I have a friend whose barely competent manager has decided that the solution to all their problems is to drag the whole department to some outdoor/nature center that does team building programs next week. (Including the person with skin cancer and the person with some sort of porphyria disorder, naturally.) Wonder what neat tricks they'll come up with.

Lord of the Flies was set out in nature, wasn't it?

I'd be walking around in a sundress with the baby strapped to my chest and suddenly be hyper-aware of just how much skin I was showing.

Yeah, and I nearly always have a sleeve of some sort (and no baby!) --still, the contrast is just so huge.

Thanks, Vortex!

No prob! English makes no sense, so we're always happy to help out :)

Hi Nilly! Sorry you are missing a wedding. Happy you are here!

one of those all-over-ad cars..... for KRAV!

That's so tacky. I wonder who's driving it, and if they have a license to carry.

Jesse! I expected you to pipe up with help about my felony murder question. As opposed to an actual lawyer, because of your specialty. Won't all the bank robbers get charged, no matter who fired? I don't suppose it stops you from wanting to know, but it's not much of a bargaining chip.

I love the matzoh crunch--- all that carmelly goodness.

Seriously, Steph, that's exactly what I thought. Also, how odd!

A few months ago, a woman at work asked me I was Jewish. And I said no and she said she wondered because I always wore long skirts. I wanted to say, "No. It's just cold in my office and I got too fat for the rest of my pants to fit comfortably."

Jesse! I expected you to pipe up with help about my felony murder question. As opposed to an actual lawyer, because of your specialty. Won't all the bank robbers get charged, no matter who fired? I don't suppose it stops you from wanting to know, but it's not much of a bargaining chip.

what? I missed this, what's the question?

Beetle and the Bard Contest at Amazon.

I've skipped to posts about which I actually have something to say!

Even though I can't even phrase this sentence in a less clumsy and clunky way. Oh, my English, you probably didn't miss your ride and you're now at some languages-marriage (creating tiny babies of slang and new words and dictionaries-happy-stuff?).

Someone gave me the Hebrew version.

At some point, it was dubbed (of course) into Hebrew, and translated. Shir - it's quite old. Probably quite older than you. If my computer here were any more youtube-friendly, or any listening-to-anything-friendly, I would look. But, alas. No can do here. I think I may even remember part of the lyrics.

Kristin, that Hebrew-Jabberwocky poem is great! Especially since all the words she used are indeed connected to one subject (the blessing you say after eating bread). Good for her!

she just doesn't think she can deal with wearing skirts all the time.

Some rabbis rule now that modest pants (not too tight, and with a cut that's specifically designed for women) are OK. Orthodox rabbis (though not the most strict ones, of course).

The whole subject of wearing pants - and ruling it to be OK with "halakha" rules - is something that's been changing a lot for the last ten years or so. Ten years ago, it was very small fractions who said it was OK. Nowadays, it's way more common.

Then she was saying she knows a woman who covers her hair, and wears pants, which she thought was interesting.

Again, it's something relatively new. The thing is, today, even if you think that pants are OK with the "halakha", wearing a skirt still carries a meaning - a sort of declaration, of somebody belonging to the more religious stream of behavior (at least in Israel, it's quite rare to find a non-religious girl wearing a skirt, or wearing it without a very revealing top, in order to indicate that she's not, of all things, religious).

So, if you want to make that declaration, even when you think that wearing pants is OK by the rules, you won't be wearing pants. But if you're married, and you cover your hair, that's a pretty big declaration of "I am religious" in and of itself. So you don't need the skirt-declaration, if you have the hair-covering-even-bigger-declaration, right? So if you think pants are OK by the rules, and you are married and cover your hair, and the declaration part is covered for you, it's OK to wear pants while covering your hair.

I don't think I ever wrote the word "declaration" so many times in one paragraph.

Thinking about it, I think pants are probably more modest, in our culture. (Leaving aside actual rules about split clothes or whatever) What say you?

In Judaism, there are two problems with pants: one is the modesty (and when the pants are long enough and not tight, then it's OK), and the other is that there's a rule that men shouldn't wear women's clothes and women shouldn't wear men's clothes. So as long as pants were strictly a men's clothing item, women were not allowed to wear them. But in the last fifty years or so, when it became common for women to wear pants as well, and there are cuts especially designed for women, which no man would ever wear - that problem is gone, too.

[Edited to wave at Shir and Jesse and Corwood and lisa and everybody else! With exclamation points!|

OMG, ita, I was totally going to respond, but then I forgot. I'm pretty sure on L&O, "felony murder" means someone died while you were committing the felony, whether or not you meant for them to die. I'm not sure if the thing about everyone being equally guilty is true, or a lie they use to break the weak team member.

ION, now I'm scared of being trapped in an elevator: [link]