Tag: tbhla

Weekend Observations

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

It’s been an interesting weekend so far.


This weekend, my daughter was supposed to attend a Temple conclave at Camp JCA Shalom in Malibu. Now, if it was me, I would have jumped at the chance! But she was hesitant. We brought her to Temple Friday afternoon, expecting her to get on the bus with the other campers. She was due to check in at 3:15 PM, and I had a 4:00 PM dentist appointment. But events conspired against us. First, we had some unexpected thunder and lightening cells in the valley. Pouring rain. Second, we had some unexpected separation anxiety cells in the Temple lobby. The net result: I missed my appointment (rescheduled to 3/23) and she was going to be driven up to camp Saturday morning.

So, Saturday morning, The plan for the day was for drop her at camp while my wife got her legs done; go out to the Fountain Pen Shop to pick up my pens; spend some afternoon time together; and then go to a free showing of The Last 5 Years my wife got us tickets for on Craigslist. Following the plan, I get S&F out of the house bright and early to get up to JCA Shalom. The normal route to get there is to take US 101 to Kanan Dume; Kanan Dume to Mulholland Hwy; Mullholland to Encinal Canyon, up a short road to Decker Cyn; Decker Cyn to Mulholland, and thence to the camp. First plot complication: Decker Canyon is closed due to storm damage. Have to run down Encinal to PCH, PCH to Mulholland, and then up to camp. We get there: Second plot complication: S&F isn’t sure she wants to stay. So I sit and wait, like a good dad, until she decides it is OK to stay. Of course, this makes it too late to go to the Fountain Pen Shop, so that’s scrapped. Around 11:45 AM, she decides she will stay the day, but I need to come back at 9:00 PM to pick her up. Call the wife—we release the theatre tickets. I head back home via a different, much better, route (Mulholland to Westlake Bl, down Westlake to US 101). You can imagine my mood.

Luckily, gf_guruilla and I did spend some time together in the afternoon. Some time with just the two of us was what we both really needed. Brightened my mood immensely!

We then went out for dinner (Roxie’s Famous Deli in Thousand Oaks), and did a little shopping. Drove up Westlake/Mulholland to camp, getting there around 9:00 PM. We just hung in the background talking to the camp director until the end of the Closing Circle (they had a great songleader: Robbo!). Finally picked up S&F. She had a great time, made a new friend, decided she prefered CHK/GHC to JCA Shalom, but still wanted to go home. Drove home, and we all went to bed.

So, we had a day whose plans were completely mucked up, and started out with everyone in a bad mood. We ended up with a pretty good day after all. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned there. I know that I was reminded that being a father means that you put your kid first, even thought that may means you get disappointed at times. There are sometimes larger responsibilities in life.


As I wrote Friday, I received a mailing from the HOA of the interval timeshare I now own in Kaanapali, Maui, HI. Since then, I’ve learned more about the situation. It’s a real mess. The impression I get is that there are a few disgruntled owners who don’t like the fact that fees were raised in order to get adequate reserves and security, and so now are making life miserable for the board, with claims and counterclaims, lawsuits and “confidential” documents, and loads of hurt feelings. Of course, I’m seeing this from the sides, not knowning the backstory having been dealing with my dad’s death when it happened. I did find this site with some information online, and I’ve been mailed more. I think I’ve got reading to do Monday.


Today. So what are we doing today. Most likely: staying home and cleaning up. This place is a mess. If I have some free time, I might work on doing some backed up FAQ updates. We’ll get S&F to clean her room (or at least, attempt to do so). Other than that: No plans.

Note: This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by California Highway Guy. You may comment either here or there (where there are comment(s)).

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Views From The Top of the Hill

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m home… and I’m tired. It’s been a long day.

We started with a family day at Religous School. The theme was “Honoring one parents”, as the students were studying that. The Rabbi pointed out how the Torah say “honor your father and mother” in one place, but “revere your mother and father” in another. We explored the difference on why the order was reversed, as well as the difference between honor and revere. The point was that this is more of an adult commandment, focusing on the relationship between adults and their parents at the end of their lives, so that the parents don’t lose respect. For example, you need to make sure their needs are taken care of (but not to your personal financial detriment), you need to not “sit in their chair” (i.e., attempt to take their place), you need to not contradict or argue with them (find another way to resolve the issue). We talked about why the father comes first on honor (which actually relates to support) vs the mother on revere (which comes from the word with the sense of fear): the rabbis indicated this is because children are used to the mother providing sustinence, and fearing the father. Quite interesting.

We also did singing with our kids, an art project, and a discussion. We also got to meet some more folks at Temple, and discovered our chiropractor is a member there (and has a son in our daughter’s class). We discovered this when I was complaining to my wife about my back bothering me, and she pointed to Ron and said: Go talk to him!

After that, it was Visit/Tour Day at camp. After driving up to Hilltop, we took a tour of the camp. I had forgotten how beautiful the view is from up at Hilltop; the picture to the right shows the view from the chapel. The camp is a lot smaller (120 campers vs. 250 campers), and is much more of a single family. For example, at Kramer, campers eat in cabin units, and do evening activities in units of 3-4 cabins. At Hilltop, you can eat with your friends, and evening activities are done as the camp. This should suit S&F much better. She also ran into folks she knew last year, discovered that classmates from temple will be at her session, and was being asked questions by potential new campers as she was someone there age who was there last year. I think she is now looking forward to camp. (Note: For those of you who are Jewish and have kids in 3rd through 9th grades, I highly recommend these camps. They are great for teaching Judaism, especially Reform Judaism, to kids.)

After that, I drove home from Malibu. A much easier drive than the last time, which was in pouring rain. I drove; everyone else slept. I’m tired now, but it was a good day. Camp is such a special place to me that it always leaves me feeling wonderful and relaxed. My safe home away from home as a kid. I thank my parents for sending me there.

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Views From The Top of the Hill

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m home… and I’m tired. It’s been a long day.

We started with a family day at Religous School. The theme was “Honoring one parents”, as the students were studying that. The Rabbi pointed out how the Torah say “honor your father and mother” in one place, but “revere your mother and father” in another. We explored the difference on why the order was reversed, as well as the difference between honor and revere. The point was that this is more of an adult commandment, focusing on the relationship between adults and their parents at the end of their lives, so that the parents don’t lose respect. For example, you need to make sure their needs are taken care of (but not to your personal financial detriment), you need to not “sit in their chair” (i.e., attempt to take their place), you need to not contradict or argue with them (find another way to resolve the issue). We talked about why the father comes first on honor (which actually relates to support) vs the mother on revere (which comes from the word with the sense of fear): the rabbis indicated this is because children are used to the mother providing sustinence, and fearing the father. Quite interesting.

We also did singing with our kids, an art project, and a discussion. We also got to meet some more folks at Temple, and discovered our chiropractor is a member there (and has a son in our daughter’s class). We discovered this when I was complaining to my wife about my back bothering me, and she pointed to Ron and said: Go talk to him!

After that, it was Visit/Tour Day at camp. After driving up to Hilltop, we took a tour of the camp. I had forgotten how beautiful the view is from up at Hilltop; the picture to the right shows the view from the chapel. The camp is a lot smaller (120 campers vs. 250 campers), and is much more of a single family. For example, at Kramer, campers eat in cabin units, and do evening activities in units of 3-4 cabins. At Hilltop, you can eat with your friends, and evening activities are done as the camp. This should suit S&F much better. She also ran into folks she knew last year, discovered that classmates from temple will be at her session, and was being asked questions by potential new campers as she was someone there age who was there last year. I think she is now looking forward to camp. (Note: For those of you who are Jewish and have kids in 3rd through 9th grades, I highly recommend these camps. They are great for teaching Judaism, especially Reform Judaism, to kids.)

After that, I drove home from Malibu. A much easier drive than the last time, which was in pouring rain. I drove; everyone else slept. I’m tired now, but it was a good day. Camp is such a special place to me that it always leaves me feeling wonderful and relaxed. My safe home away from home as a kid. I thank my parents for sending me there.

Note: This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by California Highway Guy. You may comment either here or there (where there are comment(s)).

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Two Steps to George McGovern

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Normally, in the morning, I read yesterday’s paper (because, when I get up, today’s paper hasn’t arrived yet). So, this morning, I read yesterday’s Daily News. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Jeanne Londe, who was my co-chair of Social Action when I was at Kol Tikvah, is good friends with George McGovern! I also learned that George McGovern likes Peter, Paul, and Mary and has a Newfoundland dog (just like ixixlix). Neat.

In other news, yesterday went well (other than another headache). I spent the day reorganizing my games into some new storage bins—I created bins for word games, trivia games, party games, and 6-8 hour games, and moved a batch of “old games that I likely won’t play but want to keep” to the garage. This freed up a batch of space, resulting in some cascade rearrangements. This is a good thing. The evening was the Tu B’Shevat seder at Temple Beth Hillel. The seder was the model of efficiency (Rabbi Jim starts and ends on time), but I found myself missing some aspects of TBT‘s seder. The TBH seder focuses on specific products from trees and their significance (figs, olives, pomegranates, dates, and almonds), whereas TBT‘s focused more on characteristics (eat the entire fruit, edible skin, inedible skin-edible fruit, eat the seeds, etc.). Thus, we really didn’t eat what we think of as fruit at TBH [except, perhaps, the figs] (i.e., kumquats, tangerines, apples, apricots). At least I was able to be a sycophant, giving a fig to my daughter.

[This post is illustrating a new user picture that was derived from a characture of me drawn for the 1993 ACSAC in Orlando.]

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Today, I Get To See Thomas

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Well, it’s railfest weekend at Orange Empire Railway Museum (actually, it is the 2nd railfest weekend, as we skipped the 1st weekend due to S&F’s birthday). It should be a fun weekend: I enjoy both of my assignments (car house host and Thomas host). We won’t have to rush on the food, as we still have tons of leftovers from the post-funeral reception (we’re bringing the hi-boys (wrap sandwiches) for lunch). I’ll also bring my copy of Ticket to Ride, and hopefully I’ll get some time to play it in town hall. I still encourage those who can make it out to Perris to find me and say “hi!”.

Yesterday was an at home day. I began by taking care of paperwork, in particular, going through all the financial records I brought back from my dad’s files, with the goal of Quicken™izing everything. I now know where everything is, on which side it belongs, and what we owe and who owes to us. I’ve provided all this information to my step-mother; I’m playing the same role here as I do at work: I’m simply being an honest broker.

[Climbs up on soapbox]

Lesson Learned: I learned a lesson while going through the paperwork, as the task was harder than it should be. Those of you who have elderly parents (especially where one has already died and you’re the closest sibling to where they live): Please make sure you understand their finances, where everything is stored, what accounts are where, in what names accounts are held.You’re not doing this for any future inheritance; rather, to make life easier should something unexpected happen. [Hell, you should live your life to make yourself financially stable on your lonesome.] Additionally, there is always the possibility that your parent’s mental faculties will slowly deteriorate, and you might not easily recognize it. By knowing what is going on with them, you can detect when something odd is happening.

There’s a Shel Silverstein poem about a little boy and a little old man. This makes the point of how old people are in many ways like little children. We ignore them; we marginalize them. We shouldn’t and mustn’t do that. As adults, we will eventually be put in the position of being parents to our parents. That responsibility is more than just putting them in an old-age home, or wiping their mouths when they drool. Just as parents ask their teenagers what’s happening in their lives, and watch out for their finances, we need to do the same for our parents. Please make sure you do that for your parents. I didn’t always do that with my dad, fearing his wrath if I asked the hard questions. I should have.

[Gets down from soapbox]

Yesterday was also a day of cleaning. We cleaned multiple rooms. We found yet another source of meal moths. We did all the backed up laundry. This place is starting to look somewhat normal again!

Thanks to Temple Beth Hillel’s early “Come as You Are” services, I arrive back home early enough to watch Enterprise last night. I don’t know if others have been watching it this season, but I think they’ve finally hit the right groove. Last season with the Xindi was drek and unwatchable; this year feels like the original series again. Hopefully the audience will realize that.

Well, time to go play on the trains.

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Mitzvah Day 2004

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today, our entire family participated in Valley Mitzvah Day 2004. As the Valley Alliance writes, “Over 3,000 volunteers from synagogues and organizations throughout the Conejo and West valleys will participate in more than 150 community improvement projects as part of Mitzvah Day, an annual celebration of tikkun olam, repairing the world, organized by The Jewish Federation Valley Alliance. Activities such as blood drives, clothing and food collection and distribution, tree planting, visiting the elderly, arts and crafts and handyman projects are designed to help the disabled, seniors, the homeless, the environment, children, animals and others in need in the Greater Los Angeles area. Projects are offered for all age groups and family-oriented activities are available.”

In our case, we participated at Temple Beth Hillel. The following is a list of what our congregation did; the ones we participated in are in bold:

  1. Blood Drive
  2. Cleaning up the Temple grounds
  3. Preparing Thanksgiving Gift Bags for the homeless. Background: In addition to its year round food pantry, we have a large operation feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving.
  4. Entertaining at a local convelescent hospital
  5. Singing at the Jewish Home for the Aged
  6. Planting trees with Treepeople
  7. Making Kippot for Cuban Jews
  8. Making backpacks with school supplies for needy students
  9. Making toys for children with cancer
  10. Making photo albums for foster children
  11. Making and planting flower pots for residents of a convalescent hospital
  12. Decorating lunch bags for lunches for the homeless

Many of these projects were done by religious school classes. It’s nice to see the variety of projects; at our former congregation, we usually just cleaned up the street in front of the congregation.

Be one with our family and our congregation. Share what you’ve done to make the world a better place today.

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Welcome to the Congregation

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Tonight, as it has apparently done since 1950, our new congregation hosted a “new member dinner” at the Rabbi’s house. As an aside, I learned a bit of the history of his house: it was built in 1938, and was one of the houses on the Whitsett ranch. It still has a covered porch and a full 2nd floor balcony, and has a wood 2nd floor on top of a weeping brick first floor. It faces to the south when all the other houses face west, because originally there were no houses in front of it (it predates the subdivision).

Anyway, tonight was the new member dinner. They got an ungodly number of new families (I’m thinking 30), so it was a pretty large dinner. There was the usual: introductions of programs, introductions of the rabbis, blessings before the meal, sukkot blessings (although no Birkat Hamazon, which I found interesting).

They also had all the new members introduce themselves. Here’s where I felt out of place. People would stand up and state their professions. Lawyer, Lawyer, Lawyer, Lawyer, Appelate Lawyer, Social Security Lawyer, Assistant District Attourney, Banker, Doctor, Teacher, Producer, Director, Casting, Production Manager for a Studio, etc. I stand up: ummm, I do computer security for an Aerospace firm. There was one other IT person there, and one other retired engineer. Last time I felt this was was back when I was at Wilshire, when everyone wanted to grow up to be a doctor or lawyer… and I wanted to go into computers.

So, where are the Jews in the middle/lower ends of the economic spectrum? The blue collar Jews? The engineers? Perhaps they didn’t come to dinner. Perhaps, it is as a friend of ours noted: there are no more aerospace engineering jobs in the San Fernando Valley (and no manufacturing jobs). If I went to the congregation in Redondo Beach, would I find the engineers? Possibly.

Oh well. It still is a welcoming congregation, and I got a chance to plug the FAQ and the mailing list. I guess it means I’m a shoo-in if I want to do their web page 🙂 [No, I won’t, at least until we’ve been there a year!]

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To The Sukkah/I Will Bring/A Big Red Apple/On A String

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Tonight, we went to Sukkot services at Temple Beth Hillel. They had a relatively large sukkah that was built by brotherhood, with canvas sides.

We started by picking up dinner at Boston Market. There was a picnic dinner on the lawn at Temple. We were greeted by the Rabbis, and enjoyed a delightful dinner. We got S&F to wear her shirt from Camp Hess Kramer… and guess what… a kid from her class came over to her and asked if she attended his session. It turns out they were in cabins across from each other at the same session (Genesis: She was in Davina, he was in Zeke). It totally surprised S&F.

I’d guess there were about 35 families for the Sukkot picnic and service. The Rabbi joked that there were more when Sukkot fell on Shabbat; he said (jokingly) that next year we should move it to a more popular date.

The Rabbis and the Cantor led a short service, which included a story from Rabbi Sarah (who was wandering around with her 17 month old daughter). It was all nice and lovely. A very relaxing evening. It ended with a friendship circles and closing prayers.

Now we’re at home. S&F is having to write a 7-para. essay… and her topic is why Bush should not be reelected. Gotta start ’em young!

P.S.: For those aware of my “arm tingling” problem: it is now clearly positional. Doesn’t make a difference what I’m doing with that arm. I look down towards my chest… and tingle. Look straight ahead, and I’m fine. Musta’ tweaked something in my neck.

P.P.S.: Remember the “Al Chayts for George Bush” I posted on Yom Kippur? We printed out a copy for Rabbi Jim, who loved it. He said he was going to mail copies of it to all the Republicans who objected to his sermon!

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