Sauerkraut

I suppose it's fitting, in some way, that in my last week living in Prague with my host family that they would give me sauerkraut. It's one of the national foods, I'm pretty sure, right after everything fried, fatty, and greasy that you can think of. So, as a fond farewell, they gave me dumplings, meat, and sauerkraut (a Czech tv dinner, actually) for dinner tonight. It actually wasn't my farewell dinner, but I can't think of anything more "Czech" that they could have given me.

HOWEVER. I have to say that this at this "farewell dinner," there were not tears just because it was a "farewell" or because they fed me sauerkraut. In fact, there were no tears over sauerkraut. And this is exactly why they were tears. When they handed me my plate with dumplings lining the outside edge and the meat completely covered by the veritable pile of sauerkraut, I cheered inside. I knew that this moment was going to come at some point--for the last week, I have found myself thinking of sauerkraut at night, about the same time that I start thinking about bed.

The time that I set aside for thinking about bed is a sacred time. Bed is possibly one of my favorite parts of the day (I attribute it to my love of sitting back and watching the dreams my unconscious hands to me, rather than actually just enjoying being unconscious), particularly in the last week since I've been particularly tired and sick lately.

SAUERKRAUT SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN THE SAME STATUS AS BED.

Unfortunately, it was. I tried to deny it as much as possible, but when the bell dinged on the microwave, and a steaming hot plate of knedliky and sauerkraut was carried into the room, there was nothing I could do but sigh in relief that they had finally given me this. It has been months since they have fed it to me--I think they must have noticed that whenever they would feed it to me, I would eat very little of it while polishing off the meat and dumplings. They must have picked up on it somehow. And, now, two or three months later, I had to shed a silent tear as they placed the plate in front of me, not for that fact that they were giving it to me, but for the fact that it had taken them this long to give it to me again.

Wait, what?

One thought process, and knowing the rabbi, probably one breath.

"Hitler didn't have an original idea in his head. He just enacted everything. Here on your left is a Christmas tree farm."

So That's How It's Done

I just turned in my first final paper today. It was for my art history class (the good one) and about Surrealism. In celebration, I watched a youtube video about how to darn socks. I've always been curious about how it worked, but never took the time to actually learn. Thanks to the kind people at greenfibres.com, I now have the knowledge. The more you know... (da da da da da da daaaaaaaaaa).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nY1jTVyBE0