I actually had the chance to sit in what are arguably the two best economy class seats on the planes.  The first flight (TLV to LHR) I sat in the last row in front of the toilets.  They leave space behind this row so you can still recline (instead of being stuck against the wall).  That also means you can use that space to stow hand luggage and not have to fight with the overhead bins.  Other than that, the seat is basically the same as any other.

The real treat was my second flight.  I was able to check in for that flight almost 10 hours before everyone else (24 hours early check in, but I had to check in for my first flight) which means I had most of the plane to choose from.  I (of course) took the emergency exit row at the front of economy class.  On 747s, every economy row has three seats, an aisle, three seats, an aisle, and three seats.  In the exit row, its only two seats on either side (still three in the middle).  I took the window side seat in the exit row, which basically meant I was rolling around in space.

The distinct disadvantage to this option is actually the opposite of the advantage to the back (toilet) row.  There’s no seat in front of so you have nowhere but the overhead bins to stow your hand luggage.  Unfortunately, safety policy says you have to keep the area immediately in front of you clear during takeoff and landing.  Lacking a seat in front of you also means the entertainment console and tray table cannot be in the same orientation as a normal seat.  The tray table is defintely worse.  It comes out of the armrest to your right and sits about an inch lower on your lap than the normal tray tables do.  It’s also quite a bit smaller.

On the other hand, the entertainment screen is much better.  It extends out on a fully adjustable arm from under the seat.  Instead of just having a limited tilt in the headrest of the seat in front of you, you get full 360 degree control.  That means you get a good angle on the screen no matter how you decide to sit.

The extra space was just as good as I had hoped/expected, and I’m definitely not complaining about the seat in general, but it did have one serious problem… NOISE.  It turns out that air passing by an, albeit sealed, emergency exit door at 500 miles an hour is really loud.  I kid you not, I couldn’t here the stewardess standing three feet away from me.  I couldn’t here the headphones on my ears without cranking them all the way up AND pressing them against my ears.  I don’t know how I managed to sleep with that noice (b”h I did).  I also noticed the pressure change much more from this seat.  That was probably also caused by proximity to the exit door.  I probably popped my ears ten times during takeoff and twenty during landing (NOTE: I didn’t acutally pop my ears more during landing.  It just sounds cooler if it happened more the second time).

We landed at O’Hare about twenty minutes early.  Besides all the in-flight advantages of an exit row seat, there’s post flight advantages.  First off, you have plenty of room to stand up straight away and to gather your belongings from the overhead compartments.  Second, the seats are the in the first row of economy.  That means you’re one of the first people off the plane after it’s landed.  I got to immigration pretty quickly and had only a short line.  My bag was one of the first twenty off the carousel (when you enter the US, you retrieve your bag in between immigration and customs) so I got to customs even faster.  That meant I was out of customs and in the International Arrivals lobby at O’Hare, Terminal 5 a mere 15 minutes after deplaning.  Combined with the plane landing early, I was ready to be picked up at the time I told Jeff the plane would be landing.

In my infinite wisdom, I also told Jeff to expect things to be slow.  See, when Ashira came into the US a couple of months ago, her father waited for her to clear customs for almost an hour.  I told Jeff this fully expecting a similar wait time.  He was, of course, more than willing to oblige and went out to dinner before picking me up.  That meant I called him to say “I’m ready” while he was eating.  I can’t say I blame him, I’m the one that said I probably wouldn’t be ready until 9ish.  In the end, he picked me up around 9, like the original plan had been.  It took us awhile to get to his house, but that’s a story for another time.

Just a quick note: During the CA Court Case on Prop 8 there were two serious misconceptions about exactly what the Justices were deciding.  First, there were those who thought the justices had to choose whether or not Prop 8, and therefore same-sex marriage, was a morally correct choice.  Second, some people thought the justices were deciding whether Prop 8 violated the equal protection clauses of the CA Constitution.  As Chief Justice George indicated in his majority opinion, the justices were faced with a question purely on the technical aspects of amending the CA Constitution.  The decision they rendered said Proposition 8 did not violate any technical aspects of CA amendment procedure and is therefore a valid amendment without making any comment on Prop 8 itself.

This federal challenge will be of a similar vein to the CA case.  While the courts will certainly discuss qualitative aspects of Prop 8, they’ll be doing it from a technical aspect.  The court will ask questions like: 1) Do same-sex couples constitute a suspect class, 2) Does the language of Prop 8 specifically discriminate against same-sex couples, 3) Do “domestic partnership” and “marriage” constitute substantively different institutions in terms of equal protection, 4) Does DOMA fall within the confines of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, 5) If yes to 4, does that make DOMA support to Prop 8, and several others.  You’ll notice they’re all dealing technical/mechanical aspects of the operation of American law.

I think the two most interesting aspects to this case will be the suspect class designation and the application of the equal protection clause.  I’ll deal with them each separately.

First, the suspect class.  Briefly, a suspect class is a designation of a class of people (by race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, etc) that has historically been discriminated against in legal policy.  Suspect classes enjoy certain automatic protections/assumptions in cases involving them and equal protection.  Andrew mentioned there are certain “three-part tests” and “case named rules” that partially govern the designation of suspect classes, but the entire area is rather murky.  Jeff also mentioned that he hopes the court would identify same-sex couples as a quasi-suspect class.  I haven’t asked directly, but it seems to me, that means he doesn’t think same-sex couples properly fit the bill for a suspect class either.

Historically, the most well known suspect class (and perhaps the birth of the term) is race.  Countless laws and policies have targeted Americans based on their race since the founding of the country.  These laws range from those permitting slavery, to those denying citizenship, to those denying the vote.  Even after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, policies like the Jim Crow laws existed to guarantee a lower standard of living to African-Americans.  Even after that, businesses colluded to systematically deny rights to African-Americans.  All told, African-Americans fought a constant uphill battle on all fronts for the vast majority of their civil rights, resulting in their designation as a suspect class.

Gender is definitely the number two candidate in the suspect class list, however, as Jeff pointed out, federal courts have seldom treated it on the same level as race.  Historically speaking, this makes sense.  It’s true that women faced several of the same challenges African-Americans before them had faced (ie voting, workers rights).  The difference is, women were fighting against laws that didn’t allow them to vote/work.  African-americans were fighting laws that specifically forbade them to vote/work/etc.  In fact, women never faced non-citizenship.  They didn’t face angry mobs ready to lynch them.  They didn’t have to worry about walking home to late at night.  Yes, gender has some claim to the title suspect class, but certainly nowhere near the level that race does.

Finally comes along same-sex couple’s.  They had citizenship.  They had the vote.  They even had worker’s rights.  They had to fight for visitation rights, adoption rights, power of attorney rights, and other family related rights.  If the measuring stick for suspect class status is number/variety of discriminatory policies, same-sex couples certainly fail.  If its quality of rights discriminated, same-sex couples may fail.  Family rights are certainly important, but are they equally as important as basic civil rights (ie property, voting, working)?

The second point is the application of the equal protection clause in the prop 8 case.  Although when the court overturned Prop 22 (legalizing same-sex marriage) in May, they specifically identified differences between the CA institutions of “marriage” and “domestic partnership” (on a state, not federal level), they seem to have changed their minds in their current decision.  In fact, the majority opinion clearly states on page 11: “As explained below, Proposition 8 does not abrogate any of these state constitutional rights, but instead carves out a narrow exception applicable only to access to the designation of the term ‘marriage,’ but not to any other of ‘the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage . . .’ (Marriage Cases, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 781), such as the right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship with the person of one’s choice and to raise children within that family.”

The CA Supreme Court clearly established that this case has become about only the term marriage!  They acknowledge that two separate institutions (ie “marriage” and “domestic partnership”) exist in CA, but they find them to be subtantively equal devices.  Certainly, the court will have to consider whether or not this is the case Brown v. Board was referring to when they said “separate but equal is inherently unequal.”  The court there basically said “you can’t have two different things be equal,” but the CA Supreme said just opposite, “these two separate things are equal!”

The CA Supreme Court was most certainly aware of the Brown v. Board decision when they rendered their decision in this case.  What grounds did they have to go against the Brown precendent and claim that these two are equal?  Perhaps the difference is, in Brown, the court dealt with tangible things (buildings, teachers, etc).  Here, the court dealt with a term.  Seemingly, the two are different.

Ultimately, is that difference (defined by the CA Supreme Court) enough to exclude Prop 8 from the “Equal Protection Clause”?  It will be interesting to see how the US Supreme Court decides on this.

“[T]he judiciary’s authority in applying the state Constitution always has been limited by the content of the provisions set forth in our Constitution, and that limitation remains unchanged.” – CA Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George,

Anywho, I finally found Mr. James I reading the latest revisions (he may have said translations, I’m not sure) to his Version of El Bible.  I considered myself incredibly lucky at that moment, because I had come with just such a question.  I was planning on writing a blog post for my family, and needed to know what the official English translation of “הקיץ נכנס לירושלים” was.  It’s not that I don’t know how to translate it (hint: it means “summer has arrived in Jerusalem”), I just wanted to make sure I was translating it correctly.  Turns out I wasn’t, and that’s how we arrived at our title for this blog post.

Back to the year 5769 (2009), I wanted to tell you all about what summer is like in this part of the world.  I remember visiting the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum once.  They told us there that Jerusalam and San Diego are on almost the exact same latitude, and have remarkably similar weather conditions.  I suppose on some level, I believed them at the time, but not like I believe them now.

For starters, it gets hot here.  Not quite like it used to get in El Cajon, but hot nothetheless.  Midday runs in the mid-nineties and midnight runs in the high-sixties.  It’s also a dry heat, like San Diego.  I suppose the only other major difference is we have wind (I live on a mountain).  It’s not as strong as it was in winter, but it’s here nontheless.

If you didn’t know, Jerusalem is a very lush part of the world.  In fact, every day on the way to the beis, I’m surrounded by trees, flowers, shrubs, and foliage in general.  The entire city is in bloom around me with roses and I can’t wait to go see gan hav’radim (the state’s official rose garden) sometime this summer.  The downside to all this beauty is the bugs.  I remember having some bugs basically year-round in San Diego, but never like this.  Actually, something occurred to me.  The only place I ever remember bugs like this is summer camp.  Where there trees.  Lots of them.

We’re not exactly conseverative with keeping the doors closed (no A/C), so we probably bring some of this on ourselves… but honestly, I see multiple mosquitos waiting to feast on my neck every night.  I mean, if I wasn’t so religious that I insist on wearing long sleeve collar shirts and slacks even in the heat, I would be a mountain of bug bites by now!

The last thing about summer here really isn’t all that unique.  The days are longer, and they feel a heck of a lot lazier.  Yeshiva guys are dropping left and right taking beach days, park days, not-in-yeshiva-days, and what not.  And what’s the Rosh Yeshiva doing at the same time?  He’s giving shiur every day, and not the normal 1.5 hour shiur either… he’s been averaging 2.5 hours lately.  He’s giving va’adim (more informal shiurim specifically dealing with what we’re doing wrong and how to fix it) every night (he normally gives one a week, most).  He gave the first shmuess (basically a longer version of a va’ad) he’s given in months.  Basically, he’s laying all the learning on THICK.  I guess he doesn’t think summer should be so lazy.

Altogether, its very nice having summer.  It’s harder to get out of bed at 6:30 (I think that’s the heat), but the walk to the beis is a heck of a lot nicer.  Hope summer is just as beautiful wherever you all are.

What I’m actually referring to is my uncanny ability to lose an item only to find it in my laundry basket a week later.  Perhaps the most notable example of this trend is the semester I lost my backpack (with my books, notes, etc) the week before finals.

Turns out moving to Israel did a whole lot of nothing to fix this problem.  Summer just started here in Israel and it was time to switch from my comforter to a simple top sheet.  Last night, I came back from night seder (late night learning, 8:30-11:00 PM) and found that the top sheet was missing.  My first thought was that it must have fallen behind my bed (as often happens with smaller items).  I moved the bed and searched around.  No luck.

My roommate walked in shortly after and found me looking for said top sheet.  He’s a pretty nice guy, so he asked what I was looking for.  I told him it was my sheet, and after recovering from a good laugh, he started to help me look.  By this point, we had moved on from my stuff and were looking through the entire dira.  I mean, I don’t really think any of my dira mates intentionally took the sheet, but maybe it fell on the ground, got kicked across the room, and then stowed somewhere.  Who knows.

Unfortunately, the dira search turned out to be just as fruitless as the room search.  At that moment, I was struck with the a unconfortable thought: the dira had been robbed before, maybe it was robbed again.  But then of course, I realized, who would steal a top sheet?  Especially an unlaundered one?

Disheartened, I gave up my search for the night.  I got ready for bed, and twenty minutes later I was saying the bedtime shema.  Bedtime shema consists of a blessing, followed by the shema, followed by about ten paragraphs of psalms and verses.  It normally takes about five minutes to say, and then you go to straight to sleep.

That night, I was somewhere in the midst of the paragraphs when I figured out what had happened to my sheet.  Earlier the same day I had done my laundry.  Now, I don’t any laundry bags, it all just gets shoved under my bed until its time to do it.  That means that come laundry day, I have to sort the whole pile.  I only have three loads, so its not so bad: 1) white undershirts, 2) dry clean, 3) everything else.  After the sort, I put the first load into the wash, put the second back on the ground to do later, and put the dry clean stuff into a bag.

The most convenient place to sor tthe dirty laundry is on my bed.  Normally, I have a big comforter sitting on there, so there’s no chance it will blend into the rest of my clothes.  A PLAIN WHITE top sheet, unfortunately, blends in with my dry cleaning much better.  That’s right, at the end of the whole story, my sheet was in the dry cleaning bag.

Being the highly trained mechanical engineer that he is, it took Alex all of five seconds after he got out of the car to surmise that I’m Orthodox.  I think the nose probably gave me away.  I took him to Heimishe, an awesome local yiddishe restaurant.  They serve sweet and sour cabbage there.  And kishke!  Actually, I shouldn’t really say I took him, because he ended up taking the check at the end.  I offered, but he insisted.  After all, he’s the one of the two of us with a job.

He doesn’t think so, but his English is quite good, especially considering its his third language.  He speaks Russian first (which he still speaks at home with his wife and kids), then Hebrew (which he learned when he came here) and finally English.  In fact, he told me I’m the first person he’s spoken English with in quite a long time.  We ran into a snag or two when he didn’t know a certain word, but I know enough Hebrew, and he’s a good enough mime, that we managed to work it out.

He works up in Haifa as a shift supervisor on their version of the subway.  Apparently, its a very small scale operation there, nothing like Moscow or New York.  Considering he came from Moscow as a qualified mechanical engineer, it’s not exactly the job would expect him to have.  Apparently though, technical jobs in Israel are not as numerous as Nefesh b’Nefesh would like you to believe.  The current population estimate puts all of Israel just under 7.5 million people.  Just the city of LA has 3.8 million.  The urban area has 11.8 million, and the greater metropolitan area has 17.8 million.  Heck, even Fresno has half a million people in it.  That’s right, Fresno, middle-of-nowhere, CA, has almost 1/7 the population of the entire country of Israel.

Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), the capitol, the most important city, the center of everything in this country?  700,000 in 2007.  That’s a mere 200,000 more than Fresburg.  And I wonder why there aren’t many jobs.  Turns out, all those top rated Israeli schools keep turning out qualified young professionals.  I’ll tell you what they don’t keep turning though.  Jobs for all those professionals to go fill.

Anyways, long story short, when Alex got here from Moscow, he found himself incredibly qualified to do all the non-existent mechanical engineering jobs Israel had to offer.  The aliyah money kept him going for awhile, but he figured, it would run out eventually, and he needed a job.  Hence, his switch over to the completely unrelated field of subway maintenance.

After lunch, we went down to Gan Sacher.  That’s the giant open park right in front of Knesset (Congress) and the Supreme Court.  It’s kind of like the Israeli version of Central Park meets the Washington Plaza.  Turns out that in twenty years of living in Israel, Alex had never been there.  I suppose it’s nothing to write home about, but it was still kind of fun.  We sat there and just chatted for a couple of hours.  I told him about our family and he told me about his.  We talked a little bit about me becoming religious, but were a bit shy on the subject.

Turns out chilonim (Hebrew for “secular”) and da’atim (Hebrew for “religious”) don’t get along in Israel.  Mostly because, unlike the US, Israeli chilonim find themselves forced to support and participate in da’ati beliefs all the time.  Needless to say, it causes tension.  Just one example: da’atim in general and chareidim (the Orthodox da’atim) specifically won’t go to the army if they can avoid it.  Chilonim in general either support the army, or are willing to go because it’s their civic duty.  They hate the fact the chareidim get out of their army service.

Anyways, B”H, we stayed away from all those touchy subjects so we wouldn’t come to fight over them.  No sense in fighting with family, especially if we both know we’re not going to end up agreeing.

Overall, it was very cool having a chance to meet Alex.  Some time after I visit the US, I’m planning on trying to set up a visit to see him in Haifa.  I’ve never been up north, so it will be a cool chance to see more of Israel, and to get to know the family a bit better.

Outside, you could see without a problem.  Actually, there was enough light from lamps and the like to keep reading from the siddur (prayer book).  Inside?  You can see barely see your neighbor, let alone the siddur.  Luckily, we do the introductory section of Friday night prayers every week, so we were able to finish from memory.

The main section of Friday night is a bit more complicated.  It’s similar to the evening prayer we say every night (which almost every Orthodox male knows by heart).  There are a number of key differences however that can throw you off if you’re not paying attention and/or looking in your siddur.  It happens that there’s a built in correction to this problem in the format of an Orthodox prayer service.  He’s called the shaliach tzibbur (lit. “agent of the community”), or the chazzan.  Basically, he says all the prayers out loud after we say them, and we respond amen.  This Friday, he said them out loud immediately, and people who weren’t positive on the words followed along.

We finished the service about thirty minutes later.  Normally people stay after to learn, but with no light, the shul cleared out almost immediately.  — B”H, there’s another beis (study hall) we learn in later on Friday nights.  That beis still had its lights on, so learning later was unimpeded. — Anyways, I had heard the story of how the lights went out by the time I made it from shul to my Friday night meal.

Let me just preface this by saying that Midrash Shmuel, really, all of Sha’arei Chesed, is a very close community.  I don’t just know the guys in Medrash, I know their wives and kids.  I know them because they’re always around.  At all three of our daily prayers, there’s at least six or seven kids (from babies to seven year olds) running around.  Shabbos is anything but an exception.  In fact, there’s normally twice as many kids at Shabbos as at a normal day.

It turns out that one of those kids was having a little too much fun during Friday night prayers.  Somehow (we’re not quite clear on how) one of the outdoor light fixtures had it’s bulb break out.  It was part of a series circuit, so no bulb meant no power for the whole building.  Now, rather than getting a new bulb (it was probably almost Shabbos), the guy who found it broken did a quick patch job.  He took the wires from the lamp, twisted them together, and tucked the fix-up behind the fixture.  Worked great.  Little did he know seven year old hand would eventually find that patch-job and start playing with it.  It took all of two seconds before the kid touched two live wires that shouldn’t have been touched (I imagine he somehow grounded the circuit), got the shock of his life, and blew the entire building’s power.

Thank G-d, the kid was alright.  In fact, he was insanely proud of the cool “zap” he’d made.  He wanted to figure how to do it again.  Unfortunately, the temporary patch-job had become fused.  I never actually saw the problem site, so I’m not exactly sure what fused to what, but apparently, it was bad enough that a professional was going to have to fix it.  That meant waiting until after Shabbos.

After such an exciting prayer service, I figured nothing could go wrong at dinner.  Except, it did.  Halfway through the main course, the lights out.  Again.  This time the explanation was much simpler: the host had accidentally misset the timer on his lights.  We all got a kick out of it, and there was enough light from the kitchen to keep eating.  We carried on the meal for about forty minutes after that.  It’s a good thing we all know the after meal blessings by heart, because I don’t think there was enough light to read by.

Morning services were much easier.  The sun is bright enough that even without electric lights, you can see pretty well in the shul.  The only problem is reading the Torah.  The ba’al koreh (the Torah reader) knows the entire weekly portion by heart.  Unfortunately, he (or anyone) is forbidden to recite it from memory.  He has to read every word directly from the Torah.  That means, he has to have enough light to read it.  Our ba’al koreh today didn’t have the best vision.  It was alright though, they moved the bimah (the podium-ish thing the Torah is read on) to a couple of centimeters from the door, and he managed.

Actually, on a side note, I got shevi’i (that’s the seventh aliyah) today.  It was pretty cool and unexpected.

Our last challenge of the day was today’s afternoon service.  Yes, technically, it is called the afternoon service, but that’s not when we do it on.  On Shabbos, mincha (the afternoon service) starts one hour before the top of the sun drops below the horizon.  Even though it’s bright as ever outside at that time, inside it’s getting close to dark as night.  There’s a second reading of the Torah at mincha, so we rushed to it as quickly as possible.  Don’t forget, it’s forbidden to recite from memory, so we had to make sure we finished reading before the light failed.

Anyways, we made it.  Barely.  At the beginning of mincha, I was praying from the siddur.  By the end, I couldn’t see what it said inside of it.  Needless to say, it was good thing we went quickly.

Since Shabbos ended nothing interesting power related has happened.  Unless you count having to move a lightbulb from the front room to the bathroom.  Hope you all had a safe and enjoyable Shabbos, if one with perhaps a few less adventures than me.

Gut voch (yiddish expression wishing you a good week)!

In my throat?  Check.  Definitely have the swelling.  But there was something else.  My entire throat is pockmarked with little white lesions.  I think they’re whats causing most of my pain when I swallow.  Like dragging a lemon over an open sore. *shiver*.  I checked online.  They’re normal too.

Anyways, on the plus side, my fever is gone.  I’m mobile again, and have most of my energy back.  I even have an apetite!  It just happens to come with the benefit of having to eat things in incredibly small bites and swallow very carefully.

“GREEEAAATTT….,” I remember saying, “flu symptoms during this whole scare over swine flu.”  Thank G-d, I hadn’t (and still haven’t) been in contact with anyone in near promity to the disease.  No one I know has gotten sick either.  The last hint that it probably wasn’t swine flu?  My first symptoms were a couple of days before any of the reports about the impending pandemic started to come out.

Swine or not, I was pretty sure I had the flu.  Now, as much as I love doctors (code for: I hate them), I know there’s nothing they can do about a virus like the flu.  Sure, they can treat the symptoms, but I’m young.  My immune system normally knocks the flu out in a couple of days anyways.  All in all, I decided seeing a doctor would make me suffer 30% MORE than suffering through a day (two most) in bed.  His medications for my symptoms, on the other hand, would only reduce my bed suffering by 10%.  Simple math, I wasn’t going to see him.

Lucky for me again (thank G-d), I developed an extra symptom.  By late Thursday afternoon, my nasal discharge (when I sneezed) had spots of blood in it.  I’m no doctor, but I’ve always been taught that blood without a wound spells trouble.  Stupidly (mostly because it’s prolonged my disease), I decided to wait a day, to make sure this wasn’t some fluke symptom.  I mean, I’ve seen mild blood in my mucus before with no issues.

Friday morning, the blood was back, and with a vengeance.  I called Benzi, my good friend who doubles as a trained ER technician, and asked his counsel.  The second heard about the blood, he sent me the doctor.  Right choice, wrong reason.  In the states, I would have certainly been in an urgent care/ER for the next couple hours just to be seen.  Thank G-d, here in Israel, I called up and made an appointment for just 20 minutes later (keep in mind this was Friday morning, and they close early).  They didn’t even hesitate when I told them it was for a “semi-emergency” (whereas in America, that parlance would land you straight in an ER.

Twenty minutes later, in the doctor’s office.  He looks at, asks for my symptoms, and starts checking basic vitals (pulse, consistency, etc).  I mentioned to him that before I came my temperature had been ~102, and after feeling my forehead, he didn’t even bother to check it again (I LOVE not having a beauracracy/litigation fears).  He checked all the usual culprits: lungs, lymph nodes, common viruses, etc.  On my nostrils, he told me the only problem was too much nose blowing.  Turns out I had irritated the inner tracks of my nostrils and they were bleeding a bit.  Who knew?

Finally, he looked down my throat.  I’m not positive he was shocked, but I’d like to think he was.  “You have a severly infected throat,” he said to me rather calmly, “probably strep.”  He proceeded to prescribe me cold symptom relief meds, strep antibiotics, and as much ibuprofen as I needed to keep the fever down.  I took a test in pathology and found out fifteen minutes later that it came back negative.  No strep.  Or at least the machine thought not.

Now, the doctor didn’t like the machine’s response very much.  He told me to buy the strep meds anyway and just not start them.  Start with the anti-cold stuff and the ibuprofen.  If your symptoms don’t start to improve in a day or so, then do the antiobiotic regimen anyways.  Tests aren’t always right, and he knew what he had seen.

As advised, I started with the cold stuff.  By Saturday afternoon, when it was apparent my symptoms weren’t leaving, I knew I should start the strep meds.  The problem?  While I was alright continuing with the meds I was on during shabbos which were obviously helping (if not eliminating) my symptoms, I didn’t want to start something new.  Especially not something that wasn’t guaranteed to help.  (FYI, there’s a rabbinic restriction on when and how you can take medicine on shabbos).  So I waited.

Actually, my symptoms got worse over shabbos to be honest.  It hurts, BAD, to swallow, which means I’m not eating enough.  I’ve also developed some kind of stomach something or other.  It feels vaguely like the stomach flu, but I think it’s probably related to not eating enough.  What I do force down my throat is just that: forced.  For the two and a half days, I haven’t had a bite of food without cringing as I swallow.

Anyways, late last night, I started the antibiotic.  I’ve take a total of three doses, and feel a little better.   Not enough to say it’s definitely the antibiotic doing it, but enough to hope.  I’ll keep you updated as my symptoms progress.

PS – For no apparent reason, I seem to have forgotten how to spell in the English language.  Every time that I type the word “flu” (yes, even just now) in this post, I spelled it “flue” and had to correct it.  And words that normally end in the letter e all seem to suddenly need to have  a “w” after that (eg “thew”).  Odd.

Okay, so we don’t exactly own only one lightbulb, but it certainly feels that way sometimes.  Two of the bedrooms use the long flourescent bulbs, so they can’t be interchanged with the rest of the dira.  Everywhere else though (that’s two more bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kithen, and a common room) uses the same type of bulb.

I still remember the first time I went to flip on one of the bathroom lights and had nothing happen.  “Must be dead,” I’d figured.  Except, there was a problem… the bulb wasn’t dark in the socket (like you would expect from a dead bulb), it was missing.  Maybe my dira-mates are incredibly efficient (Laura: a-fish-ant) and take the dead bulbs out as soon as they die?  I must have experienced this exact same thing two or three times before I found the problem.

I was sitting in the common room reading when it happened.  One of the guys came out of his room, looked around as if making sure noone was watching him, then grabbed a chair.  Turns out he was making sure no one was using the common room light (there are two of them, I was using the one on the other side of the room).  He stood on the chair, took the bulb out of the common room’s socket, and took it to the bathroom with him.

Since then, I have once or twice bought lightbulbs for the dira.  They’re not very expensive (about $1 each), and the yeshiva reimburses on them anyway.  Nevertheless, lightbulbs ALWAYS seem to burn out in this dira.  And when they do, they always seem to be replaced with bulbs from other, less occupied, parts of the dira.  Unfortunately, that frequently means going anywhere after sunset in my dira is prefaced by a lightbulb hunt.