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We had an On the Mark practice today. It went well. Some of the songs that I remembered as being in not-so-good shape last practice worked well today. If we can keep this up, we're going to sound great at Darkover (Thanksgiving weekend).

I'd like to try to add a couple more new songs to the repertoire, just to keep our performances fresh for that audience. (This will be our twelfth year there, I think.) We have some possibilities for that. We've also been re-working some older songs ("Black Widows in the Privy" as ska is something I never would have thought of, but it sounds great!). And, of course, we do have the talents of two new members to show off, so that alone will make us different from last year.

Jenn asked me if I would sing at their wedding. I'm flattered. She specifically asked if I could sing any psalms in Hebrew, so I sang something for her today that she liked. Maybe the muse will strike and I will actually compose something for the occasion, but if not I have something to fall back on.

Friday night at services Rabbi Freedman talked about lashon hara -- usually translated as gossip, but it's really a more general form of hurtful speech. (The phrase literally means "evil language".) He spoke well. This is something I have tried to pay attention to over the last few years (not always successfully), but it's rare that I hear about it from the pulpit. I don't know why that is.

I have finally gotten to the end of a Shabbat with the melody for a particular song still intact. Now I can write it down. It's a lovely "Hashiveinu" that I've heard perhaps half a dozen times over the last few years. Not that I have real occasion to sing it (other than at my synagogue when it's being led), but I still wanted to get it recorded somehow just so I wouldn't lose it.

Tomorrow afternoon I will rebuild the piece of the sukkah that went missing. (I went to Home Depot Thursday for parts.) I think I have a better way to build it than what I did before; we'll see. Then later we'll have dinner with friends before sundown, and then it will be Yom Kippur.

To my Jewish friends: tzom kal (have an easy fast) and g'mar chatima tova (may the final seal be for good).