Another month gone

Where did the time go? I mean, really. I can't believe it's the end of October already.

My birthdays came and went ("regular" and Hebrew), and a good time was had by all.

On the eve of my regular birthday, my co-workers bought me a pizza lunch, some cute birthday socks, and a raunchy mug. I felt older at that point than ever... I mean, really, who gets raunchy mugs besides old people? (Although most of the time, I just don't care so much about my age.)

On my birthday, my co-workers and I went to breakfast... it's a place called The Waffle Bar, and it's the first time in two years I've had something resembling an American breakfast that I didn't cook myself. And man, it was good.

That night, two of my closest friends in Israel came for Shabbat dinner, which I'd cooked. One went home and the other spent the night.

Unfortunately, that Shabbat I spent sick, sick, sick. So after Shabbat, my friend drove me to the pharmacy so I could take advantage of modern medicine and make myself better. In reality, it took almost a week before I succeeded in feeling "normal," (a term that is always relative when describing anything about me), but I did feel well enough to go to work the next day.

That Monday was my Hebrew birthday, and my present was that my boss did not come to work that day, because he had an exam. So I brought in homemade cookies and cinnamon bread, and we chilled out around the office. It was interesting how many people from other departments commented on how happy we all seemed when he wasn't around. Go figure.

Then at the end of last week, my officemate's father went from having lung and brain cancer to the doctors finding it throughout his body. My officemate flew immediately to Hungary to be with him.

Apparently there's nothing more the doctors can do for him at this point.

And suddenly, at the end of a month filled with cruddy work stories, I was reminded once again about the most important things in life... and how life is just way too short to spend it being unhappy.

So, in my usual M.O., I'm going to carry on being as happy as possible and taking joy in every bit of life I can... and I'm going to work on fixing those things that don't allow me to be happy. That's my new-month-resolution.

It's been a long time... it's been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time...

In more ways than one.

Of course, you could be looking at the date since my last post and thinking "yeah, it HAS been a long time."

But that's totally not what I'm referring to.

I'm referring to being a sports fan, even when the teams stink, and then that amazing feeling you get when your team makes it into the playoffs.

Then, I'm referring to being a sports fan whose team is IN the playoffs, but you're 6,000 miles away from home and get to celebrate alone. Without even a television.

A year and a half ago, when the Pistons went all the way to Game 7 of the World Championship, at least I was in a place where I had people to talk sports with... and once in a while, someone would even get up in the middle of the night to watch a game with me.

Now, though... I have only one guy at work who's not even from Detroit to talk about the amazing Tigers with.

But it still makes me happy that FINALLY, after oh-so-long, our Tigers are going all the way.

One of my favorite pre-aliyah memories is from going to C omerica Park with my Mom, Dad, and sibling. If I remember right, we got our butts kicked that day... but it was a family day, and it was fun.

I think I went to three or four Tigers games before I left, including hanging out outside the fence of Comerica Park to watch a few innings for free here and there.

Maybe I'll be able to find someone to glom onto to watch at least one game with... but if not, at least I can recall the feeling of live Tigers baseball and imagine all the other folks out there having a great time watching the games.