Zivia "Cecilia" Birnbaum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tehilim127_1) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-05-19 10:44 pm
tehilim127_1) wrote in ph_logs2024-05-19 10:44 pm
[OPEN] a beautiful day, don't let it get away
Who: Zivia (tehilim127_1) & all comers (with prompts for Lev, Anzu, Ava, Dahlia, Tayrey, Degas)
What: Things resume after the flood
When: Late May and early June
Where: At work (Town Hall), at the beach, at the grocery, at an impasse
Warning(s): To be added as relevant
1. you love this town
Somehow -- magically? miraculously? Zivia feels like either of those could apply, and like neither is safe to use carelessly -- somehow the island and the town have been barely damaged by the floodwaters. Neither the plants nor the animals nor the works of human hands are any worse for wear than they might be after a heavy rain.
This does mean more work at Town Hall, as Zivia and Fever empty all the file drawers to make sure there's no water damage anywhere, and then have to put everything back. And simultaneously have to be available to answer any questions anyone has, though they agree to take turns being on call while all of that's going on. Maybe you'll show up with a question while it's Zivia's turn to address it? Or maybe, sometime during this month, you'll encounter Fever at Town Hall's booth at the job fair, and decide to follow up by inquiring within.
2. reach me, i know i'm not a hopeless case
One nice thing about living here, Zivia will readily admit, is being within walking distance of a beach.
She's out for a walk on the shoreline, some days after the end of the flood, feet bare in the sand and shoes tucked into a bag slung over her shoulder. As a wave recedes, a glint of silver catches her eye, and she breaks into a brief jog to get closer before the water comes in again.
Anyone who happens to be nearby at the time will see her drop into an unsteady crouch to pick it up, then press one hand over her mouth as though to keep from crying out in shock -- or maybe just to keep from crying.
3. see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
It is so good, after even that brief time spent scrounging things on board ship, to be able to walk into a shop and purchase things again. Whole wheat flour, honey, salt, oil, a form of yeast she isn't familiar with but is nonetheless confident she can figure out; dried spices, fresh herbs, a basket full of vegetables and fruit in season; a beautiful fillet of salmon, which she hurries home to stow in the icebox directly next to the ice. Milk, eggs, butter. A few bottles of wine, after some conversation with the shopkeeper not too dissimilar from the one she had with Dahlia on board the cursed ship.
She considers, briefly, giving Dahlia a bottle of wine in return, and discards that idea. Instead, Dahlia -- and a few other people around town who've been especially helpful in the last month or so, including Ava Starr, Arilanna Tayrey, Wilson Higgsbury, and Degas Clayton -- will receive a small loaf of home-baked braided bread by way of appreciation and thanks.
(Feel free to run into Zivia doing her grocery shopping, or to meet her delivering challah, whether to you or to someone else!)
4. after the flood all the colors came out (for Lev/Lyubov and Anzu)
One thing she can't buy anywhere here, she already knows, is kosher meat. Which leads to her picking up the sending stone to contact Anzu and Rov Morgenshtern, and asking if either of them knows how to perform shechita; the soaking and salting part she can do, she assures them, but she's never done that part.
And the thing is, she explains, she'd really like to be able to serve chicken if they would like to join her for Shabbos dinner, this or next Friday night.
5. it was a beautiful day
Wildcard!
tehilim127_1) & all comers (with prompts for Lev, Anzu, Ava, Dahlia, Tayrey, Degas)What: Things resume after the flood
When: Late May and early June
Where: At work (Town Hall), at the beach, at the grocery, at an impasse
Warning(s): To be added as relevant
1. you love this town
Somehow -- magically? miraculously? Zivia feels like either of those could apply, and like neither is safe to use carelessly -- somehow the island and the town have been barely damaged by the floodwaters. Neither the plants nor the animals nor the works of human hands are any worse for wear than they might be after a heavy rain.
This does mean more work at Town Hall, as Zivia and Fever empty all the file drawers to make sure there's no water damage anywhere, and then have to put everything back. And simultaneously have to be available to answer any questions anyone has, though they agree to take turns being on call while all of that's going on. Maybe you'll show up with a question while it's Zivia's turn to address it? Or maybe, sometime during this month, you'll encounter Fever at Town Hall's booth at the job fair, and decide to follow up by inquiring within.
2. reach me, i know i'm not a hopeless case
One nice thing about living here, Zivia will readily admit, is being within walking distance of a beach.
She's out for a walk on the shoreline, some days after the end of the flood, feet bare in the sand and shoes tucked into a bag slung over her shoulder. As a wave recedes, a glint of silver catches her eye, and she breaks into a brief jog to get closer before the water comes in again.
Anyone who happens to be nearby at the time will see her drop into an unsteady crouch to pick it up, then press one hand over her mouth as though to keep from crying out in shock -- or maybe just to keep from crying.
3. see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
It is so good, after even that brief time spent scrounging things on board ship, to be able to walk into a shop and purchase things again. Whole wheat flour, honey, salt, oil, a form of yeast she isn't familiar with but is nonetheless confident she can figure out; dried spices, fresh herbs, a basket full of vegetables and fruit in season; a beautiful fillet of salmon, which she hurries home to stow in the icebox directly next to the ice. Milk, eggs, butter. A few bottles of wine, after some conversation with the shopkeeper not too dissimilar from the one she had with Dahlia on board the cursed ship.
She considers, briefly, giving Dahlia a bottle of wine in return, and discards that idea. Instead, Dahlia -- and a few other people around town who've been especially helpful in the last month or so, including Ava Starr, Arilanna Tayrey, Wilson Higgsbury, and Degas Clayton -- will receive a small loaf of home-baked braided bread by way of appreciation and thanks.
(Feel free to run into Zivia doing her grocery shopping, or to meet her delivering challah, whether to you or to someone else!)
4. after the flood all the colors came out (for Lev/Lyubov and Anzu)
One thing she can't buy anywhere here, she already knows, is kosher meat. Which leads to her picking up the sending stone to contact Anzu and Rov Morgenshtern, and asking if either of them knows how to perform shechita; the soaking and salting part she can do, she assures them, but she's never done that part.
And the thing is, she explains, she'd really like to be able to serve chicken if they would like to join her for Shabbos dinner, this or next Friday night.
5. it was a beautiful day
Wildcard!
no subject
And she gestures him to the couch -- one piece of furniture this house came with that she would absolutely have picked out for herself if given the opportunity. It's long, with a curve to it, upholstered in a soft rose-color, and could easily seat five to six people in conversation.
no subject
"Well, ah ... my family arrived in the lands of Ashkenaz with a man many thought would be Moshiakh, Dovyd HaReuveni," Anzu says; he tries to keep his tone more or less neutral, but it's clear he's far from unproud of this history. "From the south of the plenum what holds the Holy Land, though I'm told many of the nations, feh, assumed we came from the East, for reasons that are rather opaque to me."
He pauses, more for dramatic effect than anything.
"Dovyd HaReuveni was accompanied by some number of families ... nu, maybe fifty, maybe two hundred. And we were all Jews, nu? We held different from the Jews who were of the two tribes what remained after all that unpleasantness, with the exile and the razing of our Temple, since for many hundreds of years, we had held that the Temple still stood, far away, in the Holy Land. Our ancestors had left Yerushalayim with the Queen of Sheba, accompanying her and her unborn son, and now we had made our way back, accompanying one whose claim to that line was ... oy. It was plausible, nu? And of course, we had Levites and Kohanim among our numbers, then and again ..."
He shrugs, and this time, the pause is a little longer, and less perfunctory.
"If he were of Beys Dovyd, the world was not ready for the Moshiakh," he says, quietly. "I'm told he died in a Castillan prison. I'm told he escaped and made it home, and I'm told he escaped and grew old among the Italkim. But my family's roots, maternal and paternal, those had already sunk into the soil of Prague before we saw the end of him. My mother's people went North and East, my father's went East ... but we stayed in Ashkenaz, took up the Ashkenazi minhag and, nu," he bows, and says, his tone lightening, "here I am. Oy, the whole point of that story is, my family only took up the rabbinical khumra to never eat even chicken with milk when we settled in Prague, hence all the chicken recipes with almond milk. Why forget perfectly good recipes when substitutes can be made, nu?"
no subject
"Of course," she says, "the poultry chumra. And yes, almond milk's a good substitute for dairy in a lot of things -- though it didn't work so well the one time I tried to make milk gravy to go with chicken-fried steak. That is," in a tone like an explanatory footnote, "an American recipe, steak battered and fried in a style more commonly used for chicken, and it's usually served with a gravy involving milk. The steak came out pretty good the one time I tried it, the almond-milk gravy not so much. I keep meaning to try it again with some other substitute, oat or soy maybe, just ... hadn't gotten to it yet."
no subject
"Nu, hmmm," Anzu says ("says"), and frowns, thinking. "I'd assume it would've needed thickening, nu? Sauces are rather elusive, I find. I usually get Gigi to handle those ... Gigi's my shvegerin, my sister's wife and Leyb's old khavrusa. But ... ah. Her story's not mine to gossip about."
He does look a little apologetic — but while he knows Zivia to be broad-minded, he takes seriously the silence of the hot-houses, and Gigi never had much desire to be out to people who didn't need to know.
no subject
And while there's clearly a story there that isn't getting told, she can always take it off in a different direction. "It's good to have family that you can cook with, yeah? My sister's got a whole bunch of kids, and they've all been learning to cook since they were little. Erev Pesach in their kitchen, let me tell you, it's an experience."
no subject
"Certainly makes it easier when one's got help, yes," Anzu says, smiling. "Especially when cooking for a big enough family. Okh. At least we'll hopefully only need one chicken, and not several. As long as ah, thou trust'st me to perform the job correctly? Unfortunately, I have only my word to give, regarding my competency. Even if Ari would back me up, he is rather ... ah. biased."
no subject
A pause. "And we can always talk to the local butcher shop first, and see if they'll be willing to take it off our hands at cost if we can't use it."
no subject
Anzu nods, rather seriously.
"I thank thee for putting thy trust in me," he says, and then after a pause adds, sotto voce, uncharacteristically subdued, "but, ah, darling, may I ask thee one thing? If ah. Nu. If mine hand should shake as I heft the knife, and I cry craven, thou'lt agree to let the poor fowl go and decide on fish for Shabbos?"
He blushes, faintly, ducking his head. He's sure Zivia will understand. But it's still admitting vulnerability — without calculation, but not out of desperation, neither. Purely a request for a concession from a friend.
It's only been a decade, after all, since he's been at liberty to do such a thing.
no subject
"I've got a really good recipe for cod with a garlic-herb sauce," she says, which is very clearly a yes.
can probably wrap this in a couple more tags max
"Then 'tis settled, darling," Anzu says. "I'll talk to Leyb and we'll talk to the blacksmith ... and if thou can'st procure the chicken, I'll be most grateful. If the slaughter goes awry, I'll reimburse thee in full, and if it goes aright, shall we split the costs half and half?"
It's best to get the monetary concerns out of the way now, before anything's had a chance to go wrong, he figures.
I think so!
just tying this up with a bow! no reply expected
Anzu beams.
"Perfect, darling," he says. "I'll, ah. I suppose I'll get on looking for a suitable rock, to start koshering the cutlery."