The Stars and the Cookie Jar

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Albert Einstein
3. Samek
4. shadow-puppet dogs
5. Fox
6. Lynette
7. little bunny Foo Foo

:)


In the MARC station on the way into DC, I saw a few women dressed with tznius -- in the closest possible to the modern mode, yes, but Modest nonetheless -- brightly-striped Oxford shirts over their black skirts, black stockings and black shoes. They had their long hair properly braided back; I felt so intensely ashamed of my short hair. Their names were Tsippi and Chanie -- oh for your dime a dozen names -- and they were being made fun of for their halting, lispy English. Their brothers probably learn somewhere in the city; they were travelling without their brothers, as modern young women can and will. And they were being snarked at by two plump, pink, dimple-thighed, knit-shorts-wearing Merkin women in sunglasses with macrame bags. The women had the bags, the sunglasses didn't.
I, dressed -- well, I do dress Modest, but in the summer I wear elbow sleeves -- as a grad student, turned to Tsippi and Chanie and immediately introduced myself, in 'loshn, and began to make fun of the women making fun of the Jews.
How they stared, those pink permed tourists.
There were fringy men in the Metro stations, too, and the flight back I encountered Rebbe Yudkowsky. It was apparently Frumsters in the Mainstream World weekend. Or maybe I'd just forgotten what it's like in a major city. I have no mad desire to start walking the walk again, but the shame or whatever is a weird feeling. "Aw crap, it's my rebbe, and I'm dressed secular." "Selk, you dress secular." "But I'm wearing the Gollum shirt!"
Raboisey, Raboisey, frag mal mir un fraygn... Rebbe Yudkowsky and I, we talked Yiddish standard translit. Apparently he does a Yiddish sermon for each sefer. He has a family now, of six seven ninesome large number of children. He is the sort of man who is innately kind, and very accessible -- a good leader for a movement that dresses funny and can't touch Teh Girls -- and yet I go in fear and babbling of him because he looks like my father. He asked after my Vilna work, and let me rattle on at it. I may go down and ask for the Yiddish-teaching position at the Hebrew Day.
Or not, because, skirt.
Here assembled, based on my weekend's travel: the short list of polite opener questions for the frum, who really are from a sort of other country.

"Do you learn in Baltimore/ Do your brothers learn in Baltimore?"
"Did you have a good shabbes/ yom tov/ simcha-for-which-you-were-visiting-your-ginormous-family?"
"Pity about the price of glatt. Would you like some granola? M'brother made it. Where do your brothers learn?"
"Your fringe is stuck in the doors, did you know?"