Monica

Shabbat was good. Attendance at services was light because lots of people (including the senior rabbi) are away at the UAHC -- oh, excuse me, now URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) -- biennial convention. (Why is it "biennial" rather than "bi-annual"? I've never heard of an "ennial" event.) ( Read more... )

I invited a friend back for lunch on Saturday. (I had actually invited her Thursday night, so I knew to make some extra chili.) She brought along some salad and pita, and we had a good time. She and Dani hit it off.

Saturday afternoon our friends (and my former coworkers) Erik and Bridget appeared from DC. A surprise party was being planned for a mutual friend, ( Read more... )

The lunar eclipse was during the party. It was cold outside, but there was a nice garden (well, nice in different weather), so lots of people were outside watching it. I tended to pop in and out, using the windows to track progress. Watching the moon turn red was neat; I'm glad we didn't have cloud cover. And the party had hot chocolate, so being out in the cold wasn't too burdensome. :-)

We had On the Mark practice this afternoon, and then Sunday dinner this evening. I must now gush about dinner. It was a turkey-stuffing casserole (with veggies) from a recent cooking magazine that Ralph clued me in about, and it was wonderfully tasty. I had missed this one in my browse through that issue of the magazine, but I have now marked it for future use. Only one ingredient substitution is needed to make it kosher, and I think I even have some turkey breast in the freezer at the moment. (I'll have to check. I had some before the freezer thawed, and I think I've replaced it.)

Cooking for my party is going reasonably well. This afternoon (after practice) I made the salmon gefilte fish. (The store doesn't usually have the salmon variety, so when I saw it I grabbed it.) I also bought more tart shells for the cheese/onion tarts; I made a bunch last week, but not enough. The spinach balls are done. The pantry is populated with pop, beer, juice, and assorted non-perishables. Lori has offered me much cake goodness. One more shopping trip and a bit more cooking and I should be set.

The new machine is now on the network, sort of. (It can see the network but the other machines can't see it.) Dani named it "Hub2". Gee, how creative. :-) (Also inaccurate...)

Last night Dani and I went to a party to celebrate Larry's 60th birthday. (I had no idea he was 60 until we got the invitation; I was guessing mid-50s.) The party was very nice, and I got to see some people I haven't seen in a while (ex-Claritechers and SOs).

Alison was there and seems to be happy; the startup she joined (formed by two Claritech VPs) seems to be doing very well in the funding department. (They still need customers.) If David had actually let them do their jobs at Claritech, things probably would have turned out differently.

Mark was there. He seemed to be tired and worn down, but not nearly as bad as he was at the end of the Claritech thing. Things seem to be getting better for that group now, too. (Hi guys. :-) )

Services this morning were a lot smaller than usual because lots of people are off at a big UAHC convention in Boston. I've got to get to one of those someday; people always come back from them energized. (It's a mix of lectures, workshops, and services, with (among things) lots of singing. Oh, and reportedly one of the biggest collections of Judaica for sale in a single location.)

This afternoon I took a nap for a couple hours. At one point the "snoozons" were pretty heavy in the living room: Embla was sleeping on the couch, Baldur was sleeping on the other recliner, I was sleeping on a recliner, and Erik was sleeping on me. :-) But I felt a lot better after I woke up.

I have to figure out what to get my parents for Christmas. They are hard to buy for. In an unusual turn of events, I actually have some ideas for my father but not for my mother (usually it's the other way around). The only thing my mother has mentioned is something that would really be for both of them, and would also manifest as a gift certificate so they could pick out the item (they would have to). I don't like giving gift certificates, but maybe that's what I'll end up doing in this case. Dunno. At least my sister and her kids are still easy; the kids are still addicted to Nintendo-type games. (The new thing this year is something called a "game cube". I have no idea what makes it different from the previous generation of Nintendo machines.)

I also have to figure out -- soon, as it has to be mailed -- what to get my godparents. It's a frustrating situation: we have basically no contact, and I'd be happy to just end the gift-exchange thing entirely, but my parents think they would be hurt by that. But we don't really know each other, so every year we exchange generic gifts based on insufficient information. Sigh.

Tomorrow night is the first night of Chanukah. I'm going to make some latkes to take to Sunday dinner. Ralph and Lori get to figure out what goes with latkes. :-)

I talked to a friend last night who told me that his company is looking for office space. Yesterday they looked at a familiar place: the Claritech building. Apparently the plan would be to build a wall -- David et al would get one side, and the new tenant would get the other. (I guess they'd have to share the garage.) I was wondering how long they were going to have ~10 people occupy a building that had held 60+ before deciding they were spending beyond their means.

What struck me as a bit surprising is that the landlord showed my friend the "executive wing" -- the cushy offices -- instead of the part most of us were in.

I wonder what Claritech is actually doing these days. Research, I suppose, but I wonder in what areas.