Happy Chanuka!

I'd like to start out by thanking all of you - my loyal fans - who are reading this! This year, I was so busy that I completely forgot to celebrate my blog's third anniversary, which came and went back on September 22nd. Three years! That's a long time to keep a blog going, for some of us :) It's funny, I still think of myself as an amateur blogger, but even I know that just being here and posting regularly (more or less) for three years makes me somewhat established. And so I thank you all for sticking with me this long!


I also thank all of you who have sent me fantastic typos and demonstrations of the absurd! It's gotten so that there are too many of you to name, but you all know who you are. I'm honored that you think of me and my little blog when you see something that's just too ridiculous to be true :) Please feel free to keep sending me bloopers that you've seen: 321toby *at* gmail *dot* com. And to those of you who have sent me items that haven't yet been posted - never fear, they're coming!


And now, on to the show!


This week we've been celebrating Chanuka. (Back in fourth grade, Ms. Kornblatt taught us that any spelling of Chanuka that incorporated eight letters was acceptable. Here I am, actively ignoring her rule, and feeling quite guilty about it. I'm sorry, Ms. Kornblatt! This one just looks best to me.) Chanuka is the Festival of Lights, and I was patiently looking for a Chanuka typo to post, when I discovered that Hannah over at A Mother in Israel had already found a great one! She very generously allowed me to repost it here, and so I present you with these boxes of wicks that she found. These are standard wicks that float on oil - there's a round stopper that does the floating, and a wick that is threaded through a hole in the center of the stopper. Not difficult. Let's see what the directions have to say for themselves - first in English:

Seems pretty straightforward, right? Hannah was kind enough to insert We’re not going to comment about spelling or vocabulary, okay? But I have to say that I really like the "equale" here - I find it very elegant :) Anyway, apparently the wicks weren't lighting well, and that's when they noticed that the Hebrew directions were actually different than the English ones!

See, here it says to leave 1/3 of the wick above the stopper, and 2/3 below, saturated in the oil. Not exactly the "equale" version mentioned in the English version. A conspiracy to undermine Anglo lighting? Or just a blooper? Let's wait and see, here's another brand that she found - first the English:

This twig cracked me up more than all the others. It's referring, you understand, to the wick. Pretty silly :) Anyway, we all understand the directions here? Okay then, here comes the Hebrew:

Wow - the Hebrew here asks us to leave 1/3 of the wick below the stopper, and 2/3 above!  Really, one wouldn't think that wick directions would be so confusing or complex. And one, of course, would be wrong :)


Here's hoping that by tomorrow night, the eighth and final Chanuka night of this year, we'll all have figured out how to light our flames!


~~~~~


By funny coincidence, we lit Chanuka candles at our cousins' house last night, in Eli. Why is this a coincidence? Because our hostess was our wonderful cousin Rena, who happened to have been interviewed by that same aforementioned Hannah on her other blog, Cooking Manager, just the same day! You can read the interview here.

Anyway, we very much enjoyed our vegan meal at their house - complete with super-delicious everything, and everything vegan: chili, cornbread, potato latkes, sweet potato latkes, sour cream, and even sufganiyot for dessert! And as always, we had a blast hanging out with all of our fun Eli cousins. But as a surprise bonus, I found this wonderful typo in the kitchen:

Now, please don't get me started on the whole bulghur/burgol thing. I'll just quickly sum up: for reasons that I cannot explain, what we know to be bulghur in English is called burgol in Hebrew. I don't understand it, but I've come to accept it. (Maybe Balashon can advise?) But I don't think even Israelis would accept it being called ourgul - that's just crazy talk :) 

Happy Chanuka to all!