Back home again

I'm back!!!

What a trip this summer was - in many ways.

From the excellent Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree to Philadelphia to the superb 29th IAJGS International Conference of Jewish Genealogy, the summer was studded with visits to and from relatives and good friends. Last week was spent in New York City with our daughter.

Tracing the Tribe is already planning for the Los Angeles conference in 2010 (July 11-16). I had breakfast - along with our daughter - with conference-co-chair Pam Weisberger on Sunday. She herself was getting home after a month in such fascinating places as Prague and Moscow and the Philly conference.

The hectic summer pace meant there were many Google alerts that I didn't get to, so better late than never, there will be a bunch of things coming through. The past few weeks were also interesting in that instead of me interviewing individuals for stories I was working, several reporters interviewed me for stories that appeared in the New York Times and on JTA. That was interesting.

I returned to a very hot Tel Aviv yesterday evening. Supposedly, according to my taxi driver (whose car mercifully had excellent air conditioning), it was the highest traffic day of the year with some 60,000 passengers either flying in or out.

By 6am this morning, I was on the computer with the a/c on full blast. My goal is to get as much accomplished as possible before jet lag sets in and I fall asleep at the keyboard.

There are several more Philly 2009 conference postings that will appear over the next few days.

My new washing machine was installed early this morning - the old one had a fatal mishap last week and things always seem to go wrong with appliances when I'm not here. Not only are the clothes spinning happily, but my husband went down to the supermarket to re-stock the bare fridge. I guess that means I have to start cooking again instead of eating out!

Things are returning to normal.