I was going to be clever, but it turns out... no.

Blah blah blah Torah. Yaakov avinu (our father) and favoring one sibling over another and sibling rivalry and fairness. Blah blah blah deep Torah about joy and sorrow and mourning the destruction of the Temple and celebrating in times of happiness.

I haven’t been blogging for oh, the last nine months or so because every time I’d sit down and try to write about some profound Torah concept I’d picked up from my beautiful wonderful exquisite daughter Rachel I’d end up hitting the elephant-in-the-room thing that I wasn’t blogging about -- for reasons I’m also not blogging about. At least not right now.

Anyway.

Zugt mir a mazel tov!
(Yiddish: Tell me “mazal tov!”) (And I’m not even going to try to translate “mazal tov.”)

FrumBaby2 has landed. It’s a boy!

The bris is soon (IE"H), and I’ll give him a pseudonym shortly thereafter.

(IE"H = Im Ezras Hashem = With the help of Hashem.)

And then, hopefully, the elephant will leave the room and I can start writing again.

Love to all. Thanks for sticking with me through the dry spell.

--FD

I know, I know...

Substantive post, no really, any minute now. really...

But right now, I have to say...

SVGHH
(Something Very Good Has Happened)

Something... Wonderful.

There's been a glitch, but I feel confident that it's only a minor one.

Mazal Tov.

--FD

UPDATE: I told you it was just a minor glitch.

PS: Welcome Visitors! I've had a serious uptick in hits, most coming from Danae's site. Sorry I don't have anything fresh for you, but Yes is a world should give you an idea of what I do here, or More than animals . And for those of you with less religious interests, I should probably point out FrumDad gets Political

Thanks for stopping by!

The lights are blinking.

"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions."

Samuel Johnson.

Sorry for the disappearing act. First of all, I've been extraordinarily busy. I got a new job a couple of months ago, and they're just pounding me.

Also, there's a lot bouncing around in my head, and it's kinda like when ten people try to get out of one small door...

With any luck, this has been only an intermission, although no one would argue a short one; I hope I have not escalated to "long absence."

Anyway, the lights are flashing. Now fork over your $8.50 for the Milk Duds and get back to your seats.

--FD

Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!

The title of this post really deserves an excellent, introspective essay about the nature of rhyming in the Torah, and how that relates to Rachel's speech development.

But I just wanted to post, quickly, and apologize to all for my absence. And I didn't want to let all of December go by without at least a blip on the screen.

So this is the blip. I'm sorry for my absence; It started out with me taking the election kinda personally, but just evolved into the World of FrumDad being pretty crazy at this point... There's good blog fodder in there if I ever get a chance to sit down and bang it out.

I'm not going to even bother making any kind of promise or New Year's resolution on the posting frequency issue. There's a plan, and a hope, but I'm going to leave the promises out of it. As Tevye would say, "As the Good Book says, 'A tzaddik does much and says little, and a fool the reverse.'" (Bava Metzia 87a) (But I don't think the fool bit is in there.)

Oh yeah... I made a picture for all y'all.

And a special hello to Z from Jewview, Pgh Femme at Giving it a Go, both from the comments, and to those who emailed me. Thanks for taking the minute to reach out.

--FD

PS: Why does the animal look that way?? Because freehand-mouse drawing skill has never been one I've claimed. I did this search and tried to vaguely copy this image.

One more, short and easy.

As some may have noticed (not many, but some), I've been away from the blogiverse for a while, or at least on limited visitation. I may, eventually, explain why. Probably not, since it's not that important.

And the election thing was occupying a lot of front-burner brain space for a while, too. So, for instance, I didn't even know that Julie over at A Little Pregnant was, well, more than a little pregnant.

May the baby come "b'sha'ah tovah, umutzlachas" (in the right time and 'successfully,' but "mutzlachas" is a more complex word than that.)

In any event... Go read this.

Yes, yes, and thrice: yes.

That is all.

Shakespeare: the pause that refreshes!

Orlando:     Who stays [Time] withal?
Rosalind:     With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.

William Shakespeare, As You Like It act 3, sc. 2
(Thank you, Bartleby.)

Which is to say. . . I'm going on a little vacation. I don't know if I'll be able to get in front of a computer for an extended period of time until after Labor Day.

I've got a few posts brewing, though, so don't go disappearing on me, now. Check back in a bit. Have a good week!

(And to any of my friends, colleagues, or compatriots in New York: Don't get stepped on by the Elephants, and watch out for all the dung.)

--FrumDad

Two Dollars! I want my two dollars!

New Content! I want my new content!

Where is it? (Work x Busy^Very) + (Family issues) = One of the worst weeks ever.
But with Tisha B'Av past, and the countdown to Elul... Hopefully this week.

--FrumDad

UPDATE
Someone pointed out to me that I wasn't being very fair to myself. I haven't put up a new post recently, but I've been a commenting fiend this past week or so. Probably the most interesting is this post over at The Lazer Beam. The comments are blog-like in their chronology, so to get the real feel of it, you have to start at the bottom.

I want to respond once or twice more and wind that discussion down. I come off sounding like a religious fanatic, which I guess I am, but it reads as somewhat intolerant, which I don't think is a fair reflection of the truth. Let me say for the record that I've known a number of people who claim to be atheists who are fine upstanding folk.

On the other hand, why does that sound so much like, "Some of my best friends are ______."

--FrumDad

Me Llame Lame-O.

I've been a busy little blogger this week, but not on my actual blog. Most of the time I should have been working on my post for this week I spent commenting on other peoples' posts. (If this were a blog of a different color, I wouldn't be ashamed of the manner in which I've comported myself in this thread.)

I had planned on staying late at the office today and post, but I jsut got a call that means I'm going home in the next half hour or so. It's good stuff, but it requires my physical presence.

So, just call me Lame-O, for another meta-post rather than an actual post. Maybe Sunday or Tuesday (Monday's busy!) I'll try to revamp the look of the blog, and the sidebar. But, y'know, maybe not, too.

Have a good weekend, and a gut Shabbos to those to whom that's relevant.

--FD

PS: I don't know if my Spanish is correct. I could have titled the post "Je m'appelle Lame-O," but then I'd miss out on the cool visual alliteration.

PPS: There's gotta be a word for that, when the words don't actually start with the same sound, even though they start with the same letter. Anyone know?