I am the 7th Chanuka candle

The idea of getting old isn’t one that I heartily accept. It would be just fine with me if I would remain fully functional and just be able to tick off the years being perpetually 30 (as I imagine myself to be.) In fact, I still am shocked every time I look into the mirror and see some old woman who apparently has taken up residence in my house, but who looks unfamiliar to me. And though I feel healthy and energetic and happy and hopeful, every once in a while, I get a dose of reality that slaps me upside my head.

So tonight when we went to a Chanuka gathering of a group we belong to, I expected the customary poem written in honor of the occasion and singing and food and maybe some mindless game that some of the people find entertaining, but I didn’t anticipate that they would tell us that in order to be served the food, we would have to wear little paper bands around our head with a paper candle attached to stand up perpendicular in the middle of our foreheads, kind of like an Indian headband with the feather placed in the front. Suddenly, there I was in the Happy Acres Retirement Home for the Hopelessly Confused. I was wearing a [censored] candle around my head like a five year old!! Am I really that far gone? When they handed out the Chanuka bingo cards, I tried really hard not to run for the door, but after sitting there dutifully for an inordinate amount of time, I convinced my husband to leave by saying, “It’s getting late, isn’t it.”

So we ditched our senility and came home to enjoy the last few moments of the old year.

Happy New Year

Oh, and by the way, the pictures from the Bat Mitzvah are at this url:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9AYs2rJi2cvwA