Our Italy Trip

Italy 189
Originally uploaded by whysquared.

Well, we're back in town and back to the daily grind. You can see the photos of our trip to Italy here. If you flip through them one by one, you'll get the basic idea of our trip. We'll try to post more details later.

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

I know I'm a bit late for this, but I found this on the web and I think many will get a kick out of it. Follow the link and make sure to watch the BBC video!

Esav Soneh es Yaakov

For those who haven't heard, riots broke out in Borough Park last night. Apparently, Mr. Schick of Schick's Bakery and catering, was pulled over for talking on his cell phone while driving. Witnesses say he was handled so roughly that some bystanders started begging the officers to stop. They punched Mr. Schick in the face, pulled out batons and mace and tried to handcuff him.

Mr. Schick wears a hearing aid and may not have heard police instructions.

Protestors took to the streets and lit garbage cans on fire.

That pretty much sums up the facts of the case, at least as reported in the news.

My opinion is that this is not an appropriate reaction of frum jews. Lighting garbage on fire does nothing but create a chillul Hashem for more people than just myself. I am not immune from the outrage of the event and I'm not sitting here impassivly critisizing those who were there - I just think it went too far.

I think the police definitely went way too far as events were described and my sense of justice is very wounded. Honest individuals should not fear a squad car. There's no reason a law-abiding citizen should tense up when he sees the lights on top of the car in his rear-view mirror. Yet, I do.

Police officers should enforce the law, not reside in a lofty place above it.

All I can hope for is that someone got it on video so it can be proved in court...

Laundry Day

Hoods & I went to the Laundromat to do laundry today because we figured it would save time considering there are only three machines in our building and there was already a line for all of them. We were little prepared for the vicious world of the local Laundromat; full of aggressive men & women all vying for washers, dryers, and laundry baskets to transport clothes betwixt the two. We also suffered some sticker shock when we saw that the smallest washers are $3.00 a load all the way up to $5.00 a load for the jumbo ones. Since we had already packed up all the laundry and dragged it out to the car and drove down the block and found parking and schlepped the laundry from the parking lot to the laundromat, we decided to just give it a shot anyway, rather than reverse the process with still-dirty clothing, linen, towels and tablecloths. So we spent three hours in the melee of locals jealously guarding machines so they could be refilled when the spin cycle finished instead of someone else inserting their own dirty laundry into them.
It was quite an ordeal to say the least and it reminds us why we usually do laundry here in the building, which - even with all its inconveniences - is better than the alternative. Maybe next time we have so much laundry to do we'll drop it off and let them do it for us. We worked out the math and it seems to be cheaper that way.

Bring back the Chametz!

So I went grocery shopping last night for our regular weekly shabbos shopping at Brach's and was very unpleasantly surprised. It seems that although Pesach is still three weeks away, Brach's has decided to start stocking up on matzo-meal and potato starch and send the brownie mixes packing. This translates into a year of learning the location of every foodstuff item in the store - down to which side of which aisle - going out the window. My neatly organized shopping list is completely useless because nothing is where it's supposed to be. Shopping took twice as long as usual because I had to wander up and down isles of institution-sized cans of peaches and packages of egg-white cookies looking for barley and kishke. The good news is that I found almost everything on my list. I'll be sure to let our guests know, however, how lucky they are to be eating kosher-for-pesach cholent...nevermind the barley - the kishke is made with potato starch.

Why can't they leave the chametz on the shelves for just another week? I took an informal poll among other shoppers and found them to be just as frustrated as I was. Do Jews not need to eat in the weeks leading up to pesach? Maybe Brach's is doing this as a public service - help people lose weight before the stuff-yourself-until-you-feel-like-you're-gonna-burst-and-have-to-upgrade-to-the-next-suit-size holiday.

GM offers workers up to $140K to leave

GM, Delphi, UAW set deal for troubled automaker to cut costs - Mar. 22, 2006

This is a further indication of the declining economy in Detroit. It's an unfortunate circumstance, but really, it's to be expected. After all, few are excited to buy a domestic vehicle anymore. Muscle-cars are out because gas prices are sky-high, so people want quality and style more than horsepower.

Consumer Reports recently picked the top cars for 2006 and not a single spot was awarded to American cars (although some of the models chosen are American made).

Safety doesn't seem to be nearly as much of a factor...3 of 5 Gold Medals awarded by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety went to domestic vehicles. Admittedly, the silver's are predominantly foreign...only 1 of the 8 silvers is American.

Purim Pictures '06

Purim '06 047
Originally uploaded by whysquared.

I posted pics of Purim on flickr. See the whole set! Anyone who wants a hi-res version should email me.

This photo really says a lot about those who protest the war.

Madeline O'Brien, right, joins a protest outside a Cleveland hotel where
President Bush delivered a speech on the war on terrorism Monday, March 20,
2006. Three years after the start of the war in Iraq, Bush is trying to shore up
support for both the lingering conflict and his leadership. (AP Photo/Jamie
Yanak)

And so it begins...

After mocking me for my daily blogger strolls my darling husband has himself entered the new millenium. I ask you all to join me in welcoming him :-)

My First Post

Our lives are full of fun interesting things happening all around us. Unfortunately the two of us are usually too busy to notice or take advantage of them. So this is a place for us to recount those incidents which were so extraordinary that they got through to even us.
Right now, we don't have anything to put up here...but we will!