Jerusalem-יְרוּשָׁלַיִם -القدس: A little bit about me.....

Chemex Coffee

I start every morning with a hot cup of coffee. Black with one ice cube so I can drink it right away. Many mornings when my mom drove me to school, I would hop out of the car at our neighborhood coffee shop and order her a grande coffee no room for cream and an iced white chocolate mocha for myself. Somedays my mom would wake me up in the morning by knocking on my door and giving me warm cup of milky coffee with sugar. Over the years, I've learned to appreciate a cup of coffee. My mom and stepdad John brew coffee in a Chemex. Here is how I learned to make coffee: 1. Place Chemex with paper filter on scale 2. Zero the scale 3. According to Mom add 50 grams of coffee grounds. According to John add 55 grams of coffee ground. 4. boil a pot of water 5. Fill up filter with boiling water and continue filling with water until Chemex is full.

Knitting

In my room I have a milk crate full of yarn. My first knitting project was a small blanket for my favorite stuffed animal Sunshine. Now I am working on a shawl. Pictured above is my favorite type of yarn, Noro. I love the color variegations.

Airports-Airplanes-Gold Member

By the time I was nine years old, I was a Gold Member on Continental Airlines. When my mom married John, we moved to Indianapolis. I traveled almost every other weekend to visit my Dad in Houston, Texas. Gate agents knew my name. With my Gold Member status, my Dad and I were upgraded to first class. As the stewardess handed us complimentary nuts, she referred to my Dad as "Mr. Abigail Sarah Rivin." There is no airport that I can't handle.

Greens

I love kale.

The Outdoors

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Until I was eight years old, I didn't know the difference between a fly and a mosquito. I assumed the pestering flies buzzing around were the bugs delivering itchy mosquito bites. As

a child in Houston, Texas, I spent little time in nature because it was too damn hot. Some of my few memories spending time outdoors include decorating the magnolia tree in the front yard with ghosts for halloween and picking sour fruit from a neighbor's tree with my babysitter Maria. As I grew older, I spent more time outdoors. My mom and I spent summers on Monhegan Island in Maine. To protect ourselves from tics carrying Lyme disease, my mom made me duct tape my socks to the outside of my pants. I was embarrassed but this embarrassment did not keep me from continuing to hike. I've spent a month backpacking through the Absoroka Mountain Range in Wyoming, floated down the Owens River in a tube, got stuck waist deep in the muddy banks of the Dirty Devil River, and summitted Mt Dana with friends before breakfast. Nature is my synagogue.