Monday, March 10, 2014

Tchotchke



One of my co-workers once lived in Israel for a couple of years. She recently made a return visit. Because she knew T was interested in Judaism and Israel, she asked me if she could bring him a little something from the trip. "Sure!" I said. "Anything at all!"

When she came back last week, she handed me a bag of goodies. There were tourist brochures and maps, a couple of coins ("Don't get too excited," she said, "because they aren't worth much."), and a few other doodads. The next day, she brought another bag full of memorabilia.

One of the gifts was this little oil lamp. I believe she said it is from Nazareth Village. It's tiny, only about three inches across. She said cheap olive oil is perfectly fine to burn in it. (T calls it the slutty oil, as opposed to the extra-virgin.) Traditionally, the first pressing of the olives is for God, the second is for cooking, and the third is for lamps.

I have olive oil, and it won't take too much to fill up this little guy. As soon as I figure out where to buy, or how to make, wicks, we're going to have us a working lamp.

When one has a lamp, of course, one must keep it trimmed and burning.


Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Sorry about this, chief

I found a Flickr photo and said, Share It via Blogger. Then I wrote a nice thoughtful post to go with it.

And then Flickr said, "Your credentials are invalid" and ate the post.

Grrr. You would think I would have learned to work offline, but no.

And now it is too late to start over. You get no picture, and you get no sensitive story from Ash Wednesday service.

All you have is my sputtering attempt to get something posted, thus fulfilling my "What was I thinking?" declaration to Sand that I would blog more during Lent.

And just for the record, I started this blog nine years ago today. Huzzah. It's also too late to find another picture of my brother to post for his birthday, so just go look at the one I posted then.