Victor Raphael, Genesis (detail)

Nina Shepard had been a Jew for fifteen minutes. She sat at her table at the Ivy and regarded her soft-shell crab. She pushed it aside with her fork and then, setting her fork down, she reached for some bread. The bread was white and tasteless, laid unceremoniously in a basket with a napkin. Nina took a bite and set the rest on the small white plate to the left of her. She took a sip of ice tea and pretended to watch JLo at the table across from her on the patio as she waited for her mother to come back from the ladies’ room. Nina Shepard, a Jew, a Jewess she wasn’t sure, only that she was no longer Catholic, not really. That without having moved from her seat, or wandered through a desert, she became, without warning, a Jew. “Now that Poppy is gone, there is something I need to tell you,” her mother had said. She had looked down at her butter lettuce salad, folded her sunglasses, and then, looking steadily across at Nina, her mother had given her this news. Her mother, who would bring Nina with her to choir rehearsals at church, where she played in the loft at eye-level with Jesus, speaking in a voice that still had music in it, told her daughter Nina, thirtyseven, with a daughter of her own, that now that her grandfather was dead it was safe to tell her. It was safe to tell her that Poppy, Sarah, and by extension ( Judaism being matrilineal), she, Nina, were, had been, are now, and would be forever, Jews. Nina’s mother returned from the ladies room, her lipstick freshened, and, snapping her purse closed, pressed her cheek to Nina’s and said before leaving, “ It doesn’t have to change anything.”

Nina had learned about the Nazis in high school and she remembered, even now, how relieved she had been to not be a Jew. She recalled the gratitude she felt at the pristine safety of who she was. Rachel Abramson had started to cry. She had gasped at the sight of the living skeletons reaching through the fence and then later at the mountain of shorn hair. When they showed the lampshade made of skin, Rachel had run from the room. Carol Held, not Nina, had gone out to the hall to comfort her. When the film ended, Nina had felt grateful that it had, and wondered only briefly how the Jews had let it happen. She had been moved mostly by the image of a small boy, on his sleeve sewn a golden star – Juden. And she wondered who had sewn it on, if he had been so marked by his mother’s own hand. When she was little, Nina would go to church with her grandfather. She had a beautiful lavender dress and white shoes. She would tuck her small hand in the crook of his arm and rest her face on his shoulder, almost as if she were cold, never looking past him to the brightly lit room, the sun in colors through the tall stained glass windows. His skin smelled of soap and like the clove-studded oranges of Christmas. He hid small blackberry pastilles in his palm and would silently reveal each one to her, resting in his hand like a pearl, so she would sit quietly in church, the candy a sweet secret between them. He liked to sit on the aisle in the corner near the door.

blackberry pearl "skin" protectors?

OK so I’m wondering if the "skins" for the blackberry pearl do a good job protecting it. I’ve been using the pouch that came with it but want to buy some different colored skins for it… I usually keep my phone in my purse so I’m worried that with the skin only covering the sides and back it might mess up the buttons or ball.

I have a Seidio Super Slim Rubberized Hard case for my 8130 Pearl, and it does a great job of protecting my screen and trackball.

You can find it at the link below in various colors for the 8110 and 8130. If you have a 8100 or 8120, you may have to look around the site for a version specific to those models, as I believe the cameras are arranged differently and require a different model case as well.

http://www.bberry.com/seidio-super-slim-rubberized-hard-case/4A123A3470.

Source book of flavors

The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner

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