from my grandmother

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.  

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".  

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.  

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.  

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.  

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.  

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.  

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.  

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".  

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer , ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.  

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.  

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Hillary Clinton

So, apparently, I met Hillary Clinton.  I don't remember where.  But she started talking about a young senator who impressed her very much named Bob Casey, and I got excited 'cause he's my neighbor, and next thing you know we've been chatting for a while.  My parents drove by, so I stopped to introduce her.  Anyhow, she told me to meet her where she lives, at the University of France Philadelphia, because she had something to give me.  So, even though it was erev Shabbat, and I needed to walk to Squirrel Hill (which for those not in the know is in Pittsburgh), I made my way to Penn (in Philly), which for once looked exactly like Princeton (in Princeton), and to the University of France Philadelphia.  Security totally fought with me about getting in to see her, but once they called down and told her my name, I was cleared.  At that point I lost interest and woke up.

She was really nice, though, so I may vote her.

there were frogs on his head and frogs in his bed

ah, but you will say to me: "they were not frogs.  and this is not passover."

and lo, i will reply to you: "correct.  they were earwigs and it was on Shabbat."

they've been invading slowly.  for a few weeks they were in he bathroom, only on the floor.  then they starting climbing up the toilet and into the paper towels.  last week i foud one on the toilet paper.

this week i found another on the toilet paper and one on the sink.

then i saw a cockroach of some sort which tried to kill me.

and this morning?  this morning i found an earwig on avraham's pillow and another on my blanket.  and lo, i looked up and they were crawling on the wall.  we packed up the baby and our stuff and headed over to shul where the unclean had not yet descended.

so.  the next time someone goes on about the hamptons, please do me a favor and kiss it.