FINSBURY PARK

First, I'd just like to say right off that I had nothing to do with the alarm. There's no way I could have set it off from where I was. It had nothing whatsoever to do with me.

Anyway, so I left here to go to the synagogue--I'd tried calling, but there was no answer, and their answering machine ("answerphone") was full. So I decided to just show up and see if anyone was there.

I left here and caught the Eastbound Picadilly Line Tube to the Manor House station. The little digital readout on the subway said, "This train is for COCKFOSTERS." Now, I must say that I have no idea what a cockfoster is, but I think I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I am not one. I was offended.

At any rate, I did eventually get to the correct station without further insult.

The synagogue is tiny, and kind of sad. I mean, not that it would make much difference if people had painted swastikas on the scrolls at a rich church, but something about this tiny little synagogue that is obviously not a rich congregation was just so sad. They'd cleaned up most of the glass from the broken windows and such, but there was still graffiti on the doors, and the front and back yards were full of all kinds of trash.

Nobody was anywhere to be found, so I thought maybe I should just leave. But there was a big dumpster-thingy in the front yard, and the yard was so full of trash...so I ended up going to the corner store, picking up a roll of trash bags ("refuse bags" according to the label) and a pair of gloves, and spending the afternoon cleaning up the yard.

At about 1:30, I heard a noise as I was approaching one of the doors, but it seemed too quiet for an alarm, so I thought it just must be some kind of very noisy air conditioner.

At about 2:30, two very serious-looking men in suits arrived and wandered around looking at things, and then eventually came over, showed me their police badges, and started asking me questions about how long the alarm had been going off. I said that I didn't know, but I'd been hearing it since 1:30, and that I wasn't actually a member of the congregation, but had just been picking up trash. Then I had a panicked moment where I actually thought they might arrest me for saying "trash" instead of "rubbish," but evidently they were feeling magnanimous and let me off the hook. I said "trash" three more times in the course of the conversation, and each time mentally kicked myself.

I did discover not one but two tiny little frogs, and being Jewish frogs, I named them Schlomo and Moishe. I briefly considered taking them home, but eventually realized that it might not be such a good idea.

Later in the afternoon, I scratched my arm on this sticky plant, and thought, "Wow, that really stings." It continued to bother me, and I thought I must have somehow gotten a splinter in my arm or something. Then I noticed the hives.

So I called my friend, Sarah, and we had the following conversation:

Me: Sarah, are there any poisonous plants here?

Sarah: Well, not really all that poisonous.

Me: I mean, like Poison Ivy or something.

Sarah: Well, not Poison Ivy...I mean, there are Stinging Nettles, for example....

Me: Well, I just scratched myself on this plant, and it really stings,

Sarah: That would be why they call them "Stinging Nettles."

So yes, I also discovered Stinging Nettles, which was not nearly so fun a discovery, and frankly, one I could have done without.

Nothing particularly exciting happened after that. Er, well, I met this nice man from North Wales who told me I absolutely had to visit there in November, and I also met this very odd Jewish guy who initiated a conversation with me trying to prove that he was more Jewish than I was, a conversation which I didn't take part in, mostly because I didn't like him much. It was sort of one of those things where he was posturing and trying to make out like he had more right to be upset about things because he is *from* Israel. I don't know why Jewish men sometimes do this--it's really dumb. I mean, I could use the "Oh yeah, my dad's a concentration camp survivor" trump card, but why? It's stupid.

Stephen used to do this to me. He hadn't seen the inside of a synagogue since he was a kid, and I went to a Messianic Jewish congregation once a week. And every Jewish holiday, I'd wish him a happy whatever or a solemn whatever or whatever the appropriate greeting was, and I'd get the "Judaism Lite" comments from him. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Oh. Note to Self: Next time you decide to spend the afternoon bending over and picking things up off of the ground, DO NOT wear a v-necked t-shirt, or anything similarly low-cut.

Anyway.

So I managed to clean all of the trash out of the front and side yards, and by then I was utterly exhausted and realized that the back yard would probably take an entire day all by itself, so I quit.

And left the frogs.

All right, so part of me actually thought that if I took the frogs, I'd be stealing frogs from a synagogue, and that was a major factor. Also, although these frogs were really cute, I thought that they might not like being moved, and that would be a kind of cruel thing to do to frogs just because I liked them so much.

At any rate, now I am utterly utterly exhausted. I probably shouldn't have worked out on Peter's rowing machine this morning, but I sort of feel like I have all this time, and the least I can do is get into some semblance of shape.

I need to somehow get up the energy to go to congregation tonight, but all I really want to do is collapse on a couch and watch awful television and have someone bring me a cup of tea.

I have half an hour to make up my mind for sure.

I'll keep you posted.

Look at me! Look at how energetic I am! Look how fast I am moving!

No, really.