Are we a trend?

Was anyone else surprised last week when they watched the season premiere of "Grey's Anatomy"? Did you know that Sandra Oh's character Christina Yang is Jewish?

Maybe LO and I have started a new trend.

Current Events

Each week LO is assigned a current event. She has to read a newspaper article and then stand up in front of her class and tell them about it.

Her topic this week was about Karnit Goldwasser visting the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. Mrs. Goldwasser will be making five stops while she is in the United States in hopes of ensuring that the world does not forget about her husband and the other captured soldiers, Eldad Regev and Gilad Shalit. You can read more about them at their website.

May we all continue to recite Tehillim and pray for Ehud ben Malka (אהוד בן מלכה), Eldad ben Tova (אלדד בן טובה), and Gilad ben Aviva (גלעד בן אביבה) until they are safe at home.

Do not let them be forgotten.

Apples and Honey

We've got a busy week ahead of us, so I thought I would post this a few days early just in case I don't have a chance later on this week.

Every year I try to send a picture of LO with our Rosh Hashanah cards and this is the one I sent this year. Isn't she just as sweet as apples and honey?

Wishing you and your families L'Shanah Tovah. May we all be inscribed for a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Eggs?

Isn't this the cutest thing? Some friends in Sunday school gave this set to LO for her birthday. We have played quite a bit with it and she has been thrilled with her little matzoh balls and the kugels. At first we were a little confused about the eggs because who would put eggs on lettuce? Wait a second, those are gefilte fish!

Ok, so who's coming over for Shabbos? LO is cooking.

Star of David = Terror Threat?

As of late, I've had to do a great deal of airplane travel. Generally I don't really like to travel and so I try to keep the number of trips that I take down to a minimum and when I do travel I generally don't stay more than a few days.

However, my last trip had me away from home over Shabbos, so I packed some candleholders for my trip. I didn't feel quite right about putting them in my checked luggage so I wrapped them carefully and put them in my backpack which I planned to carry on the plane.

With the new security measures at airports in place, before heading to the airport, I made sure that I had no type of liquid or gel in my backpack (frowning as I placed my anti-bacterial hand sanitizer into my checked-baggage). And off to the airport I went.

Before I go any further let me say that I totally realize that the TSA screeners at the airports are only doing their job which is basically to make airline travel safe. I am not one of those people standing in line complaining about the whole security procedure because I say if it takes 2 hours to get through and it means I am safe then take the 2 hours - I say take as much time as you need as long as I am safe!

So - I get in line and present my ID and boarding pass. Next I proceeded with the whole drill - take the laptop out of its case, take your shoes off, lay your backpack down flat on the belt, make sure you don't have any metal in your pockets, etc. Then I walked through the metal detector (trying to ignore the fact that I was walking barefoot where who knows how many people have walked barefoot before me) to the end of the conveyor belt to collect my belongings. And I look at the screener who is examining the x-ray of my backpack and he is repeatedly running my backpack out and back into the machine - glaring at me every now and then as the backpack goes in and out of the machine. He turns to the guy behind him and asks him to look at the screen and I hear the other guy saying, "That's the Star of David - those are candleholders." So, now I am expecting that he will just let my bag go and I can be on my way. But oh no that's not going to happen...next I hear, "Bag Check!"

So next I am escorted to another table (still barefoot) while trying to manage the laptop still out of it's case, the laptop case, my shoes, and my sweater (did I mention I was still barefoot?) - just totally vesheveled. And I got to watch as the TSA guy took every little thing out of my bag and pick and chose what he was really going to inspect. My candleholders were wrapped in a towel and placed inside a plastic bag - he never opened the plastic bag. He did open a medication bottle and looked inside. He paid no mind to my Machzor, my eyeglasses in an eyeglass case, my iPod in a zippered up case, nor the plastic bag containing my headcoverings. Eventually he was satisfied and I was left standing there trying to manage everything nice and neatly back into place as they had been originally. I do find all of this curious but still respect that this is all happening in order to keep air travel safe.

Fast forward a week and a half for my trip home and I find the same thing happening again. Only this time, I hear the woman at the x-ray machine saying, "Six pointed star! Bag check!" And I end up going through the whole routine again. The screener had just about finished and was stuffing things back into my bag but then he took out a tube of lipgloss (that apparently made it through the screener on my trip out there) and said, "You can't have this - it's gel based. But let's say that you put some on and let me see what flavour it is." (Oh yeah - that's appropriate you jerk. ) Rather than freak out I just replied, "I'm sorry - I had no idea it was there - just throw it out." And on my merry way I went.

I'm not bitter (really!) but can someone please tell me why the Star of David equals a terror threat and an automatic bag search?