To the Big Apple and Back

I'm actually writing this on the bus back from New York. Kind of funny since I won't be posting this for hours. My mom and step dad (Iz) came up to the city for a wedding, so I took the opportunity to come down and it was a grand reunion. I stayed with my sister Leah in her apartment at 99^th and Riverside- wow- when I'm older and have a paycheck- I want a place like that too.

When I arrived she had neglected to leave me a key under the matt per our usual, so I ended up talking with the building super and storing stuff in a laundry closet until her return. Friday morning I was slow to rise, and then headed down to 75^th see my parents. I traipsed around for a bit with my mom, had coffee, and then we squeezed our way into the grocery that is Fairway. Man that place is intense! You need to fend other shoppers off like predators. It didn't help that we kept forgetting to buy things that we needed for Shabbat lunch the next day and so had to make a few return trips. By the last trip around 3pm, it felt more like laser-tag than shopping.

We had Shabbat dinner in Leah's apartment. She had bought almost everything for fear of having to cook in her apartment during the heat wave. By the way- it is ridiculously hot! Queens lost power for a week because of it. It was a real shame since I would have enjoyed cooking with her. Meh. Shabbos morning we headed to services at this funky minyan (prayer service) called Darchei Noam. They have a very minimal division between men and women in the room- a bit above waist height and also the curtain opens up funny on both sides of the middle table so as to allow men and women equal access to all the action at the center. While the service is orthodox, they maximize women's participation in the service by having them lead everything that they legally can- including being called to read from the Torah. This week was a good week for us to got there since the portion of the Torah that is read contains the 10 commandments and the Shema and my sister was honored with the Aliyah (blessing before a particular reading where you get to go to the center and stand at the table next to the reader and look and feel all special) that has the 10 commandments in it that everyone stands up for- pretty cool. Darchei Noam also has a great reputation for having amazing singing, but I was a bit disappointed on that front unfortunately.

We had a quick lunch in my parents' hotel room and then headed out to the Natural History Museum which we had bought tickets for the day before. Wow- that place is awesome. There's a giant sperm whale that hangs from the ceiling over you, they have the first discovered T- Rex skull- very cool. They also have tons and tons of stuffed dead animals- which are really weird granted, but cool too in the sense that we don't do that very much any more- so you can kind of reflect on the museum makers and what they were doing exactly. We also went to this exhibit on Darwin that showcased a lot of his personal artifacts. It was cool, but seemed to turn into idol worship about half way through. I understand showing gratitude, but this thing made him into, savior, lone genius, and selfless martyr all wrapped into one. We do the strangest things to our heroes.

So after an evening of wandering and apple pie, I'm on my way back to Bean town where shelter politics, staff and house meetings, and 10 more days of awesomeness await. (Where the hell did my summer go?)