Cleaning and Carlebach

Its been a while since theres been anything resembling the usual state of mess around my apartment. Over sukkos we were graced with quite a few crashers who needed a place to sleep, along with their luggage (for the few that actually came along with luggage.) As a result we havent seen the floor in any room in over a month. For no apparent reason, my roommate had his motorcycle parked in the middle of my bedroom. Which besides for being a great conversation piece, also added much to our interior design, and the headlights were awfully useful whenever we had a black out, while the rear view mirrors were perfect for shaving. Its also a better place to chuck clothes onto, it beats the floor only cuz its neater when its hanging on a motorcycle then piled up a couple of feet high on the floor directly, and cuz motorcycles don't try eating things you hang on it. All of our couches were full, and we had quite a crowd over the last buncha weeks. Now its starting to dwindle down, homeless guys have been finding places to live, lost guys have been finding themselves, and we are cleaning, well not actually cleaning, (the mess makes it more fun, and easier) but cleaning our basement. Our basement is a dark dusty place, used as storage by someone nobody knows for trash. We are cleaning it out to use as a combination; bar, jam session room, place to chill and if necessary a place for some homeless to crash. Its a lot of work but if we finish, I get to be bartender.

Last night, in honor of R' Shlomo Carlebach's yartzeit, we had a kumzitz in the old city. At first it was just me and two other friends with guitars and one on the bongos, but then we were joined by a fourth guitarist we met on a rooftop. Then we moved the party to below ground level, and ended up having quite a large crowd. We were joined by lotsa singers, and tons of people stopped to listen. Everybody was clapping along and enjoying the music.