Freshly-baked challah

just came out of the oven, my G-d it smells delicious in my house today. I changed the recipe I used a few weeks ago, this one has 3 cups whole wheat flour and 5 cups white flour. Perfect combination to make soft pretzel, actually, so next time I might do that. I made enough loaves for tonight and for next week, because next Friday I'll be asleep in the chemo chair most of the day.

Avi went to the first meeting at his high school about the baseball team, and he informs me (Marshall concurs) that his right arm is a rocket. (I hope I expressed that correctly, my knowledge of baseball is very limited.) This is very exciting to me because Avi's namesake, my beloved maternal grandfather of blessed memory, loved baseball, played stickball as a kid on the Lower East Side, and followed the teams all his life. Even after the baseball games began to be broadcast live on television there he'd be in the kitchen, listening to the game on the big radio there. I remember this vividly, and I also remember asking him why he wasn't watching on TV. He said it just wasn't the same, the cameraman's angle wasn't necessarily right for him, and he got to use his head to picture the whole field. An avid Phillies fan to the end, he died just 2 months shy of my bat mitzvah.

Plus Avi has his build, although that may change momentarily. Teenage boys . . .

I'll be at services tomorrow morning, there's a brunch following and then I'll be hanging out with Ginna at her house. Can't wait.

Pray for peace in the Middle East after Ariel Sharon, and to those of you who celebrate the Jewish sabbath, Shabbat shalom.