My birthday and a birth day!

"You're breaking hearts,
And you're breaking guitars,
Today's your birthday,
And you don't even know how old you are."
-Happy Birthday Ralph, AAHP

Last Friday was my birthday, and indeed, I couldn't forget that it was my 26th, since my campers at Darom in 2006 nicknamed me "S-B-B is O-L-D". I had a great time baking, cooking and preparing my apartment to have a big Shabbat dinner and a bigger oneg Shabbat. When Sarah arrived, as my lovely Davidson bed buddy for the weekend, we wandered on Emek to the ATM and through the shuk at Beit Sefer Adam where I managed NOT to buy anything! (Except for lunch).

Before dinner, we attended tefillot at Shira Chadasha, housed at the Shalom Hartmann Institute while they're doing renovations on their Emek Refaim building, I had a chance to say hi and get tons of "happy birthdays" from everybody I know. Then, we collected the group of diners, and walked back to my apartment.

Sadly, the laws of Shabbat prevented me from taking pictures at the event, but here's a little summary of the fun! Over the course of the evening, there were people talking in German, French, English and Hebrew, and I had a conversation with Spanish, French and Italian words as Guillame (from ulpan) and I tried to figure out the correct way to pronounce "Sangria." (My joking answer: "Fruit salad".)

All of my worrying about not having enough [insert food or drink item here] to serve my guests, I was amazed at the amount of food when we set it on the table. Everybody brought more, mainly to drink, but also to eat. Dinner was terrific, and at about 10PM, people started showing up for the oneg. Friends from ulpan talked with visiting Davidson students, while enjoying what I understand is some very fine scotch, while a visiting Davidson/Rabbinical student made a bid for my apartment. There were people from Texas, Japan, France, Israel, New Jersey, Canada, and New York, all in my little apartment in the German Colony.

I spent most of the 28th waiting for my nephew to be born, as I figured it'd be pretty neat to have a twin nephew. Alas, that was not to be. But yesterday was his birth day, and I do know how old he is -- less than a DAY OLD! Pictures will be coming soon, but I'd just like to announce that my 10-lb nephew (that's about 5 kilo, or more than 2times the amount of rugelach I bought in Thursday) was born last night in Washington, DC.

And if that doesn't say happy new year and happy birthday, then I don't know what does!