more bfe at sjcaf this week!

I was so glad to see him, too!

The earlier event ran quite long, so he had to meet me at the JEA after his Buddhist sit-in was done.

Good to see the J-Dawg's smiling face after such a serious lecture by Brendan Murphy...

but more on that later.

First, happy stuff!

Like this fun documentary - "The Catskills" - about the Jewish summer resorts up in the mountains.

At one point, there were over 500 of them in the Borscht Belt, there in the southeastern part of New York.

That would be the state, not the city.

(smile!)

Its heyday was in the 1940's and 1950's, hence the reason for the physicist's interest, as he watched old TV shows from that time.

Speaking of him, he told me that Buddhists are now taking over those old resorts.

They're nice and isolated, so they're a good place for meditation outings.

I could see that being a thing!

He and I had a nice discussion during our dinner 

at Bonefish Grill.

He even reminded me of our visit in the parking lot

during the pandemic - very sweet!

Anyway, he's apparently on a fish kick, and I always 

enjoy seafood, so it was purr-fect.

(smile!)

I shared with him this delightful short I'd seen!

No, I didn't show him the actual video, right?

My phone doesn't do those kinds of tricks.

(smile!)

But I did describe in glowing detail "Zoe's Dumpling Crisis"!

I'd stumbled upon it by accident and found a youTube channel that features a new short film every month!

Yes, train has jumped the track, hasn't it?

(smile!) 

Where was I... oh, yes... Zoe and her battling babcias.

See, Zoe is a student at an international school and was tasked with bringing a dish from "her family's home country" to share with the class.

But therein lay the dilemma.

One parent was from Turkey; the other, from Russia.

So, which type of food should she make for school?

And of course both babcias wanted to help...

with the Turkish grandma insisting that Zoe take Manti...

and the Russian grandma determined she take Pelmeni...

whatever would the girl do?

I'll tell you what she did!

When the babcias weren't looking, she mixed together the container of Manti with the container of Pelmena and threw on little American flags for color!

The babcias didn't know until Zoe's Asian-Australian friend came by to pick her up and opened the container to see inside.

"Oh, you made dimsum!", he said!

Hahahaha!

Such a delightful ending!

Apparently, every country has their version of a dumpling...

just like so many have their version of a mint-infused cocktail...

meaning we have more things in common than we give credit.

(smile!)

He had a fun topic for  me, too!

He's going to a lecture by a Nobel Laureate on "background photons"...

which are also known as Cosmic Microwave Background...

which are remnants of the real Big Bang that formed the universe.

Pretty cool, right?

But here's the coolest part of all: remember the static that would appear on the old cathode-ray tube television screens when the TV station would sign off transmitting for the day?

That static was from the background photons all around us.

Hey, ask your grandma, she'll tell you about it, okay?

it was pretty cool science stuff...

(smile!)