Saturday, October 25, 2008

One Week Later

Exactly one week ago we were sitting in the rabbi's office waiting to start Emma's bat mitzvah. Seems hard to believe that it has only been a week. To everyone who read this and sent their messages of support and concern, thank you! Meltdown averted, everything really went beautifully. Emma was amazing, although that was never in doubt. She looked beautiful. She read her torah and haftorah and all her prayers fabulously. And she was so poised and confident and impressive in every way.

Amazingly, everything showed up and everyone was where they were supposed to be. I was pretty sure that the photographer wouldn't show up or the DJ would forget or something. But everything actually came together. The photographer was way on time (although we were late--sorry!). The flowers were beautiful, the DJ did a great job, the vegetarian moussaka was yummy. The weather was sunny and fall-ish and perfect. Even my grody ear infection couldn't ruin it. It was way better than my wedding, when the limo that was supposed to take Matt and me to the reception broke down and we had I think about six mechanically challenged men (including my dad and Matt's dad) peering in at the steaming radiator before we drove off to the reception in Dennis's hatchback.

I think (hope) that everyone had a good time. I know that Emma did and that's the most important thing. After the ceremony, I thought she'd fly away she looked so relieved and happy and lightened. We don't have the official pics yet, and I wasn't the "unofficial" photographer (thanks, Dennis, for doing that job!) so as soon as I get pics I'll post 'em here. But take my word: she was gorgeous.

I do have one pic that I'll post here, taken at the luncheon reception. Thanks, Genita!


Molly and mama and Sammy, everyone but Emma!


Chris Duffy came from New York, my mom's cousins and her friend flew in from Florida and Connecticut, Matt's family came from Oregon, Danny and family came from LA (poor Danny's plane arrived less than an hour before the ceremony) and Gillian and her family and Genita all came up from Chicago. We hadn't seen some of these guys in YEARS and YEARS, which is criminal in itself, but it was pretty fantastic that so many people made such an effort to be there for us. As Gillian said, it was a great excuse for us to all get together.

Before this weekend, Sammy was claiming to be on the fence about whether he wanted a bar mitzvah or not. He kinda wants to go to New York or Barcelona instead. But after seeing and experiencing Emma's gala, he wants one too. More to the point, he wants the same DJ, the same parties, and the same spinach-phyllo pies that Emma had. So that's compliment enough.

So all in all, it was really great. Now only three years till we do it all over again! Woo-hoo!

In other news, the Cibula family is preparing for Halloween. Which means the Cibula children are planning their costumes. Molly will most likely be going as a ballerina. I've got her this cute little tutu. Although I think that Molly would prefer to go out as "girl who doesn't wear anything but a diaper."

Emma wants to be Sarah Palin. I'm pretty stoked about this, although I think it will take a phenomenal amount of hair spray to get her hair up.

Sam's first idea was to trick-or-treat as Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Which means that when my kids went out trick-or-treating, it would look like this:







But then we decided Sam would just look like someone's uncle. So now he's going to go as the Federal Banking Crisis. I'll let you know how that works out.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Today I Am a Wreck

It would be disingenuous to say that I wasn't warned. I was. I knew it would be like a wedding. Only with less sympathy from outsiders and coworkers, who don't know it's like a wedding. I had all summer to plan and prepare and keep myself out of the position I'm in now. But the summer was a rilly rilly long time ago. And now Emma's Bat Mitzvah is in 13 days. Holy fuck.

It's not that she won't be beautiful. She will. Or that she's not prepared. She is. As I keep telling her, there will only be like 5 people who know Hebrew at the whole thing anyway (and I am not one of them) so it really doesn't even matter if she messes up because she'll sound like she knows what she's talking about, regardless. But she won't mess up. She's beyond ready, and she'll be amazing. And she's excited for the chance to wear pretty new dresses and run around the temple with 22 (!) of her closest friends.

But yeah, I really don't have my shit together, which is becoming increasingly evident. I woke up at 5:15 this morning and I couldn't get back to sleep because I'm pretty sure we won't have adequate servers at the bat mitzvah luncheon. We have a caterer, and they're wonderful, but I can't remember what we told them about the number of servers we'll need, and they've never catered at the temple before. So I'm pretty sure that everyone'll be folding their own napkins and hewing their own grain for bread.

The temple's a pain in the ass because they basically expect that everyone'll use the same caterer, so they want ours to send in all these proofs of insurance and whatnot, and no one's talking to each other--they're all talking to me. I can't do anything about it so I try to relay messages.

I'm stressed because my computer died a week ago. My computer with all my lists and names and spreadsheets so I am convinced I'm forgetting about someone who's coming--probably a family of 10 who'll show up in a maxivan with no place to stay and no placecards for their kiddush meal.

I'm stressed because before my computer died I counted everyone up, and then I re-counted yesterday and came up with 10 more people for the lunch. Inexplicably. I guess I can't count. Good thing I'm a teacher. I can't remember now whether I told the temple to order enough napkins and tablecloths. (A task, btw, that I managed to complete at the last possible moment.)

Stressed because I still don't have a florist or a photographer. I have a line on both, but nothing nailed down. This could be bleak. And I have to figure out how to decorate a barn, where the dance party will be held. No clue what to do there. I don't even have shoes. Or a suitable dress. How can I be expected to decorate a barn?

Stressed because I'm quite sure I'm forgetting about 50 things I need to do. I can't take more than a day off to do it all. My basement smells like cat pee and I'm not sure when and how we can clear it out to clean it.

And I'm not really dealing with how we're gonna pay for it all, since we're maxed on our HELOC and I keep putting off the call to the bank to incrase it.

I've got a cold that's not going away and at this point, I'm pretty sure it's mutated into some kind of low-level infection that probably won't send me to the doctor but won't clear up by itelf, either. So instead of sleeping on a Sunday morning, I'm up, at 5:15, watching infomercials, but not even the good one about Colon Cleanse, and looking for scissors so I can cut out patterns of eggs with letters on them. Wondering if my twisting stomach is the result of too much wine on Friday, or my burgeoning sinus infection, or the stress of not knowing how this is all gonna work out.

It's gotten so I can't even fret about the election.