If You See It, Let Me Know

Tomorrow night is Yom Kippur and I've been prepping up.

For starters, since I fast on Yom Kippur, I ate a chocolate peanut butter cream (or more likely creme) cupcake for supper last night. This falls, as so many things do, into the Not My Fault category. I was in New York City, making my way from seeing the movie Mao's Last Dancer (which I liked a lot) to the KGB Bar, a walk (or in my case more of a limp)of 10-12 blocks (there were some avenues in there). I was scheduled to do a reading along with Scott Westerfeld, and I needed to eat something before I got there, and I couldn't find a single pizza place. Don't NYU students eat pizza anymore? They seem to eat cupcakes, since there were several student looking people in the cupcake shop.

My cupcake was pretty good and quite filling. Also every single cupcake had a calorie listing right in front of it. They claimed the chocolate peanut butter cream/creme cupcake had 550 calories, and I'm sure it did and then some.

The reading went fine (nobody threw anything at me), and I would show you photographs except for some reason in the pictures, I look old and fat. Nasty camera.

I also read a book in preparation for Yom Kippur- The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. I would discuss it at length, except my mother taught me never to talk about religion or politics. But I can say it was a fascinating read, and there was at least one fact that I think I'll sort of remember for quite a while, which I would tell you except I'd probably screw it up. Anyway, it was certainly a Jewish holiday appropriate kind of book.

I also spent a lot of time searching for the Electric Memorial Lamp I just bought two of. I gave one to my mother, because she's 99 and I'd just as soon not have her keeping lit candles around (although I did teach her my trick of keeping the yahrzeit candle in the sink at night), and kept one for myself, because Scooter is no respecter of sinks or anything else for that matter. Yahrzeit candles are very useful to have around during blackouts (when an electric one wouldn't be of much help), but for the twice a year I use one for religious/memorial purposes, I'd rather burn the electricity than burn the cat.

The Electric Memorial Lamp took a while to find because I put it in a no reason for me to have put it there place (on a windowsill since you ask). One of the advantages of living in a three and a half room apartment is that ultimately you find everything, and I now have my very own Electric Memorial Lamp right in front of me, and tomorrow night I'll plug it in and turn it on and stare at it while I fast.

But the great mystery in my life right now is The Case Of The Missing Sock. I concede that unlike Electric Memorial Lamps, lots of socks go missing. In fact, some archaeologist will probably find stackfuls of them and, as a result, figure out just what became of the ten lost tribes (as opposed to tribbles) of Israel.

But it's always personal when it comes to socks. So here's the mystery. I have three pairs of socklets, which I wear to bed in the summer (I suffer from cold feet, although as suffering goes, it's not that big a deal). Naturally enough, I wash them on a regular basis. And naturally enough, one day, where once there had been six socklets, now there were five.

Okay. That happens. But a few days passed, and I noticed that the missing socklet had made its way into Scooter's room. Scooter pleaded nolo contendere, which he mistakenly believes means "feed me already." He pleads that a lot.

I took the newly rediscovered socklet and put it in my clothes hamper, happy in the knowledge that I would soon have three full pairs. Laundry day arrived, as it does quite frequently here, because I have a very small washing machine, and in went the socklet. Wash wash, dry dry. The usual.

I looked forward to returning the socklet to its already clean mate, which had been awaiting its arrival, assuming socklets await, which they probably don't, but if they did it was, but when I opened the sock drawer, I discovered that the original socklet had in the interim disappeared. I still only had five.



My guess is the original socklet, distraught over the loss of its mate, escaped the sock drawer to make a valiant, albeit fruitless, search. One of those irony things that happen on soap operas all the time.

Either that, or it went searching for the ten lost tribbles of Israel!