Marriage!!!!!

I'm getting married in less than a week.
How crazy?
Maybe I'll write about it at some point. Who knows? I'm in a bit of a daze, but am happy!

Passover's Forbidden Grains

Last year I wrote this short post about {assover. The holiday looms ahead with the first Seder Monday Night. As always, I try and sort out what I feel comfortable eating and not eating. My parents are lenient, and I derive my roots from them They avoid the most obvious things: breads, pastas, cereals, etc. My girlfriend is a little stricter. She tends to avoid corn syrup, beans, rice, and most things that aren't strictly kosher for passover.
Strangely, many kosher for passover products are strange too. Often, they use baking soda. as their chemical leavening is not strictly forbidden. You can get all sorts of cakes and such that are kosher for passover by the letter the law. But what about foods that aren't obviously forbidden? Do we really need kosher soda, kosher mustard, kosher jelly? Is corn syrup really something to be feared?

Now, I don't want to get in to a detailed analysis about what is allowed and what isn't allowed. Mostly it's because I'm lazy and I don't want to dig into a 1000 sources and debates. But I also am not sure it matters that much to me.

I also don't think it's settled. Tamara recently sent me a link from a Rabbi asking why kitniyot (rice, beans, corn etc...) are forbidden among the Ashkenazic (Jews of Eastern-European descent). If she reads this, perhaps she'll kindly put the post up again. Even if one decides to avoid those things, do you avoid derivatives like oils made from these products.

So how do I move forward. Well I like to think about:
1) Tradition: both family tradition and older religious tradition.
2) Community: What does the community around me do?
3) Personal belief

The tradition is a little mixed. Eastern European Jews tend to avoid kitnyot, Jews from Spain and the Meditteranean tend to include them. My family's practice I've already eluded to. I belong to a Reform synagogue, so the communal practice is a bit variable. Reform Jews tend to swing from just avoiding bread to keeping a pretty strict observance.
So that of course leaves personal belief.
I think a good bit of it for me is personal sacrifice. It's about doing something to help you remember what the holiday is about. It's about connecting with your community. It's remembering and honoring what your parents and family have taught you.
So, I think I'm going to try harder not to eat out and avoid foods I don't have control over.
I don't eat very many frozen or pre-packaged foods, so I should be ok on that end. I'll just make simple meals that are as far away from forbidden foods (chametz) as possible. I'll avoid rice and corn,mostly because I think it will make things more meaningful for me. But no one will take away my peanut butter.

Cat Update

I just wanted to give you an update. A few readers have asked about Charlie. He seems to mostly be better. We took him to the vet last week and all his lab tests were normal, so there isn't anything seriously wrong with him as far as we can tell.
He is still licking his fur a bit too much. I'm not entirely sure the cause, but the vet thinks it's environment. Is it stress? Is he upset because I travel a lot or am away from my apartment for work and social things? I'm not sure.
At this point, I'll just wait and see. I don't think it's a serious skin condition because the anti-inflammatory hasn't helped. A few people have suggested fleas.
Any thoughts?

Cat Connundrum

I've been caring for a sick cat these past few weeks. It started out with Charlie licking and pulling his fur from his belly and many of his paws. When I brought him into the vet, he noticed a sore on the back of his throat. The vet gave me some food to see if Charlie had a food allergy and an antibiotic for the sore.
Well, after three days, the antibiotic made him sick and he wasn't really eating the food.
Now, he's been drinking a ton of water and hasn't been eating very well. As of post time I'm still waiting on blood work from the vet and am just wondering what will happen.
I keep reading online about different possibilities. I watch every move he makes and ask whether it is unusual for him or is cause for concern. Honestly, I'm acting a bit crazy.
I am by nature, a worrier. I always think there is something I should be doing and worry about the how things will go in the future. I wonder if he's on medication how I can go out of town?
Who will look after him? Am I not giving him enough attention?
As I said, it's a bit ridiculous.
But what I can do? Waiting is hard. Charlie isn't very clear about what's bothering him. So I feel like I should try and decode anything I can decode.
How am I going to survive having children if a sick cat gets me this worked up?
These are all good questions. Fortunately, I have great friends who help me work some of this issues out. I have a wonderful girlfriend who listens to me worry all the time and amazingly, doesn't get sick of hearing it. Charlie is a great companion and a very loving, gentle cat. I'd be torn up if something serious happened to him. But, the worst thing is not knowing. It's feeling like I should be doing something differently or something better. Could I? It's possible, but I doubt it. I just have to use my instincts and stay in contact with my vet. I also have to accept that the vet is doing his own guesswork.
Most importantly, perhaps, is that I just have to appreciate the time I have with Charlie. He's wonderful and loyal, and I do love him dearly. I just want to do so for a lot more years.

Beautiful Bread

I never really thought much about bread. I mean, I love bread. Good break can make or break a meal. It is the foundation of a sandwich and a necessary accompanyment to good sauce.
But making it? That seemed like a lot of work and a lot of time.
But then, why not? Isn't that part of the fun? The challenge of making something kinda difficult, or at the very least, something that takes some time is really kind of the point.
So, I did a quick web search for a bread book and came up with:
Bread Made Easy by Beth Hensperger. It's a step by step guide starting with the basics of bread making, and then progressing from simple breads to more complex and difficult ones.
It starts out with a simple batter bread. It's made with evaporated milk, and doesn't require kneeding. My first experience: the bread didn't rise! I actually ended up cooking it, and it tasted fine, but something wasn't quite right.
The solution was quite easy: I had old yeast. The second time, the bread rose perfectly and tasted great.
Variety #2 was challah, the wonderful egg bread. This recipe was slightly more complicated: it required kneeding and three rising sessions.
The thing is, none of the steps are very difficult, it was more a matter of time.
When I was done, this beautiful golden brown braided bread came out of the oven.
It was gorgeous, and tasted perfectly.
The best part was that I made it with my own hands.
I have illusions of cooking a loaf every weekend and eliminating the need to buy bread altogether, but I doubt it will happen.
I suppose that is why many go to bread machines. At this point though, it's the hand-making that I like.
So now I will move on: I have the basic white bread, wheat bread, sweetbreads, flat breads, country breads, and even coffee cakes to try.
Give it a try yourself. At the very least, your kitchen well smell incredible.

A few random thoughts about words

A few random thoughts about words.

1) Weather forecasters should never use the word "normal". Even the national weather service does it. Normal weather is meaningless. How about average? Average has a precise definition. It is, however, entirely possible, to never have an average day. But at least the language is precise.

2) Grocery stores shouldn't have a "10 items or less" or "15 items or less" aisle. Instead, they are "10 items or fewer". Fewer describes things that are discrete quantities: fewer potatoes, fewer cats, fewer anal bloggers. Less describes non-discreet quantities: "less patience", "less strength", "less annoying".

3) One doesn't take alternate routes or try alternate strategies. The word you'd like is: alternative. For alternate to be used as an adjective, it should describe something that alternates like "alternate days" for every other day, or "alternate side parking" for the insane parking system that downtown Madison uses.

4) Enormity doesn't just describe size. Enormity refers to a very large negative, such as the "enormity of September 11th" or the "enormity of the tragedy". Enormousness is the more generic word.

5) This one is a bit debatable I suppose. But, one who is disinterested does not have a stake in an outcome. Someone who is uninterested doesn't care. A disinterested judge is a good thing, an uninterested judge is not. This distinction has faded a bit in modern English.

6) Weather isn't unpredictable. If it were, I'd be out of a job. Weather is highly variable or chaotic.

7) Cold air doesn't hold more water than warm air. Warmer air causes liquid water to evaporate more readily, so the actual amount of water vapor in warmer air is greater than colder air. This one probably takes more explaining than this short blog allows.

Feel free to add more below or correct anything I have wrong. Rant over.

Parking Prediciment

I don't drive my car to work very often. I pride myself on it: I can walk, take the bus, or bike when the outside temperature is sensible. But sometimes, the situation works itself in such a way that you have to. I had some errands to run before and after work that I had to drive to, so I did.

Now our campus and city are like many, in that there are various parking limitations, restrictions and rules. Many people in my building park in the 2-hr parking areas, and walk down to their car once or twice a day and check to see if their tires have been marked. If so, they simply move the car to a new spot. When I drive in, I don't like to do this, so I drive the extra block or two away and park in the first legal street without the 2-hr restriction. As I was driving, I noticed the signs that said "No parking Tuesdays from 8-12" and the line below it that said "Valid May - November". Doing the quick calculations in my head and realizing I was ok, I pulled along the snow-covered street and parked my car.

So...8 hours later I walk back to the street I parked on and to where I was expecting my car.
No car.
Maybe it was a block up? Nope...nothing there.
A block back? Did I really remember this wrong?
Nope.
Panic sets in. Did I lock the door? It's a residential street in broad daylight? Who could steal a car without it being seen.
I wander over to the traffic signs checking my months again. Yup, I should have been good.
What could have happened? I inspected the sign for further details. No phone number or instructions in case of being towed.
And then, I remember a story from a friend of mine. Her car had been towed. But, it wasn't towed to an impound lot; they just moved it to a legal spot nearby.
I wandered over to a nearby cafe, figuring that I couldn't have been the first to have had this problem. They hand me a phonebook and even offer me a phone to use. They mention that my memory is correct: most people who are towed have their cars nearby. It would be a matter of simply finding it.
I try to call the Madison Parking people. The recording lists a phone number to call for a towed car. So, I call and get endless rings. Don't they even have an answering machine?

The friend I was meeting after work calls me wondering what had delayed me. I explain what has happened and she kindly offers to drive over and help me look for the car. I accept. So we drive around getting our hopes up at anything that vaguely resembles my car only to have our hopes dashed when it isn't the right car. We finally come up with the idea of calling the local police: at the very least, they'll know who to call.

It was strange while going through this procedure in that I was hoping that the car had been towed. The thought of dealing with a stolen car just seems horrific. When the man at the police dispatch tells me it had been towed, and gave me its location about a quarter of a mile away, I actually breathed a sign of relief.
So, my friend drove me to the car, which was parked safely and legally. I grabbed the $70 dollar towing and violation ticket without reading it, relieved that my car was OK.
It wasn't until I was driving home that I began to wonder what the violation was. I was sure that the sign didn't apply, and I knew that this wasn't a 2-hr parking so. When I got home, I saw what the violation was: parking within 4-feet of a driveway. I think I'll take the bus in tomorrow.