שמש שקעה, שקעה מעבר ים ימי החול חלפו, חלפו ואינם וכוכבים שם במרום יברכו שבת-שלום

 First order of business:

A photo of Madeline's pinot---complete with many little cotton threads from the cotton batiste thaty I haven't fully cleaned up.

Yes, I have to go to work with some masking tape to pick away all of the white threads. I'm still figuring out how to edge the pinot. The wheels are turning although the actual solution is not yet quite figured out.

I haven't baked challah in about two months.

When I started this batch I wondered if I would still remember what to do. I did remember. About half of these challot are stuffed with apple butter and apple friendly spices. The other half are not because I ran out of patience.

We are eating one of the chickens that I had made before Passover. Our dining room is still  piled high with STUFF because of the flood last week in our maid's room. We have been running a dehumidifier. I have occasionally turned it off for half a day but then we get the basement smell again, so back on it goes.

Some buildings in my neighborhood have spectacular stained glass windows in their lobbies. You walk in and see a showy bit of wonderful stained glass. Our building has a modest stained glass window that is located in a little hallway off the lobby where our mailboxes are.

This window isn't there to impress visitors but just to give the residents a tiny bit of pleasure. The window looks into a courtyard that doesn't get very much light. Yesterday the sunlight hit the window just right as I went to get the mail. I have never seen the window look prettier.

I had a doctor's appointment on the East Side.

I saw a particularly nice example of early fire escape iron work. Often this style is either badly damaged or so thickly covered in dozens of layers of enamel paint that you can't really see the pretty lace-like design.

Shabbat Shalom to all of you.