Separation of Hallah

Here is a photo of the separated portion of the hallah. This time I remembered to take down the smoke alarm before it scared me half-to-death.

Shabbat

This evening I baked hallah (the first h sounds like a vicious throat-clearing). My house smells fantastic. Tomorrow I will take a loaf to work, one to a family with whom I'll be having dinner, and a friend. I shall keep one for myself. I also baked some wicked-good pita for my delicious (or so I say) hummus. I am super-tired. G'nite.

A Shout Out

My friend from work introduced me to "Conversate is not a word." Fantabulous (also not a word)! You must check it out.

I am a deadly honest person. I pride myself on that. However, it sometimes gets me into trouble. I remember when Eminem first made his way into the light. I remember thinking, "Well, at least anybody can be called the 'N' word now." Kind of takes the edge off. In fact, I loved it. It is the ghetto culture that I can't stand. It has nothing to do with skin color, but I'd be stoned to death if I came out and said that.

There is a culture of ignorance and blame that pervades the "ghetto," or shall I call it "urban centers" or "the community?" As a white person, I'm really not supposed to write this, but to hell with it. Anyone can be great, if they give a damn long enough to find their potential.

If you fail, you fail. I'm not going to medical school because I'm brilliant. Hardly. Far from it. I've worked so hard for this. I'm going to continue to work. I want this badly enough to go and get it. Surprise! Your wonderful life isn't going to be handed to you.

Do we need to help boost people up who've been given a rough lot? I think so. If I had a cello student who couldn't pay, but wanted to learn and was willing to work - no questions asked, I'd do it for free. And yes, I've taught a lot of free lessons. Life isn't fair, but don't come whining to me. If you want something, go get it. No excuses. Happy belated Juneteenth - to those who risked everything because they gave a damn.

PS Niggardly means to be stingy. It has nothing to do with a horrible racial slur, even etymologists agree. Sorry David Howard - fired due to gross incompetence. My country embarrasses me. Sweet land of liberty. . .

PPS Destroy your TV

Circuits are Hard. . .

I had to eat my words, and swallow my pride today. Le sigh. I got into work this morning to find half of the lab flooded. The water system was overflowing. I turned off the water and put the systems on stand-by. I figured something was wrong with the sensor that controls the shut-off. I set-up a technician visit, and then the "yes, I really can do anything" man showed up. He's a "PhD'ed" individual with huge reserves of raw brain-power. So Mr. Amazing climbs up onto the lab bench, opens the tank, pulls out the sensor (which is about 3.5 feet long), climbs down, and proceeds to show me how it works.

The sensor is a series of resistors in parallel with a series of switches running between them like ladder rungs. As the water-level rises, the magnetic float rises too and closes a switch at for every 5% of the tank that fills. This shorts the circuit and allows the sensor back in the wall to sense how much current is flowing, and thus how full the tank is. He proceeds to check the magnetic sensor by moving it up and down the circuit and reading what the machine says. That seems to work just fine.

Mr. Amazing goes back to the "box" and starts looking at the wiring. He takes apart a plug and notices copper chloride (corrosion from getting wet) sitting in the bottom. He determines that this is the cause of the problem. He says he'll go to Radio Shack and buy and new one, and in the meantime I need to figure out how the circuit works. . .

He comes back, fixes it, and we're back in business. As for me - I figured it couldn't possibly be that simple. I over-analyzed it and finally asked him to draw it for me. Damn-it, I would have been correct! Chalk one up to self-doubt. Ach, I wish I were smarter.

Sleep!

It's been awhile. I've been on some excursions.

I'm learning to write left-handing to improve my motor skills. I'm back to Judaism (just a little vacation, that's all). I've been drawing, learning Hebrew, writing poetry, doting on my ratties, and fixing the plumbing in my sketchily plumbed bathroom. I am unstoppable, or rather, I have insomnia. Oh, and I did have a plumber come and do the scary stuff.

Insomnia is truly evil. I've suffered from it since I was in middle school. The only things I know that really work are writing all of my thoughts to quiet my mind, taking a high-powered prescription sleeping pill, and a glass of wine. I shall be continuing to steps two and three shortly. After four days on less then four hours of sleep, I'm getting loopy.

I need to practice my cello, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. The truly suckiest thing about being an adult is responsibility. I've done laundry, cleaned, washed dishes, gone grocery shopping, tended to my little buddies (the rats). . .all stuff I don't mind, but it eats up all of my time. Sigh.

I apologize for shamelessly laughing at my male colleagues - the water system went down today. I know how to take the thing apart, but my male colleagues wanted a crack at it. They all stood around talking about what needed to be done, which wasn't even close to correct. Then they asked me if I had done some truly stupid things, which I had not, and I suggested to them that I take it apart for them so they could check out the inside. I did this on purpose so I could watch them volley for machismo points. It was priceless. In the end, I put it back together so a technician could come and fix a crack that had developed inside the system. I said that at 10:30 in the morning, but the "boys" figured it out by 4:30 in the afternoon. I was completely ignored. Ach, I still had the satisfaction of being right all along. Now all I need is a pink tool belt. I did call one of them princess. I probably shouldn't have done that. Perhaps with a bit of sleep I'll be nicer and less evil. We shall see.