rebecca_in_blue | Entries tagged with the olympics

Sara, Tovah, and I have been watching the London Olympics every day this week. (Even though I still haven't gotten around to watching the Opening Ceremony, which I missed while at camp. And I hear JK Rowling read from Peter Pan!) We've seen swimming, diving, gymnastics, rowing, and bits of a few other things. We scratched our heads trying to figure out which country RSA was; it turned out to be the Republic of South Africa. It's kinda fun getting into the medal count and the "Go USA!" feeling. I was watching when Michael Phelps won his 20th medal. I say this because it's newsworthy, not because I'm a fan. I found him overexposed and unattractive (although, admittedly, neither is really his fault) in 2004 and he's only gotten more so. I try to crochet on my plarn whenever I watch the Olympics, and it's coming along well.

In other, worse news, Back-to-School is here again, as God-awful as ever. I promised that I wouldn't let all the stress get to me this year, and guess what? I totally am! I'm scheduled to close three nights this week, and all of them have been/will be late nights. Ugh! Going on vacation for a week of it did help, but I wish my managers would all get on the same darn page about things. On top of that, our neighbors have caused us a few stressful moments that almost made me wish I was back in Smallpartment. Yes, it was the size of a shoebox, but the neighborhood was so quiet and familiar; it almost felt like an extension of Grandma's house.

On top of that, at services tonight, Jewish Grandmother #1 asked me to come to a meeting next week to put the lesson plans for this year's religious school in order. I told myself when last year's session ended that I wouldn't volunteer to teach again, but I also wouldn't say no if asked. But Holy Moses, I do not want to go through this again. I just don't understand why she asked me back -- doesn't she know how monumentally bad at it I was? Ugh.

53 DAYS LEFT UNTIL SEASON 10 OF NCIS!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Adam watching TV

I've been looking forward to Friday all week, because I've heard that the Shabbat evening services here are really special. And guess what? Today was the only day -- out of my entire week at this camp -- when it RAINED! Ugh! It started raining during lunch and continued on and off for most of the afternoon, but during a dry spell, I went for a walk on one of the hiking trails in the woods around camp. The trail ended at the edge of the woods overlooking a little overgrown valley. There was no sign of human life anywhere, just fields and forest, and everything was so still and shushed that it was almost scary. It was raining again, but just barely, and it was so quiet that I could hear the rain falling on the grass and leaves.

For Shabbat services, everyone in camp wears a white shirt and a pair of khakis (or a white dress, if you want to). I was very aware of how horrible my super-wrinkled khakis looked, but I tried not to let that bother me. I arrived at services a bit early, so I got to watch the counselors and campers arrive. As if on some invisible cue, they left their cabins, all dressed in white, and began walking to the dining hall from both sides of the lake, while singing Shabbat Shalom. Services began in the breezeway outside the dining hall; normally, it would've been in the outdoor temple, but it was too wet. We all sang Shabbat Shalom and a few other songs, including this beautiful one that the counselors sang to the campers.

May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield from you from shame.
May you grow to be in Israel a shining name.
May you be like Reuven and Esther. May you be deserving of praise.
Strengthen them, O Lord, and keep them from the stranger's ways.
{I found out later it's from "Fiddler on the Roof."}

A neat idea while singing "His Banner of Love Is Over Me," from the Song of Solomon.

Then we sang HaMotzi and went inside to eat. The kitchen staff had the plain old dining hall amazingly decked out for Shabbat. All the tables were covered with white tablecloths and had a big beautiful loaf of challah on a silver platter in the center. The Shabbat dinner is "family-style," meaning that campers can site with their families instead of their cabins like usual, because apparently some parents come to visit on Friday nights. So rather than sit the other staff members like usual, I somehow ended up the single non-relative at a big table full of family members. I felt like I may as well have a billboard over my head reading "Look, she's here by herself! What a loner freak!" Sigh...

The campers holding their mini paper cups of wine grape juice high during the Kiddush.

But it did help a bit that sitting right next to me was a Sassy Jewish Grandmother with a very thick accent who turned to me and said, "Just call me Bubbie! Everyone does!" Haha. She was a pretty funny and sweet old lady, and the food was good.

Make no mistake, the Shabbat services at this camp are beautiful, but they're LONG. After the lengthy, multi-course dinner and song session that never seemed to end, we went outside to the temple for still more praying. The Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics was held today, and I think it was being broadcast during services. So obviously, I didn't get to see it, but one of the rabbis did talk about it in her sermon. She said like Shabbat, the Olympics are a time of celebration and coming together. But just as we pause during services for the Kiddush, we should also pause from the Olympics to remember the Israeli athletes and coaches who were murdered forty years ago, during the 1972 Munich Olympics. She read their names before we said the Kiddush, which I thought was really appropriate. The Olympics committee has never had a moment of silence or anything to remember the victims of Munich. There has been talk about this at the staff tables all week, and everyone disapproves. There's a good article about it here. I'm kinda bummed that I missed the Opening Ceremony and the Parade of Nations, which I watch every Olympics. But maybe I can catch it later.

But probably the most memorable part of services was when it got dark and they turned on the lights in the outdoor temple. The temple is right on the lakeshore, so the lights created this glare on the water that looked like some sort of strange mist. It reminded me so much of the verse at the beginning of Genesis: The earth was formless and empty, with darkness over the surface of the deep, and the breath of God hovering over the waters. It was almost spooky.

Whew, what a long, exhausting post for a long, exhausting service! Shabbat shalom from camp!

*falls into bed*

Current Mood: amazed services actually ended
Current Music: rain falling on the pine trees

A Mardi Gras parade rolled right by where I work on Friday, but there wasn't a big crowd out for it, which gives you an idea of how cold the weather has been here. (When people in Louisiana don't show up for a Mardi Gras parade, that's cold.) And when I walked Sable after I got off work, steam rose up from his pee! I spent that evening at Grandma's, where she was having an open house for various relatives and serving shrimp gumbo, chicken and rice, potato salad, green beans, and brownies and Boston creme pie for dessert. We all ate and talked and watched the Opening Ceremony and Parade of Nations for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Am I the only one who thought the Olympics opening ceremony was a tad unimpressive? I could look past the inclusion of the fantastically cheesy song "Ordinary Miracle" (which was written for Dakota Fanning's Charlotte's Web and is now being used in CVS commercials) because it was somewhat inspirational and fitting. But "Hallelujah"? It's a great song, but it's angsty and depressing and already way too overused. I know it was written by Leonard Cohen, but there has to be some other Canadian-written song -- any other Canadian-written song -- that would have been more appropriate.

Yesterday I went over to Mom's house, ate pizza, and watched Zombieland with Adam. That role was such an unusual choice for Abigail: She spends most of her time shooting zombies! And does almost no crying at all! I didn't find the movie as funny as people have said, but I enjoyed it, and of course Abigail was very good in it.

Current Mood: angsty
Current Music: Electric Blue, Icehouse

It's been drizzling a lot lately, the sort of long, light showers that my Grandma calls "stay rain." I rode my bike out to the bookstore the other day and bought Tatum O'Neal's autobiograpy, A Paper Life, which I had been flipping through for a long time. The original retail price was $24.99 (or something like that), but I got it for about $2.50 because it was secondhand and on sale!

Sara and I stayed up late the other night watching the race-walking and ping-pong tournaments from Beijing (there are two Olympic events you don't hear about often). Watching the Olympics has really made me miss the other assistants, because I know we would've had such fun watching them together in France, with each of us cheering on our different countries. When I watched the Opening Ceremony and the Parade of Nations, I made sure that I cheered for each of their countries: China, Sara; South Korea, Heather; Germany, Marlene; Mexico, Mariana; Jamaica, Nakeisha; and France, the country we all met and lived for nine months.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Sara watching the Womens Relay

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on your journey, i will bless you...

...and you will be a blessing

Entries tagged with the olympics

Rebecca should be doing her laundry!

A Week at Camp: Shabbat Services.

Rebecca should be riding her bike.

Rebecca has albuterol again!

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