And...Purim!!!

--So today is Purim, a wonderfully fun, one day holiday.  Allow me to tell you more about it.  First I will summarize the story, which comes form the Biblical book of Esther; I have told it here before, but that was a couple years ago, and I don't expect everybody remembers.  After I tell the story, I will share how I personally am celebrating this year.

--The story:

1. The Purim story takes place in the lands of Persia and Media.  King Ahashverosh (as I said yesterday, this is a transliteration of his Hebrew name, because I can't spell the English version) has a party which lasts for 180 days and nights.  After a while, he invites his queen, Vashti, to join him; legend has it he wants her to come naked.  For whatever reason, Vashti refuses to come, and the king has her banished or beheaded, depending whom you ask.
2. After a while, the king is lonely and wants a new queen.  He decides to hold a beauty pageant.  A Jewish maiden named Esther is living with her uncle or cousin (the Hebrew wording is ambiguous) Mordecai, who encourages her to go try.  However, he also cautions her not to tell her Jewish identity.  Esther follows Mordecai's instructions faithfully, and wins the contest. She is now the queen.
3. There is in the land a wicked man named Haman, an adviser to the king.  Haman wants all the people in the land to bow down to him, but Mordecai refuses because he is a Jew and bows only to God.  Haman's anger flares up until he wants to kill not only Mordecai but all the Jews of the land.  He gets the king to sign off on it, and a date is set for the massacre.
4. Upon hearing this news, Mordecai turns to Esther and pleads with her to go before the king.  Esther at first responds that nobody can go before the king without an invitation.  Mordecai then tells her that perhaps she was placed in the palace just for this.  Moreover, if she does not help the Jewish people, help will arise for them from another corner and they will be saved, while Esther herself will perish.
5. Esther responds "if I perish, I perish" and appears before the king uninvited.  The king grants her request for him and Haman to appear at a dinner party that evening.  At the party, Esther invites them to a second party, and at that party, she reveals Haman's plan to the king.
6. Haman is hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordecai, along with his ten sons.  The Jews of Persia and Media are allowed to take up arms and fight back on the day of the "massacre"...and they win.

--How I personally celebrate:

1. I went to synagogue last night to hear the reading of Esther.  One is obligated to hear every word, but I quickly gave up because there were so many children running around making noise. Sami came dressed as "the Broadway version of Peter Pan" because his costume was brown, not green.  Creative, Sami, very creative...so creative, in fact, that he won the synagogue's "most creative" award.  I went wearing my gay pride kippah...Purim is the only night/day I feel comfortable in it.
2. Today when I get dressed (I let myself sleep late because I got home late, and now I'm doing this blog post) I will wear a ladies' tallit katan, my fancy bobby pins, my gay pride kippah, and my rainbow flowered skirt.
3. I am taking a day off from graduate school applications and looking for work.
4. Several people at the synagogue gave me mishloah manot, gifts of food items, mainly hamentaschen (special triangular cookies with various fillings) and candy.  I have been allowing myself to enjoy them, on the understanding that this is all the junk food I get this week.  During the reading of Esther, I ate all my hamentaschen (remember, I had been fasting all day) and most of Sami's.  Sami is vegan and doesn't eat sugar, and offered me whatever I wanted from his mishloah manot; I took the hamentaschen, and not much else.
5. I plan to read the Book of Esther again, in English, as my Bible reading for the day.

--And...there you have it! That's Purim.

--And...please meet "BAYLEE," aging out in JUNE.  Her birth date says 2004 but that must be a misprint; they must mean 2002 or she wouldn't be on that page.  "Baylee" is dealing with meningocele.

Ta'anit Esther

--(No, I didn't get the job yesterday; I just didn't think that was worth a whole separate blog post.  And, yes, I can replace the strings on the damaged tallit katan.)

--Today is ta'anit Esther, the fast of Esther, the day before Purim, which starts tonight.  (I love Purim; watch for a delightful post tomorrow.)  The following is how I observe fast days:

1. Obviously, I am fasting.  This one is sunup to sundown, so I actually got up way early (4:45 am) to eat something, then went back to sleep for a while.  Because of my medications, I have to keep drinking, but I only drink water and I fast from all food.  I will break my fast tonight after the reading of the Scroll of Esther in the synagogue.
2. There is a special prayer called Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father, our King) that is recited on fast days and the Ten Days of Repentance.  When I pray today, I will recite it.
3. I am wearing my special kippah that I save for fast days, Israel's memorial day, and Holocaust Remembrance Day.  It is the more somber looking of my two black velvet ones.  I originally bought it to thumb my nose at the ultra-Orthodox (it is the style their men wear); now I have it for a more important reason.

--And there you have it! That is how I observe ta'anit Esther.

--EDITED TO ADD: I really like including a picture with each entry, at least one, now that I've gotten in the habit of it.  Usually that picture is a Reece's Rainbow aging-out kid; often that one picture is enough.

Today's child, "Fritz," however, does not have a picture, most likely because he is from a country that does not allow pictures to be shared publicly.  (I know Latvia is such a country; that's the only one I know for sure, but I'm certain there must be others.)

 Also, I am wearing my favorite tee shirt today, because yes, the weather is warm enough for tee shirts, in March! I got this one from my college's Hillel.  It is red and black, my college colors, with the name of my college in Hebrew; those who read Hebrew will now know where I went to college.  I do try to keep my whereabouts private on the internet, but since I'm no longer at that school, I think showing this shirt is OK.

 I tried to take the shot from above, to include my fast day kippah; I took three shots, but it just wasn't working, so I gave up.  If you go back to the post with the kippot grouped by color, it's the one on your right in the picture of the black ones; I am using plain black clips with it, first because it's black, so the clips match; and second because it is thick and heavy, and needs strong clips, which my fun weekday ones aren't.  Anyway, here's today's photograph.

--EDITED A SECOND TIME TO ADD: I literally just realized, after writing the first "edited to add," putting in the selfie, and proofreading, that I forgot to include the reason we fast today! We fast today because in the Book of Esther, when Queen Esther commits to going before King Ahashverosh (not how he's referred to in the English, but I can't spell the way he's referred to in the English, so I am transliterating the Hebrew) uninvited, she announces: "if I perish, I perish."  She then commits to three days of fasting and prayer, and asks that all the Jews of the kingdom fast with her...and they do.  We fast today to remember their fast.  My father's attitude is "I'm not fasting for a fairy tale" (direct quotation).  I definitely respect that attitude, because I believe the Book of Esther is a fairy tale, too, and in past years, I have not fasted on this day.  However, this year I am obsessed with doing every possible Jewish thing I can, so today, I am fasting.

--And, please meet "FRITZ," aging out NEXT JUNE, and diagnosed with Down syndrome.  "Fritz" has no picture.

Semi-Devastation and my Brilliant Fix-It Idea

--Just enough time to blog before I leave for a job interview (watch for a post later today or tomorrow about that), so I will tell this story.

--First, the semi-devastation: I was at the laundromat yesterday, doing my weekly load that does not go through the dryer.  In that load, I always have my tallitot k'tanot.  They are supposed to go in some sort of bag so the strings don't tangle.  I use a pillowcase and tie a big knot at the top; normally this works fine.  Even if it opens up a bit, the garments usually stay inside.  Well, yesterday, my pillowcase opened up, and all the tallitot k'tanot came out.  When the washing machine finished, I was faced with one big tangle of string.  While I was standing at the counter in the laundromat, carefully and patiently untangling, a string broke off in my hand.  It wasn't just any string, either; that's a relatively cheap and easy fix.  No--you guessed it--this was a special blue string.  When I got back, I looked for where the string had broken off.  I was prepared for the worst, because I was holding an eighteen inch or so piece of string in my hand, which meant there couldn't be much left on the tallit katan.  And I was right: not even all the wound-around part of that string is still there, let alone any hang-down.  It's obvious that this set, whose kashrut was really always in doubt because the blue was not from the right source, is now definitely pasul, not kosher, not wearable.

--Now, here's my brilliant fix-it idea: a new tallit katan, the cheapest I could find, would cost about 14 dollars plus shipping.  That's not horrible, but my family doesn't have a lot of money right now, so any money I can save them is a good thing.  I do need to somehow get another wearable tallit katan, because right now I have exactly seven including two ladies' sets, and I like to save the ladies' sets for dressy occasions and Rosh Hodesh only.  But I had this wonderful idea: what if I untie and remove the current strings, and just replace them with all white? New, real blue strings cost upwards of 50 dollars, and now that we've seen that these strings can break in the wash, I wouldn't want the expensive kind in case this happens again.  But I can get a good set of 16 (four for each corner) wool (required material, unless you know what material the garment is, in which case you can use that too) plain white strings for four dollars plus shipping...under ten dollars total.  While I absolutely do not trust myself with the special blue strings, I know how to tie the plain white, I've done it four times in my life (tallit katan in high school, tallit gadol in high school, corner repair for a tallit katan whose string I accidentally snipped to thumb length while working on a sewing project, Hannukah gift tallit katan last winter), and I am absolutely prepared to do it again.

--And...please meet "TARA."  She's from my "Jacob's" country (I have a soft spot for these kids, both for the obvious reason and because they age out two years younger than kids elsewhere), and she is aging out in SEPTEMBER.  "Tara" has Down syndrome.  I am doing something I have never done before.  "Tara" has two pictures posted.  I can't decide which one is better, so I am posting them both.  Here they are:

My New Plan

I feel the need to blog a third time today, even though that means my World Down Syndrome Day post will get "sandwiched."  So be it.

I have been, as my Christian acquaintances would say, convicted recently.  (That's so not a Jewish term, but I don't have a better one!) In particular, the Maxwell family, who blog at www.titus2.com, have convinced me of something.

I need to be reading my Bible daily.  Period, no argument, this is something Christianity got right that most of Judaism did not.

I thought long and hard before I made this decision.  I also pray three times daily (well, most days; I don't usually manage Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, but I do usually manage all the other times), and I am committed to reading a psalm, and a segment of a work of Jewish theology, every day as well.  I do not want to give any of that up.

So.  This is the plan: I pray three times a day, and I have three "extra" readings.  I will simply correspond one of each to one of the other.  In the mornings, I will pray, then read a psalm.  In the afternoons, I will pray, then read my Bible.  In the evenings, I will pray, then read theology.

I am unsure yet what I will do when/if I miss a prayer time, if I will do the reading associated with it later, or skip that for that day, too.

Oh, and I will once again be embarking on reading the Bible cover to cover, Genesis 1 to 2 Chronicles 36.  And, yes, in English.

Now, this is "CHAD."  Just to be different, I had wanted to grab a boy without Down syndrome or HIV this time, but I can't say no to this sweet face.  "Chad" will age out NEXT APRIL, and is diagnosed with Down syndrome.

A Very Important Post (World Down Syndrome Day)

I didn't notice this until I went on Reece's Rainbow to grab "Adam's" picture (see previous entry), and then I decided this topic was so important it deserved an entry all its own, so I am posting again.

TODAY, MARCH 21st, IS WORLD DOWN SYNDROME DAY.

I'm not really sure what to say about that.  I've seen Down syndrome up close and personal twice in my life.  "Emily's" younger sister (let's call her "Jordan") has Down syndrome and autism; the Summer that "Emily" took me and "Julie" home with her every Sabbath (because the college was basically closed, and "Julie" lived about two and a half hours away, and I five hours), I interacted a little bit with "Jordan."  I definitely have one very sweet story.

I was alone in "Emily's" bedroom, sprawled across the very big bed, reading a book, and "Jordan" came in.  Very vaguely, she said, "Hi."  Naturally, I turned around and responded, "Hello."  Jordan then kissed the back of her hand, saying "Mwha," and laid it against my cheek.

The other sweet story comes from when I was in high school.  My high school always hosted the local Special Olympics because we had good athletic facilities, and all the students volunteered.  One year, I think my senior year, my job was to put the medals around the necks of athletes who had won medals, and hand ribbons to the others.  (It was guaranteed that there would be enough medals/ribbons for every athlete who competed to win something.)  It was after a competition with five athletes; I had put the first, second, and third place medals around the necks of the corresponding athletes, and handed ribbons to the other two.  I was about to turn away when I noticed the boy who came in fifth holding his ribbon against his chest, and trying to get my attention.

I turned back and asked if he would like me to pin the ribbon on his chest, and he puffed up with pride and nodded.  Gingerly, very carefully (remember this was my first ever up-close experience with Down syndrome), I pinned the ribbon to his shirt, and he just looked so very proud of himself! Naturally, then, I was proud of myself.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, it goes without saying that I now consider myself close to Down syndrome.  Three out of my four Reece's Rainbow assignments have had it! ("Grady", my first, is the only one who didn't.)  I am committed to one day adopting a little girl with Down syndrome; she will need me, and in some way, on a gut level I don't understand, I will need her, too.

So that's my connection to Down syndrome.  Sorry this is not a more universally meaningful post; it's the best I could come up with.

Now, to share a Reece's Rainbow aging-out girl.  For this entry, I had wanted to choose someone with Down syndrome, to fit the theme of the day.  However, I can find no more girls with Down syndrome on the aging-out page, and this beautiful child is calling to me, so to speak. So, please meet "ALISSA," aging out in the next EIGHTEEN MONTHS, HIV+ and no other disabilities! HIV is so very very manageable; please someone see her, and take a leap of faith!

A Note About Skirts/Skorts, and Jewish Pride

--First, a note about skirts/skorts.  First off, the teal skort actually mostly fits in the waistband, which is nice for two reasons.  Number one, it's one less thing to have altered, which means one less price to pay.  Number two, it's one of my five favorite warm-weather skirts/skorts; the others are the other skort (gray poplin), my long pink cotton print skirt, and the stretchy skirts, which I have in two colors.

--Secondly, I have decided on a material for my new skort.  I want to get one in khaki twill; I love wearing any shade of brown (I can only get away with it in skirts/skorts, never close to my skin, but I still love it), and besides twill is rugged and khaki is the ultimate "getting dirty" color.  The whole point of this garment is to have something to wear when clambering around on rocks, in woods, and in streams/creeks; a rugged material in a "getting dirty" color is perfect for that.

--Third, Sami and I have settled on a price for the alterations he is doing for me.  I am paying him ten dollars an item; he agreed to that so readily that it reminded me of the story of Abraham buying the Cave of Machpelah as a burial place.  The local ruler offered it to him for free, but did it saying, "What is 400 shekels of silver between friends?" From this, Abraham knew that he was supposed to pay 400 shekels of silver, and pay that he did.

--By the way, the kind of familiarity with the Hebrew Bible that allowed me to think of the story of the purchase of the Cave, and mention it above, is what started me on my Bible reading project a couple years ago.  I wanted to know what was in my Bible; there were books I had never read at all, and I only had passing knowledge of the ones I had.  I like my current knowledge level much better; I am even considering going through my Bible a second time!

--Now: the point of this entry: Jewish pride.  Today I had what I consider a longish walk, probably ten or eleven blocks in each direction, to print a copy of my resume for a job interview tomorrow that requested a hard copy (!!!).  I like to sing, out loud, when I am walking alone, because it makes the walk seem shorter; with current pain symptoms (I am Ketamining again the 28th-31st; yes, I welcome any and all prayers during that time) that is no small feat.  Today, on my walk home, I decided I was going to sing only Jewish/Hebrew songs.

--I started off with "Lo Alecha."  The title means "It is not upon you;" the lyrics go "It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it; may the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our day."  When I sing it, I go through the whole thing twice, and then repeat the second part (after the semicolon) one last time after that.

--After "Lo Alecha," I sang "Yerushalayim shel Zehav," or "Jerusalem the Golden."  This song was written by Naomi Shemer, about how wonderful it would be to have peace in Jerusalem, and how we must never forget about Jerusalem.  It has a slower tempo than I usually like when walking, but today, it somehow worked out.

--Next, I sang "BaShana HaBa'ah," "Next Year."  BaShana HaBa'ah also talks about peace in the land of Israel: children playing tag, eating grapes on a porch in the evening, and the white dove of peace.  This is one of my three all-time favorite songs (the others being Battle Hymn of the Republic and Moment Made for Worshiping); I used to sing it to myself when I was a little girl in need of comfort, to reassure myself that the situation I was in wouldn't last forever, and that eventually I would come to the future, and it would be good.

--I finished up my walk with "Al Kol Eileh:" "On All This/These." "Al Kol Eileh" is written from the point of view of a man leaving home (we are not told why) who wants everything to be the same when he returns.  He is not asking for only good; I find the chorus particularly poignant.  A translation of the chorus would read, "On all these, on all these, guard them, my Good God; on the honey and on the sting, on the bitter and the sweet."

--Now, I am introducing today's Reece's Rainbow child.  This is a boy I have passed over several times when I needed a girl, but today is his day to be featured on my blog.  Please meet "ADAM," aging out not this year but sometime in the next maximum EIGHTEEN MONTHS.  "Adam" has Down syndrome and "autistic traits."

Update on the Skirt Scenario

--Today, despite the fact that the weather is anything but warm, I am wearing my last warm weather skirt; I needed to finish compiling my "To Take In/Not To Take In" list.  It is the black flowered cotton.  The flowers are in rainbow colors, so naturally, I am wearing my gay pride kippah.  I wrote last night that I haven't accepted myself enough to wear this kippah in public, and I haven't, but I'm not going anywhere today, and I consider this skirt and kippah to be a set; that is to say, wearing one obligates me to wear the other.

--My new-but-already-close synagogue friend, Sami, runs an art gallery and makes all his own clothes.  He had offered to take the skirts/skorts in for me, free of charge.  I had said no, because I felt guilty, and also because I would have to bring them to him on the Sabbath, which is doing business, which I thought isn't allowed.  My father told me just now that I should take Sami up on his offer, while suggesting that I pay him whatever he would like to charge as long as it's less than, or the same as, what I would pay to have the work done at a "real" place.  (Not that Sami isn't real, I just don't have another word for what I mean.)  The cheapest "real" place I had found would have charged a total of 100 dollars (20 dollars an item for five items); I will pay Sami anything up to that, and I'm almost sure he won't ask for that much.

--I apparently have 13 warm weather skirts/skorts.  (For those who don't know--and Sami didn't, so maybe some of you don't either--a skort is a skirt with shorts inside.  Because I got mine from a religious Christian site, the shorts part is almost as long as the skirt part, and by today's standards, the skirts are long, though they are shorter than my normal skirts from that site.  I have two skorts, one light gray with dark gray shorts, and one teal with very slightly darker teal shorts, and they are very useful for modesty.)  Eight of them, including all my fancy Sabbath-and-holiday ones, still fit; five need taking in.  Here is a list of the ones that still fit, in the order that I wore them to test them out:

1. Short denim (bought at Covered Girl Clothing, about a half hour walk from my college, an Orthodox Jewish clothing store)
2. "Modesty trainer" (very tight in waistband and form, hence the name; one-size-fits-all from China)
3. long brown poplin (bought from myculottes.com, where I also got the skorts described above)
4. long fancy blue (very tight in waistband, but I adore the look, one-size-fits-all from China)
5. long pink print cotton (bought from myculottes.com; yes, I have a lot of their stuff, because it is pretty, modest yet easy to move in, and cheap [skirts are 20 dollars for cotton and poplin, 23 dollars for twill and denim; skorts are 25 dollars for cotton and poplin, probably 28 dollars or so for twill and denim])
6. White flouncy (I've had this one for years, so no idea where I got it, sorry)
7. Purple flowered fancy (Again, had it for years, so no idea where I got it; I wore this, with the matching orange-and-purple flowered blouse, for the first time for the Jewish New Year my freshman year of college [2011])
8. Long black flowered cotton (bought from myculottes.com)

--Here is a list of the five that need taking in.  This list is not in the order I wore them, but rather in the order that I need them adjusted, so that I can have them back.

1. Gray skort (bought from myculottes.com)
2. Teal skort (bought from myculottes.com)
3. Medium denim (really I should call this my long denim, since I no longer have three denims [my original long denim was from myculottes.com, and got lost either when I moved from college to my parents' home, or when I moved from there to NYC]; bought from Covered Girl Clothing, which has a wonderful selection of denims if you're willing to spend some money)
4. Coral pink stretchy (also from Covered Girl Clothing; cheaper than the denims; not sure what the material is, but I love the feel!)
5. Royal blue stretchy (exactly the same as the coral pink stretchy, but in blue)

--I have decided that if my parents are OK with it, I would like one new clothing item this Spring/Summer.  Originally I wanted to replace my long denim, but I still have two other denim skirts, and they're serving me well.  Rather, what I want is a denim or twill skort...something really rugged for clambering around in creeks and woods, because yes, at age 23, I still do that.

--Now, I am introducing "JUSTINE," aging out NEXT JUNE.  "Justine's" diagnoses are rather complex: congenital microcephaly, autism, and facial features of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, though no one knows that last one for sure.  Still, please, please, please, someone SEE her!