This week

Things that were accomplished this week, other than cooking and eating and blogging:

My study, which is also the spare room in which my mother will be sleeping during her visit to Chicago that starts tomorrow, is organized. All the way from varnishing the desk to throwing out 6-month old grocery receipts.

In this house-warming vein, we finally put up some of our wedding-related art in our bedroom (accomplishment of last week: getting them framed!). One picture is a print we got as a present, the other is the full version of Chagall's Birthday, part of which was on the back of our wedding invitation. Nails were secured. Kitsch was avoided.

I started reading Leah Goldberg's memoir of the poet Avraham Ben-Yitzhak. Oh, man. Good stuff. (And yes, my verbal capacities will be inversely proportional to the subject matter of my posts.)

I had a girl-blind-date with a charming, beautiful, Israeli friend of a friend who took me out for drinks at a very cool neighborhood eatery-bar place. Go Israeli-networking campaign against I-live-abroad-and-have-only-my-husband-to-talk-to melancholy!

In related cultural/driving up north news, I dragged myself up to Lincoln Park to see Wild Nights with Emily, a comedy about Emily Dickinson's life and relationship with friend/lover Susie. It was like this: after the Tchulnt afternoon was over, I got an email announcing a $5 special for that evening's performance. Now, this email came from the artistic director of the theatre, a woman I've been having a back-and-forth with for the last three months or so, ever since I told her something like: Let me volunteer! for free! and she was generally supportive, but for various reasons no actual cooperation has came out of it so far. I felt too weary from the whole inviting-friends-over-for-Tchulnt-shebang to go, and after a failed attempt to coax a friend to join me, I decided to pass. Around 6:20 pm, 40 minutes before scheduled time of performance and a good 30 minute drive ahead of me, the following words were exchanged in my head: "PROS: $5 tickets. To a show I was planning to see anyway. CONS: 30 minute drive. I would rather shower before but there's no time. I'm tired from the Tchulnt-shebang. It's a contemporary comedy so I probably won't understand half the jokes. I'm lame. PROS: $5 tickets. To a show I wanted to see at a theatre it seems feasible I could be involved in, maybe. CONS: I'm lame. PROS: $5 tickets." Thus passed four minutes or so. Another three passed in getting my jeans and shoes on, which produced the sort of getting-ready-to-leave rustle that prompted the following (real) exchange with DH: "So, are you going?" Me: "I'm not sure".
Thirtysomething minutes later, I was one of the late-seated. The show was good, and I laughed out loud and enjoyed myself AND was glad I came.
Go indecisiveness! GO!