What If You Bumped Into God At Starbucks

I tend to take life literally, so this question is a bit too metaphysical for me. But on that plane:

Would he be the homeless man outside, begging?

Would he be standing in line, wondering if he should order a venti gingerbread latte?

Would he be a she?

Would I be too tired to notice?

There is the belief that God resides in every one of us, which would mean that I always bump into God at Starbucks.

That's a comforting thought.

I have to get to Starbucks more often.

[Literally: If I bumped into God at Starbucks, I wouldn't know unless he wearing the purple and white robes and had the long-flowing white beard that I remember from images in bible stories. And if that person bumped into me at Starbucks, I would most likely think that he's some kind of nut or homeless person, and I'd move away as quickly as possible. Not too impressive of me. I definitely need to learn to dig deeper and not take people at face value.]

What Jews Do Over Christmas

Most people think that Jews order Chinese food and go out to the movies on Christmas Day. This is certainly not true for my family, but for others it could be. Usually my family is in Palm Springs (another thing people think Jews do––go somewhere warm, which could be true) because my grandma has a house there and we have a big Christian dinner with most of the family living or visiting there.

Last year I wanted to be home during Winter Break to work at the stables. My family went to our cousins' house in Vancouver for Christian dinner, and we had fresh turkey stuffed with a quail. Or something like that, I can't remember. Otherwise my famjam didn't celebrate the holidays, except for making latkes during Hanukah.

This year I am crazy busy working at a lot of different barns and housesitting a few places, so I don't have time to go away. But I will be kind of on vacation because I will be sleeping at someone else's house for about three weeks. I will be making money for the horse I have not found yet. But have no fear! I am looking at a horse on the weekend and she looked really good. My trainer and I are super excited to go and see her.

According to my mom, we will be having Christian dinner, but on Shabbat. This is what we Jews will be doing over Christmas.

Storage Wars

I am addicted to Storage Wars. It is a TV show about old storage lockers that get auctioned off. If you're wondering who buys the lockers, it's mostly people who have a lot of money or people who own antique stores. They take what's in the lockers and sell it, or keep it in their stores. The way the show works, the auctioneer opens the locker, everybody is allowed to look inside, but they cannot touch anything. Once all the people have assessed the locker, they start bidding. Some lockers go for $50 and some go for $3,000. It just depends if the bidders see something valuable or not.

On the show there are five main bidders who are in all the episodes: Brandi and Jarrod (a husband/wife team), Dave, Barry and Darrell. Dan and Laura are the auctioneers. My favourite is Barry, because he has some really fancy-shmancy-looking cars but tends to buy the worst lockers. He always says he thinks something is valuable but it never ends up being worth anything. Sometimes he is lucky and makes a lot of money on one locker. All in all he buys crap lockers.

Every Saturday night when I sleep over at the barn there is a Storage Wars marathon on A&E and that is all I watch for about two hours amongst other things, such as eating and doing night check at the barn. I am really excited because there is a Storage Wars: Texas version that aired for the first time last Tuesday. My friend got me addicted to the show when we were on Vancouver Island horse shopping. (If you're wondering how the horse shopping is going, don't ask. Too many people have asked me and I am tired of explaining.)

To sum up, Storage Wars is my favourite reality TV show. But really, no show can compete with Castle.

Going To The Dentist

My dentist's office is pretty cool because the receptionist rides in Southlands so I see her there sometimes. It confirms she is sane.

The office also has a fake fireplace and a huge tank with lots of fish. Plus it's not a kids' dentist's office, it's for adults and teenagers, which means I get treated as if I'm a 15-year-old, not a 5-year-old. Yay! I find it less scary than the doctor's office.

At the dentist's you sit in a chair, and people use tools to clean your teeth and scold you for not flossing twice a day. It's not so bad, except for when the dentist wants to talk you, but you can't talk because his hands are in the way. The doctor's however, well that's a whole other blog post. In one word the doctor is: uncomfortable.

My dentist also tries to make me do yoga to relax my jaw. Jaw yoga, as if I would do yoga in the first place let alone for my jaw. Anyway, he is pretty funny, and he used to be my grandpa's dentist. He is mine, my mom's, dad's, brother's and uncle's dentist. Good family ties at the office. Also his office is at UBC, which is close to my house, and a short bus ride away from my school.

All in all, I don't mind going to the dentist.

My Life As A Grandma

I hope not to be a grandma because I am not planning to have kids. And if I don't have kids, then I can't have grandchildren. Which also makes this blog post kind of awkward because it's titled, "My life as a grandma."

But I do have a brother, and I know he wants kids. And he wants my grandma to have great-grandchildren, so he is definitely on a mission. That would make me a great aunt, which is almost the same as a grandma. If I went 50 years into the future and imagined my life as a great aunt, I think I would be a happy camper. I would have a husband, and obviously nieces and nephews. I'm not sure how many, but hopefully not too many (but that is out of my hands). I would have a career as a volcanologist. Or maybe not. It could be something totally different. Nonetheless, whatever it will be, it will be a successful career. And I would still have some involvement with horses on some level. My husband would have a successful career, too.

I would be one of the best great aunts you could ask for. I would take my nieces and nephews out for a day or two to give my brother and his wife a break. I would like my nickname to be Aunty Yes, because I will always say yes to them.

Seeing as I don't want kids, it would be good for me to have a good relationship with them, because if I get old and sick, I am going to need someone to take care of me.

In Praise of Isomers

For the past two weeks I have been working hard to finish Chemistry 11. With just one more unit to go, my mission is almost complete. En route, however, isomers have given me a bit of a bumpy ride.

To understand isomers, you have to know that a hydrocarbon is a molecule composed of only carbon and hydrogen atoms. You write it as CH4. The 4 after the H means that there are four hydrogens bonded to the carbon. Keep in mind there are many kinds of hydrocarbons other than CH4, such as C9H20. Fun stuff, huh?

Now you need to know a little bit about carbon and hydrogen:

• Carbon has four electrons in its outer shell. A full outer shell has eight electrons, meaning carbon has to bond with four other atoms to fill its shell and be happy.
• Hydrogen has one electron in its outer shell but needs two to be happy. (Don't we all?)
• Electrons float around atoms in a shell––two in the first shell, eight in the second and third shells and 18 in the fourth.
• So if one hydrogen bonds with one carbon, the hydrogen will be happy but the carbon will still have three spots to fill, which it usually fills with hydrogen.

This is why CH4 is the simplest hydrocarbon. There are not many ways you can restructure this molecule. But take C3H8. You can write out all the carbon atoms in one line, with the hydrogens surrounding the carbons. But you can also put one of the carbons below the other carbon atoms. This is a different molecule from all three carbons in a straight line. And it has a different name. Welcome to the mathematical world of isomers.

Once you get to molecules such as C9H20 there are many different isomers. A Chemistry 11 requirement is that you have to be able to figure out all the isomers, draw them and name them. Which can be exhausting. I hope that if isomers make an appearance on the test, they will be easier molecules or we'll be told how many isomers there are.

This link explains isomers in a more detailed and clearer way than I can manage just now.

Bad Christmas Sweaters

Bad Christmas sweaters; I'm not sure what to think of them. They are pretty ugly. If a Christmas sweater is only white and navy blue or black you can maybe pull it off. But if it's red or more than two colours, nobody can pull it off. And I mean nobody, not even models. Those sweaters are just too ugly.

I also don't understand why someone would buy one. I understand if your grandma made it or it had family history. But why buy such an ugly sweater? You can't wear it any other time of year, and you shouldn't even wear it in winter. Bad Christmas sweaters can also be hilarious, because of the designs on them, like the ones with Santa Claus and all his elves. Or Santa's sleigh and the reindeer.

I would have to be bribed to wear a bad Christmas sweater. And it would have to be a good bribe. I wouldn't wear one for only five bucks. More like 500 bucks. Yes, that is how much I do not want to wear one. I would never heal from the horrid ugliness of it. I'm still healing from clothes I wore when I was like seven.

Clowns

I think clowns are hilarious. I don't understand why some people are scared of them. I guess I should watch a horror movie with clowns, then maybe I would understand that fear. But when I think of clowns, I think of Cirque du Soleil and the TV show Modern Family. Why the TV show? Because there is a gay couple and one of the guys, Cam, has this obsession with being a clown. When he was younger he used to be a clown at little kids' birthday parties. He is just hilarious. Seriously.

I also do not have the ability to take clowns seriously. If a clown came up to me and started talking about philosophy I would probably start laughing. Because who has ever heard of a philosophical clown? Not that people who are clowns cannot be philosophical, it's just they can't be philosophical dressed as a clown.

For the record, I did research philosophical clowns and there is no such thing. I found one video tof a clown asking people "deep" questions. Then the clown then started asking ridiculous questions.

Using YouTube as my guiding light, I can safely conclude that there is no such thing as a philosophical clown.

Shabbat Dinner

Every Friday night my family sits down to Shabbat dinner. It's to celebrate the start of Saturday, which is the day of rest for Jewish people (all Jewish holidays run sundown to sundown). On Friday, my uncle and grandma come to our house for dinner. My mom told me that when she was growing up, the Shabbat dinners rotated between their house and her aunt's house. But in our family, we are the keeper of the Shabbat dinners. We go to my uncle's house once or twice a year for a meal, but never on Shabbat.

My brother and I rarely miss Friday Night dinners––it's a family tradition that just feels right. We always recite blessings over the wine and challah (twisted egg bread) before dinner, but my mom is iffy when it comes to lighting the Shabbat candles and welcoming Shabbat in song. There are rules: if we have friends over for dinner, we light the candles; if we have guests who are not Jewish, then my dad gives them a run-down on Shabbat and what the blessings mean. My brother and I always grunt when he starts his speech, although I suppose when I grow up it's going to be one of the things I'll be glad he did. Once we had a non-Jewish family over, and when we started singing the blessing over the candles, they thought we were singing Happy Birthday and chimed in. It was memorable.

Dinner doesn't vary much, and it's always delicious. My favourite is Caesar salad with oven-baked fries, barbecued grass-fed steak and my old stand-by, challah. We've been having a lot of blueberry pie lately for dessert, because we have a lot of blueberries that we froze over the summer.

People sit around talking after dinner, although not me. I usually crash in front of the TV and then go to bed. I have to get up early to clean stalls in horse stables. I don't really get to rest on Shabbat, although that's the point of it.