It’s raining bloggers!

You can’t hold an International J-Blogger Convention without some spontaneous pre-event events.  For instance, there is the Shabbaton being held this Shabbat in Queens (followed by a Sat. night Melava Malka).  And as if that wasn’t enough, there was a pre-pre-event event where a few bloggers decided to get together for dinner.

But even that wasn’t enough for some (including your host), so some private and semi-private blogger meet-ups were arranged.

MOChassid, Ben Chorin and I get together nearly every time MO comes to Israel, so one of the first things I did when I arrived in New York was arrange to meet him for dinner.  Unfortunately, we made plans for the same evening that several other bloggers (Ezzie, Jameel and Gil) were getting together.  Luckily the place we picked was right across the street from the place they chose, so when we finished with dinner we crossed the street to join the others for dessert (where we were joined by even more bloggers!).

But something even stranger happened on my way to meet MOChassid for dinner. 

I was a few blocks form my sister’s place on the Upper West Side when the skies opened up.  I mean a real torrential downpour. 

Coming from Israel, I was completely unprepared for the sight of rain in the summertime, so I ran for the first awning I spotted and found myself looking at a familiar face just a few feet away.  He seemed to recognize me as well… so after a moment we smiled and said hello.

The funny part is that the other person was a blogger who calls himself ‘Orthodox Anarchist’.  We have never met before, but have traded barbs in the virtual world and had long ago agreed to disagree (to say the least).  Yet here we were hiding out from the rain under the same awning… exchanging pleasantries.

This week it’s truly raining bloggers.

PS... as I post this, I am sitting in the King David lounge at JFK's El Al terminal with Jameel (of the Muqata), Gil (of Hirhurim), Robert (of Seraphic Secret).  Esther (of My Urban Kvetch was here a moment ago but she seems to have wandered out to meet some people in the real world.  [shrugs]