More Than Four Sides

Category: inside the US

  • Feeling out of place

    When I left high school for college, I boarded a train in Oakland, CA, bound for Kalamazoo, MI. Looking up the AMTRAK schedules listed now, I think it must have been the California Zephyr route, which ends in Chicago, and then there is a connecting train to Kalamazoo. Why was I headed for Kalamazoo? I…

  • Discharge plan: to jail

    My first real job in the health care field was an internship I participated in as an undergraduate.  I worked for a summer at the Family Practice Residency Program of Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, CA.  A few years prior to my internship, one of the residents had noticed that there were an unusual number of…

  • A meaningful fast

    This past week was intense for me, in more ways that I can quite put together. Even though this post is likely to be too long, I don’t think I’ll be able to fully express why, but I’ll give it a go… We had a very busy weekend last weekend, which resulted in the unusual…

  • Before the memories fade…

    We had such a great time at Disney World – it was only two weeks ago, but I am already forgetting the details, and I really want to record some impressions for our next trip. Yes, R and I were immediately talking about our next visit on our homeward bound drive (which was miserable, btw…

  • Home again, home again, jiggitty jog!

    We spent the entire day in the car. Our progress was delayed by traffic jams and multiple accidents, some of them frighteningly serious – we saw one car that had the entire top section squashed down – I can only hope the passengers survived, but it didn’t look good… We have been dealing with some…

  • Our Shabbat-free Shabbat (cont’d)

    We took a farewell walk around Lake Berkley today. It was a stunningly beautiful day – sunny, with a light breeze. We got to the lake, and spied a quartet of ducks, who clearly expected that we might have some bread crumbs to give them. And, then we spotted a floating empty milk jug at…

  • A shabbat-free shabbat

    I noted on FaceBook today our dear friends who made every effort to get home from their Disney vacation in time for Shabbat.  They, of course, planned ahead, and have everything ready to go (apparently), with some help from worthy accomplices. We are never so foresighted in our Shabbat planning.  Not at home, and never…

  • Thanksgiving – Kissimmee, FL style

    What a day!! I woke up this morning at 6:30 am, thinking “I have so much to cook, how will I get it all done.” We’re down in Florida, in a rental house, with a minimalist kitchen, and a dinner for nine to cook. And we never got the leeks!! The leeks were an integral…

  • The Magic Kingdom, and beyond…

    It’s 45 minutes before midnight, and I wish I could cook some of the meal we will enjoy tomorrow, but with my MIL sleeping on the sofa in the living room, which is really just the other end of the first floor that the kitchen is in, that’s not a go. So, I’m posting briefly,…

  • Relaxing day of vacation

    Today, we opted to go with the low-stress, unprogrammed day of vacation today. Partly, this was motivated by S still being sick, and wanting to give him rest. So, we took our sweet time getting out of jammies and into clothes this morning. Then we went for a walk around the lake that the resort…