Goodness

Things that were good this week:

• Hearing “The Electric Slide” loudly wafting up from the schoolyard across the street, I looked out the window to see all the classes, with their teachers, dancing out in the yard. Some were doing the electric slide, others the macarena, still other classes doing dances in slight formation/lines, while plenty of kids were just running all over dancing in congo lines. It was pretty great to watch at 10:15 on a weekday morning.

• Seeing Sex and the City with my good friend S. Better still, having pre-SatC cocktails, and sipping some more during the film. It was surprisingly funny and, despite the negative reviews, we both enjoyed it. I also quite enjoyed the fashionistas dressing to the nines, for a matinée screening: cocktail dresses, strapless mini dresses, gay guys in SatC pink (as if that’s its own shade now), and the “Carrie wore it in one episode so it must be okay” men’s shirt with a belt and flip-flops. As funny as the movie was, and as sophisticated as the NY audience thought we were, it should be noted that the biggest, longest, and heartiest laugh came midway through the film at a poo joke. We might as well have been watching an Adam Sandler movie.

• Also great, seeing your friend drunk by 1:30 in the afternoon. (Seriously, I love you. Thanks for going with me.)

• The sun, the blue skies, and reading up on the roof.

• A great Shabbos last weekend, and another amazing Shabbos rolling in in a few hours.

Drink: throw blueberries, fresh mint, lime wedges, and simple syrup into a pitcher. Mottle. Add ice cubes, tonic, and vodka. Stir. Enjoy. No, really, enjoy. Let’s call it… Benjamin’s Sprimmer Cocktail.

Filed under: friends, recipes, teevee/movies

Vancouver Pics

The Vancouver photos!

Filed under: canada, family, friends, good eats, parties, photos, random, seasons, travels

There’s no place like home

I love Vancouver. It’s no secret. But like so many relationships, we have our disagreements. I want more Jews, more Jewish life, Jewish community. And Vancouver wants me to compromise; love her for who she is, without trying to change her. And I do, mostly. I love the ocean, the mountains, the sounds, the beaches, and the false creek. I love being able to ski and kayak on the same day. I love the abundance of amazingly fresh, delicious, yet cheap sushi. On a good day, I’ll even admit to liking the small big city (or is that the big small city?) syndrome: of walking down the street, sitting in a café, going to the farmers market, and running into people you know. Yet it pains me that I couldn’t be shomer shabbos with a progressive community in Vancouver. (Though, just wait, ’cause I’ve got long term plans.)

It’s annoying that the only kosher restaurants are the snack café at the JCC and a deli-slash-grocery store. That there isn’t really a Reform synagogue. That the pluralism, post-, and trans-denominational pushes happening in the US aren’t happening there. That there are so few visibly observant Jews, that I get to try to ignore the guys on the SkyTrain urging each other to “pull [my] strings.”

I want to see that all change, help it change, but I’m just not in a place to do that (yet).

This was my first visit to Vancouver that didn’t feel like “going home.” What an odd realisation. If I’m asked where I’m from, I’ll still say Vancouver. But now the question of where home is gets a shrug, an “I don’t know.”

I hope to know soon. For now, I can say that I’m in New York. And, for the first time in many months, I have unpacked my backpack.

Post script: Shabbos plus four days just isn’t long enough to see all the lovely people in Vancouver. Hopefully my next visit will be longer… and not after another 1.5 years.

Filed under: home, travels

BC travels

I spent four lovely nights in Victoria, visiting my home, my friends, remnants of my plants. It was great to relax, fully embrace my dorkiness, play a lot of Scrabble, and fall back into a comfortable rhythm with my friends.

On the way back to Vancouver, I had to transfer buses as the Ladner Exchange. There, a woman and her college-aged daughter started pointing at me, then pointing at a fellow standing a few paces from me. I stealthily paused my iPod so I could casually listen in on what they were saying about us. The mother was saying something about my “beanie” and the “head dress” of the other fellow. (Based on what I saw, I assumed him to be Sikh, so that was in fact a turban.) I wasn’t the only one listening in; the other guy had been listening and caught my eyes when this was said of us. He stepped towards the mother and daughter to clarify things with them. But he didn’t know the words “kippah” or “yarmulke,” so in trying to explain that he wasn’t wearing a head dress, and I wasn’t wearing a beanie, the mother and daughter concluded that we were both of the same religion and were wearing variations on the same religious head wear.

At this point he looked to me, so I stepped over and tried to clarify. At some point the daughter had a “light bulb” moment and said something like, “Oh, like what the Pope wears?!” Um, yes. Kind of. Many religions have customs of head coverings and… I lost them. He looked at me and shrugged. The daughter started talking to her mom about an Easter “South Park” episode which claimed the Pope’s hat was pointy because the Pope had rabbit ears to hide. And I put my earphones back in and turned on my iPod.

It’s good to be back on the west coast…

As a side note, I’d recommend reading two recent posts on Jewschool: The H in Apartheid, a thoughtful piece on Hebron, and No One Is Jewish, about Jews who have had their conversion revoked.

Filed under: friends, israel, judaism, photos, random, religion, travels