We’re about to get ready to leave for Kol Nidre services; this will be Jeff’s first time fasting, and he is definitely not looking forward to it. I can’t say I’ll miss visiting Jack in the Box mid-fast, though!

For those of you who are fasting, may you have an easy fast. And may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

Shana Tova!

Jeff’s school runs an annual fund-raising carnival; in the past, it’s been in the spring and called “Beach Blast”, but this year, they decided to have it early in the year, and they renamed it Blast from the Past. The courtyard was filled with old cars, there were games and music, and a good time was had by all. Unfortunately, by the time we got over there, they were out of Tri-Tip, so Diane and I walked over to a local restaurant for dinner…but Jeff made sure to use up all of the coupons we’d bought anyway.

It’s been a busy week — so I’ll be happy to be able to say Shabbat Shalom and turn off the computer for a couple of days. Monday is Yom Kippur, and I’ll be spending Tuesday and Wednesday on the road (all the way to Armonk for a five-hour meeting, oy!). I’m already looking forward to next weekend….

In general, I’m happy that I transferred to my new group — it’s nice working with people I can see on a daily basis. But there are a few small downsides, one of which is that they pretty much expect to see me on a daily basis, and so I don’t feel quite as able to work from home as I did when I was remote.

But yesterday, I had a very early morning call, followed by a bunch of other calls, with a routine doctor’s appointment thrown into the mix, and it just didn’t make any sense to drive to the office to spend all day on the phone when I could do it from the comfort of my own home. And with the weather so nice, that let me do my favorite thing to do when working from home — take a long walk for lunch. It was a nice break from my new routine.

Last night, we had a class at Shir Hadash — the first of a five-session series on Harold Kushner’s books. Last night’s discussion was on his gloss on Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, and it was quite interesting. One of the things which I found most personally meaningful about Kushner’s book was that he’d written it about the time he was turning 50 — it gave me a very personal perspective on the book.