Dear Coworker-

If the instructions "edit this file. Put in appropriate message in the section starting at XXX" is clear as mud , I'm really not sure I can help you much further.

By edit, do you mean to put the appropriate message in the section starting at XXX? Or is there other editing that needs to be done?

I am celebrating/taking-advantage-of-having-the-day-off by trying a duck recipe that involves dry brining, air drying, steaming, cooling to room temperature, and finally glazing and roasting. I am excite. We are at the air drying stage right now, the duck is brined and stuffed with cilantro and ginger and already smells pretty amazing. The recipe called for a 4-lb duck and I have a skinny little two-pounder, so it's going to be heavily seasoned. Which I think will suit me? We'll see.

I gave the leftover cilantro to the rabbits, of course, and now I am observing to see if they like it or not. One dove in for a few nibbles right when I gave it to them, the other declined to come from the platform she was resting on, but I went back to dealing with the duck and didn't see what happened nxt. The pile has not diminished much. Neither is doing anything to lead me to believe they experience a soapy taste, but how would I know? Results are inconclusive thus far.

I don't mean to gloat, but staying in my pajamas and drinking coffee on my couch while it rained this morning was SO NICE.

Went to Rosh Hashanah services at my parents' synagogue. That was the first time I've ever walked out of a synagogue during a sermon. I just couldn't sit there and listen to that. (Israel, of course. He started with quoting Ben Franklin, "There never was a good war or a bad peace." The said that Franklin didn't actually mean that, he meant this whole equivocating thing. But, in any case, Franklin was wrong, because this latest was in Gaza was a good war. I can usually get through this stuff by making snarky comments to my dad under my breath, but this was just too much.)

Oh, Hil, I'm sorry. The High Holidays sermons at my MiL's shul were always along those lines and they were both personally aggravating and so at odds with the actual services - good for you for leaving.

I was talking with a friend of mine who's a rabbi a few weeks ago, and she was saying that she knew some rabbis who were planning sermons like that, and she didn't understand it at all -- the rabbis have to know that there are much more nuanced discussions going on within the congregation, and doing a sermon like that is really insulting the intelligence of the congregants.

Teppy, are you still following Nimona? Today's comic was great (but you really need to be caught up on on the comic to appreciate it).

Oh, and one of the rabbi's examples of people holding Israel to a different standard, and protesting things that Israel does when they don't protest when other countries do the same thing: "Nobody protested the bombing of Vietnam." And this rabbi is at least 60 or so.

SO for those of you not on Facebook, here's my...adventure...for the day:

I just got back from my walk, and DID finally walk 5K today, so I was hot, sweaty and just wanted lots of cold water and to take my shoes off.

I get to the door, and my house key, which has been AWFUL the entire 5 years I have lived here WILL. NOT. OPEN. THE. FUCKING. DOOR.

Friends, I am not stupid or helpless; I worked on getting that doorknob to open for 20 sweaty, hot, frustration-edging-into-rage state. DID I MENTION I'D JUST WALKED 3.3 MILES? FOR THE FIRST TIME? AND ALL I WANTED WAS WATER AND TO SIT DOWN?!

No joy.

I go next door, because when I first moved in with Dan, I got locked out getting the mail and borrowed my next door neighbor's ladder. (They weren't home, I didn't have my phone, it was cold.) I got up on the roof to a bedroom window I KNEW happened to be unlocked and opened it, shimmied into the house. No big. No problems with the window.

The neighbor's son was home this time, and helped me get a ladder, and I got up, but the goddamned window wouldn't open. It wasn't locked; it'd just swelled or something. So I had to ask the guy if he had a lever or a sturdy flat-head screwdriver; he did, and kindly got up on the roof with me, and we got the window open, and I shimmied in.

Then I retrieved all my stuff from my walk, and helped the neighbor guy put the ladder back, asked him if I could but him a six-pack or make some cookies or something, but he graciously declined.

So I'm finally in, and still sweaty and gross and thirsty as hell, which I took care of. This is maybe 40 minutes after I got back to the house from my walk.

And then I called my darling husband at work and rather tersely and firmly told him that he would be getting a new key made for me TONIGHT, from HIS key, which works JUST FINE, come hell or high water. And the hell in that phrase would be me.

But I am in front of a fan now, and drinking an icy glass of water, and I am going chill now for a bit.

Namaste, bitches.

Teppy, are you still following Nimona? Today's comic was great (but you really need to be caught up on on the comic to appreciate it).

OH MY GOD. I was going to post here, but I couldn't remember who reads it. I admit it, when I saw the shark, I squeed like Bobby Hill.

Although I have some trepidation, given that there's still one more strip left.