Things I Learned this Weekend

1) While as a rule I don't think it's essential to measure the amount of beans & barley going into the cholent pot, there is such a thing as too much. Which leads one skinny person to start removing the overage perhaps 10 minutes before candlelighting this shabbos. Time that would have been wiser spent elsewhere.

2) Announcements after services can indeed last longer than human endurance. Bad enough the poor kids are sitting there drooling over the post-services snacktime (technical term is kiddush), but even the adults like me that always escape before announcements start were getting a little punchy. How are you supposed to tell a 34 year old man he has to wait for M &Ms, much less a five year old? Especially since almost everybody in the place gets the announcements by email, there's no burning reason to torture everyone.

3) You can, in fact, leave the dishes until Sunday morning to wash. It killed no one, and probably prevented a spousal spat. They're certainly clean now.

4) MOST IMPORTANT - leaving your pepper plant in its container until the first week in February is a bad idea. Aside from the fact that it looks silly having dead plants in the yard, but dirt and the water in the pot holding the dirt do, in fact, freeze.

I realize this is not news to many of you, but it is a bit of a revelation to me. We did manage to unseat the dirt in its frozen state from the base of the pot, and come warmer times we will wash it and prepare it for new peppers this year. I do intend, however, to actually remove the soil & water from the pot a tad earlier this fall. Say, in the fall proper rather than in, oh, WINTER?