Day 2.19: Atlanta Day 1

We didn’t sleep in terribly late but had the nice opportunity to see Jonah, Sarah and Hillel’s nearly two-year-old very adorable son, for a good portion of the morning.

We left to drive to a nearby Toyota location to have our 40,000-mile maintenance check, which we had scheduled when our “Maintenance Required” light came on as we were leaving South Florida. We also asked them to check our Bluetooth since, as anyone who has spoken to us while we’re driving knows well, it’s often impossible to hear us. That visit didn’t prove terribly successful, though we did appreciate the kind and courteous service and snacks offered to us by Café Blends: Blending Autism into the Workplace, their onsite complimentary café that employs workers with autism.

We made a quick stop at a nearby Kohl’s so that Abe could purchase a few extra pairs of gold-toe dress socks to make it through the weekend, and Arielle bought a dress she liked. We had to return to Toyota so that they could turn our maintenance required light off, which they had forgotten to do, but fortunately we still managed to pretty much beat traffic and stop briefly at a local Publix supermarket to purchase a few items for the weekend. We had about forty-five minutes to change before Shabbat, and we drove with Sarah, Hillel, and Jonah to the nearby Congregation B’nai Torah, where Hillel serves as the assistant rabbi. The Friday night services were led by the visiting Pizmon, the co-ed acapella group of Columbia, Barnard, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. While Hillel and Arielle were not members of the group, they did attend many concerts during their time at Columbia and JTS, joined frequently by Sarah and less frequently by Abe. The chicken served for dinner was delicious (we estimate nine pieces between the five of us, and Hillel is a vegetarian and Jonah is a baby). The brownies were also quite tasty. We enjoyed singing with the congregation using Hillel’s newly-designed songbook. The walk back to their house was considerably shorter than it used to be when they lived further away, which was nice, and after Jonah went to bed, we started playing Sushi Go, which we had brought for them, and that kept us up again well after midnight because we’re addicted to games.

Approximate number of miles covered: 15