Yom Tov Prep, Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah Edition

[gnomi]

mabfan has town-related commitments tonight, so after I got Muffin and Squeaker to finally go to bed*, I started getting ready for Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah,** which end the fall Jewish holiday sweep, and Shabbat. To that end, I have:

-- Cooked two pans of macaroni and cheese
-- Cooked a lasagna
-- Baked a pan of chocolate chip cookie bars
-- Made a thing of home-made whipped cream (in this household known as "splorp")
-- Set out the candles for yom tov, including the yahrtzeit lights*** and the candles for lighting things****
-- Cooked eggs for the eiruv tavshilin*****
-- Confirmed location of our Sukkot machzorim******
-- Checked the tires on our big stroller to confirm that they were full of air*******
-- Torn enough toilet paper to get us through yom tov and Shabbat********

And now I'm catching up on TV (some online, some on DVR) that I've missed (and that mabfan doesn't watch) due to yom tov.


* mabfan and I together got them into overnight diapers (him) and pajamas (me) and he read them a couple of books. They then had me read six more, wanted even more, and complained about my audacity to insist on bedtime. Ten minutes of complaining (loudly) later, they were falling asleep.

** Not an obscure slash pairing but two distinct holidays celebrated as a unit (both on one day in Israel; as two separate days everywhere else).

*** Memorial lights, lit on the anniversary (yahrtzeit in Yiddish) of a death and on specific holidays when Yizkor (the memorial prayer) is said.

**** On holidays we can light flames from existing flames but cannot start a flame from nothing, so we light long-lasting candles from which we can light other things (such as the holiday lights on the second night and, this year, Shabbat candles on Friday night).

***** We are allowed to cook on the holiday for the day (so on day 1 for day 1 and on day 2 for day 2) but usually we cannot cook on one day for the next. For Shabbat, though, we can cook on the holiday (since we can't cook on Shabbat) if we make an eiruv tavshilin (literally "mixture of cooked items"). The eiruv must include a cooked item (something where liquid is involved in the preparation) and a baked item (something where liquid is not included in the preparation), the two types of cooking defined within halacha (Jewish law).

****** Books containing the prayers and other readings (such as the Torah portion, the haftarah (reading from the Prophets) and the book of Ecclesiastes) specific to the holidays of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah.

******* Our Mountain Buggy stroller is great in our urban-ish neighborhood and handles all sorts of obstacles smoothly. It has air tires, though, rather than solid plastic tires, which are susceptible to deflation. I therefore before each Shabbat or holiday check the tires to make sure they are properly inflated, since we're not allowed to inflate them on Shabbat or yom tov.

******** There is a list of 39 categories of "work" that were part of making the Mishkan. Things that fall into these categories cannot be performed on Shabbat. The last of these is "completing a task," and it is often taken to include tearing things along perforations (the logic being that the perforations are an incomplete disconnection, so tearing along perforations completes the task of disconnecting).

OK, so the notes are almost as long as the post. :-)

Comments

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

Have a nice holiday! I thought of you when I got into town and accidentally ended up booking a hotel in what appears to be a Jewish neighborhood.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Are you in-my-town in-town? If so, if you're staying in a Jewish neighborhood you're probably not far from me.

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm in Boston for the week. I'm at the Holiday Inn in Brookline, is that near where you are?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

You're actually a half hour walk from us, or an easy trip down the Green Line on Beacon Street. We've got the yom tov days but maybe you and Nomi should talk offline about seeing each other if possible.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

What he said. You're at the St. Paul T stop (the stop is right outside the hotel); we're near the Tappan St. stop (six T stops down, about a 1/2 hour walk). If we can figure something out (given that I'm going to be out of phone/e-mail/whatever contact after licht benching tonight), that would be wonderful. When do you head home?

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

I can get off as early as 5:00pm tonight and I'm staying through Friday evening (so yontif, basically.)

I'd love to figure something out, but I'm the emergency on call person tonight and so would have to bring/answer my cell phone and I know that's not exactly yontifdic and you have to set an example for the girls. So. Let me know what you think? Do you still have my phone number?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

The girls go to bed around 7:00-7:30 (our goal is 7; they push it often), so you having your phone won't affect them (also, they're only 26 months so don't really get all of the intricacies of the yom tov). If you wanted to come by tomorrow night any time after 7:30, that would be cool (I'd say tonight was good, too, but due to circumstances too complex to get into here, mabfan and I didn't get to sleep last until after 1 AM, so our plan is to go to bed not long after the girls go down).

I have your phone number in my e-mail somewhere, but if you can send it to me again (gnomi [at] livejournal [dot] com works), that would be great. It would be wonderful if something can be figured out.

Yom tov starts here a bit after 5:30 tonight, so I likely will turn my phone (and thus my e-mail access) off around 5:15 or so.

[tapuz.livejournal.com]

Not an obscure slash pairing but two distinct holidays celebrated as a unit
snarf!

Shanah tovah, hag sameah, etc!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Shanah tovah and chag sameach to you, too!

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm Splorp, we may have to make an unscheduled visit to hug girliezzz and eat splorp...
Fugel

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

You're always welcome!

[p-m-cryan.livejournal.com]

Happy holidays to all of you. I miss you guys.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Thank you! We miss you, too.