I Finished 0-4

We had an Arm Wrestling Tournament over Shabbos. In the first round, my brother Ari beat my sister 2-0 and Josh beat her 1-0. For the second round, Ari changed the rules to: "if I get your arm down in under two seconds, you have to use two hands." After beating me in under one second, he beat me again even though I used both hands. Josh beat me too.
The standings were: Ari: 4-0, Josh: 2-0, Dasa: 0-3, Dina: 0-3 (I know that seems inconsistent, but bear with me).
It was time for the final round: Dasa vs. Dina.
The crowd gathered around the corner of the kitchen table, ready to see if our claim that Das is really strong was true. The wrestle started and when both arms were still up after two seconds, it appeared that I might have had a chance at winning. At three seconds, Das had my arm 45* from the table and when I realized she was winning, I started to scream. This happened about the same time she realized she was winning, and started to scream. She got my arm down on the table to a duet of, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" and when we were done and laughing, my brothers had nothing to say but, "wow."

Whistlepig

There is a crazy turkey walking around my backyard. When the groundhog/woodchuck/whistlepig walked past her, she suddenly stood straight and spread her wings. Then the groundhog continued on its way, going under the fence and into the woods and she went back to eating what ever it was she found in the grass. When she went to the birdfeeder and scared the birds away, I slammed the door a few times to get her to run away and she ignored me. Ignored me!
Over Shabbos, my parents and I spent at least an hour staring out the door at the action around the bird feeder. It's like nature's office water cooler.
Extra credit to whomever can tell me what this is from: "Oh, the water cooler was brought over here for... maintenance. So what do you guys hear? What's the scuttlebutt?"

*The etymology of the name woodchuck is unrelated to wood. It stems from an Algonquian name for the animal, wuchak.

This Day is Bananas! B A N A N A S!

I have so much to say recently that my writing abilities shut down. Oddly, I started this so that even when I'd have too much to get down I'd be able to. So I'm going to free-write rant this one. Without going into detail, someone I know got suspended from school for a day for hurting another kid in his class' feelings. In addition to that, the kid with the hurt feelings punched another kid and gave him a bloody nose, but he wasn't even asked to apologize. Which is what the kid who hurt his feelings should have been asked to do instead of being suspended. Sounds ridiculous enough to not believe, doesn't it? But it is true. And I've been obsessed with this story since it happened because if the suspended kid wouldn't have parents as great as he has, I'd be giving him a few years before he learns how to add up the hypocrisies and goes "off the derech" as they say. What does it take to get qualified educators to run yeshivot? In addition to that, now the kid who punched the other kid knows that if anything happens to him, all he has to do is run to the Principal's office and tattle and the kid who hurt him will get into big, fat trouble. And no one likes a tattle-tale, so he'll be even less tolerable to his classmates than he was beforehand. Basically, this solution solved nothing at all and aggravated more than it should have. Speaking of tattlers, there's a certain unspoken alliance peers have and once someone goes to an authority figure and tells, they lose the respect and trust of the others. Which happened to me once and I'm still not really fully able to trust the girl who did it. Weird how trust works. Saturday night at about 3:30am, two cars crashed on my cousin's corner. We opened her roommate's window (I was using her roommate's bed) as far as we could and leaned out to see what had happened. There had been at least two people in each car and they were all shouting at each other. We felt bad for them and discussed calling the cops (they were seriously loud) but decided it wasn't necessary unless they started fighting and Zahava started to get off the bed but toppled down and fell off the bed on the side where her roommate keeps a stack of containers with hair accessories and such and it was hilarious, but she got very hurt. We sat on her bed with ice on her bump talking about the weekend when we heard, "Your ankle hurts? HURTS? YOU WALKED ALL THE WAY OVER HERE WITH IT HURTING? I WORK IN THE HOSPITAL AND I..."

"My Complexion," She Said "Is Much Too White"

Remember when the Allman Brothers played Highway 61 for me when I went to see them at the Beacon? Man, I remember it like it was yesterday.
Also, I wish you and yours a very good Shabbos.

I Wish I Were a Volunteer Sheriff on the Weekend

I just want to make clear how much I hate how movements and point-making ruin my life. Tonight I found out that some girls will make Hamotzi on Shabbos as a thing. AS A THING. I don't know why I should care so much about what other people do, but I happen to absolutely love cutting the challah. As a matter of fact, even on a regular Shabbos when my father is home, I'm the one who takes the rest of the challah into the kitchen, cuts it up, and brings it back out on a tray. I even love baking challah. I used to love all things challah related, but now my Hamotzi innocence is lost and I don't know if I'll ever get it back. Ever. I'm going to go cry myself to sleep now.