Tonight is the big family Chanukkah service at Shir Hadash; it’ll be crowded. Fortunately, we’re not on Oneg duty tonight (though we’ll gladly help if we get there early enough).

Tomorrow is a San Jose Rep day, where we’ll see A Flea in Her Ear; we’ll probably take light rail, since parking downtown may be scarce due to Christmas in the Park.

Things are getting quiet at work, with fewer people showing up every day as folks burn off their vacation; I will be joining the ranks of the absent in the middle of next week.

Shabbat Shalom!

Chanukkah started on Sunday night; we spent the evening with friends, eating latkes (including an interesting variant — cheese latkes) and talking. Then I inducted them into the unsung society of Iron Chef watchers, with Battle Milk as their first show.

My cellphone saga continues; today, after the promised new phone continued to not arrive, I called SprintPCS to cancel my service and they immediately offered me $130 credit to stay with them. That brought the effective cost of the new phone I wanted down below what it would have been if they’d done the exchange in the first place, so I decided to give them one more chance (since changing numbers is a hassle) and went to the nearby SprintPCS store to pick up a new phone in person. I brought it home and I still don’t have service worth a damn (though at least it doesn’t drop calls like the old phone did); in contrast, AT&T Wireless service is rock solid here and works OK in my office. The AT&T service will cost me more than Sprint did, but at least it works where I spend most of my time.

I had to work at home today so that the termite inspector could get to the crawl space and attic. It was a good thing I did.

He arrived at 9:30, as planned, and got right to work. A few minutes later, my doorbell rang again; it was a lady wondering if I had my next-door neighbor’s phone number, because she was here to pick her up for bridge but she wasn’t answering the door. I called and got a busy signal; she decided to wait.

About ten minutes later, she came back and wondered if I could try again, because there was still no answer. The line was still busy. I started to worry a bit, but I don’t have a key to her house — so the termite guy volunteered to go into the back yard to see if he could see anything, and I went to a neighbor who would have a key.

While I was waiting for that neighbor to answer his door, the lady came out of my neighbor’s house (luckily, her back door had been open) yelling “call 9-1-1”. So I ran home, grabbed a phone, and called 9-1-1. My neighbor was on the floor, not moving but breathing. The dispatcher asked me to help her onto her back, which I did — and then the paramedics and police arrived and took charge of the situation. She’s at the hospital now.

I’m glad I was at home and could help.

[Update: My neighbor had a stroke and is in the ICU; she is doing well, all things considered. What is proving difficult is reaching her children — we had to dig through her phone index to find their numbers at all, and then no cell phones were listed, and nobody was home during the day. Folks, if you live alone, it’s a good idea to have a list of contact numbers and instructions in some prominent place (like the refrigerator door) in case of emergency.]

Shabbat Shalom!

It’s God’s Responsibility to Forgive Bin Laden
It’s Our Responsibility to Arrange the Meeting

[Courtesy of my Mom]

It’s That Time of Year

Wondering what to get a dear friend or favorite weblogger? Take a close look at Dave Barry’s Gift Guide.

Wondering what to get me? Take a close look at Dave Barry’s Gift Guide and choose something else!

And thanks to Hal, I think I know what to get Jeffrey.

The weekend passed quickly, and pleasantly (if you ignore the power outage on Saturday morning); the computers stayed off all weekend, which accounts for a large part of the silence here.

Friday night, we went to the Reform Community Shabbat service at Congregation Beth Am. They have a very large campus and quite an interesting sanctuary. The service was good; the lecture (by Dr. David Ellenson of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles was interesting but would have been much more interesting at half the length.

A detailed description of our weekend would probably be more interesting at one-tenth the length I might write, so I’ll stop!

Canadian Donut Conflict Looms