I Can See The End - R2BC

Chocolate chip blondies from Esther next door. Thank you!

This week's Reasons 2B Cheerful comes to you from just over the peak. This is my own analysis from seeing the numbers, of which I had a morbid and slightly distasteful fascination, falling. Well not the totals obviously, but the daily casualties. There's talk on the news of easing restrictions around the world. (Except not the UK yet - sorry. You have another 3 weeks of lockdown apparently.) Instead of doom and gloom it's all about exit strategies. 

Before we go there, just to say that Becky is hosting the linky to other cheerful posts on her blog: Lakes Single Mum. 

1
We Have A Plan
In Israel the exit strategy, while not finalized or set to start on any given date, is in 4 phases. Back to school is only phase 3 and there will be at least two weeks between each phase. So Yippee! Another month at least at home. I'm loving being at home, personally.

But it's also good to know that we're nearing the end and that the millions of deaths didn't happen as predicted. Though I'm still sad for those who did lose their lives and for their families. And I know it's insensitive to say I'm loving being at home because I'm not a doctor or a nurse, or a carer, or hospital cleaner, working my guts out to help those in need. Sorry.

2
Passover Passed Over
Oh was there a holiday in all this? I must have missed it. I almost missed it but we did manage a family seder by zoom. Last night it was all over and I'm back to work on the computer. Slightly shocked and dazed by how much work (grading papers and planning online lessons) has accumulated, but bird by bird I'll get it done.

Bird by Bird? A book by Anne Lamott of the same name in which she writes: “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

3
Gifts From Next Door
One day a couple of weeks ago, just as DD was about to go into a meltdown because we'd run out of snacks and it was Friday afternoon so no shops open until Sunday morning.... we got a shout out from our neighbour Esther to look outside the front door. There we found a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Tasty and timely. Thank  you so much Esther. And for the bar of chocolate a couple of days later. And for the second bag of cookies. And for the Harry Potter Hagaddah (seder service book). We will love you forever.

Now if I could just figure out how to flatten MY curves......

How Was It For You? - Seder R2BC

We more or less followed the agenda laid out yesterday. I popped out to the synagogue service stretching down the road below me at 5 m intervals, by stepping out onto my balcony.

I finished cooking and laid the table for our seder with the matza and the seder plate full of the symbolic foods needed for the service. I was particularly proud of burning a carrot instead of the usual burnt shank bone of lamb. It symbolizes the pascal lamb and the shape suggests that God brought us out of Egypt with an outstretched arm. The carrot did the job admirably.

At 8.30 we went outside to sing Ma Nishtana (why is this night different from all other nights?). I thought it was a building initiative but turned out to be the whole of Israel! This is my 1st Reason 2B Cheerful. I wrote about it on face book...

I am crying with emotion. The whole of Israel went out onto their balconies at 8.30 and we all sang Ma Nishtana together. You could hear it loudly from all over Jerusalem. The singing echoed through the hills. And then we all shouted Chag Sameah Am Yisrael! (A happy festival to the people of Israel!) It was wonderful and also heartbreaking that we are in this situation. So many people I know have died (friends and relatives of friends in England). And yet tonight the whole country sang together and were uplifted for 10 minutes. Chag Sameah!

DD and I then ate our dinner. Suddenly I heard loud singing from the stairwell. The two apartments on the floor below were holding their seders in their hallways with their front doors open so that they could do it together.

My next-balcony-neighbour, Esther, threw over
The Hogwarts Haggadah (seder service book)
for DD. It's a lot of fun. Full of points of interest
linking Pesach to Harry Potter.
Thank you Esther. We loved it!

Our seder started at 10.30 (8.30 English time). My B-i-l is a doctor and working long shifts atm so an earlier start wasn't possible. And then we zoomed.

It was amazing for two minutes. So this is my 2nd R2BC. The 12 of us who are usually together were in five different homes. And during the seder other family members zoomed in from other seders to say hello. As I said, it was all very exciting for about two minutes and lovely to see everyone, but not the same as being together in the same room.

It all got a bit complicated as I couldn't hear clear instructions. There are three matzas and you use different matzas at different times. Zoom keeps switching to the person speaking the loudest. At one point I was asking, "which matza do we use? Are we eating it with the parsley or with the bitter herb? DD stopped me.
"What difference? Do what you like." She was right. I drank the fifth cup of wine even though we were only officially on the second cup out of four.

My nephew in charge of tech kept muting everyone to try to keep with the programme. In effect this meant that at times we were singing to ourselves. My brother, who works in IT, and S-i-l claimed technical difficulties and took a long furlough. By the time the festive meal (for them, we'd already eaten) came round at 10.30 (12.30 am for us) we'd had enough and we didn't go back for the second half with the songs at 1.15 in the morning. I felt a bit depressed so I ate the potato salad I'd made for today's lunch (DD doesn't like it) and went to bed.

As they have another seder night tonight (only for those outside Israel) and unlike yesterday, I've had a restful day, I might join them for the second half tonight. This will be my 3rd R2BC. That I don't have to sit through the whole thing this time and that we can see everyone again.

The R2BC linky is on Becky's Lakes Single Mum. And may I take this opportunity to wish all my Christian friends a very happy and safe Easter. xxx

Twas The Hour Before Seder

Ready for Seder a deux

Pesach starts in just under one hour. The Seder Night, tonight  in Israel and tonight and tomorrow night outside of Israel, is ironically going to be all topsy turvy for us. Ironic because the word means 'order' alluding to the specific order of doing things. You can read about it here. 

Before I get into tonight's seder, I want to answer my question from yesterday. Is it possible to spring clean my whole home in one day? The answer is no. Two days? Possibly when I was 25 but not now. By half way through the second day (today) Hurricane Pesach Cleaning was degraded to Random Friday in April Cleaning. There are things which didn't get done. Does it bother me? Yes, a bit, but now that I'm almost there I will do those things over the next week. Three days and I would have nailed it. 

Now for this evening's programme. At 18.45 my building is doing the evening service from their balconies. Then everyone will go inside and start their own seder (but not us). At 20.30 all the neighbours are coming out onto the balconies to sing Ma Nishtana together (see below). That concludes the communal part of the seder at this end. 

Ma Nishtana means 'what's different?' Traditionally the youngest present sings the song comprising of four questions about the evening, each starting with the refrain: Why is this night different from all other nights? The next part of the seder is answering the questions. This year everything is so different I think it's fitting for us all to sing it together. 

Our seder is starting very late at 22.30 because we are zooming it with my family in London where it will be only 20.30. My B-i-l, a doctor at Northwick Park Hospital, is working 12 hour shifts and can't guarantee to be ready any earlier. 

The 10 - 12 of us, depending on who's going zooming where, will be in five different homes this year. So DD and I will probably eat our festive meal before it starts instead of in the middle as usual. We'll go and amuse ourselves during the 'intermission' and come back for the songs at the end. 

It's been pointed out that this year is the closest seder to the original seder night in Egypt the night before the exodus. On that night the Israelites were told to stay indoors while the final plague was wrought upon the Egyptians. In fact, the whole of Israel is on real lockdown tonight. From last night we weren't allowed to leave our neighbourhoods and tonight we aren't allowed to leave our homes. It's to stop people visiting each other for the seder. We won't be daubing our doorpost with the blood of a pascal lamb though. 

For those not as lucky as I am to be able to zoom with family tonight, there are full seders on tv and other streaming platforms. 

So that's it. Thoroughly surreal and, in a way, interesting. I wish all those celebrating tonight a happy and safe Pesach. Chag Sameach! 

Spring Clean In A Day?

Fresh produce from Kibbutz Alumim

Like Tim Urbans' famous TED Talk about procrastination, I had plans to clean my apartment for Pesach, one room a day, over the course of a week. Similarly my Instant Gratification Monkey took the helm and I was steered away from cleaning and towards other important things like Facebook, WhatsApp, You Tube, Netflix, and Sky News. Until I realized that there was only one full day until Pesach starts on Wednesday evening and the Panic Monster woke up.

This was the plan: Fly Lady Shmylady,  I was going to do the whole thing in a day. Get up early, give each room one hour on a timer, as I've done before, and then go round at the end finishing off.

This is where it started to unravel: My fruit and vegetable order from the kibbutz was supposed to arrive yesterday. (Btw, it wasn't produce for export. Exports went as usual. It was the school lunches contracts that left them with a mountain of spare produce.) They didn't give a time so at 7 pm I texted my friend whose son was organizing the deliveries and asked if I should be worried. The answer came back that it should be soon. Fine with me. At 10.30 I called her. They were running late. Meanwhile I'm also texting with other friends in different neighbourhoods and monitoring who had received and who hadn't. In the end there were only two of us left. At 1.45 am I got a phone number. "Oh we've finished for tonight, it'll be early tomorrow morning."

This is the first time they've done anything like this. My friend's son is about 25 and his right hand man was another friend's son aged 19. There was a huge learning curve. I went to bed.

Obviously I wasn't up at 5 am to begin cleaning. But after coffee, making DD a plate of fruit so that she'd not bother me for food for a few hours, and checking social media, I was ready to start at 10.30. And I increased the time for each room to 1.5 hours to be realistic. This is Spring/Pesach cleaning after all.

I started in my bedroom. I moved furniture and was confronted with the fact that we've not stayed in Israel for Pesach for years. But I took my laptop with me and put on Neil Diamond. "I am I said, to no one there, and no one even replied, not even the chair." Well that was true at least - I tried it.

At 11.30 the vegetables arrived. Woohoo! So I had to take the time to put them away. It would have been silly to fill the fridge before wiping it down so I half cleaned the fridge as well. And then I had to post all over Facebook and WhatsApp that I'd got my order and thank everyone involved.

Back in the bedroom Neil had left the building and Abba was up next. The timer went off but I was owed time so I nudged it on to 12.30. But at 12.30 I'd not changed the bed clothes. You can't clean a whole room and not change your sheets. So I stripped the bed, put everything straight in to the washing machine (apart from the one pillow case that got left on the bed), and remade the bed. FINISHED!

Except that I had to bring yesterday's three loads of laundry in from the balcony to make room for the sheets. It was still slightly damp in places. I'd have liked to leave it outside for a few more hours but time and Tide wait for no man so in it came. I flung it all over my bed to finish drying.

And then I had to sit down for a bit. Also the battery on my laptop was about to run out. Obviously I have plug points in my bedroom but I took it as a sign. DD asked for some lunch. I told her take a tub of cottage cheese and scoop it up with crisps. "Yes chocolate for dessert is fine."

So now it's almost 2.30 in the afternoon and I've done only one room. But I'm not done yet, or even done in. Onwards and upwards.