Coasting in to Paris

Just in time, I finished the cotton sweater. It's not perfect, but it's meant to be a knock-about sweater, so it's perfect enough. The Middle Teen, who's modeling this shot, wants me to make another, same body size but smaller sleeves, for her, which really means it must be close enough to perfect.


Whew. Now I'll take a rest day and then go back to MS3 (moving into the slow bee lane, because I need to add length to both the black and the white versions) and Vog On.


Dad's here, the last gasp of gardening before shmita is being done, one kid is starting summer vacation and the other is ending it--never a dull moment.

A year of davening slowly

Jewish philosophizing to follow. If you're looking for craft content, skip to the end.

Jewish law has many ways to help people cope with death. Most of them don't apply to me. No new clothes? I buy, on average, one shirt every two years. No music? I have a great memory for music, and mainly "play" it in my head after hearing a recording once or twice. No TV? Haven't watched since our color tube went, leaving us with a 17 year old black-and-pink set. No movies? Last movie I saw in a theater was Shrek 2. Before that--Shrek. No weddings? We live here in Israel, our families in the US, so that's an easy one.

So what's left? I could learn some gemara or read some Tehillim. But I already do that, anyway.

Then there's the biggie: Kaddish. Not exactly the world's least controversial topic given that, last I checked, I'm not my brother. I read up some, checked some sources, spoke to the local rabbi, and have been at minyan three times a day, saying Kaddish, for the past 13 weeks.

Some people say women only want to recite the Kaddish to "be feminists." That we're looking to take over men's roles instead of doing our own. I'd like those people (largely men) to try saying Kaddish as a woman must for a month or two and then let them talk.

Saying Kaddish, at least in the Orthodox minyans in which I have said it and particularly in my home shul, is an exercise in humility and humiliation. I'm not allowed to say the Kaddish alone--I have to arrange for a man to say it with me. Twice my husband was too sick to go with me to shul; I said Kaddish and none of the men answered. (Since then, my husband has arranged back-up kaddish-zuggers, who usually remember they're on. If they forget, I'm not allowed to prompt them--see next point.) I'm not aloud to say Kaddish above a whisper, because some men complained to the rabbi that the sound of my voice saying Kaddish made them think inappropriate thoughts. On the other hand, at least once each day some man walks in to the women's section to get a book, put down his books, put sunflower seeds out for the evening study session, or just to disguise how late he is getting to shul--usually when I'm bowing during Shemoneh Esreh, rear halfway in the air and unable to turn around. (Interesting--my voice behind a curtain is irresistible, my posterior is not. Not so great for the vanity, is that?)

Yes, I've read the responsa on women saying Kaddish, pro and con, and in this case they're irrelevant--the local rabbi's had his say (though his changed his psak in midstream because of community pressure, telling me to whisper the Kaddish, and saying wistfully "If it were 100 years from now..."). What gets me is how little the (male) community thinks of the women's section, with how little sanctity they perceive it compared to the men's section. The men's section is tidied after every prayer. In the morning, after the men have had a study session in the women's section, there are dirty tissues and sunflower seed shells on the floor, candy wrappers, books flung all over chairs, the table, and the floor, chairs tossed about as though they'd been wrestling with each other instead of the text. The curtain between the men's and women's section is consistently flung open all the way across. (I don't close it, aside from the little area in front of where I sit. It's not for my purposes, the curtain; I'm allowed to see the men. They can reach the curtain at least as easily as I can. Let them close it.)

I'm all out of ideas. I've talked to individual men. I've talked to the men officially in charge of the shul. How does one stop men from being pigs in the women's section?

I try to get to shul early and learn some gemara. Today I was learning Megillah 14b, which includes this gem: "While women talk, they use the spindle." In honor of that saying, here's what I've been spinning.

Sock yarn (still in single form) from a rainbow colored batt by Grafton Fibers. (As soon as I bought this, I found out Linda's no longer going to sell retail. Note to self: don't fall in love with this stuff.)
And there's been knitting. Clapotis v.3, out of horrible wool and mohair that my sister-in-law "inherited" from her mother, who is now in a Home, suffering from Alzheimer's. (Don't blame me--it's for my sister, and she spied the yarn in SIL's stash.)

And socks. Sockotta, no pattern, plain simple knit until you throw up. Started in the hospice while Mom was dying, finished here at home. Explain to me why from one side they look like they have nothing in common

and from the other they're a perfect match?


So, who's going to Chomesh tomorrow?

Blame the lack of posting on Lolly

Lolly posted about Ancestry.com and I fell into the gaping maws of the time suck. I'll never get as nice a family tree as she has, because my family arrived only in 1898, 1912, and 1947, but I still have found census information on my in-laws, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I've even tried their "find famous ancestors." Um, no. No way am I related to all those famous goyim. Nice try, though.

But at least it's taught me not to complain. Sure, I have 3 teens to feed, but my poor great-grandmother had 19 mouths to feed every single day (see lines 43 to the end below; click to enbiggen). And no tanorexics, either--family and farmhands (yes, a farm in the middle of Queens, NY, bordered by Woodhaven Blvd. and Union Turnpike).

Baruch Dayan HaEmet

Excuse my prolonged silence--my mother A"H passed away on Purim morning in Florida. I was with her the last week and a half, day and night, was with her when she died until the funeral home took her away, identified the body before the funeral, and helped bury her. We got up from shiva yesterday morning and I am flying back to Florida with my father today to deal with all the financial paperwork, then to Toronto for the weekend and back home on Monday night.

First off, thank you all for the good thoughts. Dad says Mom's been doing better over the weekend (which in her mind validates her decision not to go for dialysis), but since it makes Dad happy, it makes me happy. Anyone who's got the time to say a kapittle tehilim, her name is Mecha Esther bat Sosha Sora.

Scout asked about our knitting/crochet spots. I'm almost (but obviously, not quite) embarrassed to show mine. Click on the pic to go to Flickr, where there are descriptive notes.

The spinning/weaving/fiber stash corner of the living is a little better. Then again, it's not where I spend most waking hours, like the knitting/crochet/office space is.


Oh, look--the cotton's taking. :::happy dance:::

My mother is dying

My mother's health has deteriorated drastically since her visit to us. I guess those three weeks refusing to take one of her meds led to damage much more serious than she thought it would. On Tuesday my father called, just as we were heading out the door to a wedding, to tell me that the doctors are giving my mother four months to live. She could extend that a little by going for dialysis, but so far she refuses to.

I go between just sitting around, sick to my stomach, head buzzing, to gulping down tochoclate, to coming up with stupid questions like "what do I wear for the shiva--if they cut one of my usual tricot shirts, will it run over the week? Should I buy a rip-stop type shirt in preparation?", to selfish concerns like "what do I do if the funeral/shiva are the same time the government plans to move me into a ghetto?" I'm losing my mother, losing my home--and neither of them is any fight I can make on my own.

It's odd, being at a wedding where you'd like to be happy and leibidik  but having no energy to, trying not to break out in tears. It's hard, keeping all this from the kids until finals are over because there's nothing they can do to make any difference. It's strange, knowing that thiis is how my summer will be, this limbo, these random thoughts, this listlessness and fear and anger and denial.

Another stray selfish thought. How will I go a week of shiva without knitting? It helps the stress, keeps the buzzing in my head down.

Sixth Sense socks from the Six Socks KAL.

And finally, it's May 25. Do you know what May 25th is?

Even rabbis are doing it!