Tis the Season

I am so used to working within the Cathedral that at times I forget that it is a Christian building. As artwork is reinstalled into the space, though, I am reminded. A month ago an icon went into the Narthex and I was struck when I first saw it, so Jesus-y. And at the beginning of this week a creche scene was added and for a moment I thought "What is this doing here?" There's a story my mom likes to tell, and I forget if it was me or my sister, but when we were growing up in Indiana we walked past a manger scene and one of us called out "I know who that is, that's baby Moshe!" And now here I am fielding calls about service times and being "Merry Christmas"ed left, right and center. It might sound like I'm complaining, but I'm genuinely enjoying it; I love to see how people connect with this place, and this is a rare space in New York where people generally are kind and expect to have nice interactions with others. 

The other weekend I went to Boston to hang out with JJ, which was really pretty wonderful. He has a nice, clean apartment with only one fault, it's in the middle of nowhere. It's the opposite of NY as i found out when i wanted dinner and there was absolutely no way i could walk to any restaurant and none delivered food. I was reduced to ordering Dominos and being charged ridiculous mount of money for pizza I didn't even want. We were able to hang out downtown a bit and in less than 2 days I was able to have clam chowder twice! I've had a love affair with clam chowder (Boston style) for as long as I remember. I ate it with oyster crackers when we used to visit my Dad at work in Indiana, and on our family trip to Boston I had it three meals a day for 5 days straight. I introduced "chowda" to JJ, who liked it and kept trying to pronounce the soup in Boston style with his Dominican accent. 

The other big bonus to working at the Cathedral is holiday parties. Of course, by "holiday" they mean Christmas, and nary a dreidel or latke was seen (though where could they have put one with every surface covered in green/red lights or tinsel?). There were department parties, office parties, cathedral-wide parties and a few after-parties. The best Norman Rockwell moments were at the educators' party, where we gathered around a piano played by a genuine Broadway pianist and caroled away. The funniest was the after-party at a coworkers where one person had three too many. At the Cathedral-wide party I found myself sitting with the two other Jews on staff. Tonight is non-Christmas dinner with my family in New York.