Why Moishe House LA needs to move

This month we had quite the aromatic struggle at the Moishe House. A smell had been churning since late March, and it got worse in April. A couple nights I stayed at work until I was ready to go to bed. Our Israeli landlords brought over the plummer. He said it wasn't the pipes. Then they brought the roto-rooter. He said he would have to tear up walls. Our landlords were skeptical. I went to the pipe shop across the street to get incense, and discovered it was the worst head shop ever. Every incense was awful, but we burned them anyway. Finally three weekends ago we dragged the landlords to the house and made them inhale the stench that plagued LA Moishe. We busted through walls and floors in the other apartment and then in ours. We finally discovered a puddle sitting underneath the main bathroom floor. The plummer said the landlords needed to get someone to clean and disinfect. Roto-rooter came. Sucked up our slime. Plummers came back and fixed the pipes.

We spent about a week with a big hole in the floor, covered by a couple planks. Lee fell through the floor once, the bumbling slob that he is. Meanwhile our Israeli neighbors, cousins of the landlord, moved out. Our landlords put a 'for sale' sign outside, so we're thinking it's a good idea to move on as well. Got the Westside Rentals account.

Let us know if you hear of anything, k?

-Nate Blogg


Current mood: exasperated.
Listening to: Futurama on the TV even though no one is watching it.

Moishe House Adventure

Finally the winter is making its exit here in Boston and in only a few weeks I will make mine. That's right, I am leaving the house for at least the next 6 months as I will be studying in Israel as part of my rabbinical school training. In June I will be the beautiful Santa Barbara, interning at Congregation B'nai B'rith (and I hope to see the Forest Folks in my spare time)! I am grateful to have been a part of the Moishe House experience and hope to continue to be involved. It's one thing to study the Jewish community as a future rabbi, it's another thing to be part of the community, to create a home for people to explore their own Judaism and hang out with other Jews. I take a number of learnings from the experience - going on retreat with people you work/live with is key; keeping one's passions at the heart of one's responsibilities is fueling; check-ins are a great way to keep fires from flaming up; and that leaders with a sense of humor, gentleness, and creative zest are inspiring to be around and motivating to work with. Special thanks to my house: Ari, Margie and Ben, and to Isaac, Dave, Levi and Phil!

Thanks especially to Morris - your commitment to the Jewish community and the way in which you empower its young people is an example that I take with me into the rabbinate. Thank you for this Moishe House Adventure.

B'Shalom,
Alyson

The Beginning of the End

It is sad to think this is my last month living in a Moishe House, but friends have been supportive and tell me I need to face the facts and just enjoy it while I have it. I will be moving out in June to get a place with my sweetie. I visited MHSF yesterday and am sad Aaron and Maia weren't home, but it was great to see Isaac and meet the mysterious 4th roommate, Dave. He is tall, but despite his height is actually quite nice. I became a Warriors fan just listening to him speak of the wondrous playoff run they are having so far. I helped Dave and Isaac shop at Goodwill for their MH softball showdown game where the business casual SF house was playing the east bay dressed as "80s golf." Too bad my flight prohibited me from seeing the game...

In other news, look out for me to be quoted in an article in the Jewish Transcrpt (www.jta.org) tomorrow, as I was interviews by a reporter while attending the national meeting and conference for Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish activist group I have been involved with this year. The reporter was intrigued with me for wearing tzitzit while at a conference opposing the Israeli occupation (we can debate this subject later, but in the meantime, check out the article).

Meanwhile, today is May Day and I am about to head to the Seattle Center to participate in a rally for immigrant rights.

I appreciate my roommates, Norah and Jonathan for treating me like family here in Seattle. As I leave their house at the end of the month, it will be sad, but not the end. Peace and love, D

I love (hating) taxes

I felt (financially) poor in 2006, being mostly
un(der)employed and trying to get my (work) life
together after running screaming (pretty literally)
from my last job (which shall remain nameless, as it
was a Jewish communal service job) -- but it just
ain't officially so til you've filed your taxes, and
the federal government goes ahead and gives you the
offical WASSUP of having earned less than $100 above
the poverty line.

So, as I reflected on how (relative to most of my
earning buddies here in high-price SF) little I made
last year, I realized how much I enjoyed this last
(long) stint of semi-employedness. Now, I'm no
stranger to not having health insurance, or anything
even remotely like job stability, and Craigslist
employment ads (twelve times a day, baby!) -- but
something happened when I went from being
lost-in-the-woods-naked kind of scared about my state
of affairs, to thoroughly appreciating (down to the
minute) this owning of my days. This last year of
rolling with the tides of having to tell my parents
(yet again) why I'm walking out on a job I held for 3
months has been downright liberating.

I've learned (in no particular order) : to slam an
office door on an abusive boss; to quit nicely; to
demand the big bucks for freelance bullshit work from
assholes; to work for free for people I respect.
Mostly, that I should really try to do what I love, as
my grandmother always said.
After all, it might just be crazy enough to work...


And, for the record, I did just land a sweet gig at
City Lights Books that I'm going to try to hold on to
for a while... My bosses and colleagues are
respectful, funny, fabulous and/or walking legends of
history (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and I get to be around
books all day...

I guess I'll just have to plan better for my taxes to
not get screwed by that last $86 of income. Here's to
earning even less in 2007!
--Maia from SF

On Social Justice and David

I am quite thankful that is starting to warm up. I've recently found myself to be quite busy and I'm enjoying that. This weekend we did what I would consider to be our first real social justice activity. We got about 10 MHDCers to join us at the Global Days for Darfur Rally. It was great. In other news, Levi asked us to blog about someone we appreciate. I will choose David, my housemate. This month I decided to start writing a blog about him and it has turned out to be very popular. In all seriousness, David is an extremely thoughtful person and I think the traffic the site is receiving is a testament to his warmth. He always brings a smile to your face. It is a pleasure to live with him and learn from him.

best,
Benno

P.S.
davidweinblog.blogspot.com
Catch the fever!

Back in SF

 
Last time I blogged I was running off to Guatemala. Well, I am back now and feeling recharged. Semana Santa (Easter Week) in San Pedro was gorgeous. Streets were carpeted in colored sawdust, flowers, pine needles, fruits, and vegetables, and all of it lasted only a few hours. The ephemeral beauty of creating public artwork and then trampling it right as it is completed is amazing. It is inspiring and refreshing. I think about this a lot today as it is May Day and in a few moments I will go off to join a rally for Immigrant and Labor Rights.

In the US we have parades and rallies and community events, but I cannot think of a time when we actually all feel connected as a community as I saw in Guatemala. There everybody from the smallest child to the oldest grandmother help adorn the streets and celebrate Easter. Even the clean up is a community responsibility. I realize that in SF our community is thousands of times larger, but even in large cities like Antigua I have heard that everyone is out in the streets celebrating together and creating beautiful carpets before the many processions. Today I will look to see if the feeling of community prevails in SF.

public holidays are your friends...

so, another month come and gone - i can't believe how quickly the time is flying! i mean, already it's almost halfway through the year... scary... and only about 4weeks till exams start... even scarier :(

anyway though, the last couple of days have been pretty good. we've had a super long weekend here in south africa, because we believe in creating as many public holidays as possible, preferably all in a row. so we've been living it up from friday through to tuesday (ok, so technically monday wasn't actually a public holiday, but the majority of people seemed to view it as one), and now we're looking at a three day week. nice! well, actually not so nice, because i meant to use this mini vac to catch up on a whole lot of work, which of course didn't get done! oh well...

so, quite a bit has happened in the last month, from what i can remember. we've had all the yoms: yom hashoa, yom ha'atzmaut, yom hazikaron, and i don't know why, but for some reason, the memorial days affected me more than usual. i found the ceremonies we attended really sad and moving! yom ha'atzmaut was fun fun fun as usual though. we have it at our local amusement park every year, and all the jews in cape town congregate to celebrate Israel's birthday. it also reminded me how much fun roller coasters are!! wow, what a thril! :)

ooh, and highlight of the month is definitely the fact that i cleaned my room!!! it's so tidy and pretty and orderly now! and i even got new bedcovers with chinese symbols - looking good! the only problem is the new cleanliness seems to be attracting the other guys, and i often come home to find them lying on my bed and watching tv series on my computer. i've already got almost all of them addicted, mwahahahaha...

and speaking of my beloved computer, the guys decided it would be fun to vandalise it last night, and i came home to find my nice innocent background replaced by gay porn!! Something which they found hilarious, but for some reason i didn't quite get the humour... although it is the general feeling of the house that i'm now also a guy, so maybe it's just their way of showing affection, hmmm.

not that i mind being a guy. i've found that it's actually quite fun, although i'm starting to feel like friends of mine outside of the house might be getting just a little bit worried, so i decided to go shopping for some, um, "feminine" attire. so now, i'm all ready for winter, decked out in jeans, boots, long jerseys and a really cute hat!! and what's really great is that the guys actually noticed, so maybe it's not so much me becoming a guy as them all becoming girls... hehehe

well, either way, it's non stop fun in the house, whether we're stressed from varsity, overtired from going out too much, bored from procrastinating and avoiding work, or, the more likely option - all three. and of course there's our monday night dinners which are always great! last night was stir fry made by kev and barnett - so good!!

ok, i'm not so sure i'm making sense anymore, so i think i'm gonna end off now and go back to my studying, got a feeling i might have a test tomorrow :(

here's to many more public holidays in the (near) future!

em (with the cute hat) :)