Moving

WordPress is frustrating me. I’m moving to Blogger. The last few posts have been moved over…please update your links! The new site is: midnite99.blogspot.com. See you over there!

Surprising myself

Tonight I did two things that totally surprised me at first.

Backing up…

Boston Boy and I hadn’t chatted in several days since he was on a business trip. Rab Boy with a crush on me was told in no uncertain terms by mutual friends that I am not interested. In the meantime, my friends arranged a Shabbat lunch for me to meet a guy who is getting a math PhD. I’d met him ever so briefly at shul a week ago, then we were at the same table this past Friday night at a dinner at shul. Lunch was fun, Math Boy is a great guy, though he is on the quiet and shy side. He may or may not have noticed that I am, y’know, a girl. But we are hoping he will sort of ease into the idea of being interested in me. I made the chocolate mousse pie in this post, and I got the eggs right this time so it worked out much better.

Saturday night, I went to the lovely Samantha‘s pre-party, then to a fabulous holiday soiree. We were all dressed up to the nines, which is always fun. The party itself was fun but not quite my scene — the music wasn’t music I could really dance to, and the only people I knew were S. and her friends from the pre-party, and I’m not so good at meeting new people in such a huge venue. So I left on the early side, came home, and then went to my friend’s Chanukah party two buildings down from mine. It was very chill and relaxed, and nobody minded that I was overdressed (they were all in jeans, and I was still in my party dress).

Sunday was low-key, I slept in and stayed inside almost the whole day, then went to a surprise retirement party for my boss’s boss’s boss, in Pasadena. I carpooled with a coworker of mine who is my age. He worked at the company for 6 years (straight out of college), left for business school for two years, then came back over the summer, just a couple months after I started in my current department. He knew more people than I did at the retirement party, since he has more tenure than I (and had been in/near our current department all along, whereas I used to be in a very separate dep’t), so he introduced me to a lot of people. We arrived together, sat together, walked around together, and left together. And apparently, people commented that we made a really cute couple. Of course, he’s not Jewish. And he’s got a significant other. And, oh yeah, he’s gay. So…people are a little clueless. We were both very amused to hear the “gossip” this morning…

Anyway, all this leads me to tonight. Boston Boy and I had a video-chat. He’d found plane tickets for $300 that would have him arriving in LA around noon on Thursday 20 Dec., leaving at 1 p.m. on Tuesday 25 Dec., and he wanted to know if he should get them. We ended up having a long talk about religion. He grew up modern Orthodox, had some miserable experiences with day school and organized religion, was a “devout” atheist for a while, and has now settled into agnosticism. He keeps kosher, goes to shul once in a while…but he doesn’t know if G-d is real, he certainly doesn’t think G-d has any place in his life, and he still has a lot of resentment toward institutional Judaism. If he hadn’t been born Jewish, he thinks he’d be Buddhist or Hindu.

And I have issues with that. If he were actually here in LA, it would be worth it to meet him and see how things might go. If he were in Boston but were closer to me religiously, it would be worth it. (And on top of living in Boston, he has two cats, which is a deal-breaker for me anyway because I’m awfully fond of breathing.) But in the end, I said that I thought the proposed visit would be a bit too much too soon — five full days this early on seemed like more than I could handle. He thinks I’m the bee’s knees, and he would like us to stay in contact and maybe have a slightly shorter visit (like a 3-day weekend) in the future. I am OK with that for now.

And after that, I did what I think I should have done last week. I called Rab Boy and told him why I’m not interested in dating him right now (the timing in his life, as I described a couple posts ago), but making it very clear that I think he’s a great guy and I would really like us to be friends and keep getting to know each other. He was totally cool with that, and we ended up talking for a long time, which was nice. I could see him being an important person in my life — whether it’s just as a friend, or maybe someday as something more.

No word from Math Boy yet, but I am hoping…

Tomorrow night, for the 8th night of Chanukah, I am going to have some friends (including Rab Boy) over to light candles and eat pizza. I figured pizza is greasy, even if it’s not a traditional “fried-in-oil” Chanukah food. And one of my friends is going to make latkes because she said she is tired of frozen latkes and latkes from mixes.

And since Boston Boy is not coming to visit, I plan to go forward with my Christmas Eve cocktail party. I would love to put up mistletoe, but that would be just a little weird considering everyone will be Jewish!

In G-d’s hands

I don’t actually remember the d’rash from Friday night — but I remember what I took away from it. I’m in a good place, have been for a couple of weeks now, kind of like how I was back around Labor Day and High Holidays. I don’t know how long it will last, but for right now, I have decided I’m putting myself in G-d’s hands. I’m going to try to stop fighting and struggling, and just trust that G-d is leading me on whatever path G-d wants for me. I am hoping / praying / believing that G-d has a plan for me. And if takes me longer than it took others to reach certain places on the path, well, I’m trusting G-d. G-d knows a whole lot more than I do, and maybe G-d thinks I need more time than others do to be ready for wherever this path takes me. If my path is meant to lead me to Boston Boy (who has looked at plane tickets but hasn’t booked anything; we’ve logged at least a dozen hours in total IM/phone/video-chat time), great. If it leads me to the JDate guy in LA I’ve e-mailed with a couple of times, great. If it leads me to the guy my friends are hoping to set me up with at Shabbat lunch this coming week, great. And if it leads me somewhere else completely — that’s great, too.

The d’rash on Shabbat morning was really cool. The rabbi who gave the d’rash said she wanted to focus on a small bit of the text that is often overlooked in favor of the bigger stories (Joseph’s coat, his dreams, being thrown in the pit, sold into slavery and sold again, rising to power, resisting Potiphar’s wife, being thrown in jail, more dreams, etc.). What she focused on was a mere three pesukim (verses) – Gen. 37:15-17, as follows:

15. A man discovered him [Joseph], and behold! — he was wandering in the field; the man asked him, saying, “What do you seek?” 16. And he said, “My brothers do I seek; tell me, please, where they are pasturing.” 17. The man said – “They have journeyed on from here, for I heard them saying, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

This “man” is believed by some commentators to be the angel Gabriel. He plays an important role. His question — “What do you seek?” — is a question we could all ask anyone and everyone we meet. And by telling Joseph how to find what he seeks — that is, where his brothers have gone — he sets into motion all the rest of the Children of Israel’s destiny…if Joseph hadn’t found his brothers, he wouldn’t have been put into the pit; if not for that, he wouldn’t have been taken by the Midianites; if not for that, he wouldn’t have been sold to the Ishmaelites; if not, he wouldn’t have wound up in Egypt; if not, he wouldn’t have saved Egypt from the famine; if not, he wouldn’t have saved his family from the famine; if not, Jacob and the rest of his children wouldn’t have moved to Egypt; if not, the Children of Israel wouldn’t have been enslaved; if not, Moshe wouldn’t have arisen as a leader; if not, the Children of Israel wouldn’t have been redeemed by G-d; if not, there would have been no revelation at Sinai, no Ten Commandments, no wandering through the desert, no deliverance into the Promised Land.

And yet this man, this ish, is given no name in our narrative; and the speculation that he was Gabriel is merely that: speculation. Each of us can play either role in the story. We can encounter people who are our angels, who set us on the right path toward our destinies, even if our interaction with them is brief and seeminly insignificant. And we can encounter others and be their angels; the words we choose to say, the questions we choose to ask, the answers we choose to give can shape the lives of the people with whom we come into contact. In any moment — in every moment — it is possibly that we are acting as the agent of the Divine.

So. For the moment, at least, I am opening myself to G-d’s will. I will try to be aware, be present, be mindful in each moment, lest I miss the sign beckoning me toward my destiny. And I will try, too, to play my part in leading others toward the paths they are meant to travel. Godspeed, all of us.

The multiplicity of one-ness

Last post, I wrote:

“Must not get too attached to Boston Boy. (Too late!)”

Well, apparently I’m not alone. We IM’ed for a while this evening, during which time he wrote:

In all honesty, I do think this could be the beginning of something more substantial then just entertaining flirtation.

From there, there was a bit (a very little bit) of discussion of that concept…during which he worried I might think he was nuts, to which I responded, “Not nuts, and I’m glad you said it first.” There was also a bit of discussion wherein we found that we both believe that there is more than one “The One” out there for any given individual. And we both acknowledged that “The Multiplicity of Ones” was clearly the title of a math paper just begging to be written.

Still not really holding my breath. Well, maybe a little.

But anyway, it put me in a super-good mood. And now I am exhausted, so off to bed I go.

This, that, and the other thing

Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful, of course, because I got to spend lots of quality time with my parents. I got a haircut while I was there — my first-ever experience with layers — and continued my streak of having good things happen when I go to my parents’ synagogue. Back when I lived in New York, I went to shul with my folks and first met a friend of theirs who said, “You’re single, and you went to the big H, and you live in New York? I have a nephew who has all three of those things in common with you. If you’re interested, give me your card, and I’ll have him call you.” Minutes later, I met other friends of my parents who said, “We were planning to go to New York for our anniversary, and we bought to tickets to Madame Butterfly at the Met. But then we decided to go to Israel instead. And our opera tickets are non-refundable. Would you like them?” So I had not just a date, but a place to go with said date. (The opera was wonderful. The guy was pretty good — three or four good dates — right up until he disappeared off the face of the earth.)

So this time, I met an allergist friend of my parents, who said that my being allergic to nickel and unable to wear even 18K or sterling silver earrings didn’t mean that all was lost…He recommended I try titanium earrings, which are apparently super-duper-hyper-hypo-allergenic. I haven’t worn earrnings since my brother’s wedding 4 years ago. Generally, I wear earrnings once every several years, and then only for a few hours…and then my ears are red and painful for the next 3 or 4 days. But I’ve been wearing these 24/7 since Sunday morning, and my ears look fine. I desperately want to take them out (they hurt a bit, and I miss sleeping on my side), but I’ve essentially re-pierced my ears, and “they” (my parents and the chick at the Piercing Pagoda) agree that I need to leave in the earrings for several WEEKS. I suppose I must suffer for my beauty… ;)

Tonight I caught up with Boston Boy for the first time since the phone convo I wrote about before. We talked on the phone for an hour or so…then realized, we both have computers with web-cams, so we video-chatted on Skype for another hour and a half. SO much fun. He has a fatal flaw, though (well, besides, y’know, living in Boston) — he has two cats. And I am super-duper allergic to cats. And, really, anything with fur. That’s in addition to nickel (which translates to, I’m allergic to cheap jewelry, which honestly isn’t so bad). And one antibiotic. And certain vegetables. And laundry detergents with fragrances in them. Yeah, it’s fun to be me.

Anyway. Must not get too attached to Boston Boy. (Too late!)

Closer to home, there’s a rab student with a BIG crush on me. Sweet guy, but not really ready for a relationship, I’m thinking. He converted to Judaism (not sure when, at least a few years ago though). He recently – like a couple months ago – ended a 4-year relationship. Then he kinda went crazy with the drinking and the partying and such. Then he took a Nazarite vow (no meat, no alcohol, no haircuts — think Samson, as in “and Delilah”) for a month to cleanse his system. That month ended just recently. So I’m thinking, he needs to get to know himself again, and figure out who and what and where he is in life. But he invited me to a party on Sat. night, which beats spending $36 for a Federation Chanukah party with a bunch of people I won’t know (this party will be a bunch of people I do know, plus some I don’t know).

And now I must get back to cleaning (well, straightening up and putting stuff away) in preparation for my super-duper cleaning dude who comes tomorrow.

Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all! I called my sister this morning to wish her a happy T’giving, and mentioned that I’m a whole lot more thankful this year than last. I am grateful for my amazing family, my incredible friends, my supportive community. I am grateful to G-d for giving me the strength I needed to survive the past year. I’m grateful to my ex for calling off the wedding, because if he hadn’t, I suspect we’d be divorcing. And I am grateful for the many, many blessings in my life.

And in other news, I’ve been tagged by the lovely Samantha.

Here are the Rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.

OK, here we go…

1. I hate walking less than about 10 feet behind someone. I will put on a burst of speed and pass the offender. Often when this happens, I have a racetrack commentary in my head: “And Midnite99 is closing in…and she takes a commanding lead!” Bizarre.

2. I was once in a fight, in junior high school. I use the term “fight” loosely, because really I was knocked around a few times; I suspect I did absolutely nothing defensive or offensive in said “fight.” Some girl a year ahead of me (and at least two years older than I, since I am young for my year) and somewhat bigger than I made lewd, insulting comments about my sister at lunch. I said, “You can’t say that about my sister.” She said, “Who’s gonna stop me — you?” I gulped, swallowed, and said, “Um, yeah!” None of my friends were in my lunch period, because they were all in band or chorus and had a later lunch. So this girl led me out of the cafeteria into the anteroom that had racks for books and backpacks, and she slammed me into it a few times, then walked away, laughing. I stood there, stunned, for a few minutes, then went to the principal’s office because I didn’t know where else to go. He asked what had happened and I told him, though I refused to repeat what the girl had said (to this day, I’ve never told anyone). Apparently, he called my Mom at work and told her, “Your daughter Midnite99 was in a fight today — and we’re so proud of her!”

3. I have a terrible short-term memory. If I don’t write it down immediately, I will forget it. This is true at work, at home, etc. If I have to do an errand after work and it’s not on my usual path, I will sing a song about it over and over and over until I’ve turned onto the proper street or what have you. For example: “I’m gonna get some gas today, gas today, gas today. I’m gonna get some gas today, before my car runs out.”

4. I’ve more or less given up my infeasible dream of being an astronaut, because (even post-LASIK) my vision isn’t good enough, and I don’t know any astrophysics. But if I could do absolutely anything in the world and not have to worry about money, I would want to try my hand at being a writer.

5. I’m still sort of semi-secretly hoping that, living in LA, I will eventually be discovered and cast in a movie and become a star.

OK, here’s where I’m supposed to tag 5 people. But there aren’t so many people who have blogs of their own who know about this blog, so that will be tricky. But I can do three: Stacey, Loverville, and Michelle — tag, you’re it!

Moving on

Thanks for the support…I saw it coming, of course, so it’s not such a heartbreak. It’s just disappointing. But plenty of fish and all that. So I’m back on JDate, though I haven’t paid yet this time ’round. Of course, the most interesting guy is one I first “met” in February who’s just peachy-keen except for one fatal flaw: he lives in Boston. Now, I know that R and J met on JDate whilst 3,000 miles apart, and their courtship had a gloriously happy ending in the form of a beautiful wedding a year and a half ago. But I’m not really expecting that to happen for me, because, well, those kinds of things never happen to me. I don’t live a fairy-tale life. But BostonBoy and I did IM for a while Saturday night and again Sunday evening, and then we ended up talking on the phone for a little over an hour Sunday night. Fun stuff. He might be visiting a friend in San Diego in the next month or two, but I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Tonight was fun — sushi with a friend, followed by my college friends’ annual Wild Turkey pre-T’giving party. To get in the door, you have to drink a shot of Wild Turkey. The evite says that if you don’t drink alcohol, you’re exempt; and if you’re vegetarian, they’ll provide a shot of Wild Tofurkey. Heh. The friends who were hosting are gay, and I was amazed to find one other woman there. We bonded over the fact that none of the guys noticed how cute we looked.

Tomorrow I am taking the bus to work to get there at 7, then SuperShuttle will pick me up at 2 to go to LAX with about 10 million of my closest friends. Presuming that the TSA understands that pie is not liquid, I will arrive in AZ with a crustless cranberry pie, as follows…

Crustless Cranberry Pie
(adapted from here)

1/2 c white flour
1/2 c wheat flour
1 c sugar/Splenda baking blend
1/4 tsp salt
2 c cranberries
1/3 c slivered almonds
1/2 c applesauce
1/2 c Eggbeaters, beaten
1 tsp almond extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray 9 inch pie pan or springform.
3. Combine the flours, sugar and salt.
4. Stir in the cranberries and almonds; toss to coat.
5. Stir in the applesauce, Eggbeaters, and almond extract.
6. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Suddenly single

blah blah blah, “I like you very much and we have great chemistry…” blah blah blah, religion….blah blah blah, lifestyle…blah blah blah, “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

In an e-mail.

JDate, here I come. Again.

Wacky wild world wide web

Search terms that led people here

Food and recipes
chocolate appetizers
chocolate sushi recipes [ed. note: um, ew.]
using applesauce in wacky cake
worldwide weird recipes

Dating
“doesn’t want to date anyone”
first date played miniature golf in silence
“great guy” no chemistry
Why Are Boys So Weird [ed. note: if only I knew…]
asked me to marry him second date
a guy hasn’t called me back in a week
“scare him off” “love talking to him”

Random
is it ok to take 2 claritins? [ed. note: yes.]
funny stories of old married couples
mud wrestling [ed. note: heh.]
GODDESS. MUD WRESTLING
apt managers that wont listen
Control Freaks Torah

I am one of those melodramatic fools…

…neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it.

Argh.

I really, really wish I could just relax.

I saw A. four times last week. Pretty clear that he is interested in me, yes? But I last saw him Saturday night. We’ve e-mailed only a little; he has a bad headache and a ton of work and plans every night this week. I asked if, for a change, he’d like to come over and let me cook dinner for him this Saturday night, but he can’t because he’s having dinner at his Mom’s house with her and his aunts. Although I am venting to my friends (and my parents, and my brother-in-law), I am smart enough not to call him and say, “Pay attention to meeeeee!” I e-mailed him the other day, when he’d told me about his plans with family plus his work project that had sort of exploded, “Yikes, I hope things calm down soon. Will I at least get to see you again before T’giving? :)” He wrote back – a day later – a more chatty e-mail (still stressed) that included, “Hope all is well, and it will be before Turkey Day, I am sure!” So that was a little reassuring.

Tonight I am cooking and baking for Shabbat lunch. Once the peppers were stuffed and baked, the pumpkin bread was in the oven, and the chicken was marinating, I saw that he was still online at work, so I IMed him. It was a short conversation, nothing special, and I’d typed that I didn’t want to bother him at work and was really just saying hi. He wrote back that he actually had to go because he’s having dinner at a trendy new restaurant, and after a quick “talk to you later,” he signed off.

I know that he’s busy, and he has a life, and presumably he is still interested in me or he would either stop e-mailing or take the “in a relationship with Midnite99” out of his Facebook profile (yay Facebook) or actually, y’know, break up with me. I get that, intellectually. It’s just that thanks to my idiot ex, I am just so insecure that every new guy in my life is going to abandon me. Sigh.

My brother-in-law is in town for work, and we had dinner (kosher Subway) last night. His advice was not to worry. He told me, “You have to have the attitude that you’re the best girl in the world, the most beautiful, the smartest, and he’s lucky to have you.” My brother-in-law is pretty cool. He also said that although my ex was a horse’s patootie (as my father would say), I can’t blame other guys for that. My brother-in-law, in addition to being pretty cool, is also pretty smart.

And I KNOW all this stuff. Really, I do. Which is the most frustrating part, actually, because if I know it in my head, why am I having so much trouble knowing it in my heart?

Why, yes, it has been a long week, how’d you know?

* * *

For Shabbat lunch, I’m letting guests provide: green vegetable or salad, salatim (hummus, guacamole, etc), wine, fruit, and dessert. (It’s the first time I’ve “outsourced” dessert in AGES.) I am making:

* Chicken marinated in the same (store-bought) wasabi teryaki sauce that was so awesome on tofu last month.

* Stuffed peppers

Ingredients:
Cooking spray
8 bell peppers (red, orange, yellow — all taste better than green to me — just make sure they can stand up)
1 box Near East Mediterranean Curry couscous mix
1 onion, chopped
2 medium zucchini, chopped
oregano
salt
tomato-mushroom sauce [made last week (with some cherry tomatoes, tomato paste, mushrooms, garlic, and various spices) to go with spaghetti squash]
1/3 pound dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained [canned would work fine]

Preheat oven to 350.

Spray a baking dish big enough to hold 8 peppers. Cut tops off peppers, scoop out membranes and seeds. Put in baking dish and roast for 15 minutes, then remove from oven and cool until filling is ready — which in my case was the same time they were ready to come out of the oven.

Meanwhile:

Prepare couscous according to package directions.

Spray a large non-stick skillet with spray. Add onion, zucchini, oregano, and salt, and stir over medium heat about 5 minutes until most of their liquid has been released and evaporated, and veggies are soft. Remove from heat; stir in tomato sauce and chickpeas until well-mixed. Stir in couscous until well-mixed.

Carefully spoon mixture into peppers. Bake 15 minutes. (I had enough stuffing left over that I could have filled another couple of peppers, but the yellow ones were small and the orange ones were big but misshapen, leading to deceptively small cavities.)

If it weren’t a meat meal, I would have stirred some feta into the stuffing, or topped the peppers with grated parmesean.

* Spicy sweet potato “fries” — Slice a few sweet potatoes into wedges or fry-like shapes. Put in ziploc bag with a couple Tbsps olive oil, a few shakes each of salt, freshly ground pepper, cayenne pepper, and curry powder. Shake until all fries are coated evenly. Line a baking sheet with foil, spray with a bit more spray just to be safe. Dump fries onto sheet in a single layer if possible. Maybe season a bit more if you think you should. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then turn all fries over, and bake another 10 minutes. Serve with ketchup.

* Pumpkin bread to supplement the challah my Mom brought me Labor Day weekend

1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 cup sugar/Splenda mix
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup pumpkin purée
1/2 cup applesauce
2 eggs, beaten (1/2 cup Eggbeaters)
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
(or, replace the previous 3 with 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a loaf pan (9x5x3, maybe?) and set aside.

Mix flours, sugar/Splenda, and baking soda in large bowl.

Mix the pumpkin, applesauce, eggs, water, and spices together with a wooden spoon.

Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour the wet ingredients into the well. Mix with wooden spoon, but don’t over-mix.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until a toothpick poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean (took 52 minutes here). Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack. Wrap in foil until serving.