their children.

Children need limits. They need to be told when something they do is out-of-bounds and sometimes they even need a consequence. When you decided to have a baby, you committed yourself to bringing them up properly - even if that means that you have to leave a play/dinner/speech/etc. to correct them. When children act out, they are telling their parents that they need something. Maybe they need the limits to be more clearly defined. Maybe they need a hug and a soft word of reminder. Maybe they need a larger consequence (time out, cancellation of an activity, etc.). It's not a parent's job to dote on a child, but it is a parent's job to make their children the center of their universe.

The appalling article by Ms. Kirwan-Taylor has no doubt given countless parents permission to give into their own narcissistic tendencies. This attitude, as much as the attitude of the doting parents who give their child whatever he/she asks for, will produce unhappy children who will struggle to function in a society that is, whether you believe it or not, full of boundaries and limits.

Shame on you, Ms. Kirwan-Taylor.

What do you do with yellow squash that's the size of your arm?

2006-08-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

What DOES one do with yellow squash this big?

Only two are pictured, but we have three like this so far. We just finished one tonight. It took us two days to eat it. Last night, I sliced big rounds, dipped them in egg wash, then shake-n-bake (we can get a kosher brand here in Canada), then I fried them in olive oil. Delish. Tonight, Soulmate ('cause he's just clever like that), suggested we cut the other half into spears and steam them in the asparagus pot. When they were done, we salted and peppered them. Even more delish (and just a little healthier).

One down, two to go. Actually, there will be more than two - the plant is showing no signs of slowing down production. What can I say? I guess we're just fertile around here.

Will keep you posted with Yellow Squash Recipe #3.

What's New in Jewish Victoria?

2006-08-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last week we opened the new shul (synagogue). It's housed in a building that Chabad of Vancouver Island is leasing from the local school district. Not only do we have a lovely, tall-ceilinged place to daven, the room next door will be the full-time preschool five days a week this school year. We had close to 100 people at the opening, including the mayor of Victoria, regular shul attendees, and preschool parents. This past Shabbos, we had a record breaking crowd of approximately 40 people. We first ran out of siddurim (prayerbooks), then chairs, then chumashim (printed copies of the Torah). It's a wonderful problem to have.

We also have started importing our meat from Seattle. The Canadian government lets you bring in a certain amount of meat (44 lbs/person) for your own consumption. Albertson's of Mercer Island (THE place to shop for kosher groceries in Seattle) packs it for us, freezes it to ensure freshness, and delivers it to the Victoria Clipper dock. The meat then enjoys a pleasant ferry ride through Puget Sound, skirting the San Juan Islands before arriving a few hours later at the Inner Harbour in Victoria - a five minute drive from our house. We retrieve our still-frozen meat, clear it through customs, and we're on our way. After living off the $12.00/lb frozen kosher chicken that's available here on the island, it's a big treat to dine on $1.52/lb chicken thighs from Seattle. We also got steak. Lots of steak. Yum.

So, now we've worked out most of the problems of Orthodox life on the island. We have meat. We're well on our way to having a school. We have a minyan twice a month which shows every sign of growing. The rabbi and Soulmate are working on creating an eruv (symbolic enclosure that enables Orthodox Jews to carry items outside the home on Shabbos) now that the shul is no longer in the rabbi's home. There's money set aside for a mikveh (ritual bath) once we get a permanent location and, in the mean time, there are various fresh water lakes for toiveling (taking a ritual bath) if one doesn't wish to brave the ocean. On top of all that, we've had a beautiful summer full of oceanside picnics, reading and camping in the back yard, and summer evening drives through the country to buy fresh sweet corn.

Does life get any better than this?

Happy Birthday to Me

2006-08-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that one year ago I was in Vermont on my birthday. I can't remember if I had heard of Soulmate at this point and I was waiting to see if he would accept the shidduch or if that came after... In any case, ten days from now is the anniversary of our first phone call. H-shem has blessed me this year. May He continue to do so. I found the love of my life. We got engaged. We got married.

We moved to this beautiful island where we recently helped in the opening of the new Jewish Education Centre - complete with our own shul and a full time preschool. For the past few weeks I've been lucky to have the tremendous mitzah of baking kosher challah for our community.

And, G-d willing, Soulmate and I will have something else to celebrate in late December or early January.

Happy birthday to me, indeed.

What about the soldiers?

2006-08-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

Soulmate and I have been closely monitoring the news this morning expecting the "cease fire" to collapse at any minute. We're frustrated and dismayed that several key issues seem to have been forgotten by the international community, the UN, and, surprisingly, the State of Israel:

1) Hezbollah is a TERRORIST group. Since when does ANYONE make agreements with TERRORISTS? By definition, they can't be trusted. Sure, they'll wait it out just long enough for the world to forget about this little "war". Then, as soon as no one is looking and many UNIFIL troops are deployed in south Lebanon (making it a potential disaster-scenario if Israel needs to go back), the TERRORISTS will be up to their old tricks. When the long arm of Israeli justice reaches out to crush them, they will once again cry foul and somehow Israel will come out looking like the bad guys (I can already see Hezbollah using UNIFIL posts as human shields in place of Lebanese women and children).

2) What about the soldiers that the terrorists kidnapped? Is the Israeli government really going to leave them to rot in the hads of the terrorists? Or will they work out a back-door deal with the terrorists and exchange "prisoners" - showing that terror really does pay?

All this said, I don't know how Israel could've come out of this whole debacle unscathed. So they push to the Litani and secure it. So what? What's to keep Hezbollah from launching rockets into Israel from Syria? They'll run and recruit more terrorists. There will always be more. We can't talk with them and we can't realistically wipe them from the face of the Earth. The only option left is to pray that H-shem takes care of it and sends moshiach speedily and soon.

Islamic terrorists remind me a little of a nasty weed we have been combatting in our yard for the past three months: the trumpet vine. This plant, a relative of the mostly-harmless flower morning glory, creeps around underground, sprouting virtually anywhere. It then grows to 20-30 feet in length, up and over whatever is in its path: the antenna of my Subaru, the rose bush, our lavender plants - anything. It will stop at nothing short of world domination. It took three applications of Round Up to even begin to kill some of the vines. Rumor has it that it can grow beneath streets and appear in the neighbor's yard across the street. Pulling it has little effect - a new plant sprouts from every break. There is no getting rid of it. We can only hope to contain it and get it to a level where we only have to lay the smack down on it once in awhile.

Propaganda

2006-07-31T15:49:00.000-07:00

I came across a link to this site at the Muqata this morning. Apparently, Rush Limbaugh also picked this up and has sent people to the site to see Hezbollah/Lebanese propaganda in action. The images are VERY graphic and disturbing, but the conclusion reached by the blogger is even moreso. In a nutshell, the same rescue worker appears in different incarnations in the photos published around the world in today's newspapers and online. Several things pointed out by the blogger point to the fact that these pictures were staged several times using the bodies of these poor children.

Additionally, the blogger does some research and finds this same rescue worker in another scenario in Lebanon 10 years ago posing with the bodies of innocent victims yet again.

It's tragic that the Lebanese will stoop so low as to use the bodies of dead children as propaganda.

In other news relating to the Qana tragedy, discrepancies apparently exist between the time Israel conducted the airstrikes and the time the building housing civilians in Qana collapsed. Here's the Jerusalem Post article. Not surprisingly, the international media hasn't picked it up. Perhaps an the eight hour gap between when the bombs were dropped and the building collapsed isn't as media-sexy as staged photos of dead women and children.

The World and Its Relationship with Terrorists

2006-07-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Undoubtedly, most of you who read this blog make it your business to keep up with events in Israel. Whether you are regular visits to arutzsheva.com or another Israeli news site, you probably have your facts straight.

Over here in Canada and the U.S., one has to make an effort to find accurate reporting on current events in the Middle East. Only now has CNN started to report Israeli casualties and suffering in the same way it was covering Lebanon. With major world leaders calling for restraint on the part of Israel, I'd like to take a minute to refresh your memory regarding this conflict courtesy of an article in today's Washington Post:

History of the Lebanese-Israeli Conflict

By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Monday, July 17, 2006; 12:48 PM

-- A brief history of the Lebanese-Israeli conflict:

Because Israel and Lebanon have never signed a peace accord, the countries remain officially in a state of war that has existed since 1948 when Lebanon joined other Arab nations against the newly formed Jewish state.

The two countries have been bound by an armistice signed in 1949, which regulates the presence of military forces in southern Lebanon.

With a large Christian minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim region, mercantile and Westernized, Lebanon was considered the least hostile Arab neighbor to Israel _ and the weakest. The rare skirmishes that occurred were mostly symbolic.

That began to change as Palestinian guerrillas became active. In 1968, Israeli commandos landed at Beirut airport and blew up 13 Lebanese airliners in retaliation for Arab militants firing on an Israeli airliner in Athens, Greece.

Under pressure from staunch anti-Israeli Arab regimes in 1969, Lebanon signed an agreement that effectively gave away a southern region for Palestinian guerrillas to use as a springboard to infiltrate Israel or launch cross-border attacks.

Notable among these were an April 1974 raid on the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, when Palestinian gunmen killed 16 civilians, mostly women and children, and an attack the following month on a school in Maalot in which a militant group killed 20 teenagers. [Blogger Note: Please keep in mind that terrorist groups have routinely targeted civilians - frequently children - to escalate the situation. They are not fighting for freedom, they are fighting for the destruction of Israel]

Israel retaliated regularly as Palestinian guerrillas fired on northern Israel, and Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978. A U.N. peacekeeping force deployed and the Israelis pulled out after installing a local Lebanese militia in a border buffer zone, but the attacks continued.

Israel invaded again on a wider scale in 1982 to destroy Yasser Arafat's Palestinian guerrilla movement, which had established itself as a force within Lebanon during the country's civil war that began in 1975. The bulk of Palestinian guerrillas were evacuated from Lebanon, but a new Lebanese guerrilla force, Hezbollah, emerged with the aid of Iran and drawn from the Shiite Muslim community that inhabits southern and eastern Lebanon.

U.S.-sponsored negotiations produced a Lebanon-Israel agreement but that deal died as Lebanon collapsed in another round of civil war.

After a destructive and costly military campaign that lasted for three years, Israeli forces withdrew from most of Lebanon but retained a self-proclaimed "security zone" just north of its own border.

Fighting inside Lebanon would escalate periodically, including a 1993 Israeli bombing offensive and the 17-day "Grapes of Wrath" military campaign in 1996 that left about 150 Lebanese civilians dead. At that time, Israel was reacting against guerrilla attacks by Hezbollah against Israeli soldiers inside the occupied zone and against Katyusha rockets being fired by Hezbollah into Israel proper.

Israel left that zone in 2000, but warned that it would return if its security to the north was compromised.

Hezbollah trumpeted Israel's withdrawal as a great victory but claimed that Israel continued to occupy illegally a small, empty parcel near Syria called the Chebaa Farms.

Diplomats mostly see that claim as a convenient excuse to justify attacks against Israel. Nevertheless, the Israeli-Lebanese frontier had remained largely quiet for the past six years with occasional outbursts _ until a cross-border raid by Hezbollah July 12 resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others, sparking the current warfare.

If you pay attention to where the IAF has been bombing, you will notice that they are strategic targets. In nearly every instance, the Israelis fly over before the raid and drop leaflets on the target area stating the time and location of the next bombing. They then give any civilians time to evacuate - taking into account that roads will be clogged and people need time to get what they need together. What army in history has ever done this? How does Hezbollah respond? By launching missiles indiscriminately at Israeli towns and villages.

Israel is 100% in the right in the current situation. The world is being played by Hezbollah and its backers, Iran and Syria. They are not interested in peace. They are not interested in a two-state solution in regards to the Palestinians. They are only interested in the destruction of Israel and will stop at nothing until they have achieved their goal.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: The nations of the world are able to come up with a huge amounts of cash. They use this cash to create government, hospitals, schools, top-notch universities and other infrastructure in the Palestinian territories. In addition, new industry is set up, providing jobs for thousands. Overnight, the Palestinian people experience prosperity. Many of them are thrilled and gladly go on with their lives. the world sits back and breathes a huge sigh of relief. Finally, there will be no more terrorism. The Palestinians are completely free of Israel.

Suddenly, rockets are launched into Israel. Soldiers are kidnapped. A suicide bomber detonates himself on a bus full of teenagers. What's going on? The world is shocked. Israel is not. Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Aksa, you name the group. They are all committed to destroying Israel. The fate of the Palestinian people is immaterial to them . They won't quit until every last Jew is gone. Israel knows this.

But let's get back to reality. Let us not forget that Hezbollah began this cycle of violence by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers from inside Israel. Why? I can only conclude that Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, want to escalate the situation and draw Israel into a war against the Arab nations at a time when the U.S., Israel's strongest ally, has it's hands full-to-overflowing in Iraq and can only offer limited assistance.

Where do we go from here? I have no idea. Israel is more than capable of defending itself and I pray they it continues to do so and does not bow to international pressure. May we see complete and lasting peace in our days.

Updates from Israel

2006-07-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

We've been closely following this Israeli settler blog: Jameel @ the Muqata. He has been posting minute-by-minute reports out of Israel, including the number of Israeli casualties curiously absent from CNN.

Looking for You

2006-07-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

There is someone from Calgary (or near there) whose IP address is 24.68.194.27 who has been reading this blog and who arrived originally from bloglines.com.

If this is you, please send an email to me ASAP at chossonhunt2005@yahoo.com

Ex-Patriot 4th of July

2006-07-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting day. In the past few years, I haven't paid much attention to Independence Day (the holiday, not the movie). I lived in a suburb of Detroit where the multi-national Orthodox community had little connection to American independence. Some families would have a barbecue or even take the kids to the fireworks at night, but, mostly, you'd hardly know it was a federal holiday if you drove through the neighborhood.

I make no secret of the fact that I generally disapprove of the job our current President is doing. I think he has done more to harm America's reputation around the world than any other president in the 20th or 21st century. I find myself in Canada frequently defending average Americans and even the way our government is set up.

I grew up in a small resort town in Northern Michigan. The Fourth of July was a big deal there. It had nothing to do with who was currently president or what our country was doing. It had everything to do with celebrating our life and freedom in small-town America. We caught candy thrown during the parade down Main Street in the morning, then it was off to my grandparents for a hamburgers and cherry pie. In the evening, we'd pack a blanket and several boxes of sparklers and walk the three blocks down to the waterfront park where we wouldn't have to wait long before the fireworks started exploding right over our heads. I loved the Fourth of July back then.

Throughout its history, our country has offered freedom to many people. We have also horribly mistreated some people. We are not unique. Life in Canada is good. Most people have good jobs, access to inexpensive healthcare, and are satisfied with their lives. Nevertheless, I find myself missing my small-town Fourth of July.

This 4th of July, I'm spending the day cleaning out my guest room and listening to NPR over the computer. Tonight, Soulmate and I will hit Baskin Robbins and then drive down to the waterfront where we'll be able to see the fireworks from Port Angeles, Washington, away in the distance.

Wednesday Morning Politics

2006-06-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

Here I sit at my regular perch in Serious Coffee whiling away the morning writing, emailing, and playing online sudoku. I've been surfing some new blogs lately - their links can be found on the right - which brings me to my first point of interest of the day. Was the 2004 Presidential Election stolen and do we really care now that it's 2006?

Yesterday I was reading this article in Rolling Stone about it. Ok, ok. I don't generally get my political commentary from Rolling Stone, but I read it anyway and found it interesting. It brings a number of statistical anomalies to light and points to the fact that , yes, there was a determined effort on the part of the Republican Party to ensure its candidate's victory. The article lost me, however, when they started quoting Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). There are few Congressmen/women for whom I have less respect. He makes rambling, incoherent speeches, reportedly treats his staff like his personal servants, and has done his part in his twenty terms in office to keep the city of Detroit in squalor. I think they could've found a better, more reliable source. I stopped reading at this point.

There is reportedly a rebuttal here, but I haven't read it. The thought that has remained with me is "do we really care?". I'll be the first to admit that I think President Bush has done a crappy job running our country. I also believe that the 2000 Presidential Election was a farce. But, at this point in mid-2006, I don't think it matters anymore. What do people expect Congress to do, overturn the election results now? Why is this still being investigated?

Democrats would be wise to remember the 1960 Presidential Election where Mayor Daly of Chicago mobilized the cities corpses to vote for John F. Kennedy. Should we overturn those results retroactively even though both men in question are now dead? Where would it end?

Politics is dirty. You can believe all you want that Republicans are more moral than Democrats, but until you've been inside a major political election, you have no idea what happens. I worked on the campaign of Howard Dean in 2003 before he lost in the primaries. While I didn't personally witness any wrong-doing, I can imagine that it could easily occur. Picture this, the Republican Party is in control of the Secretary of State's office in a critical Midwestern state (more another time on why the Secretary of State post should be non-partisan). Thousands of voter registration forms flood into the office in the months before elections. How easy would it be to knock a pile off a desk and into the trash (or into the shredder)? Pretty easy. And people concerned with maintaining a hold on power, no matter what their party, would do it.

I guess the moral of the story is this: leave this election b.s. alone. Politics is dirty and will always be dirty. Every county in this country prints its own ballots and processes them in its own way. If Congress really wants to address this issue, ignore the states-rights people and come up with a national ballot for federal elections and a national way of processing/counting those ballots. I won't hold my breath while I wait for it, though.

Blogblond's Suggestion

2006-06-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, since posts have been lacking on this blog, I'll take BB up on her suggestion to post a teaser of what I've been working on. I write for the young adult market, so don't expect intense sophistication. I'm mainly interested in writing clean, wholesome stories. I haven't yet been able to write about religious Jewish characters - I'm still mulling that one over. I strongly dislike the frum fiction that's available these days for kids - too sweet and perfect - everyone always gets along or at least learns a lesson about doing so. When I'm able to wrap my mind around the reality of frum life without writing an exposé, I will write about frum characters (not that I expect a market - frum publishers seem quite content with the drivel they have. Heck, what am I saying? You may very well consider my stuff drivel...

Oh, and why the new look for the blog? Internet Explorer hated our old template... :( I don't have the energy to update links now - I'll try to get to it tomorrow.

Here goes. We join our heroine, Annabelle, in the middle of the first episode. She has snuck out of the house to meet her best friend, Lilac, and to do some invetigating:

That night, Annabelle grabbed four cookies from the jar in the kitchen and filled two small plastic bottles with juice. Annabelle's mother didn't believe in juice boxes. She said they were a waste of good material and that it was better to refill the small Tupperware bottles. Annabelle wished they could have juice boxes like normal people, especially when she found a Tupperware bottle in the bottom of her school locker last week with two months of mold growing inside. She pulled the back door gently shut behind her and tiptoed down the creaky back steps. Already she could see Lilac's blond pigtails glinting in the moonlight at the edge of the driveway and she sprinted along the dirt two-track.

They walked in silence at first until they were definitely out of earshot of Annabelle's house. Then, they spoke in whispers.

“I'm not sure about this, Annabelle,” whispered Lilac. “What if we're caught? He's not a nice man. Who knows what he'll do to us?”

“Don't be silly. We'll be super-quiet and no one will ever know we've been there. I have to see what's in that tarp. If it's a body, we have to call the police or one of us could be next!” Annabelle could see the skepticism in Lilac's eyes and dismissed it immediately. “Whatever. Lilac, if you want, you can wait in the woods while I look.” They walked on through the field in silence until they reached the forest at the edge of Mr. Needlebom's land.

“Okay,” said Annabelle turning to Lilac, “You'll wait here?”

“S-s-s-sure,” stammered Lilac, wide-eyed with fright at the thought of having to wait alone in the dark.

“I'll be back soon and then we'll decide what to do next. You'll be fine.” Annabelle patted Lilac on the shoulder and looked reassuringly into her eyes. Annabelle set down her backpack at the base of a tree and headed into the woods.

She had walked only a few feet when she heard twigs snapping behind her and a muffled, “Wait! I changed my mind! I'm coming with you.” Lilac caught up and together they continued on, careful to step quietly where they could. At the edge of the clearing surrounding Mr. Needlebom's dilapidated A-frame house and storage shed, the girls paused. Lilac shook with fright.

“We have to cross the clearing and get into the shed as quietly as we can,” Annabelle whispered. Lilac gulped. Annabelle took Lilac's hand and they crouched and ran to the shed. The door was latched and a large padlock swung from the latch. Annabelle grunted in disappointment. She pulled on the lock. It twisted in her hand. It had only looked locked. Annabelle felt a thrill of excitement run down her spine.

She carefully removed the lock and set it in the grass next to the door and pushed the door gently open. It creaked softly and the girls slipped in. Once inside, Annabelle turned on her headlamp. The shed was packed with junk: an old bicycle, rusty oil cans, old wood-handled tools, a croquet set still in its box, and a pile of fishing poles whose lines were all tangled in a large knot. In the corner lay the tarp.

Annabelle was right, thought Lilac, it did look like a wrapped up body. Of course, it could just be a load of dirt, she reasoned. “Let's get out of here!” Lilac's voice squeaked.

“No,” Annabelle set her lips grimly. “It's our duty to look.” She let go of Lilac's clammy hand and took a step toward the tarp. Then another. On the third step, her foot caught on the edge of an old bike pump and she was sent sprawling forward, twisting her ankle painfully. Lilac screamed. Annabelle landed on the item in the tarp. It was just solid enough that Annabelle knew she had been right. It was a body. But whose? She had heard Papa telling Mama that old Mrs. Needlebom had moved to a nursing home in the village about a month ago when she finally got so senile that she tried to serve Mr. Needlebom fried dog food and grass for supper. What if Mr. Needlebom had lied to Papa and just kept her at home waiting for her to die? Maybe she was lying on Mrs. Needlbom! She rolled off the body. Her ankle throbbed and Lilac was still screaming.

“Shhh!! I'm all right! You're going to get Needlebom out here!” Annabelle whispered. “Help me up! My ankle's twisted.”

Lilac pulled Annabelle up. Annabelle winced painfully as she put weight on her injured foot. “Hold my arm. I'm going to look under the tarp.” Annabelle lifted the edge of the tarp and drew it back.

What Have Anysara and Soulmate Been Up To

2006-06-13T14:47:00.000-07:00

Not much, actually. Enjoying the arrival of summer in Victoria. We headed to the beach yesterday for the inaugural swim of the year - lovely - and the water was even quite warm.

Victoria is an interesting city. The aging hippie population keeps the arts/culture scene trendy, but you'd never know it driving around town. Victoria is also major retirement destination. Joy. I suppose I should have more respect for people who've been on this earth for 70+ years, but it drives me insane when they park their grocery baskets in the middle of the aisle and take 10 minutes before settling on Corn Flakes. If they aren't limping around the store clutching their carts, they are careening down the sidewalk in mobile wheel-chair-cum-scooters. I'm convinced that if, just once, I failed to leap into the street, I'd probably lose a limb and none of them would stop.

I've started writing again. Each morning I drag my...ahem...I mean, Soulmate's lap top out to a local coffee house where for two hours I write and try to avoid Midwesterner's guilt for staying so long in the cafe but only buying one cup of coffee.

Tomorrow (or possibly Thursday), I'm going strawberry picking. Tonight I have to clean the kitchen and go buy jam jars and fruit pectin. I'm also trying to remember to start a new batch of sourdough bread starter (suggestions for names are open) since poor Tillie didn't make the move from Michigan.

A Jewish Member of Iranian Parliament?

2006-05-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hold on one minute. I was surfing cnn.com today and saw an article about the National Post, a conservative Canadian paper. The paper was retracting a claim that the Iranian Parliament has been discussing making Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians wear colored strips of cloth on their clothing identifying their religious group. I didn't see the actual paper (we'd likely be Globe and Mail people if we got the national paper at all...), but was surprised that cnn.com stated "Iranian lawmakers, including the country's sole Jewish parliamentarian, have flatly denied the National Post story..."

Stop the presses. A Jewish member of Iranian Parliament? Yep. His name is Maurice Motamed. I did some further poking around and found this article in the opinion section of the National Review (also one of the top ten magazines I'm not likely to get caught reading, but that's beside the point): "The Mysterious Reappearance of Mr. M".

Now, I have never heard of Pooya Dayanim (author of the article), but since he got published in the National Review, which, in spite of its conservative viewpoint, I would generally assume to print articles which at least have a basis in truth, I'll give a bit of credence to what he has to say. Among others, he claims: "Every year he (Motamed) donates one month of his salary as a member of parliament to the Palestinian struggle to liberate Jerusalem from the hands of the Zionist Infidels." Donates his salary? To the Palestinians? I'm inclined to assume one of three things:

1) Mr. Motamed has been completely brainwashed by his lifetime in Iran and has swallowed the party-line whole.

2) The Iranian government holds some sway over his family - maybe they are keeping his great-aunt locked up and they threaten to kill/torture her unless Motamed agrees to help fuel the Iranian propaganda machine.

3) The situation in Iran is dire - for some reason, the 25,000 Jews who live there aren't leaving. Perhaps they don't think they would be able to gain entry to the US and for some reason they don't want to go to Israel (the Iranian goverment's repeated assurances that they would love to blow Israel out of the water, perhaps?). Mr. Motamed is doing his best to protect them from further persecution by reassuring the high-ups in the Islamic Regime that the Jews are loyal.

In any case, I have a hard time disabusing myself of the notion that time is running out for the Jews of Iran. Why don't they leave? It's a mentality I just don't understand. I can't imagine a Jewish mother anywhere in the world who hasn't plotted at one time or another for her children's safety. Shortly after Soulmate and I got engaged, I came to the realization that our children (b'ezras H-shem) will have dual citizenship - American and Canadian. They will be able to travel on either passport and be protected by the governments of two countries. G-d forbid, but if we should need to, Canada is a vast country with at least some opportunities to escape into the wilderness. I can't even fathom bringing a Jewish child into the world in Iran. It would be like giving birth in a den of hyenas.

For whatever the reason, Maurice Motamed has decided to serve the anti-semitic Islamic government in Iran. I'm not sure we'll ever know the real story.

The Best Reasons to Live Here

2006-05-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

The opportunities. A few weekends ago on Mothers' Day, we took Soulmate's parents up to Ladysmith, BC for a picnic and Paddlefest. Soulmate and I aren't die-hard paddlers - I have just a little experience river kayaking in Ireland, Soulmate actually owns his own kayak - but we aspire to sticking our oars in the water whenever the spirit moves us. So, there we were at Paddlefest. It was a gorgeous sunny day - about 75 degrees (I still haven't managed to convert to Celsius). For a measly CAN$10, we could try out as many boats as we liked. There was just a ripple of wind on the inlet and we paddled for about an hour. So, while the floors need redoing and we seriously need a new oven, we've made buying a kayak for me a priority. The best part of all of this? There are literally hundreds of places to put in a kayak within thirty minutes of us - rugged, rocky coastline and sandy beaches.

The weather. My poor grandmother called me up one day to ask me how I manage living in such a rainy climate. She keeps track of the weather here inVictoria and they nearly always predict rain. The problem is, it's almost never true. It rained a little yesterday and quite a lot the day before that, but that is definitely not the norm. Since we arrived on March 16, I can count on one hand the number of rainy days we have had. In fact, the Smoky the Bear Fire Danger sign in a neighboring community read "High" the other day. Today, it is partly cloudy and shows every sign of warming up.

The mountains. As you have seen in some of the photos I have posted, we have a spectacular view of the Olympic Mountains in Washington. The higher you go on the island, the bigger the mountains actually look. Yesterday, there was light fog hanging low over Port Angeles, Washington, separating out the foothills from the higher peaks and offering us a new spectacular view.

Overwhelmed

2006-05-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

I finally lost it yesterday. After trudging around the house all afternoon, trying to convince myself that I enjoy ironing and mowing the lawn, I went to pick up Soulmate from work. Now, my darling Soulmate is having his own daily battles with an a** of a project manager, so I have been reluctant to lay this on him. Moreover, I haven't really been aware of what the problem was until very recently.

I couldn't help myself. Soulmate got in the car and kissed me hello. My eyes welled up and tears spilled down my cheeks. Poor Soulmate. He thought something awful had happened, chas v'shalom. I mean, being unhappy is awful, but not as awful as tragedy. Anyway, I realized yesterday afternoon that for my own sanity, I need to do something out of the house that uses my brain. I've been trying to play the dutiful housewife and I've been failing miserably. Some days I don't want to make dinner. I just want to eat cereal. Or toast. Or open a can of soup. But, I can't inflict that lassitude on my loving and wonderful husband.

I have no idea how the women of yesteryear dealt with this. How do you spend a lifetime making beds and patching clothing? Maybe it's different when you have kids. Maybe my worldview is skewed because I grew up in the 80s when it was widely professed that women could do it all. Maybe it's just that I've been used to teaching every day and knowing that my existence made a difference in the world even if I had a bad day at work. Maybe I'm just lazy and don't like housework.

So, I'm switching it up. I'm going to write full-time, something I had always planned to do out here. I packed up the laptop this morning and went in search of a coffee shop with free wifi. I've spent the morning researching for a new young adult novel I plan to write. With any luck and a lot of work, perhaps I'll manage to publish it and Soulmate and I can retire to an old farmhouse in the country.

Meat?

2006-05-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

I've blogged before about how hard it is to get meat here on Vancouver Island. We've been essentially meatless for several weeks now (though we've had plenty of chicken) and have been contemplating making a 100 lb. order of cholent meat, roast, and steaks from the kosher grocer in Vancouver. This past Shabbos we were at shul for a kiddush and had a beautiful cholent with huge chunks of melt-in-your-mouth fleish that had both Soulmate and myself in ecstasy.

Then I got the message below from the "rural frum" Yahoo group we recently joined. I have emailed a shaila to our rav and would now like to garner the collective Expertise from you, our loyal Monkey Tree Readers.

Here it is. These are the words of Yhoshua Trachtenburgh:

From: Yhoshua Trachtenburgh
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 6:30 am
Subject: Re: [rural-frum] Re: Jewsih Week article on the recent USDA report on the Postville Slaughterhouse

B"h

      I am a shokhet (not a profesional, I simply have a shtar saying I know how
and may shekht.) Puling out the trachea and food pipe is necessary, but it isn't
part of the slaughter.

  The slaughter can only be done by sawing most of the way through the
animals
windpipe and foodpipe without applying more pressure than gravity's natural
pressure on the knife, and without stopping the sawing motion. Contrary to
popular belief, the animal does not have to be shekhted with one stroke of the
knife, and this would actually render a large animal unkosher.

  The animal is halakhicly dead the moment the majority of its windpipe and food
pipe are cut. The only way it can be made ritually unfit after that is if one
decapitates the animal or strikes a bone.

  According to Rashi the isssur of decapitation is D'raisa, and a few
commentators say it applies infinately long after death. (e.g. If a housewife
buys veal neck and saws through the kneck at the same place the cut from
shechitah is, she has pussled the shekhitah of the animal retroactively. THis is
really makhmir, and you'll not find people who hold this way outside of the old
YIshuv and Yerushalmis)

    Striking the bone
only pussles the shekhitah if you chipped the knife, and
it does so because of a suffik draisa - you can't be sure you actually got the
simmonim before the knife chipped.

     Now, while puling out the trachea isn't part of shekhitah, it's a
neccessary  part of "bodek," checking the animal. THe shokhet has to confirm
that the majority of the simonim (food and windpipe) were cut, and the only way
to do that is by looking at it, and sometimes folding it in half next to a
bright light. The lungs are also pulled out.

     Halakhicly there is no problem puling out the windpipe (or lungs) of a
still moving, moooing, walking around animal, as long as he has had the majority
of his simmonim cut. Not for a Jew anyway. A goy is forbidden from eating the
windpipe if it is pullled out before the animal has stopped moving. If after the
majority of the simmonim were cut a person started ripping the animal apart as
it mood, it would still
not be a problem for Jews to eat the meat, nor a problem
of tzar baalei chaim. Dead animals can't be mistreated, and the Torah says he's
dead after slaughter whether he wants to admit it or not.

    Halakhicly Agroprocessors is fine in pulling out the trachea as far as yorah
deah is concerned. From Choshen Mishpat they may have a problem if the US
government says not to, because the law of the host country is the law.

     Also, if they had to not pull out the simmonim, the price of meat would go
up even more because one might have to wait threee or four minutes for the cow
to stop moving. Some cows, after proper shechita, can walk around for nearly 20
minutes.

  Its also not impossable for the knife to make such a perfect incision that
when the animal is released from restraint, mucous and blood seal off the
incision and the animal walks around weasing for hours. Its possible in such a
situation for the simmon to start
to heal and the animal to go about its life.
I've heard stories like that from experienced shokhtim.

___________________End of Article______________________________________

I Hate Cats

2006-05-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

I hate cats. Sure, they can be cute and cuddly, but most of the time they are aloof and stinky. Now, I have another reason for hating them. Our neighbor's cats have decided to use our yard as their toilet. It's a little disconcerting to be pulling weeds and find cat-poo right there next to the lettuce. I'd like to get a pellet gun, but we could probably be prosecuted for that. Someone suggested getting $100 motion sensor sprinklers as a way of keeping the critters away. The question is, how much do I hate cats? How much do I love my lettuce?

An article I read online suggested sticking a bunch of plastic forks tines-up all over the garden to prevent the digging. I like to think that the first cat who tries to squat in our garden will get fork tines up the you-know-where.

Strangely enough, these paricular cats belong to the very same neighbor who sent us a nastygram last week about how our yard just wasn't up to par. We could write "messages" using the forks (said neighbor is up the hill from us and looks down on our garden)... Suggestions? "Fork you" and "Keep your forking cats out of our garden" spring immediately to mind.

Oh, and if you're planning to post a comment in defense of cats or attacking dogs (who, I admit are probably smellier), don't bother. If you are my friend and you are a cat owner, I love you, but I still hate cats.

Yardwork and more yardwork

2006-05-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

I spent all day in the yard. I've been averaging a few hours every few days in the yard, but this morning we had a nasty gram from one of our neighbors proclaiming that our yard, which is in a perpetual state of construction, is an eyesore. It seems that we are, in fact, the frum Jews on the block and are holding down the title quite well.

So, I planted, weeded, mowed, moved stones, cleared brush, fought off spiders, got attacked by an overgrown rose bush and now I'm exhausted. The neighbor under suspicion had the chutzpah to take a break from listening to his Def Leppard "Hysteria" album and come out and wave at me. Now, I know I should've waved back, but all I could manage was a cold glare. Maybe next year I'll become a bigger person. Over our ice cream dinner tonight, Soulmate and I were plotting how many magazine subscriptions the guy deserves. And you all thought we were nice...

I'm exhausted. Soulmate is at a shiur for the next hour. I can't find kosher sliced bread here. It makes me sad. I did find some of the "Ezekiel" brand bread - foul sprouted grain stuff that faills to do justice to a peanut butter sandwich. I called BCK, the kashrus organization out of Vancouver, and the rabbi told me to start calling bread companies on a regular basis and encourage them to turn kosher. A one-woman crusade to bring squishy white bread to the citizens of Victoria.

As the weather has gotten nicer, I've found that covering my hair in the heat isn't going to be that much fun. I have scarves. I have cute little cotton hats. I miss the wind in my hair. I went out in a ballcap the other day with my hair in a bun sticking out the back. I was self-concious the whole time. Soulmate and I admitted to each other that, even though we don't like it, it bothered both of us to have so much of my hair showing. I guess we've gone frum...

Pesach on the Edge

2006-04-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived our first Pesach out here. The other frum couple in town invited us for many meal and we had a wonderful time. I have to admit that I sorely miss the dish and political conversations around Blogblond's Shabbos/Yom Tov table. Soulmate and I discuss politics and we discuss it all the time with our family (his parents, aunt, etc.), so I guess I'll have to get my fix on the weekdays.

On the Shabbos before Pesach, I made a minor faux-pas. We were all standing around at the kiddush after shul discussing the upcoming community seder on the first night of Pesach. I asked if anyone knew what time it started. One lady said she hoped it started earlier than last year, when they didn't start until 8.

I said, "Well they can't really start before a certain time."

Wrong thing to say. Suddenly, I had five people around me telling me that they could start whenever they wanted to. One woman said that their seder started at 4 pm last year. I backed away and went to get some more olive dip.

I'm so used to being with Jews who have a certain set of values and who actually subscribe to halacha - I must've forgotten that I wasn't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The weather here has been sporadic. Last Shabbos, it was sunny and about 70 degrees F. We put on our Shabbos-casual clothes and walked the two miles down to the ocean.

It was a lovely day and Victoria has some really cute neighborhoods we walked through. On Sunday, we met Soulmate's parents (have I mentioned how much I absolutely love them?) for a picnic and then saw an IMAX movie. Victoria is so accessible. We drove to the picnic, but we could've easily walked. We did walk from the picnic to the IMAX. It's so refreshing to be able to get around safely and pleasantly on foot - couldn't do that in Detroit.

Pesach Cleaning and the Michigan Democratic Party

2006-04-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

I tackled the living room this morning and am so far immensely satisfied with the results. Soulmate and I are having a low-key Shabbos I preparation for the big Pesach kitchen-conversion on Sunday.

I had wondered if the U.S. Postal Service was going to actually forward my mail to Canada. So, far, I've received two pieces (bills, of course). However, today I was leafing through the mail and saw an envelope addressed by hand to me at my new address. A quick glance at the return address revealed that the letter was from the enterprising folks at the Michigan Democratic Party. Now, I confess to having been a card-carrying member of the MDP a few years ago, but have had no contact with them since then. Somehow, the eager beavers at MDP headquarters in Lansing were able to get my address here in Canada and send me a plea to re-up my membership. WTF? I'm sorry, wouldn't you think that if someone moves not just out of the state, but out of the country, perhaps they are no longer interested? It was $0.39 well spent, guys.

Work Avoidance

2006-04-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick blog entry before I dive into the bedroom to clean it for Pesach. This is more challenging than it sounds. My shipment of stuff arrived two days ago and there are boxes everywhere. I adore our little house, but it is definitely deficient in storage.

I has been just gorgeous in Victoria for the past few days. Yesterday, it was 80 degrees on our front porch in the sunlight. Soulmate and I have taken to picnicking around the city at lunch. Here is one of our favorite places:

Last night the local Chabad had a women's event at an esthetics salon. I went, had a nice time, and learned about skin care, but I also learned that I'm much happier in my own company than in "tolerable" company. The women were perfectly nice and sweet, but I didn't sense in that any of them were kindred spirits. Ah well, it took me awhile to find M.H. when I was first becoming frum and she is quite irreplaceable. I guess these things will just sort themselves out.

In the meantime, I'm off to the bedroom to shlep and vacuum (did most of the dusting already and Soulmate did a fab job with the top of the dresser last night).

Galus

2006-04-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

I know that one of the reasons A.S. started this blog, was to write about our adventures in a very small Jewish community. As one of her friends said, when she looked up where Victoria is, she now understood the meaning of ‘a schlep and a half’. Here is an example of how far in galus we are here. A few weeks ago I was excited to discover that we were having a Jewish film festival in Victoria, and more so when I learned that a movie I’d wanted to see for ages was playing. Then last week I was looking at the schedule and discovered that the festival was starting on Friday night. With that one item, I realized how disconnected we are from the rest of the Jewish world here.

Having to travel to Vancouver for various food stuffs or to satisfy the craving for a burger in a restaurant all became very small, when I realized that the film festival was starting on Shabbos. It wasn’t that there was anything on that night I wanted to see. No, it was the fact that the Jewish community here is so divorced from our basic mitzvot, that a Jew would begin the film festival he is running on Shabbos, and that Jews would attend it. I went to see a film (Ushpizin) motzei Shabbos, and ran into people I know from the community, and in talking with them discovered how many of them were there the night before (okay, I know that I should probably not have attended on principal, but it was a chance to watch a frum Jewish movie with other Jews, and one I’d wanted to see for the better part of a year).

I find myself struggling now. Do we move to be in a ‘real’ Jewish community, or do we continue to work to try and inspire Yiddishkeit in the community here? I admire A.S. for moving to be here with me, not only away from her friends, but away from a community where being frum is not considered weird. While watching Ushpizin, people in the audience were laughing at things we view as being normal as a frum couple. While my dream is for us to get other Jews together and to setup a moshav somewhere on Vancouver Island, I am now struggling with whether or not we’d be better off living somewhere with a strong pre-existing community.

Westcoast Weirdness & Fun

2006-03-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

The other day A.S. was commenting to me that she felt like she was going deaf. Not wanting to admit that I'd been gas-lighting her, and talking more and more quietly each day, I sprung the suggestion of ear candling on her.

Being the good sport that she is, rather than calling me some crunchy-granola freak, she said that she was game to try it. So, that evening we curled up on the sofa and I indoctrinated her into the weird art of using a burning muslin and bee's wax cone to suck the contents of ones ear out. I won't describe the glee A.S. expressed as she examined the contents of her spent ear candle. I also won't mention the minor scarring I experienced during my turn under the candle. Needless to say, I know that she will watch me from all sides when we next play with melting candle wax (I still love her and realize that I should have explained things better).

The thing is that starting here, I need to now find something to top this. Any thoughts?

What's the point?

2006-03-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

So, the point of this new endeavor is not to show off our honeymoon photos (though we think they're rather nice). The point is actually to share the trials and triumphs of our life as frum Jews here in Victoria, British Columbia, on the West Coast of Canada.

Here's the background. After meeting a fabulous, charming, and all around wonderful Canadian via my best girlfriend and shadchan, M.H., we got married three weeks ago. My husband has been living in Victoria for the past 18 years, but only became frum in the past few years. Together and with H'shem's help, we look forward to enjoying a lifetime in this beautiful, seaside town.

Victoria is a Canadian paradise. I can see the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula from our dining room window. As my husband said to me at lunch today, we can throw the kayak on top of the car and be sitting in the ocean in ten minutes. We can be in the country at my inlaws house in less than twenty minutes. There are many reasons why we've chosen to live here.

But (there's always a 'but'), the Jewish community here is scattered. Less than a handful of frum families live here. Getting kosher food is a scavenger hunt, not to mention the other necessities of Jewish life.

It is my hope that we can write frankly about our life here. It is also my hope that, with H-shem's help, we will be able to add something to the Jewish community in Victoria. Finally, it is my hope that these writings might help attract some new families to the community. Over the years I have spoken to many frum people who wish they didn't have to live in the run down urban or suburban areas where frum communities are generally found. They have told me of their desires to be able to enjoy nature a little more and escape the concrete. If this sounds like you, check back here from time to time. I don't know what H-shem will send our way, but we'll bring it all to you here - live from Victoria.

Honeymoon Part 2

2006-03-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from the second half of our trip. All-in-all, we had a fabulous time and would gladly do it again. We traveled with a cooler, toaster oven, single-burner electric hotplate, and hot water urn. We were able to find kosher frozen food at almost every stop (even Omaha, Nebraska!) and ended up eating very well.

Sunset approching Boise, Idaho.

The Stinky Dog curled up on the carpet at the hotel in Ontario, Oregon.

Traveling through eastern Oregon, we came out on the side of this enormous hill.

The road cut into the side of the same hill.

The bridge to Washington state from Astoria, Oregon. We started here in the morning and ended the day in Nanaimo, British Columbia, nearly home.

Honeymoon Part I

2006-03-26T23:41:00.000-08:00

Here are picture from our honeymoon driving from the Midwest to the West Coast:

The Stinky Dog contributing to the flotsam and jetsam in the Mississippi River.

Wyoming is a beautiful state, but it was 8 hours of endless, treeless, rolling plain. Sometimes we saw mountains (like in the picture).

Mostly we saw snow-covered undulating landscape.

Little America is an oasis on I-80 in western Wyoming. We stopped and got junkfood (the only thing available and kosher were chips, cookies, etc.) and mailed some postcards.

Little America also sported this bright green dinosaur statue, but we're not sure why.