Level 2?

♫ I was recently sitting at work having a really hard day and I was so distracted so I decided to go for a little walk. As I got out of the stairwell, I bumped into a woman on the first floor who I don't think was American but I don't really remember. She asked me "Where can I find level 2?" I do not make these things up. I wish I had thought at the time to say "Well you have to slay the dragon before you can get to level 2." Sadly, I did not. I just smiled and said "It's one flight up." She said thank you and we parted ways. And then I burst out laughing. It definitely helped me have a better day!

Survival Tip #789

Always make sure you lock the bathroom door. Double check if you need to. Don't take that lock for granted. The person on the outside of the door sure doesn't.

FML #2

This is how my day went yesterday:

1. Still no elevator in my building. Must climb 5 flights of stairs every day.
2. Hurt my bad knee somehow. shooting pains when I do stairs. don't wanna sleep on the street so still climbing 5 flights of stairs every day. ouchies.
3. Went to the orthopedist yesterday. She said it's probably nothing and it will go away soon hopefully.
   
4. walked from her to work. got hungry. bought an ice cream bar. didn't taste so good. finished it anyways.
5. got chocolate on my shirt. ugh
6. Finally remembered I have a Tide-To-Go pen. shmeared it on the stain. now i have big wet bloches on my chest.
7. Tide dried finally. Tide does not work. still have stains.
8. got to the block where I work. Robert Pattinson was filming a movie there! Score!
9. still have stains on my shirt. thank God for long hair to cover the stains.
10. went out with friends to a comedy club. had to go to the bathroom. went to the men's room. yaaay mistake...?
11. door didn't lock quite like it was supposed to. a man walked in on me. I screamed. he slammed the door.
12. I finished, walked out and looked at him - still waiting to use the bathroom - and I said "hi. I'm not mortified. nope. not mortified at all. have a good night."
13. got home at midnight, knee hurting from climbing the stairs in the train station and still no elevator in my building so up 5 flights I go on my bad knee.
    

Eff
my
life.

on the up side, I had a really really fun july 4th in Boston and I saw Robert Pattinson yesterday and I had a really fun night last night with my HMS girls. so I really can't complain. except this is my blog so yes I can. wuhoo.

FML

This is how my week has been so far:

1. got an eye infection. couldn't wear my contacts.
2. wore glasses all week. infection went away.
   
3. had to send in my glasses to upgrade the prescription. had to put on lenses. got a new eye infection
4. got home without my new glasses so woke up and had to put lenses in my infected eye. ouchies!
5. got to work and decided to take out lenses to heal my eye. relief!
   
6. couldn't see b/c no lenses and no glasses. got dizzy and headache.
7. picked up my new glasses so now I could see. score!
8. new glasses are much stronger. got dizzy and headache.
9. decided to go home at 10am.
10. bus that never comes when I need it finally came right away. sweet!
11. coudln't find my metrocard. had no change. dammit! thank God for nice ppl on the bus who had change of 2 dollar bills.
12. walked from the bus. right eye still bright red, irritated and hurting. managed to poke my left eye.
13. got home. decided to test my brand new a/c with a timer. plugged the a/c into the timer and wondered why the a/c didn't work.
    
14. plugged the timer into an outlet. now it works.
15. took a nap.
    
16. went out for a friend's birthday. went to wash. walked into the corner of the counter and then tripped into the washing station.
17. came home. took a shower. went to bed. tomorrow is a new day!
    

The Wonderful Thing About Purim

The wonderful thing about Purim
is Purim's a wonderful thing!
Haman tried to kill Mordechai
So Esther married the king.
They saved the Jews.
It was good news.
And now it's fun fun fun!
And the most wonderful thing about Purim.....

Is getting tons of food right before Pesach! What's up with that?!

חג פורים שמח

Taanit Esther is the International Day for עגונות - Agunot.
An עגונה is a woman who is no longer in a functional marriage and whosse husband cannot or will not give her a Jewish divorce - a גט.
ORA - the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot - is a non-profit organization which assists disputing couples in resolving their differences in order to effectuate a timely Jewish divorce in accordance with the highest standards of Jewish law.
I am a single woman living in a singles community among friends and we live our lives freely and independently with no one controlling our lives except us. We often take that for granted. עגונות don't have that luxury. This year, rather than going nuts on mishloach manot, I donated money to ORA. I chose ORA to remind myself and others that while I am having a super fun care-free happy פורים, there are women out there who are suffering tremendously and they deserve to also have a super fun care-free happy פורים.
For more information on ORA, check out http://www.getora.com/index.html

חג פורים שמח!

Thanx DS and ZK for the idea.

צדקה ממני*

I was playing with my niece the other day and somewhere, she picked up the word "hate" and was saying it about everything. She even said to my dad "I hate you". So I did my darndest to get her to stop. I said that's not a nice word. We don't say things like that. Maybe we don't Like something but we don't hate. And I made her apologize to my dad. And every time she would use the word "hate", I would try soooo hard not to laugh or smile - b/c she's so fun and cute and I can't not smile when she talks - so I tried so hard to keep a straight face and I would say something like "That is not a nice word. We don't use words like that. Maybe I hate the word hate, but we don't use that word. It's not nice."

After all that, I was explaining to my mom and the other grandparents that I hate when my name is announced in Shul. I just don't like the attention. I guess my niece learned a good lesson - and she taught me one also. She caught me and said "Doda, we don't use the word hate. Say you're sorry".
So I did.

*צדקה ממני. My niece is so smart and I love her.


*That phrase - "Tzadkah mimeni" - Basically, she is right and I'm wrong - is from Parshat Vayeshev (Bereishit 38:26) when Tamar proves Yehuda wrong and he admits it.

25 things about me

There's this thing going around Facebook to write 25 things about yourself and then tag all your friends. I felt like also doing that for here. and since I haven't posted in a while, I figured it's a good way to get back into my blog for all my loyal reader. Thank you for still reading.

Enjoy!

1. I don't like artificial or chemical smells like perfumes or air fresheners. I especially hate the smells of lavender and vanilla....and I just hate all of them. They make me nauseated. I can't walk thru Macy's without holding my nose. I like natural smells like freshly cut grass, or the smell after it rains, or someone cooking. I think my favorite smell is freshly cut grass. I miss the suburbs.

2. I used to think that all jewish men were bald and they wear kippot to cover their bald spots. All the jewish men I knew were bald and all my dad's non-jewish friends all had hair. so it made perfect sense to me.

3. My favorite movie is Aladdin and my favorite song is A Whole New World. I'm a hopeless romantic and I love fairytales.

4. I hate reading. If the book is that good, they'll eventually make a movie out of it.

5. I've been invited to 99 weddings. I went to 79 of them and will be going to my 80th in March, IY"H. I had a dress made for my sister's wedding in 2002 and I've worn it to 36 weddings, plus one purim costume plus one Oscars party. I've only been a bridesmaid for my sister, but I still feel that the movie "27 Dresses" is about my life and one day I will put on my "28th dress".

6. I have a very intense fear of drowning. I can't take baths b/c of all the horror movies where someone's in the bath and some killer walks in and drowns the person in the bath. (I've never seen Psycho. I still shower. Don't you worry).

7. I was a lifeguard at a day camp for about 6 years. If you are a teenager now and you lived in or near Bergen County, NJ when you were like 5, and you're female, I probably taught you how to swim.

8. I have a picture of the entire cast of Cheers and they all signed it to me.

9. I was on the tv show "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" If you can find my episode on youtube, I'll pay you lots of money. I was looking for Robocrook who stole the citadel from somewhere in Canada.

10. Most ppl brake normal bones like their feet or arms. I broke my coccyx. That's the little tiny bone at the bottom end of the spinal column. I can't sit on hard surfaces for long periods of time. What a pain in the butt....quite literally.

11. I also broke my foot in 2 places when I was in Israel. I wasn't even hiking. No good story out of it. I was dancing at our chanukah chagiga.

12. I've been to a disney park 16 times. 4 times to Disneyland in CA and 12 times to Walt Disney World in FL.

13. I want to be a singing voice in a Disney movie.

14. If I could do something with 100% certainty it would be successful, I would be a voice in a Disney movie, the song would be nominated for - and win - an Oscar for best song and I would get to perform it at the Academy Awards. And of course I would wear my green dress from my sister's wedding. Or maybe I'd have a new one made....hmm....

15. Orlando Bloom is one HOT pirate. Keira Knightly is very lucky.

16. I was chased around Universal Studios by Dracula. That was soooooo scary. I never shoulda made a comment about garlic.

17. There is a wedding hall in brooklyn - Ateret Chynka - that no longer has mixed seating all because of me. After I found that out, I made it a fun game to see what kind of trouble I could cause whenever I go to a wedding in that hall. The last wedding I went to there, they played only one round of Od Yishama also b/c of me. One day, they'll have a mug shot of me on the door with a note under it that says "Don't let this woman in". Of course it will be in Yiddish so I won't understand and I'll walk right in anyways.

18. One day, I'm gonna learn how to wear my hair curly and actually look normal and feel comfortable with it and I won't care what other ppl think of it. One day....

19. I don't like chocolate. I'm still female. I don't like chulent. I'm still Jewish.

20. I love road trips. I drove with 3 friends from NY to Atlanta to Disney World (trip #12 to the park in FL and #15 overall to a Disney park) and then back to NY in one weekend. Best trip ever!

21. I eat round foods around the circumference first. I don’t know why. Watch next time I eat a bagel or a hamburger. You’ll see.

22. I name inanimate things. My GPS is Jasmine and my car that my dad lets me "borrow" is Chewbacca. The Xerox machine at work is Phoebe. The Xerox tech guy is named Reuben. Ok...Reuben is a real person....

23. My favorite TV show is Friends. I quote it all the time. I have all 10 seasons on DVD. If I were a Friends character, I think I'd be Chandler. I use humor a lot as a protection. and he's so funny. sadly, I do not have good writers helping out with life. I end up sounding more like Fozzie Bear. Wocka Wocka!

24. I'm from Monsey, NY. Most ppl think Monsey is upstate. It is the most NOT upstate you could be. If you look at a map of NY, Monsey is in Rockland County and Rockland County is actually the 2nd southern most county in NY State outside of NY City. (The southern most is Westchester). So no, I am not from upstate. I guess I'm from "downstate"....?

25. I work for an organization called Heart Mind & Soul (http://www.heartmindandsoul.org/). The mission of Heart, Mind & Soul is to make a positive difference in the lives of Jewish teenagers and young adults. Through interactive and engaging programs that build safety, promote introspection, and teach valuable intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, Heart, Mind & Soul seeks to raise the self-esteem and motivation of our youth, increase hope, and encourage them to develop a greater willingness to accept personal and communal responsibility in a fun, supportive, and safe Torah enviroment. For more info on HMS, please go to the website or ask me anything.

26. 26 is the Gimatria of Hashem's name and I felt like ending on that note b/c I went Shana Bet. (v'hameivin yavin)