weekend bits

[cellio]

My rabbi was at services Friday night. I didn't expect that; he's still recovering from surgery and we weren't expecting to see him so soon. He's taking it very easy and he didn't come Saturday morning, which is probably good. Don't want him pushing himself.

On the original schedule he was going to read torah next Saturday morning. Last week I asked someone else to learn it on contingency (i.e. you'll probably get to do this but you might get bumped). (This is someone who explicitly volunteered to do stuff on short notice; we'd know a couple days out if he was going to get bumped. So it was a request for speedy work, not possibly-wasted work.) On Wednesday he told me oops, he'd forgotten about a commitment that would keep him away that day. So I started to look at the portion myself, because I can't ask anyone else to do possibly-wasted work. Fortunately, I'm now off the hook; I asked the associate rabbi if he could do it (he'll be there anyway) and he said yes. I'd rather have more than a week to learn a portion, even a short one.

This afternoon I went to a friend's baby shower. There seemed to be a "classic Pooh" theme going, and, of course (the baby being a girl), enough pink to set off allergic reactions. :-) It was a fun afternoon; it was nice that so many of her friends could be there.

There was one game (showers are required to have games, apparently). The hostess had taken the names of everyone who would be there and looked them up in some sort of "meanings of baby names" book. She grouped them in batches of ten or so and we were to match the names to the meanings. Of course, many of these so-called meanings are hokey rationalizations applied after the fact, not the origins of the names, but you expect that from a book that attempts to attribute meaning to every name. (Y'know, sometimes a Susan is just a Susan...) Anyway, I looked over the list and said to myself that hey, I know a lot of the relevant cognates in at least three source languages (English, Hebrew, Latin), but that even so, I didn't know half of these names. So I filled in the ones I knew and guessed the rest. I was surprised to get 29 or 41 right, which I gather was the highest score in the room.

No, I have no idea of the basis this source had for saying that my name means "advisor". I can't even get a language connection out of that one. I completely missed "Cara" ("beloved"), but could have gotten it if I'd made a logical leap from the madrigal "Matona mia cara". Duh. I was minorly proud for getting "Barbara".

Speaking of languages (sort of), my friend dglenn has a question about language structure and resulting expressiveness, with a geek twist that made me giggle. Hebrew speakers in particular might be able to help him out.

I had planned to go to a going-away party for a friend who's moving to the west coast, but I've been losing a fight against a headache all evening, and I don't think the noisy environment will help. I hope to connect with him before he leaves town. Worst case, he'll be back in a few weeks to arrange for packing and moving.

Comments

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

I should have known that, being a long term fan of Andrei Codrescu. Although he's Romanian. I can't always remember and put together everything I know. Thank you.