Accurate report

A few photos

The blur is Ava. She always moves that fast.

Aaron is very content in the garden. Maybe when he's older we'll tell him we found him in the cabbage patch.

Jordan is more at home on the couch with Grandpa.

Earthcake safety

We have been discussing earthquake safety at the dinner table. Since I have been in earthquake drills since kindergarten, it seems natural to me, and there are quakes in Seattle so it seems like a good thing to discuss. The boys find it fascinating and want to hear about it over and over again. They don't seem troubled, just interested. Maybe because they call it an "earthcake" it sounds less worrisome. When I asked what they thought you should do to be safe in an earthquake, Jordan said, "If you are driving a car and a giant crack opens up in the earth in front of the car, the driver should be very careful not to drive the car into the crack." An excellent start. He also said you should do what the parents say, which is a good plan as well. We went over the basics (if you are inside, stay inside, etc.). They like to practice hiding under the dining room table. Jordan has been testing his earthquake logic by figuring out what you should do if you are in the living room, in your bed, walking to school, etc. All good. He has also been coming up with less likely scenarios: "What should you do if there is an earthcake when you are up in the top of a tree?" I admitted that would be a tough one.

Language and sensemaking

Jordan is figuring out spelling. School encourages him to do a mixture of carefully sounding out words and just guessing, which I think is great. Apparently we all read by letting our brains fill in the blanks anyway, so why not put that human skill to good use from the start? It's worth sacrificing some accuracy for speed, is my feeling, since if you forget the beginning of the word by the time you get to the end, you've kind of missed the point.

Sounding things out is not necessarily a reliable way to spell correctly, either. Of course there's the old line about "photi" - "ph" as in pharmacy, "o" as in women, "ti" as in nation. But Jordan has decided that dragon starts with a J. Go ahead, say it aloud: it DOES start with a "j" sound, at least the way I say it. Jragon. Am I wrong? And truck, according to Jordan, starts with "ch." This blows me away. I didn't hear a "ch" until he pointed it out to me, but once he did, it honestly seemed more reasonable to me than the alternative. I told him I was impressed with his accurate hearing (and for that matter, spelling), and pretty much left it at that. At some point he'll learn that truck starts with T and eight starts with E and all that.

Aaron, meanwhile, was talking on the phone with Grandma the other day, and she asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Talking on the phone with Grandma." Right. I was reminded of when Rosencrantz and Gildenstern asked Hamlet what he was reading and he said "Words, words, words." Or when Holden Caulfield, to the same question, answered "Goddamn book." Aaron wasn't being flippant, though. His answer made me realize how often we help him attend to and name what he's doing by saying things like "Aaron, are you drawing a fish?" when we already know the answer. Maybe it's time to back off on that.

Artificial mystery flavor

Jordan got a lollipop as a prize in a bingo game at school, and here is the label. What is the world coming to?

I asked Jordan what it tasted like to him, and he said vanilla.

Rainy day lineup

On dry days, the elementary school kids line up outside, but when it's raining, they use various indoor locations. Kindergarteners are in the lunchroom. It's pretty chaotic. Here are two kindergarten classes... the rest of the room has ten more tables full of older kids.

Jordan butting heads with Keegan. Identical jackets... I hope I remembered to put Jordan's name in his.

He spotted me and started posing.

Weekly

Sukkah building, phase III

Dale and I did the framing this morning. (Those of you who frown on Saturday building projects, please avert your eyes.) We are relieved that we bought the kit instead of designing our own. And next year will be faster, because the brackets stay half on. The blackened screw heads are the permanent ones.


The walls are a cross between mesh and a tarp. From the outside it's a little industrial looking, but inside it's great - mostly transparent. They are attached with a simple system of bungee loops.


Kari and Harry and Sam came over with a trunk full of boughs for the roof, and we cut more from the hazelnut tree.


There was much decorating. We hung gourds, fake grapes, dried flowers, bunches of branches, pipe-cleaner spiders, and various other art creations from the kids.


I explained the symbolism of the lulav and etrog, and we all shook it.


We think this is a terrific holiday! We even ate dinner out here. It was chilly, but quite fun. And convenient in its way... no one had to sweep the floor afterwards.

Lulav & etrog

Celebrating Sukkot involves another ritual item besides the sukkah itself, which is the lulav and etrog. An etrog is a citron, sort of like a lemon but not, and a lulav is a braided wand of three branches; you hold them together in a certain way and wave them in the four directions plus up and down, ideally in your sukkah. I thought I’d be able to grab a lulav and etrog at temple this week, but it turns out it’s not so simple; they order them from Israel in advance, and they don’t order any extras. They sent me to the judaica store in the neighborhood. They didn’t have any extras either, and they suggested that I try at Chabad. These are the orthodox Hasids, and I admit to feeling a little bit shy about interacting with them because I don’t know the rules. (Do they expect/require long sleeves, covered hair, a skirt, certain forms of address?) But in my favor, they have a mission: to hasten the arrival of the messianic age by helping non-orthodox jews fulfill the commandments. In other words, they’re all about providing last-minute ritual items to hapless reform jews like me.

Unfortunately, they don’t always answer their phones. So I went to the Chabad house in the U-district, which is right there on frat row, and at least from the outside, blends right in. Two smoking teenage guys, looking like anyone else who lives on that street, were out front and asked if they could help me. I said what I was there for and … they didn’t know what I was talking about. “Is that that shaker thing?” the one guy said. He called inside on his cell phone, said something like “Sobel? We got any of those, you know, lolly eggroll, whatever that is? There’s a lady here looking for one,” and whoever he was talking to said no, they didn’t have any, try Hillel. Hillel is a Jewish university organization, also in the neighborhood. Their building is on the street full of churches and is much more official and snazzy looking. They were busily building their sukkah – this is 2pm on Friday, only a couple hours to go. They were very nice, and they invited me to use their lulav and etrog when I came to visit, but they did not have any for me to take home. They suggested that I try Rabbi Levitin, and looked up his number.

Rabbi Levitin is one of the rabbis for the really orthodox synagogue we see across from the natural foods store in our neighborhood, where the people walk to shul in black suits and wide-brimmed hats, and the prospect of going there made me realize that I really don’t know what’s what with these folks. I assume they have day jobs? Could one of them be my barista and I wouldn’t know? I am so ignorant. I went up to the door of the place and thought, should I even go in? Women don’t enter the sanctuary, if I remember correctly. I tentatively cracked the door and saw that there was not a reception area, just the door to the sanctuary and the stairs going up, which I think is where the ladies go. No one around. No one in the sukkah, all ready to go in the parking lot. I went back to my car and called again. This time, someone answered the phone, and said yes! They do have a lulav and etrog available! And for that I should call Rabbi Kavka directly, at his home, here is the number.
Once again with the answering machine, although the gruff Brooklyn accent almost made it worth it. And what do you know, a little while later Rabbi Kavka called me back! He was very nice and said I should come to his house, which of course is also in my neighborhood (it’s close to the synagogue). We live in the “Jewishly Happening” North End, as my temple likes to say. I go there and there’s other people going in and out buying just what I want. It’s a nice ordinary house. He’s at the dining room table with a selection of citrons and so on for me to choose from. He explains to me which one goes on the left and which on the right, reminds me to hold the etrog with the stem up. (Why? Mindfulness, is my answer.) There are ladies in black busy in the kitchen. He even takes Visa.

So just a couple hours before Sukkot begins, I had my lulav and etrog, and am ready to shake!