Pulmonary Archery

A bit of a weird Purim. I showed up very late after all the initial chatting was done, since I was with Laila after her surgery, but fortunately when I arrived there was still some food left. I sat down while the Purimspiel was going on, watching most of it from the other room while I ate black bean burgers and fries and hummus with vegetables. It was entitled "The Tonight Spiel" and all television themed, including a "Niggun or Noggun" quiz show (a niggun is a wordless vocal melody), a dubbed-over version of the Princess Bride wedding scene, a Chicago version of Subway Takes called El Takes, and a Would I Lie to You?" section with the rabbis.

Unlike my complaints about last year, they did change the Megillah reading quite a bit this year. It was all television themed--chapter one of Esther had commentary based on the Real Housewives, chapter three had was based on Survivor, etc--but this was my favorite section:


yoni-labow-5693413a and whoolia45 were both there. I hadn't seen yoni-labow-5693413a in a while, so we caught up, chatted about our kids, I talked to whoolia45 about Laila, and we drank our respective drinks--as was traditional, I had found a drink ticket on the floor and so got an extra drink.

After listening to the Megillah, I saw kevin.hogan.353 and dana.kroop waiting near the door and went over to talk to them. I hadn't spoken to them in quite a while, so dana.kroop caught me up on what's been going on in their lives--kevin.hogan.353 had had quite a few drinks and was more prone to going on tangents--I and told them about Laila. We also mused a bit about the changes we've seen in Mishkan after going for years. dana.kroop said it's a different crowd and that's really true--I keep thinking when I go to a Mishkan event that I really don't know most of the people there, and sure, it's not helped by how I don't get to go very often anymore, but it's true. I look across the crowd and think, "What happened?"

You cannot stop in the same river twice. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Just before I was going to leave, hannah.bloom.75 ran up to me and ask me how the procedure went, so I chatted with her for a bit about how everything went well and Laila was peacefully sleeping when I left. Like she said, Purim was a very appropriate holiday after hearing such good news.