I have now officially made it through Yom Kippur services! Actually, I liked the services very much and in general liked the whole Jewish experience a lot, but I figured I probably would, since I've watched so many Mel Brooks movies.

Seriously. That is the extent of my experience with Jewish culture, which is really sad, but I now know a lot more things about what's happening in the temple (except I still slip up and say 'church' about half of the time...I need to work on that).

I now know what a Torah is, and I know how to say, "Happy New Year" in Hebrew, and I know that you never, ever go sit in that one lady's chair, even if the conductor tells you to, because she gets really mad and sits behind you muttering until you vacate her seat, even if the whole thing was only five minutes.

Really. On Yom Kippur morning when we've already been there for like two hours, this lady left to go to the bathroom and was gone for a long time, so when it was about five minutes until it would be time for me to walk back to the podium, the conductor had me go sit in that lady's seat, which was vacant and right by the podium, so it would be a little bit of a shorter walk when it was time.

Didn't go over well. A few minutes later, the lady comes back and says, "WHY ARE YOU IN MY CHAIR???" Pretty much as if I'd kicked her in the head or stolen her cough drops or something. Really. She then sat down in one of the ten thousand empty chairs in the row behind her row and proceeded to have a major freak-out about it, muttering repeatedly to anyone who'd listen about how I'd taken her chair.

This just made it very hard for me not to laugh, which isn't a good idea, because it's a very serious service. Geez.

It was a great experience, though. The people are so complimentary and they make you feel as though you don't suck, which is awesome, because I tend to be a tad bit over-critical with myself. Maybe. A little. 

AND they give you little cups of Manischewitz after the service, which is pretty much like drinking the frozen grape juice concentrate straight. A tad bit sweet, there. I always wondered why it wasn't in with the other wine in the supermarket, and now I know...if you tried to drink too much of that stuff, you'd probably pass out from high blood sugar before you even got a buzz.

So, yeah, my day was pretty exciting. Back to the real world, though. With only four hours of sleep, because one of the songs from yesterday was playing in my head over and over and over and driving me bananas. Oh, and I think confirming calls are going to sound great today. Just putting that out there. I sound like I spent the last three days smoking cigarettes in my car with the windows rolled up.

Aw yeah. That's me for you, super smooth.