File: Home

It is official. Here we are signing the deed. We are homeowners, yippee! Matt has a full account over on Larsenopolis.

File: Home

So, today's the day. As you can tell by the time, I'm not sleeping. I've been up since 3. Hopefully, I won't crash too hard as we're signing papers.

I'm giddy and nervous about being a homeowner. As usual, we've packed an ambitious day: post office, bank if needed, closing, moving estimate, IKEA, prime and paint, celebrate.

Shoot up a little prayer for us that everyone goes without a hitch. Go time is in less than six hours.

File: Holidays

On the Friday before Thanksgiving, I was driving to meet up with friends for a night on the town. I was late. It was dark and cold outside. I got off the expressway and saw a man sitting by the side of the road. That's pretty common in Chicago, so I don't know what about him tugged at my heartstrings.

He had a cup and a sign. The sign read "Vietnam Vet," which I guess in some circles explains why he was sitting in the 32 degree darkness on a milk crate next to the Division St. off- ramp.

I didn't have any money in my wallet, but I knew I wanted to give him what I did have. We keep a pink Hello Kitty change purse in the car for use on tolls. I grabbed the change purse and rolled down my window. He didn't turn to me.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, holding up the change purse. "Do you need some help?"

He said yes, and I dumped all of the change into his cup. A few coins, pennies I think, dropped on the ground, he bent to pick them up, which I felt bad about, seeing this grown man bend on the road for pennies.

"G-d bless you," he said.
"Thanks, you too, sir. Stay warm and safe."
"G-d bless you. Bless you."

I don't know why that exchange made me uncomfortable, but it did. Was it just because that's the cliched dialog?

There's an old Jewish proverb that an angel of light and an angel of darkness go from house to house every Friday night, searching for people celebrating Shabbat together. It's traditionally told with the angels looking in the window onto a family dinner. If the family is celebrating together, then the angel of light gets a point. When the family isn't together, the angel of darkness gets a point. Only when the angel of darkness gets no points will the Messiah come.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Messianic age, but I know that our house isn't always contributing to it. We rarely go to shul together, and with shows, and rehearsals, and friends, and sheer end-of-the-week exhaustion, we don't always have a nice meal. Do you think that mitzvahs, done in the moment, just because should count? I do.

We hosted Thanksgiving this year. It was sad to be away from our families, but we celebrated with friends. I feel triumphant about it. We managed to serve a multi-course meal that was delicious while in the middle of packing up the apartment. We cleaned as we went, so the house was back to normal by Friday afternoon. It was pretty awesome.

At my parents' house, we all go around the table and tell what we're thankful for. I instituted that tradition in our house as well. We played Nok-Hockey, another South Florida Turkey Day tradition.

A few things to kvell about this Thanksgiving:

Our friends Karen and Dave are now the proud parents of a son, Henry John. He joins adorable older sis, Evelyn, in the family household. We're so excited and happy for you guys!

My Aunt Ellen and cousins Wes, Shane, and Barrie marched in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This link from my old paper, the Sun-Sentinel, has the full story, pics, and video. It was so cool to ssee them on national tv!

It looks like the house is going to happen! We've been packing over the weekend, including the initial bins of essentials. We bought paint yesterday. One quart of lavender, one quart of blue, and one gallon of red later, we're on the way to making this place ours!

Hope your Thanksgiving was as blessed and happy as ours was.

File: The Past

Matt and I were in the car yesterday and somehow started talking about 5th grade courses. Part of my health offering was "Me-ology," the study of YOU. (From my recollection, that phrase and capitalization is how they introduced the course to us.)

Essentially, the course was a prep for when they separated the boys and the girls and talked to us about sex. Not sure what kind of souvenirs the boys got, but volunteer moms (thank G-d not mine) threw tampons at us. It was traumatizing, or at the very least, very very strange. The girl cafeteria experience, not necessarily Me-ology.

Me-ology was kind of fun. We had this little packet with a hand-drawn kid on the front. I can't remember most of the course (is that why I'm still trying to figure myself out?), but one of the things that sticks in my mind is the Me-Doll. They had us lie down on butcher paper and then traced our fronts and our backs. We decorated them to look like us, and then we stuffed and stapled them. They were life-size* and were pretty cool.

Although, the bus was pretty crowded the day we took them home. (How strange would that have been to a passing car? A busload of kids with kids that looked like them on their laps. Very odd.) I wonder what ever happened to my "me."

*Matt reminded me that they would be slightly smaller than life-size, as they would lose yardage when stuffed and stapled.

File: Home

So, things are better. The home inspection for the new place came back very favorable. (Yay!) So, now we just continue marching forward, getting all of our ducks in a row (as my tenth grade history teacher would say). We close on the 30th, twelve short days until we are homeowners.

I'm excited. I've held back my excitement due to my disappointment with the last place but I'm really starting to picture this place as ours. I bought my first items exclusively for the new home: chocolate brown towels.

Here's what the bathroom looks like now. Here's my idea to transform it. Hence, the chocolate brown towels.

Packing is going well. I hope to finish more rooms today.