I was a little worried about going into a three-day holiday weekend for this year's Rosh Hashanna. We don't get too many of those in Israel. There are a lot of meals to plan and keep track of. But it worked out quite nicely. I spent a couple meals at other families' houses, hosted a meal at my house, had a couple meals alone to relax and decompress, and rounded it all out by attending a community pot-luck for residents in the Artists' Quarter. All this added up to letting me touch base with a whole lot of friends and acquaintances, some of whom I hadn't seen in a while. Elana Schachter lent me a sci-fi anthology and a couple comic-strip compilations of "Barnaby", about a little boy and his cigar-smoking fairy godfather. I promptly consumed the science fiction stories well before Shabbos ended, and now I'm ready to return them all. May y'all have a sweet and happy coming year.

At 4am this past Wednesday, Rebecca gave birth to a healthy little boy! Woo!

So I finally got fed up with the flawed plumbing in my old apartment. The landlord told me that if I didn't like having the shower drain bubble up and flood the floor of the front room then I could leave. So I did. And, after more hauling trips than I care to imagine in truly punishing heat, here I am. The new place is not so far away, closer to the center of town and closer to Becca and Avraham. I was quite happy that I got the phone line hooked in yesterday instead of on the predicted date of tomorrow, since it means that I didn't have to interrupt my network services for more than the few minutes it took to carry the computer and sundry between apartments. Now the task at hand is to unpack and organize everything.

A couple weeks ago, I went to the birthday party of Eliyahu Alpern and spun a little fire. It turns out that one of the perks of providing a little entertainment at a photographer's birthday party is that you get some nice photographs of yourself published. Enjoy!

In a semi-desperate attempt to use up a kilo of whole wheat flour that's been in my freezer for a long time, I did something I don't know if I've ever done before. I made my own challah from scratch. I think it turned out very nicely, although I had been worried that it wasn't rising enough. I stuck it in the oven anyway because I had no more time to wait if it was going to get enough time in the oven before Shabbos. I kneaded sunflower seeds into the dough. You'll also notice that I had no time to braid it, so the loaves were simply lump-shaped. It came out thick and hearty and a little on the crumbly side. It actually sort of reminds me of Rebecca's challah.