So Sharleen is inspired by Elliot who sends his family a quick update every day. So while I am not up to committing to that level of involvement, I think it's a great idea. It makes sense on a lot of levels. As a coach and a student of what brings us happiness and satisfaction, I see this as a great path to both. This exercise provides us a great opportunity to constantly acknowledge the things we are grateful for and keep us present to the things we have to celebrate in our lives.

And today, I'd like to celebrate my Manu. He went with Uri and I to the early minyan yesterday. Afterwards, we were home alone. So we read or played some, and then I suggested we learn a bit, first some Torah, then some Shakespeare.

So this is not a parsha that excites me, but the part about spurious seminal emissions did somehow engage me. So somehow we got from there to the topic of twins (I don't know if this was by way of the birds and the bees or not), and I, not being a person who throws anything out, pulled out my Applied Animal Reproduction textbook, and we got to learning about it. We got into the various types of uteri and penises, the morphology of the testes, the fertilization of the egg, and even a bit about the development of the embryo and placental attachment.

And yes, we did learn a little bit about twins. It happens a lot in sheep, which is great, but when it happens with horses, often leads to spontaneous abortion. Along the way, we learned why rabbits can simultaneously be at different stages in a pregnancy and cats can have kittens of multiple fathers, and discovered why you can make a cane out of a bull's penis, but would not be able to do the same with that of a horse. We didn't cover it all as Yakov came back and let us know it was time for Kiddush, but we both enjoyed ourselves.

We never did get to the Shakespeare. I don't think he really wanted to. But I thought it would be a great idea to start memorizing Hamlet's famous speech; so now I am about nine lines in, and I'm wondering how I ever memorized even one part in a play, but I guess the muscles we don't use atrophy; so I'll play inside this one a while and see if I can't build it up. And in the meantime, I'll wrap my head about the taxes and see if I can't get them done this week.

And if you're not yet on the list, you can get on it here!