Vanilla. And it's delicious. I was grocery shopping a few days ago and I just saw it sitting there on the shelf in a big plastic jar labeled "instant pudding" transliterated into big Hebrew letters. A whole kilogram of creamy yellowish-white powder just waiting for five liters of milk to mix with. I couldn't resist a dare like that.

But, no, I haven't exhausted the entire jar full of pudding powder all at once. I used but a fifth of the mix this eve for three reasons. First, I had only a liter of milk in the fridge available for this endeavor. Second, I don't have a bowl big enough to contain all the pudding that would be possible. And finally, don't I think that even I am eccentric enough to consume such a quantity of pudding in the time period available before it would spoil.

Most of today was spent helping Becca look after Ashira. I played with Ashira around the house while Becca worked hard on winnowing and threshing the thousand-plus photographs she's taken since the baby was born, selecting and preparing a collection to be printed out to bring to the family in America. Later, I carried Ashira around while we went out for a walk and a pizza lunch and groceries.

Itai's been sick with the flu all week, and he's still not yet fully recovered, so we'll take it easy and spend this Shabbos apart. But sometime in the middle of next week I hope to swoop down into Tel Aviv and light Chanuka candles with him and subsequently take him as my date to the wedding of my friend Alex Margolin and his betrothed, Lisa Gold. Mazel tov!