• Who: Rabbi Jon Prosnit and Dan
• Where: Cobble Hill—not sure why we’re still in Brooklyn
• What: Roasted veggies, Half of Dan’s egg and cheese croissant sandwich, pirogies for the table, iced coffee

Our dear friend Jon Prosnit is about to do something crazy. Unclear if it’s good crazy or bad crazy, but it is definitely crazy.  A newly minted Rabbi, Prosnit is about to embark on a cross country journey with his soon-to-be bride (aka girlfriend) Erin to California to start the next chapter of his life. He’s finished school, found a job at a lefty congregation in Silicon Valley as spiritual leader to the Jews of Google and Facebook, and is ready to try something new and different. But this doesn’t sound so crazy, you say. People move places all the time! And that’s near Palo Alto, right? It’s supposed to be fun! My neighbor’s friend went to college there and he really liked it!

The crazy part is this: It’s not that Jon and Erin are not living in some big college group house on the edge of the Stanford campus. They’re not living over in a corporate complex in Silicon Valley next to Microsoft. And they didn’t buy a McMansion over in Sunnyvale. All of those would maybe be a little crazy, but not really that crazy. So what are they doing instead? Instead, they are renting a secluded Ted Kaczynski-style cabin in an isolated wooded area where their closest neighbor is a shotgun away and the only thing that’s less than a 10-minute drive is the top of the stairs. And what happens when you drive 10 minutes? That’s when you get to the booming town of Woodside, CA, population 5,287. The Pioneer Saloon, the Village Pub, Roberts Market, Buck’s of Woodside Restaurant… and at that point, you’re already out of Woodside! Let’s just say a teeny bit different than their current life in 11215.

This is not to say that Jon and Erin’s Woodside adventure is necessarily a bad idea. There are certainly a lot of pluses to this crazy life change. Let’s say it’s a little cold? No problem—they can warm up to their own wood-burning stove. Let’s say it’s been a long, tiring day of rabbiing? Perfect solution—a dip in the private hottub with a nice glass of California Pinot Noir. But let’s say there’s an axe murderer on the loose hiding in the forest willing to stop at nothing so as to not return to a life sentence in maximum security prison? Well luckily he probably doesn’t know how to drive a stickshift so Jon and Erin can outrun him in their…wait for it… NEW TRUCK that they’re buying as part of their new lifestyle. And since most people in the area get around on horses they will definitely be able to drive the 10 minutes to Woodside, CA (pop. 5,287) and escape him!

Jon casually gave us this news at Karloff on Sunday just after we’d gotten our coffee, as if we hear every day that our friends raised in suburban Connecticut who have lived their entire adult life in New York City are going to suddenly relocate to the extreme other end of the earth. I think I would have been less surprised to find out that Prosnit and Erin were moving to Bangkok. At least I can fly to Bankok! But then we sat back—THAT IS AWESOME!!! IT’S LIKE LIVING IN A VACATION FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR!!!  And so as he bid us farewell, we realized that we were not just saying goodbye to our buddy Jon Prosnit, but goodbye to our buddy Prosnit who rides his bike to Trader Joe’s, and hops on the Subway, and has neighbors. But hello to the Prosnit who hottubs every night naked on his giant porch and doesn’t give an F!! This is either the best or the worst crazy idea ever, so good luck to Jon and Erin, and let us know how it goes!