Two Summer Anecdotes

Having just returned home to Israel, I don't have anything about Rationalist Judaism to post, but I decided to share two anecdotes from my vacation.

My wife and I took a two-day vacation from the kids in Santa Barbara. On the first day, we were wandering around, looking for a place to sit down and have a picnic lunch. Adjacent to some beautiful residences, we found a grassy area, the nature of which was unclear. It didn't seem to be a park. But on the other hand, it didn't seem to be private property either. So we sat down, spread out our lunch, and enjoyed ourselves.

The next day, we took a tour of the town on an unusual amphibious vehicle. During the land-portion of the tour, we suddenly found ourselves driving right next to our picnic spot of the day before.

"And if you look to the right," announced the tour guide into the microphone, "You can see the sacred grounds of the local Indian tribe, which is left untouched."

Oops. We must have missed the sign. I sure hope that we cleaned up after ourselves properly.

Anyway, it turned out that the local Indian tribe were known as the "Chumash" Indians. Which removed my puzzlement at seeing a beautiful publication of "The Chumash" in the window in the local tourist store. And it seems that those who have accused me of desecrating the Chumash are, in a way, correct!

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My nine-year-old daughter returned from summer camp one day and happily told me about her trip to Disneyland. I asked her which part she enjoyed best.

"The blog ride!" she gushed.

I thought that I must have misheard her. "The what?"

"The blog ride!"

"What's a blog ride? You can't ride on a blog!" I protested.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Aba, it wasn't a real blog!"

There's a generational and cultural gap between my nine-year-old American-Israeli daughter and myself, but I still felt that I was missing something. "But what's a blog ride?" I asked.

My daughter patiently explained it to me. "It's a plastic blog. You know, from a tree. You sit in it and go for a ride that splashes into the water."

A log ride. Methinks that my daughter hears the word "blog" too much. Maybe I should cut down.