last few days

[cellio]

The "decompression" from HUC continues, but hasn't spawned more entries yet. There's more stuff in the pipeline, eventually. I met with my rabbi Monday morning and we took a very haphazard tour through the curriculum. He'd read my journal entries, but just sitting down and talking about it was helpful, particularly in thinking about how some of these ideas apply to our own congregation. We talked in vague terms this time; I'll be more organized next time.

Tonight I met with the pianist at our synagogue to go over music for next Friday's service. We had already talked about which pieces, but we hadn't worked out keys. Unfortunately, he's having to transpose for almost everything; fortunately, he's very good at that, and is able to spend a little time polishing. As I predicted, on average I'm comfortable about a fourth below our cantorial soloist. If it were just a step or two I'd fake it. Paul (the pianist) was really nice about it, though.

Tonight I made whitefish (it was sole this time) poached in beer, a trusty favorite. Note to future self: stout doesn't work as well as ale, but is passable. (You want a beer with some umpf for this; pilsners et al need not apply. That's ok; they're good to drink instead.)

Last night's D&D game went well, though I attribute everyone's survival to GM benevolence. We had some fun role-playing that I suspect the GM was forced to wing, and he did a good job with it. Many members of our group believe that taverns are inherently dangerous places to go, but we visited one anyway because, in character, we'd been wandering around in the wilderness for a while, there were dangerous things out there, and Turok was out of beer. :-) This gave opportunities for some very funny role-playing. (While Larissa was trying to be innocuous, Turok was fire-breathing to light his drinks before consuming them. Stuff like that.)