Before I get into the party, some information for my non-Jewish friends. Hebrew calendar is lunar; secular calendar is solar. So birthdays, anniversaries, other days of remembrance don't fall together on lunar/solar dates.

My Hebrew birthday is actually next Saturday, the 7th day of Tammuz, but that date was taken already, so I celebrated my Hebrew birthday today. I sponsored the Kiddush--the luncheon after religious services--in honor of my 85th birthday.

I engaged the services of a friend who is an excellent cook and sometime-caterer. She does a fantastic job on a little bit of money. I gave her a goodly amount, and bless her generous soul, she added some of her money and made a beautiful spread with green salad, other veggies fixed different ways, hummus, and she baked four beautiful loaves of challah, and there was cholent. She asked me if I wanted cholent, and I said "Yes, of course. It isn't Sabbath without cholent." I made my own potato salad, because nobody makes it the way I like it. Ten pounds of potatoes, a dozen hardboiled eggs, a jar of mayo, half a jar of sweet pickle relish, a whole bunch of crushed garlic, one white onion and one red onion. Vinegar and sugar  added to the mayo for a sweet-sour dressing. Oh, yeah, and salt to taste. And there was a yummy chocolate birthday cake from Carmita's, a fine kosher restaurant here. Yafa also made me a chocolate cake which I will take with me to the Rosh Chodesh gathering tomorrow.

A bunch of people wished me mazel tov.

Another difference between Hebrew and secular dates: the first day of the month of Tammuz is tomorrow. Our months start with Rosh Chodesh (Head of the Month) with the sighting of the new moon. Tomorrow (Sunday when you're reading this) will be a gathering of the ladies for a celebration of the new month. I will present the "teaching" this month. I asked for that privilege because Tammuz is my birth month. What a wealth of information I found. If you want to find out more, please Google Tammuz.

I will say this, though. Tammuz is seen as a month of mourning, but also there's the element of joy and redemption in the way we're supposed to take the bad and find something good, and elevate it to help repair the world--tikkun olam. It's a month of mourning because this is the month when both holy Temples were destroyed, first one by the Babylonians and the second by the Romans. Other bad things happened this month, and you can read about them if you want to Google Tammuz.

It was very windy today, gusts up to 40-50 mph. We were still able to have the kiddush outdoors, as some very large trees overshadow the yard and cut down on the amount of wind in that area. The temperature was quite pleasant until about 1:30, when it was going-home time. I was glad to come home to coolish rooms. The temperature is predicted to get no lower than 64 degrees tonight. It was 95 during the hottest part of the day and humidity was 54%. Our summer humidity usually is much lower, so 95 degrees doesn't seem so oppressive. Our weather has been crazy all year.

And with that observation, I say goodnight.