Nilly, I don't have any cute Ellie stories at the moment. I mean, she's cute all the time, but nothing extra cute has happened recently. However, I can share with you some recent cute!Ellie pictures, found here: [link]

Last night, I went to bed early, setting my alarm for 6:30am so I could get to work and be all productive. I actually woke up at 9am, feeling like I'd been hit by an apathy bomb of ickiness. But I was good last night! I should be rewarded! Instead it's like I'm being punished for something I did in a past life!

Gosh, does this remind anybody of Soviet Russia or is it just me?

That's how it struck me.

Yesterday another instructor pointed out the bruise on my elbow. I can't see my elbow from here. I didn't know it was bruised. It's pretty big. Explains half the discomfort (or perhaps pain, depending on your scale) I have when I use the joint. The other half is explained by the quite amusing bruise on my bicep, but I can see that one. I have to wear long sleeves to work for a while. Not that I usually care, but I look appalling right now, enough to give me (and strangers in the centre lobby) some pause. I mean, I'm getting a violence perpetrated vibe off my reflection, and I never get that. So I'll spare my co-workers.

Random strangers in the street are afforded no such protection. Neither is anyone at krav, but they don't deserve it.

However, the cut over my eye can't be hidden. It's small, so that's good. But how am I going to pull off the truth (I walked into a door...) with a straight face? Unpossible.

The weird thing about babies (no segue here, so don't bother looking) is...I get the purely biological aspect of it, the eating and the converting to energy and the cells replicating. But how in gods names do you make a consciousness out of the air? Personalities just like that? Fricking weird as hell.

I like having lots of ways to say thank you, and saying so routinely in everyday life.

Betsy, you have such a lovely way of getting to the heart of matters and expressing it straight and to-the-point.

A friend told me this about her niece: she was about two years old or so, and was taught to say a blessing before and after eating. So she went to the window, reached out, and said out loud "thank you, G-dy" (as in, using a nick-name to G-d). I love this story - it shows exactly what you're talking about - how it was so natural and obvious for the little girl to say "thank you", lovingly, like to daddy or mommy.

I love how Judaism combines the everyday and the transcendental, how the spiritual is always combined with the physical, and they're feeding of each other. And if you don't stop me I'm going to start babbling about "Objects in Space" and this post is long enough already as it is.

Although I still wonder about the asymmetric "thank you for not making me a woman."

Well, me too.

One answer to that is that this blessing comes in a line of blessings which are all about thanking G-d for making the person more "burdened" with rules (mitzvot). So at first you thank G-d for not being a goy (not Jewish), because they have only 7 rules. Then you thank G-d for not being a slave (they have less rules upon them, either - and of course it refers to ancient terms of slavery, nothing current). And then you thank G-d for not being a woman, because there are quite a few rules that men have to follow but women are exepmt from (is that how this verb should be used?). Of course, most of these differences stem from the way women's role is supposed to be taking care of the house and children, but I guess that this is another matter.

I always liked the women's blessing better, myself - "Blessed be you, who made me according to his will". There are a few women nowadays who say "thank you for not making me a man", and a few men who say "thank you who made me according to his will", but they're still the minority.

Stephanie, she's already so pretty! Not just in an adorable baby way, which of course she is, but also just straight-out pretty. And her face is so vivid!

Nilly, thank you, so much, for explaining this! That has always bothered me, and I'm glad to learn the context around it.

This news story is for ita. Though it warmed my heart too: [link]

Two would-be robbers tried to mess with the wrong girl Monday night.

The 15-year-old girl was walking down Victoria Road in Dartmouth when two young men approached and one tried to pull her knapsack off her.

Police say the girl, fully trained in jujitsu, punched one of the men in the face, knocking him to the ground. When the second man came at her, she kicked him in the groin and punched him in the shoulder.

Both men ran away without the knapsack.

The girl told police she may have dislocated the second man's shoulder or elbow.

The suspects are described as 17 or 18-year-olds, both wearing puffy jackets with fur on the collar.

ita, are you sneaking into my house and teaching Emeline to say your name? ALL MORNING she was chattering, "ita! ita! ita!"

"Do you want breakfast?"

"ita!"

"Let's get dressed."

"ita!"

What a crack-up she is.

Driveby posting, just to say: HEY, NILLY!

The weird thing about babies (no segue here, so don't bother looking) is...I get the purely biological aspect of it, the eating and the converting to energy and the cells replicating. But how in gods names do you make a consciousness out of the air? Personalities just like that? Fricking weird as hell.

Wrod.

Fred, T's promotion is awesome! Congrats!