Driss-A-Blog

The author's name is Lynne Reid Banks. She wrote the Indian in the Cupboard series. This seems to be the last of that series, the fourth called The Mystery of the Cupboard. I bought it and restrained myself from reading it on the train even though I had nothing to read.

The reason I held back was because it was a beautiful day, albeit a bit cool, and I had bought a lawn chair (one of those fold ups that had a foot rest) for a day that would be nice enough to go to the park (Fort Tryon) and read.

And that's what I did. I came home, did mincha so I wouldn't have to rush home. Took a water bottle and some junk food, took my chair and my new book and went to the park. I set myself up with a view of the Hudson River, the birds and squirrels all chasing each other around. It was just so nice to sit somewhere other than my apartment (I do enjoy my apt) but this will do until I get a backyard. I had even brought a sweater when it got chilly, which it did.

I was out there for about an hour. I had only gotten out there at 6pm, so it was already late to begin with. But it was worth it.

As far as things are going right now, thank G-d all is well. The bar mitzvah which I was helping to prepare for went well. The school year is almost over, I need to start preparing for next year since once the year is over I start my annual summer run (no complaints). My banjo lessons are going well. I'm organizing the apartment. France now has a chance to dig itself out of a hole - Go Sarcozy!

I saw the Republican debate the other night, hosted by Chris Matthews. He's just annoying and I finally found out why. He was one of Jimmy Carter's speech writers, which explains quite a bit. The questions were stupid. I heard that over the course of the hour and a half, each candidate (there were ten) had approximately seven and a half minutes. Yup, that does it for me. They need to have conservatives run the Republican debates and liberals the Democratic debates. That way they'll ask the questions each group of people actually really care about. Or like they've been discussing on talk radio, just put the candidates head to head against each other - no moderator. You could do the head to head within the party and between parties.

Out of the whole thing, I was most impressed with Tancredo, Huckabee and from the top runners Romney. Of course, I have yet to do the research on any of these guys, but I have where to start from.

Yesterday I went to the Israel Day Parade. I was going to wear my Gush Katif orange shirt, but I went with the Kach shirt that said, "not one inch". I figured that covered all my bases. I went actually with the intention of looking for Jews for J people. Last year I ran into them and dealt with them some, not even on purpose. But this year I was prepared. And didn't find any of them. I don't know if I missed them, or they really weren't there. Oh well. I saw the school and cheered them on. The rabbi glanced at my shirt, didn't say anything. Hey, I wasn't marching with the school! But it was a good time.

B"H all is well here with me.