Yay! Grandparents at the least deserve their own day.
It's also Video Game Day and National Pet Memorial Day. Video games are awesome!
I've also lost a few pets, and each one was special to me.
So, it's good they have their own day too. Sorry, about not posting on Friday. The morning service was very long, and we had an Italian-style dairy potluck right afterwards.
The service lasted about 3 and a half hours.
I hadn't seen a lot of the people that showed up in a long time. We're not really members of it anymore, so we don't come too often. They wanted Mom to do her annual Torah portion reading, so we went. We were already exhausted by then, though.
Our old cantor was accompanying their Rabbi. She was amazing!
I didn't know one of the tunes she does all the time, was actually made by her. Crazy!
This congregation just affiliated to Reform a couple of years ago, and still have kind of a conservative slant. It's interesting and a bit different. I generally like having it just reform, not this in between business.
So, they have a very conservative machzor or prayer book used during the High Holy Days, which are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. There's a lot of differences to that book. I loved their huge shofar.
It was really long, and had a much louder deeper sound. The only thing was I don't think his tekiah gedolah was a longer note than the others. So, it wasn't as impressive.
I like that they actually have 2 Torahs like most synagogues do. After that we went to the potluck. We brought Wheat Thins and string cheese. Not Italian, but it's what we had.
They were very popular anyways. Everybody ate that first, since everything was still being prepared and put on the table. We were all so hungry, so it was a nice appetizer. There was garlic bread, cheese ravioli, 2 regular salads, an interesting large pasta dish, eggplant parmesan (not my fave), and some other stuff. All in all pretty good!
For dessert, mini muffins, chocolate cake, brownies, cookies, and a couple of other stuff too. All tasty! We caught up with a few people, and talked a bit to the Rabbi. She sounds very conservative herself. There was a couple slightly older than me with their baby. She was very cute, and only about a month old.
We also saw a family friend. We always go to her house for Thanksgiving, Passover, News Year's eve, and sometimes for Hanukkah. Anyways, she eventually asked me if I'd like to pet-sit at the end of the month. I'm not sure, and I might be really busy. So, I told her I'd think about it.
We didn't get home from that until about 3:30. So, only had a few hours to breathe before it was the start of Shabbat.
I played some of the Sims 2 during this time. I finally got Prussia a promotion, but Hungary's already been promoted like 2 more times then him. He's got to get cracking!
I also started a new neighborhood. (For the first time.) This one's based on my novel Alliance. There's a lot of boats, gondolas, and swans in the river. Maybe too many of all those.
I also have 2 hot air balloons, birds flying in the distance, more flowers, signs, and other stuff. Each house I'm making is different. I already made 2 sims living next to each other. They're my oc's Ravel and Sin. They don't look exactly like I want them to be, but their personalities pretty much fit.
Ravel wants to work as a slacker and Sin wants to be either a doctor or a scientist. Weird. In the story, Ravel is working on his master's in Culinary Arts and Sin's a professor. Somehow Ravel doesn't sound like a slacker to me.
Sin, I guess, is much closer to what she does in the story. I also made a mall for them. I'm still working on the first building, but it's looking pretty expensive. I can do that since it doesn't cost when building a commercial area.
The only room that's done is the bathroom.We didn't have our Shabbat dinner until about 8.
The round challah with raisins was really good. A round challah is usually eaten on Rosh Hashanah. (Challah- Breaded egg bread, usually.) We had the leftover stuffed cabbage, rice, and honeyed carrots. So good!
For dessert, Mom's honey cake. Awesome as always! 
So, Saturday was a special Shabbat called Shabbat Shuvah. All of them are special, but this and a few others are more so. It literally means Shabbat of Return. But, it's also a play on words. Shuvah sounds a lot like Teshuvah, which would be Shabbat of Repentance. It's a time of reflection before Yom Kippur. Also, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, it's considered the 10 days of Repentance.
Our Rabbi led it this time, and our current cantor accompanied him. We actually didn't have enough people for a minyan this time, so we couldn't read from the Torah. But, the Rabbi did his drash anyways. I was going to fall asleep halfway through because of this past week, and he kept repeating himself.
My mom volunteered to lay-lead a service in October, because no one else will be there. (The Rabbi's gone, the current and past cantors have something too.) She told them that it will be very informal. For dinner, we went to Hale's Ale House. It's a new pub that opened in the mall. (Odd place, but ok.
) I ordered a Caesar salad first. It wasn't too bad. The croutons were awesome, though! Then, I got their BBQ Chicken Pizza. It was really good! The sauce was different. A bit bolder, spicier, and not as sweet as most. I found out later that it had a type of beer cooked into it. Interesting.
The cheese was good too. The chicken had its own seasoning. For dessert, we shared the bread pudding with Bourbon sauce. It was like heaven!
I love things cooked with/in Bourbon. I guess the South is still in my veins, even though I moved when I was 5 and a half. I would love to try it as a drink if I could, but can't because of my meds.
I'm a bit glad that there are a few days before Yom Kippur, our most important holiday. We can relax a bit. Plus, there's not much cooking that goes into that holiday. Considering, you're supposed to fast.
At the end of the day, there's a huge feast to break the fast. It's the Day of Atonement in English. deviantART faves: StupidFox- 34a Kulay: Homework I did not make these! First, another funny StupidFox comic. Second, a funny comic featuring an artist's oc called Pula. I don't usually see them draw their oc's, the artist usually does One Piece and used to do Gintama fanart. I loved her Gintama fanart, kind of the reason why I put her on my watch. I don't particularly like One Piece. I would love to see more of her oc's, though.
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