Erev Shabbos

1:12 PM - Ten years ago no longer seems like a long time to me. When I was ten it did. Yesterday I told a colleague that I recalled when he painted his face the four colors of the four grade teams of Shiriyah.  "That was a long time ago, Neil," he said to me. It was ten, maybe twelve years ago. I remember my parents thinking that I made a smart comment, one time, when I was a kid - probably about seven years old. They asked me if a certain relative was old and I said, "It depends who you put them next to." On a different but, in my soul, related note - whether or not ten years is a long time depends on who you ask.

3:06 PM - I'm cooking for Shabbos and for Shabbos guests - and for me.  I like cooking and I don't like cleaning.  I recall years ago reading a writer's comment (I wrote about it in this post, and got a kick from looking at this post from the good old days of the J-blogosphere. What a wide ranging post and eclectic array of comments!) that she had laundry strewn about her home and it was a worthy price to pay for being a successful, published author.  I don't know.  I think what ever we are in life, we have to - to some extent - strengthen the muscles of the weaker parts, of the things we are not.  I tend to say I'll cook and not clean, but life is about cooking and cleaning up while you cook.  We need to multitask and we need to balance pursuing the things that come naturally to us while strengthening those things that don't come easily to us.

3:50 PM - Time to finish up the food prep - the cooking and the cleaning.  Mi shetarch be'erev Shabbos yochal beShabbos.

4:15 PM - Closer yet.

Here are some links to my previous posts on Shemot.  And one more that came up when I searched Shmot.

My dad, he should live and be well, just expressed concern about me getting run down.  He knows me.

I do have the starts of a cold, the usual reaction to a week of extra push, pull, wear and tear.

Shabbos is coming, so are other guests, all of whom bring me joy and comfort.  One thing most of us agree on is that we don't want to be alone.  Perhaps that's what's behind the story of the Medrash that tells us that Shabbos complained that it had no pairing like the other six week-days.  G-d said that Shabbos' partner would be the Jewish people.  And Bialek said that more that the Jews have kept Shabbos, Shabbos has kept the Jews. I look forward to Shabbos, always.  I would yearn for her from anywhere, and I do. Soon Shabbos, and the rest.