Nazi car, shoo!

 Hilarious. I heard a car door close right outside my door and looked out, it was some old white boomer type guy in a black Swasticar. He was stopped to check his map or phone or something but hassling Nazimobile drivers is always good so I did. "Hey don't park that Nazi car here" and when the guy looked like he might pull in to park, I called out, "Don't park that thing here, I'll have you towed!" but he was just turning around (the unit numbers in this complex make no sense). He said something, probably "Hitler is my lord and savior" or some shit, and I finished with "Get out of here, Nazi car!" haha. 

I just got up and read on Reddit about a huge ice storm in the upper Midwest, normally would make huge headlines but completely blanked out of the media because it's not about Mango Mussolini. And no FEMA help because apparently FEMA is gone now. 

Yesterday's outrage is Dirty Diaper Don didn't like some show that CBS ran, so he's ordered the FCC to cancel their license. 

I packed the 3 large things that had to go out today, and headed for FedEx and the post office around 2. On the way back I stopped by Tom's place and said that just out of curiosity, if he can let me have the clarinet for a few days I can do some research on it and figure out what it's worth. I also told him if he's curious about playing the clarinet, the way to go is rent one from Park Avenue Music, pick up the reeds and mouthpiece I recommend (Rico #2 reeds in the light blue box, Fobes Debut mouthpiece) and a band book, and give it a goo. His metal clarinet is missing pads so it would cost a lot to get it playable but it might be worth a few hundred to someone and that money can go towards his renting one and giving it a good try. 

I got back here and cleaned up, and headed downtown around 5. I tanked up on chicken and vegetables and some "very dry" apple cider in a can, which I drank about half of, then put the rest in a fizzy water bottle and eked that out until now, when it's almost midnight. The stuff's probably got less carbs than beer, and more importantly, it's it's not chametz which beer is. 

I took the light rail to downtown Campbell, rode over to Beth David, and spent about half an hour studying, sitting in front, until people started to show up for the class. 

The class was great fun as usual. We got another handout, a 3-pager, and after singing the alef-bet song, and doing some reading off of the new handout, the teacher took out some little tubs of magnetic letters like you'd stick on a fridge, and had everyone pull out two. I didn't look, and got fay and fay sofit. The first guy got two alefs. The teacher came around to me and got mixed up himself and tried to say that's a chaf sofit but I pointed out the little "tongue" and he was like, "You're right, those are fay and fay sofit".

One of the older gals was having trouble telling samech from mem sofit, and when I got a chance I told her, "In my work I used boxes a lot, and I put things in my pockets, and mem sofit is a box, and samech is a pocket" and I think she's got it down pat now. 

The rabbinic stuff was fun and interesting as usual, and we went into "overtime" a bit. I got a few neat books (one on the history of Jewish street peddlers in Chicago, one with tons of the commonly used songs/prayers and it's pocket size, and one, a sort of tourist souvenir booklet with a fold-out map, about Masada and printed in Jerusalem. 

Getting home was uneventful. I ended up talking on the train with a guy who'd raced BMX in the 80s and apparently had a hard time in life, is in housing, "Finally!" and his case worker is helping him find a job. I said he ought to look at detailing cars, and there's a lot of helpful discussion of it on Reddit. I hope he at least considers this, since if he raced BMX he's no stranger to hard work. 

At one point (we were using the two gas stations are landmarks to know when to push the "stop requested" thing) I mentioned that at one of the gas stations, the price of a bag of ice is 2X what it is at the other one, and they're owned by the same people. "They're Jewish" the guy said. "Actually they're Indian" I said. "But you know what I mean," the guy said. I said actually it's your white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who are like that, shake your hand and pick your pocket with the other, extremely stingy, and Jews are always building hospitals and things, "and donate 10% of their income" so maybe I changed a mind there. 

On the ride back in from the light rail station, I stopped at one place and found a whole box of Post-Its so now Ken and I have a lifetime supply of Post-Its haha. And some lettuce and a bell pepper. I'd planned to make matzah brei but just don't have the energy.