Rebecca's instep arch not only keeps the ache, it keeps the pressure.

[rebecca_in_blue]

Today was the second day of... Rebecca's vacation! I have been accruing vacation time at work for some time now, but I didn't want to use it until I had my own vehicle. I'm not sure why, since I won't really be going anywhere. This will be more of a staycation than a vacation, but I'm not complaining because it feels so good to know that I won't even have to think about work for another week! I haven't been up to much, but here's a recap of the first two days:

Yesterday morning I biked to the temple for Torah study and kibbutzed with the rabbi afterwards, about converting. He said I was "new-ish to Jewish." Haha. I was sweating like a Baptist preacher, paranoid that they wouldn't let me in, but the rabbi said he could have me converted by fall of this year! (Holy Moly! Fall suddenly feels really soon!) But I'm looking forward to it and hope to make it happen. On the bike ride home from temple, I saw my mom working in her front yard and ended up having lunch at her house. (She made red beans & rice and apple muffins that couldn't compare to Grandma's. But then, no one can.) I can't quite account for this; Torah study must have left me in a very good mood.

We had to move our clocks forward an hour for Daylight Savings Time last night, but I still woke up early and biked back to temple to help out with the annual corned beef sandwich sale. It's a very big deal, and everyone turns out to help put the meals together. It's a quarter-pound corned beef sandwich, a bag of chips, a pickle, and a cookie. I and a few other people had the job of bagging pickles in the kitchen. We bagged over 1700 pickles! Can you imagine what torture it was for pickle-loving Rebecca, who wanted to eat every pickle she saw but only got about five? But the temple ordered pizza for us -- since we were there bagging pickles for six hours! -- so I can't complain.

And tomorrow morning I'll be going back to the temple once more to put the finish touches on assembling the sandwiches. I'm not even sure what that entails, but it will be my fourth consecutive day there (since I went to Shabbat services on Friday night) and I'm beginning to think I should just move in, change my name to Rebecca Cohen, and be done with it.

Tonight I finally gave an old patchy dog I know a bath. He is not happy.

P.S. I feel like Robert Frost in "After Apple-Picking" (the only poem I can not only recite, but perform) except in my case, it's "After Pickle-Bagging." I was so exhausted when I got home that as soon as I walked Sable, I crashed on our couch.

"There were seventeen hundred spears to cut, shake the juice from, bag up, but never eat!"
(I tried to tweak the entire poem, but this was the only line I could do.