Skip to main content

How to stay busy during a state of emergency



We have been more or less home bound since Sunday evening.   My son hasn’t had school all week. My husband has been unable to get to his office and there is no power in the building.  My husband and I have been taking turns using this computer. Both of us have been trying to work.

I did massive amounts of laundry. At first I was worried that we might not have power or water at some point so was trying to get as much stuff done ahead of the crisis.

Sunday evening was my building's annual Halloween lobby decorating. I coordinated the event.  halloween 2012 (1)halloween 2012 (4)halloween 2012 (3)halloween 2012 (2)halloween 2012
We made ghost garlands out of  tissue paper. one family made garbage bag ghosts. There were a ton of kids working away, all hopped up on sugar. We also did cookie and cup cake decorating.  It was loud slightly chaotic but ultimately very productive and a nice bit of community building in my building.

I also got to work on my niece's engagement gift. My niece just became engaged to the nephew of a long time client of mine.   My client and her siblings give one of my challah covers and a havdallah bag to each of the nieces or nephews as an engagement gift.    My niece and her intended are no exception to this lovely family tradition.
I selected the text and colors after a conversation with my niece.  Hopefully I will be ale to finish this challah cover soon.
100_3165

Today, I finally went out to re-stock or nearly empty larder.  I am very aware that some neighborhoods in the city are still in terrible shape. Our neighborhood is  nearly back to normal. Public school kids don't have school so there is a bit of a carnival feel to the streets with happy groups of kids wandering up and down town.  I also found that store staff and customers were very kind to one another. We are so grateful to have come through relatively unscathed.  We are also very aware of the great efforts people have made to  just show up at work. Some employers are paying taxi fares to be sure that their stores are staffed.

Comments

  1. Like you my dh had no power at his office until yesterday. My cousins live on the the lower east side and they ended up leaving for his sister's house in Jersey. I assume that she was one of the lucky ones who got power back. The pictures and news reports are heart breaking. I have friends who's houses were flooded when 5 feet of water flooded their streets. They are devastated and exhausted. I almost feel guilty to have my life intact. Most of those around us don't have power and there are plenty of downed trees and wires. Maybe people will start really taking climate change seriously.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

  וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים   You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for  giving life to all.  I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of  Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or  the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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...