Yom tov hiatus

It's not as though I'm a really regular blogger, but I thought I'd let my legions of readers (all twenty of you) know that with the high holidays (yomim tovim) approaching, I am not likely to blog for at least the coming week. My FIL is coming, and I'm working the other three days this week, so it's going to be busy.

One of the things I really like about living in a religious neighborhood is the way you can just feel that Shabbos, or Yom Tov, is approaching. People are in a hurry. About two hours before sunset, the Jews just vanish from the streets. The stores are closing up, and everyone is wishing everyone else a good Shabbos or a good holiday. This morning, I did some last-minute shopping and there was no chicken in either of the two kosher groceries, the fish store was mobbed, and where usually on a Sunday you'll see mothers out with their kids, today it was fathers--the mothers were home cooking. The fathers were navigating strollers through the aisles, studying their shopping lists and showing them to older offspring. "What does mommy mean when she says rice?" "This kind, daddy, the brown box." "Oh, okay. Put it in the cart." The rituals of the holidays.

Well, part of the house is clean, and some, though by no means most, of the cooking is done. My own husband and offspring are off on a mission to acquire and tovel a new rice cooker. What happened to ours on Friday is too hideous to describe in detail--suffice it to say it involved a batch of rice cooked in 1948 and the kind of wildlife gone amok you usually read about it Michael Crichton novels. I should be taking advantage of their absence to start the soup, but here I am blogging and casting longing glances at my spinning wheel. It's going to be a while before I get to touch that again.

All right, off I go. G'mar chasima tova, everybody. May you be inscribed for a happy, healthy, and peaceful new year.