A day of forced busy work

The hard drive on my computer died last Friday. I spent entirely too much time last week trying to get in touch with the company that has purchased the contract for customer care/extended warranties at Staples ((Barrister). How much time is too much time you ask?? I think two hours, by the clock qualities as too much time. The fact that they have one of the worst voice mail systems I have ever encountered that is paired with truly irritating music did not add to the enjoyment of those two hours.

The Restore disc I had to have Fed-Exed from HP has been here since Friday. The parts that needed to be installed arrived on Saturday. The repair person was scheduled to arrive today between 9 and 11 am. I couldn't start sewing. My computer and my sewing space are one and the same. I didn't want to create a mess for the repari person.

At 1:15, I called Barrister. I did not time the several minutes on hold today, it was more than five minutes but less than 15. They didn't know where the repair person assign to come to my house was. A few calls later it is revealed that the repair person was a no show. When I asked them why they couldn't have the courtesy to call me, the customer service person hung up on me.

But I did have to keep busy. My family is in many ways pretty loosey-goosey. But we do have areas of ridigness. We all ave our own seat at the dining room table. Just before Shabbat started, my chair fell apart. The dowels that fit into the legs had all popped out. The wood was dry and the cushion popped off the frame. I was ready to throw the chair away. I did find it on the street in front of my building. My husband is loathe to toss things away. So i covered the little dowel pieces with glue infused fabric and jammed the legs back into place. I had little hope. Then I lit Shabbat candles candlesand put the chair aside.

Shabbat morning, i saw my oldest eating her breakfast on the chair. I guess gluing the legs worked. This morning I conditioned the wood with a mixture of olive oil and vinegar so it no longer felt like kindling. I glued some areas that needed gluing and re-attached the seat to the chair. Saved from a re-visit to the trash!!!

My chair-fixed

I also made two more mezuzot.

Two more mezuzot

I also guess that I have been reading too many home -dec blogs. I use two small dresses for storing my tights. We bought these two little dressers early in our marriage from an apartment sale in our building. They were stained a dark redwood color. I have ignored them ever since. They have been useful but unremarkable. After I found out that the repair guy probably wouldn't show up today I went to the hard ware store and bought silver spray paint. I decided to spray the little dressers silver. I got one done today. you can see the before and after. I only did one today.The other dresser can wait. I think that the silver is oddly less conspicuous in my blue bedroom.

drawer front before

attempting

drawer front -after

Two small chests of drawers, before and after.

Once my lungs recover , I will paint the other dresser. My son just mentioned that my bedroom smells like a middle schooler is attempting to get high there.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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