Making my bed

Children often argue with their parents about chores. I was no exception. Making my bed was a particular sticking issue. My father kept telling me I would be more comfortable sleeping in a freshly made bed. My own experience proved otherwise - I was perfectly content sleeping in a bed with mussed covers. There had to be more to this bad-making thing. Turns out, most people appreciate the aesthetics of a made bed. It's good for socializing to have visible parts of your house look nice - making the bed is for the community, not the individual.

I've been thinking about that while attending services for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. The idea behind the holiday is for people to reflect on how they can be better, and lay out an ethical plan for the year. Sounds nice.

But... it doesn't seem to work. People who attend Yom Kippur services (or comparable practices in other religions, such as Catholic confession) don't seem to have any higher standards than people who are religiously apathetic. I don't see any different behavior in myself now compared to my religious-service-free college days.

So, if the purported effect of making us better people doesn't pan out, why do we come to these services? My theory: the same reason we go to weekly services. Not for ourselves, but for the community. Those who pray together stay together and all that.

I like the community at my synagogue. It provides me with study opportunities, opportunities to give back to my local community, and social interaction with a wide cross-section of people. I'm glad we have events such as Yom Kippur that keep us together as a group.

Happy New Year

I grew up in a town with a much higher Jewish population than my current city. On major Jewish holidays, there were generally multiple people absent from my school classes. Everyone was kinda aware of the holiday season.

Yesterday at work, three coworkers learned for the first time that I am a synagogue member. They kind of stumbled into it asking how my day off was: no clue that Thursday was the start of the Jewish New Year celebration.

At least I didn't go my husband's route, telling them that we all dress up in a giant dragon costume and set off fireworks indoors.

Lack of taste

Tuesday, I was eating grape tomatoes, picked off my own tomato plant. It is really rewarding to have a successful vegetable after so many disappointing years. And they taste good, too... just as good as the store-bought ones.

I remembered all I'd read about home-grown tomatoes. About the extra flavor that vine-ripening gives, how the more delicate varieties for home gardens taste better than the bred-for-storage-and-mass-transportation commercial brands. People are driven to write songs about this wonderful flavor experienced by the successful tomato gardener. I'm not seeing it in my tomatoes.

Perhaps the brand I chose is the culprit. Or perhaps my gardening: my plant had a rough start and took about 80 days to produce its first fruit: much longer than the rated 60 days. It may not be getting all the sun and fertilizer it needs to reach its full flavor potential.

Then again... the people who rave about homegrown tomatoes also rave against refrigerating tomatoes. Not just the homegrown ones, but any tomato. The cold can break down important flavor compounds. They say. But not for me: I have done experiments, and cannot detect any taste difference between refrigerated and non-refrigerated tomatoes. Maybe it's me.

Last summer, my sister came to visit. Our conversation drifted to her college classes. She talked about her food science class, and shared how it had improved her appreciation of flavor. Not as much as her classmates, though: some of the things they could smell, she could not detect. This struck a chord with me. I cannot count the number of times friends, family, and coworkers have complained of a smell I cannot detect. "It must be genetic," I told her. Our sense of smell is sub-par.

Perhaps my poor sense of smell comes with a poor sense of taste. I think this calls for further research. Today, I'm going to a tomato tasting festival. Will they all taste alike to me? Or will I discover what I've been missing? Let the experiment begin!

Update: OK, so the partner's not up to a 3 hour roadtrip this morning. Maybe next year?

Not good enough to help

When I was growing up, one of the stories my mother told me was about my grandmother's childhood. When my grandmother tried to fold laundry, she didn't do it right. Her mother told her she couldn't fold laundry, and the mother might as well do it herself. When my grandmother tried to clean her room, she didn't do it right. Her mother told her she couldn't fold laundry, and the mother might as well do it herself.

When my grandmother had children of her own, she was an extremely poor housekeeper. My mother has strong memories of not being able to have friends over because they couldn't stand the dust. My mother also remembers the regret my great-grandmother expresses over her impatience with my grandmother. It was very important to my mother that she walk a middle path: clean enough for company, but standards at a place where my sister and I were capable of meeting them. She did not want to make the mistakes of her mother or grandmother.

Another story my mother told was of trying to get my father to help with household chores. He tried to do the dishes, but he put them away in the wrong place, so my mother might as well do all the dishes herself. He tried to cook dinner, but he didn't have the side dishes ready at the same time as the main dish, so she might as well cook dinner herself.

I think I have avoided that particular mistake of my mother's (I think it's cute when I can't find a dish because my husband found a better place for it). Seeing how hard she tried to avoid it, though, and still fell into that trap, makes me wonder what habits I have that I am too blind to see.

Tomato plant: 1 Gardening advice: 0

In May, I planted one cherry tomato plant. I tried a new location this year and hoped to get more than a handful of tomatoes. And at first, my plant seemed to really take off.

At the end of May, I went to check on my plant. Most of it was gone: one or two deer mouthfuls, I suspect. All my hopes wavered. The plant did sprout new stems, and I staked them. All I could do was hope for the best.

I was worried, though: my first gardening book, Bountiful Countainers, warns against secondary stems: it says they only make leaves. It recommends pruning away everything but the main stem, where all the fruit would be produced. My main stem was pretty much wiped away. I wondered, had that been my only hope for fruit?

Yesterday, I was ecstatic to find blossom buds on my plant, on all four stems. And so I have learned: there is more than one way to prune a tomato.

Ripening berries

The mulberries are ripe. We have at least three trees in our yard: no matter where I am doing yardwork, I can stop and snack on a few mulberries.

The gooseberries are ripe. My neighbor helped me cut down a bunch of smallish elm trees last year, and the gooseberries really like the extra sunlight. It looks like I'll get several dozen berries, up from less than five in previous years.

The raspberries are ripe. This is about on-time from our 2006 and 2007 experiences. But it surprised me, because we didn't get berries until July in 2008 and 2009.

I won't do any formal berry harvesting this year because of my work schedule. I will enjoy seeing these reminder of summer every time I walk through my yard.

Facing mortality

I visited family recently: my mom and grandparents. While I was there, my grandparent's fridge broke. I went to their house to help set up the replacement.

One of my tasks was to transfer all the decorations. I started with the letter magnets - two sets, larger and smaller letters. The sets are decades old, ones that I played with as a child. I put some up randomly, and spelled a few words with others.

Next in the pile was my cousin's artwork: it fit neatly in among the letters and words. There were some magnets with cute sayings that held up the artwork. I was mildly proud of the arrangement I'd made.

Finally, I came to the last item. I examined it, wondering where it would go on the fridge. It was an envelope. I read the letters to myself: EMS DNR inside. "Emergency Medical Service" I puzzled out. And then, "Do Not Resuscitate."

I stood there for a little while, just staring at the packet. My mother came over. She looked at the packet, looked at the fridge, then said, "It doesn't seems like it fits, does it?"