Stitching, shidduch dating and shiva calls

Yesterday (Monday) was pretty quiet, mostly just bumming around the house. Sh had plans in the city, so I stitched and cleaned and did laundry. At night I had an offer from C to go to a Matzah Ball or 2 in the city, but I had plans to go out with a friend for her birthday, which was Sunday.

We went to a kosher dairy restaurant in the Five Towns - I'd tell you which but I can't tell them apart. It ended up being 13 girls and 3 guys, all but 1 of whom I only knew through my friend. Some of them are all cliquey but Shira's really sweet and is also completely uninterested in the conversations about people I don't know, so she ended up telling me and a few other people the funniest stories about shidduch dates she'd been on.

For the record, shidduch dating is very different from normal dating. It's blind dates on crack. What happens is, you have a matchmaker, called a Shadchan (shod-chan, with the ch like in chanukah). The Shadchan finds a boy and a girl to set up on a date. She (or he) checks with each that they are interested in the date, and then if it's a go gives the guy the girl's # to call. They then go on a very PG, not even PG13, date. Depending on how religious they are, this could be a *normal* date like dinner or coffee, or it could be sitting & chatting in a hotel lobby - I kid you not. After the date is over, they each report back to the Shadchan as to how the date went. If both people tell the Shadchan they're interested, she gives the guy permission to call the girl for a second date. I'm not sure if they need to do this before the third date or not, I keep forgetting to ask Shira.

So anyways, Shira was telling us all kinds of funny stories about her shidduch dating experiences. The cute Israeli waiter kept giving us these looks. Finally he starting pitching himself to us! I don't think he's Shira's type though, not religious enough. Oh well.


Today started off really mellow, slept late, woke up & stitched on my Mirabilia Ivy. This is a pic of how far I got. Then we found out that my uncle D's father, who lives in Israel, passed away. He was sitting shiva already at his house (in Monsey) so we drove up there this afternoon to pay a shiva call. It's a schlep - at least an hour each way - & I hate watching other people drive so I brought along some yarn & my circular needles to make another felted hat. Between going and coming I got through 70% of the hat.

D is probably my favorite uncle, but his family has the strangest minhagim - even my aunt (my mom's sister) rolls her eyes sometimes. He was explaining something about when he & his family were supposed to start & finish sitting shiva... we just smiled & nodded, and were very thankful that my grandfather wasn't around to challenge their wacky minhag. My cousins were there, and very eager to tell me how they got to stay home from school to be with their dad. I stuck with them as much as possible, it was safest.