Magic Jewball

Well, I’m home. Home and tired, as Pink Floyd once said. When I said last week that I might be too tired to post Sunday I was kidding but MAN was I exhausted. I had no idea. Honestly, that wasn’t the actual race. I was barely tired after that, it was just the whole weekend and way too little sleep and lots of travel. But my team was beyond fantastic and I only wish I had had more time with them.

So what was it like? Did I run the whole thing? Did my life flash before my eyes? Must I ask myself so many questions?

In short, great, no, yes, yes of course. In long (why is that not an expression?), it was kind of like my almost-daily run in Riverside Park, except not in a circle and with people running with me, not towards me so much. Also, no bicycles or scary dogs. It went so fast! I wore my Nike+ device (I can’t run without Muse!) and before I knew it, I was at 2.5 miles. Whoa! I don’t know if you know anything about shin splints, which I’ve been having, but here’s how they work. You are in agonizing pain for a while, then it totally goes away, only to re-start after your exercise is over. So what I did was, run a mile in excruciating torture (ow, statues! ow, Trader Joe’s!). Then I stopped, stretched on a tree-planter, and walked it out till the pain lessened. I lost a lot of time there but maybe I saved my shin muscles so it was worth it. Then I started running again and wouldn’t let myself stop till at least past 30th Street Station, where I spent so much of my youth that I used to be able to give people directions from there. I would have felt embarrassed in front of the station had I been walking. Also, two (at least!) exciting movie murder scenes have taken place there. Who wants to just stroll?

I was able to run a ways past that but then there was a hilly area so I walked that part and ran into one of my teammates. Fancy meeting you here! So we walked together a bit and then ran our separate ways as we made the turn onto the final 3/4 of a mile. I needed to run that last bit - people I knew were looking! And then it was over. I raised my arms in triumph. Sadly, unlike the NY Marathon, there are no cameras. Who cares! I passed Trader Joe’s without stopping to look at the specials. Also, I finished my first 5k with only two short walking breaks. So I hugged my loved ones, found the port-o-john (I think I may have paid too much attention to that “keep hydrated” thing), and ate two donuts at the WaWa tent. Awesome.

Maybe I forgot to mention this, but Philly has always been special to me. You tell your “3 lanes in, 4 lanes out” and “first prize: one week in Philly, second prize: two weeks in Philly” jokes, I love the place and have had many connections with it. Once, I thought I would live there, but the universe had other plans. So running through it for my very first race was sublime and meaningful. You hear that, Ben Franklin? Becca loves you!

The race started at the art museum. It has a lot of meaning both for me and Rocky.

By the way, I almost didn’t run the race. See, The Cure were in Philly right as we were racing. So I wondered if they really needed me. But then I remembered poor Fat Bob and his smeared lipstick and I knew what I had to do.

Although The Cure didn’t appear, lots of people did turn out, and did I mention it was Mothers Day? You can tell from all the strollers.

In all seriousness, I want to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported me both financially and with encouragement, spirit, and good vibes. I couldn’t have done it without you. And we raised nearly $700 (more if you count the whole team!) as of this writing to help poor women facing cancer and to help find a cure. Happy Mothers Day indeed.

Please enjoy this. It is the only Springsteen song you will ever hear on this site.
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Philadelphia

I’m backdating this because I meant to post it before I left. It is simply the only thing I’m listening to right now. Luckily, it’s eight minutes and change, so play it twice and that’s my commute to work. There’s a short version. It’s nice. The long one is simply fantabulous. It starts with the sound an LP makes when you pick up the needle too fast and the intro is extended and meandering and has a melody line that answers itself back.

The lyrics are trite, don’t worry about them. Somehow the deadpan way they are sung underlines them more than any emotion could.

I never liked this band. I owned nothing by them until this song. Soul Meets Body kind of makes me hurk. But this is IT.

Listen and just groove. Oh, you can watch, I guess that’s the point of posting the video. The visuals remind me of the way I listen to music: by myself and observing the world, both traveling and still. The “band plays in the cold” thing is kind of like U2’s New Year’s Day only a bit less snowy. But I don’t think it gets old.

If you are interested, this album comes out Tuesday and the band appear on Letterman the same night.

See you Sunday! Or Monday if I’m really tired. Or lazy.

How Becca learned to run.

Why Becca is running.

Pink Floyd - Run Like Hell

So much for that “one per day” thing. Life is beginning to get out of hand here at Becca Central. I wish I had a blog so I could tell you about it.

Paige asks:

How do you plan your vacation when one is kosher? What if you want to vacation on a remote resort, but there is no description of a kosher restaurant available? Or is there more of an abundance of kosher resorts and vacation spots in a region that has more residents and visitors keeping kosher?

P.S. I’ve really learned a lot on this site and my husband and I enjoy discussing your blog. Thanks for the insight! Hope my question isn’t silly!

Thanks! And no question is silly, silly! I hope you had fun in Atlantis. Isn’t that the place no one can find? Hey everyone, it’s in the Bahamas!

Onto the (Kosher) meat of your question. To start with, like all laws that come from the Torah (5 books of Moses/Pentateuch, etc.), the laws of Kashrut (Kosher as a noun) have been totally expounded upon, reinterpreted, and vary from region to region. So being Kosher means different things to different people. Among the most strictly Kosher people, little food you can find in a place like the Bahamas would work. Maybe salad. They tend to bring their own food and in fact, this is what we did when I was a child. I vividly remember being in London and having my parents ask the hotel if we could store our Kosher bag of fun in their fridge. Nowadays, many hotel rooms have fridges so it’s easier. We also traveled through the South eating pecan bars and milkshakes from McDonald’s. In the morning, my Dad would run to the nearest grocery store and bring cereal and milk back to the motel. Good times!

If you are one step below that in your strictness, you can find things to eat that haven’t been cooked, like tuna salad sandwiches, cheese, or things like that. Some people will eat at vegetarian restaurants. If you are even more liberal than that you will eat dairy food or fish that’s cooked, but not meat. Some people just don’t eat pig or shellfish and call it a day. The point is, you can almost always find something, no matter what your level. I lived for a week in Greece on Greek salad and donuts. Not together.

Also, there are actually kosher restaurants in the most surprising places. India has them. Mexico. Maybe not Atlantis, but you get me. And there are indeed Kosher resorts, Kosher cruises, and even Kosher Club Med. And yet I chose donuts… I am sure this surprises no one who knows me.

So that’s it. Just like any way of eating, keeping Kosher isn’t hard when you plan, and although sometimes it may keep you from doing a vacation you might have wanted, I don’t know anyone for whom this has happened. Most people vacation anywhere they like and just plan ahead. Or lose some weight, that’s not a bad outcome either.

Thanks for writing!

So I’ve gotten several Jew & A questions over the last week, excellent! You see, I love it when people tell me what to write about, it works out much better. I hope to get to one per day this week. We’ll see. If you are waiting for yours, I am going in the order in which they were received. Yes, I learned that from the phone tree.

Now then, I wasn’t sure about this one. It could be 3 or 4 different questions based on where you put commas. Hmmm.

william(yeah not so jewish) writes:

Adin Steinsaltz, the most enlightened man woman or beast on the planet, has a take on reincarnation, definitely a path for the tribe…what’s your take and when you’re running ….Who are you?

Ow, that broke my brain. I don’t really know much about Adin Steinsaltz, honestly. I know he is a famous Rabbi (still alive!) who translated the Talmud, which is the series of arguments about and commentaries on the Torah that form most of Jewish law, into English. I know this because that’s what I used on the side to get myself through Talmud class in High School. ZOMG, that made things so much easier. Come on, only Mel Gibson speaks Aramaic!

I gather he’s also somewhat into kabbalah and mysticism. Does he believe in reincarnation? I’ll take your word for that, William not so Jewish. Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Is the question, what’s my take on reincarnation? On Adin Steinsaltz? On the path for the tribe? And is it, who am I when I’m running? Or, what’s my take when I’m running and by the way, who am I?

This is where my brain explodes.

I don’t know much about Kabbalah, as the world I grew up in didn’t emphasize it except to mention Yosef Caro and the Zohar for a couple of minutes. I do think Madonna/Esther and the folks who run that center in LA exploit it for their own ends. That doesn’t seem very mystical.

For those who are curious about the whole red-string part of Judaism, it’s about the mystical, hidden meanings in the Torah and other Jewish writings. It’s controversial with many Jews eschewing it completely and others going whole-hog. So to speak.

The point is, on this one, I can give you my opinion but I’m not really an expert.

For me personally, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I think each soul is utterly unique and there’s never been one like it before or since. And I don’t even believe in your loved ones looking down from Heaven. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife but tend to doubt it and I believe when you’re dead, you’re dead and that’s it. Is that the Jewish view? Not really, it’s a lot more “world to come” based. But you asked for my take.

If your question is, “who am I?” then the answer is in the FAQ but it just points you to the sidebar. As I’ve indicated lots of times over the course of the blog, I try to keep my private life out of the blog and the blog out of my private life. I’ve been semi-successful with that.

If it’s “Who am I” in the metaphysical sense, I dropped out of philosophy after two classes. You may have noticed, my brain is fragile and prone to confusion at difficult concepts.

If the question is, when I’m running who am I, then that is easy. When I’m running I am a jet engine which takes off with a flourish, has lots of turbulence but also some smooth sailing, and in the end, everyone’s just glad to be in one piece and at the destination.

By the way, I know several Jewish Williams. Thanks for writing!