I Still Lost with 332 Points

I scored 123 points in Scrabble with the word "equator." That's right, folks, I am a genius. Q on the triple letter score, the whole word on a double word score, and using every single letter I had on my rack equals 123 points. I'm also a nerd.

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."

Incredible.

Today, July 16th, 2007 at 11:53 AM I fell in love. Mark that date down in your calendars because I will be accepting anniversary gifts for our 3rd month, 1 yr., and 5 yr. anniversaries. With whom did I fall in love, you ask? How did it happen, you want to know? Can I tell you everything including the juicy details?!!? Ask no more, my fellow friends, ask no more.
I was doing nothing more than my average everyday doings on this balmy Monday morning. There I was, just sitting quietly at my desk, keeping an eye on my charts and reading the paper online when I first laid eyes on him. Crisp and clean in black on white. German in origin. 13 letters long. Simply wonderful in sound. I'd keep this love private but for my immense generosity so now join me in the following exercise. First, say "shah" as in sha-la-la. Next, add a "d" sound. Shahd. In. Say, "in." Shahd-in. Now make your lips into a circle and say, "froi." Froi. Shahd-in-froi. Can you say "duh?" Shahd-in-froi-duh. Once you've got that, add a slight German lilt. Schadenfreude!
Dare I say it's better than lederhosen?

Take Time to Tell Me You Really Caaaa-are

One of our poetry assignments (gooooo summer school!) was to write about a song that has special meaning to us. One of my classmates wrote about "Always and Forever." When she took her poem out to read and told the class what song it was about, my professor started singing it. At one point in the reading, she looked up to give the teacher a dirty look because her humming got a little too loud. I thought that was weird. Y'know, that my professor was humming while the woman read. But when the poem was over, my professor said, "okay! Now everyone!" and led the class into the song. Yes. The whole thing. I didn't join in, but I danced in my chair.

So It's Ice Cream Sandwiches for Lunch

I saw my husband/s today at the supermarket. After moving my stuff into the apartment I'm subletting for the summer, I went to buy some food. And there at the top of the aisle I walked down was heaven himself. I looked at him and blushed. He looked at me and I think he might have laughed or smiled or done something because then his friend, whose back was to me, turned around to see who was there. He was heaven number two. And heaven number three was the other friend. When I say they were heaven, what I mean is that they were tall, dark haired, and bearded. I was so thrown off I forgot to get peanut butter.

[see other side] OVER

I just solved two mysteries with one realization.
Mystery number one is why my brother gave me a funny look when I told him the puzzle was more simple than he was making it because it's a Monday puzzle.
Mystery number two is why the answers to that last puzzle I did is in the corner of a Monday puzzle when I so never do Sunday's puzzle.
Today isn't Monday. And here I just came to that conclusion.

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.

Backslash vs. Forwardslash

For the record, and because so many people have been coming here for creedthoughts, he does say, "http://www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts" and writes, "http://www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts".
Just thought I'd let you know. I'm also pretty sure he says, "http://www.creedthoughts.gov.www.\creedthoughts" but I'll have to watch through it again. Anyone else notice that?

www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts

I have a few things to say, so I'm going to start here. Thimblerigger is one of the awesomest words ever. Thimblerigger. It takes a while to get properly, but it's worth it. I thought it was a nonsense word made up to call people when you want to sound angry, but it's actually a word. I'm going to use it instead of doofus. It sounds more old-fashioned. Furthermore, a cyclist almost ran me over the other day. True story. In other news, someone waved vigorously at me today and said, "hi gorgeous." That's right, waved. I did not know him.

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..."

She's a Summer Love for Spring, Fall and Winter

I passed an old man on my way up the mountain. He was on his way down. When I saw his lips moving, I turned my music off and asked him to repeat what he had said.
"It gets real sloppy up there!"
"Yeah," I said, "it's very hard walking up in this mud."
Sometimes Gd speaks to me in the weirdest places.

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.

"You Can Call Me"

I woke up this morning in a panic that I had overslept and was late. I sat up in the tight and twisted sleeping bag my cousin lent me (which I had on top of an air mattress) and panicked. I was too sleepy to think about where I was or what time it was, but as I was unzipping the sleeping bag, I had a sense that something was wrong. Everyone was still sleeping. Didn't Zahava say her roommate wakes up at 5:46? 6:46? I checked my phone to find that it was only 4:26.
The next time I woke up, I jumped out of bed to wash up because my cousin had warned me that one of her roommates wakes up at 7:15 and she has a long morning ritual that extends to 7:30, so for those 15 minutes I won't be able to use the bathroom. While getting my stuff together, Zahava woke up to ask the time. 6:07, I told her. It wasn't until I was brushing my teeth that I realized it was 6:07 and not 7:07.
Another weird thing about last night is that my phone shows two missed calls in the 2am hour from different 914 numbers. The calls are three minutes apart and one of the callers left a message. The guy who left the message had an accent, so I can't tell if he's saying "Dina" or "Diyanna" but the message sounds like this: "Dina, it's the bus driver, I'm waiting here outside. You can call me."

"Oh, C'mon--Don't Be Such a Girl!"

I had a few extra minutes this morning, so I stopped at Starbucks to get a coffee (I stopped doing caffeine so I just had a tea, but I was very tired and needed a boost). I pulled into a spot, crossed Queens Blvd., and got a latte. The light was turning green when I was ready to cross, but I ran across the first part of the blvd. anyway because there was only one car waiting. As I ran in front of the car, the driver started honking to me. I turned to look at the car and saw him waving manically. I halfway turned away and then turned back and gave him an, "I don't think I know who you are look" so he rolled down his window to tell me, I guess, but the girl sitting next to him was either embarrassed or laughing--I couldn't tell--and she made him drive off because cars were coming up behind him. It was probably a case of mistaken identity, but it's killing me to figure out who he was.