Well, this is unusual... (me, awake)

Sitting here at 7:26 waiting for the stunned-by-two-days-of-Yom-Tov kiddies to wake up; what a rarity to have a moment of peace and quiet.  At the expense of sleep, of course.  Got up at 5:30 to wake YM & EC so they could eat before the fast (Tzom Gedalia) and wasn't able to fall back asleep, OF COURSE.

 

Lay awake thinking about my father and his crazy obsession with spreadsheets and ITINERARIES.  The earliest "big word" I remember learning - itinerary.  His dumb binders full of trips and plans as opposed to my brilliant and occasionally disastrous spontaneity.  And now they have all those "cancer patient" brochures... I wonder if he'll stick all those into a binder as well.

 

Rosh Hashanah was a total disaster... we didn't have money so couldn't shop until the last second.  I actually ended up running out leaving Elisheva with the kids with strict instructions NOT to put them in the bath while I was out, even though we'd already started the bathwater.  And I left the soup on what I thought was low, but by the time I came back an hour and some later, it had boiled almost completely dry and the whole mess (beautiful homegrown leeks, broccoli, etc.) was scorched to the bottom of the pot.  So I had to start over and throw together some carrot soup thingy and the lasagna didn't get started until late in the afternoon, which meant I couldn't even begin cooking the cabbage rolls... and the "meat" (which was actually just a box of hamburgers because neither store I went to had ground anything) was still frozen because Ted wasn't paying attention Sunday night when I asked him to put it away in the FRIDGE not the freezer.  So it was still frozen and highly unattractive in a frying pan with water to try to steam it into submission.

 

The cabbage rolls turned out delicious, by the way.  And I scooped out the unscorched bits of veggie from the first soup and just pureed them with the tomato sauce for the lasagna.  Sent one plus a cheesecake plus a challah to the Silver/Freedmans, who said it was excellent.  He had hand surgery erev Yom Tov to fix his broken fingers.  We had Judy the first night and three people the second night.  Plus Abigail and Karen from shul the second day... what a backhanded invitation. 

 

At shul on Tuesday she said she was just back from a funeral in Montreal, so I invited her spontaneously , for either lunch (at my parents') or supper, but she couldn't make it for supper, and then when I talked to her in shul on Wednesday, she said she could come for that day's lunch.  So I was, like, "well, it was going to be just our family."  Because there wasn't really any food cooked or planned that I could pull together!  But then I back pedalled, because I didn't want her to think she wasn't welcome, of course... so I said she could come if she wanted to, and then I backpedalled some more and told her it was an honour, she was always welcome, of course, but the meal would be informal and weird.  She did end up tagging along and it was a great meal.  Abigail showed up - I'd forgotten I invited her altogether - and there was lots of talking and plenty of food.

 

My father was in the hospital the whole Yom Tov - they went down Tuesday morning and they kept him overnight and again last night.  He may come home today, new and improved with a stent that will hopefully help him swallow, which he hasn't been able to do.  And a soft-food diet, which, my mother says, means no bread even though people apparently assume bread is soft.  Maybe the middle bits of bread are okay but not the crust?  They're talking about starting the chemo this weekend.

 

Oh, and the bathroom light got turned off and we ran out of pre-torn paper because (and this was a GOOD thing!) Elisheva bathed the kiddies while I was out shopping erev Yom Tov.

 

Oh, and a power failure Tuesday morning meant the oven shut off, but I didn't know that because it still said "SAB" when it came back on, meaning it remembered it had been in Sabbath mode, so I assumed it also remembered what temperature it had been set at.  But when Elisheva went to slide in the Ace Bakery bread on Tuesday night, she said, "this oven is cold."  So we had to give up on the bread and take the lasagna to my parents' house to heat in my mother's 240-degree oven.  Okay, "heat".  It took the icy edge off, but that was all.

 

I did serve the lasagna again on Wednesday, but this time we reheated it in a frying pan on low and it was delightfully hot.  And the cabbage rolls were excellent, as I said.  Foodwise, not a total disaster.  But everything else feels like it's falling apart.  And today, the whole shopping-cooking-cleaning cycle starts anew as we prepare for Shabbos.

And I haven't really spoken to Ted civilly in about a week... SO so SO tired and grouchy and he gets the brunt of all of it.  On top of which he is tired and not functioning well and irritating in his own right.

 

Wow - 7:43 and babies still asleep... yay!

 

Have a great day!!!

 

<3 J