Everything sounds like welcome home

[chanaleh]

So the "first annual" shul retreat was this past weekend. It really was fun; it's nice to spend time hanging out with people -- some of whom have been acquaintances for years, some only months -- in a way that is at once more intense and more relaxed than the usual once-a-week appearance. (And of my shul [idle-]crush objects, two were present; two others notably absent, but oh well. No, nothing untoward went on, nor could it have; but it still lends a pleasurable extra dimension to the socializing.) Did lots of davening and even a little yoga. Played lots of board games (Scrabble, Encore, TP). Consumed way too much hot chocolate, schnapps, and pareve cake :-P (so I'm tempted to pull some kind of juice fast, or at least some exercise in dietary mindfulness, until the majority of the junk is washed out of my system).

Thought a lot about the previous two occasions I've set foot in Camp Ramah (once at this same site in September 1996, once elsewhere in July 2002)... and how far I've traveled since then and yet, in some ways, not. Big-picture stuff.

Anyway, and it was lovely to spend some time out in the woods. Despite (melting) snow all over the ground, it was quite balmy and sunny all weekend, and it was nice to get to walk around the lake and under the pines with only a light jacket on. Spring is coming.

Got home in time to attend part of the mitgsp Feb. 29th birthday party (the anniversary of its founding, such that, if you go by birthdays, they were turning four, and not a bit over). Missed out on any singing because I had to leave for 7pm Menschen rehearsal, but I did get to pick up my Utopia CD (with my opening solo on it that I still haven't had the guts to listen to). Also, mrmorse actually came over and chatted with me, which made my night, really.

Coming up close
everything sounds like welcome home
come home
and oh, by the way
don't you know that I could make
a dream that's barely half the way come true
I wanted to say --
but anything I could have said
I felt somehow that you already knew.

Today, back to work. Tonight, dinner at Rudy's 'cause ablock is back from Europe. Tomorrow night, Klezmer Contra!