For more than 30 years, I’ve been an occasional participant in the Old Maltese’s trivia and map contests.

I started with the Great Maltese Circumglobal Trophy Dash, which used real and fictional maps to take you on a journey around the world – it was fun and very creative.

I’ve also participated in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which uses a real atlas to take you around America. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I did do better than Ken Jennings – I finished the whole thing!

But the contest that kept me coming back was the Almaniac, which gave you a copy of the World Almanac and about 80 questions – your job was to find the answers. I finished 28th one year (well, tied for 28th – which probably meant that there were a few hundred people ahead of me) and got a small plaque to commemorate my success.

The Almaniac has two editions per year, and there’s a small discount if you pay for both at the same time, which I did this year. I won’t do it again, though, because the postcard announcing this fall’s Almaniac bore sad news – it would be the last one.

Good thing I still have Learned League to feed my trivia habit!

We celebrated the first night of Sukkot at Shir Hadash, where we also celebrated paying off the mortgage on the Sanctuary Building and thereby making the congregation debt-free.

Originally, the committee planned to burn the mortgage at the celebration, but when they told Rabbi Nico, he wasn’t sold on the idea. He suggested burying it in a genizah, but the committee didn’t like that. They wound up deciding to compost the mortgage instead of burning it, so we each got a page, tore it up, and put it into a composter. I suspect they’ll have to add other ingredients to actually get useful compost, but it’s a start!

The evening included a sustainable dinner – all vegetarian, including “Impossible Kebabs”. If there hadn’t been a sign saying that they were vegetarian, I wouldn’t have known; this was my first experience with “Impossible” products, but it won’t be my last.

Hag Sameach!