random bits

Friday night I went to a fellow congregant's home for a monthly shabbat gathering (about which I've written before). I've been to most of these gatherings though it's mostly different people each month so I'm the outlier in that regard. (That's fine; the family-oriented service that would be my other option at my own congregation does not really work for me.) It's really refreshing to have an adult-oriented gathering -- singing, discussion, some personal sharing -- on a regular basis. This time I particularly noticed an emerging sense of community -- most of these people didn't know most of the rest and yet we clicked anyway. I've got to figure out how to bottle this and carry it into Shabbat afternoons.

There is no way that house is really only 1.6 miles from mine. The path is Pittsburgh-flat (nothing is really flat in Pittsburgh, but there were no major hills) and it took me 40 minutes to walk home. I don't mind a 40-minute walk in nice weather (which we actually had), but I was a little surprised.

Last Sunday we went to my niece's graduation (she got a master's degree from the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU). I hadn't realized the class was so large; I somehow had the impression, probably because of all the close collaboration they do, that there were maybe 25 students. I didn't count, but I think close to 100 graduated this year. Wow.

The ceremony was very well-organized. You know it's going to take a certain amount of time for each student to walk across the stage, receive a diploma, and pose for a photo with the folks on the stage (dean etc) -- so the emcee (I didn't retain her actual position) gave a short summary of each student while that was happening -- projects worked on, internships, and (where applicable) where the student would be working. She'd finish that, take three steps to be in the photo, then step back and start announcing the next student. And since all the projects were done by teams, meaning we'd be hearing the same names over and over, she managed to space out the explanations of what they were so that it wasn't tedious but we got clues about what they were rather than just names. Very smooth.

Today I got a notice in my mailbox from the neighborhood association. We have a neighborhood association? Cool! Not all of Squirrel Hill -- six blocks of our street plus some side streets. There is a block party in a few weeks that I will miss unless it rains (I'm free on the rain date), and there is apparently an email list (which I will now join). Even though we've lived here more than a decade I still do not know most of the neighbors, and it would be nice to start to fix that.