Category — Show and Tell

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Right before we got sick, I was sitting with a friend at a birthday party when the ChickieNob walked up to us holding what just might be the most phallic thing I’ve ever seen including all penises.

“Someone gave my child a cock and balls,” I whispered to my friend as she approached.

“Look,” the ChickieNob exclaimed.  “It’s a sword!  A balloon sword.”

Is that what they’re calling it these days?

And despite my strong dislike of play weapons, my insistence that balloon swords have no place in a car, and why oh why couldn’t she have asked the clown for the nice balloon doggie that I saw other children holding, the balloon sword came home with us and now is shriveling up on itself like its post-coital equivalent.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0.

Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Dreaming of Quiet Places posted the start of her hamsa collection last week which reminded me to take a picture of the one that hangs over our bed (which actually hangs over our ketubah, which hangs over our bed).

I’m probably going to fail miserably at the retelling of this because it was told to me on a car ride from Tel Aviv to Isfiya where I had to pee very badly.  But the Druze place an eye in the center of the hamsa to not only ward off evil (get it?  The eye sees it before it can harm you and zap!), and the hamsa is blue because blue in the Druze religion is the colour that symbolizes potential.  Hamsas have special meaning in the Druze religion because there are five colours important to their beliefs and they correspond to the fingers of the hand.

I think.

Don’t quote me on any of this.  All I know is that we have superstitiously sewn blue Druze glass eyes into the hems of clothing to protect the wearer (I pinned it in my bridal gown) and hung one over our bed.  And I love sleeping under it every night.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

It just may be the greatest game of all time.  It beats out Candy Land, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and even Life.

It’s the Ungame.

The point of the Ungame is to talk about your feelings–my favourite thing to do regardless of whether I’m winning or losing.  You move around the board, but there is no place you’re aiming to reach and the game only ends when your mother looks at the clock and realizes that it’s eight minutes until Dallas and by fuck could y’all get in bed already.

With each move, you either land on a space and talk about your feelings (tell us about a time when you were fearful?) or draw a card and talk about your feelings (describe how you’re feeling right now in three words).  See, greatest game of all time.  And it is only enhanced by imbibing alcoholic substances before playing.

My mother was cleaning out the closet and gave me our copy from the 80s because she remembered how much I loved it.  And do I.  I’ve even left it in the hallway as a conversation piece for when people come over and see those groovy photographs on the game box.  Expect to be seeing a lot of the Ungame on this blog as I play it incessantly.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

At the risk of being stunningly immodest, I would like to declare myself Queen of the Cake. I googled the term “sukkah cake” and “succah cake” and finding only these hits and none of them linking to a project quite like this, I would like to state here and for the record that I AM THE INVENTOR OF THE SUCCAH CAKE.  THE SUKKAH CAKE.  ME.  ME.  ME.

Um…

Well, I thought it was a cool idea.  Because mine doesn’t just look like a sukkah; mine actually follows most of the rules of constructing a sukkah (except with edible items instead of wood and leaves) and a little playmobil character can go inside and shake his lulav.  The only other cakes I could find were either a solid rectangular cake that someone had decorated with icing to look like a sukkah (rather than making a hollow, enter-able, edible house) or the Jewish equivalent to a gingerbread house, with cookie-walls and royal icing creating a structure that co-ops Christian tradition as if Jews are not creative and kick-ass on our own.

Because we are.  And we don’t need no stinkin’ gingerbread because I have invented the sukkah cake.

And I’m sure that people will respond to this post and say, “My Aunt Rivke makes a cake just like that”–but the point is that your Aunt Rivke apparently doesn’t post to the Internet and we all know in the world of peeing on your territory that having a permalink to the idea trumps Aunt Rivke’s extended family knowing about her baking prowess.  So sucks to your Aunt Rivke.

I made this one for Josh’s office with yellow cake and vanilla icing.  I am currently typing out instructions (after many engineering mishaps) on the actual construction of the sukkah cake because while it can be made with just about any flavour cake or icing, the actual work is in the carving of the cake, tweaks you need to make to the cookie roof, and the order of construction.  I learned the hard way that doing things in the wrong order results in cake collapse.

I strung up jelly beans with thread and a needle to serve as the fruit inside the sukkah.

Hanging fruit…

I made some leaves out of icing on the roof to cover up the excess cake needed to support the weight of the roof.

And then I covered the roof in mint leaves to serve as the s’chach.

And let the twins go to town on the sides as you would a gingerbread house at Christmas.  Except that gingerbread doesn’t taste very good and my cake rocks.

It is the art project that keeps giving, with the cake discarded in the carving of the structure capable of being turned into smaller and smaller sukkahs.  Next stop: figuring out how to ship said sukkah cake in one piece…

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Last weekend, right before Yom Kippur, Jen and I jumped in the car and took a road trip to Shepherdstown, WV.  To see the Fingerboard sign (next time, Chickenpig, you’re coming too).  To eat vegetarian egg rolls on the college campus and have scones in the teahouse.  And just have girl time.

I caught Jen laughing at the beginning of the trip.  Isn’t this a great photograph of happiness?

We went to see tiny house on the campus

And discovered a mural on the upper level of the library.  I love this painting of the main street.  You can see the library set back from the road (a white building) with a tree in front of it.

I could spend hours in this tiny library.  I’m so glad it exists.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.