Archives for April 2008

It took me a long time to realize that the anticipation of all of the Pesach cleaning, arranging, purchasing, and cooking was ten times worse than the actual work involved. Some people even become psychiatrically ill. But, with a schedule in mind and a little pre-planning, I have been able to get through it tired, maybe (OK, exhausted, for sure) but generally with little anxiety. Here are some of my coping skills and I recognize that different folks are really different, so they may or may not work for others.

1. For staples, I hit the best stocked supermarkets/stores early. I have already been to the two most likely candidates and picked up items that I might be crushed getting in another few days. All of the non-perishables are sitting in my entry hall and the one bag of frozens (OK, gefilte fish, if you must know) is triple-wrapped in my freezer.

2. I then make a list of what I still need (excluding fruits, veggies, and meats, all of which come later) and go out and get them (maybe what I will be doing today. Who knows?)

3. I pre-clean the fridge. Meaning- I one by one take out all of the shelves, clean them throughly as well as all of the space around them on the walls of the fridge, and then put down newspaper to keep them from getting dirty in the interim.

4. Since I have a self-cleaning oven, I put it on about now and have it clean. I do that because I was traumatized my first year with this oven when it cleaned itself while simultaneously blowing a fuse which I only found out about as I slipped my turkey into the oven erev Pesach. What ensued was much gnashing of teeth and punching of small objects (ouch)…. or perhaps only a frantic call to a repair man. And yes, Virginia, there is a G-d: the repairman, Claude Anton, may he be blessed with a long life, not only came within minutes, but knew exactly what had happened, had the part in his vehicle, and replaced it for an insignificant sum of money. But I still don’t trust the oven and so I clean it a week ahead of time to prevent a potential melt-down on my part.

5. I buy a couple of meters of that very wide heavy patterned plastic material that is usually used for tablecloths. That will later be cut and taped to all of my counters.

6. The three most important cleaning accessories for Pesach are:

a. a good supply of plastic gloves (fortunately there are no pictures of my hands at sdarim in the past before this discovery, but they were tell-tale gray from silver polish and dry and cracking from other cleaning products). This is not a “nice to have;” this is a requirement.
b. A supply of wooden toothpicks. Nothing does better on crevice dirt than toothpicks. If you are a dirt Attila as I am around Pesach, a large number is recommended as they break under the pressure of my dainty little hands.
c. Razor blades. Sad to say, I can’t find the plain blades like they have in the US that slide into a holder. Here I usually end up using one of those box cutters and make it do all sorts of things it would never do if given the choice. I turn it in every different direction to scrape off all sorts of things. Sometimes something that is stuck on just needs a little bit of extra encouragement in order to choose to come off.

Cleaning products:

In addition to all of the usual, I have two that I cherish.

a. Cilit (or other equivalent)- It’s that stuff that removes mineral build-up from toilets, sinks, and any other place that water may sit. One shpritz of Cilit can save minutes of scrubbing.

b. Cold grease remover: A couple of years ago I sent my oldest granddaughter, Hadas (sometimes known as my Beijing traveling pal) to the store to get me some oven spray for the rack of the self-cleaning oven. She came back with a non-aerosol spray that was a remover of cold grease. Since it had a picture of an oven on it, I decided that she couldn’t have been that far off. I used it and it worked amazingly. I then tried it out on the bottom of one of my pots. I sprayed it on and waited for about 5 minutes and literally wiped the blackened, browned, ugly grease stains right off the bottom of the pot. One more reason to love the kid!

Since we will be having around 25 people for seder and at least 10 per meal for the previous shabbat and for lunch on the first day, we decided to do it all on disposable dishes– something I resisted for years, but this time the decision had to do with saving my daughters and daughter-in-law the unpleasantness of dishes- since they are always the ones who insist on helping. So, a few weeks ago I went and bought all of the disposables we will need for several years (or so it seems). Pretty much everything is white as are the tablecloths, but I bought beautiful table runners and napkins and I think it will look festive. Surely the beautiful faces around the table will make it perfect!

So here we are, about 10 days from Pesach and a lot already done. Next will be the making of the shopping lists for the meat (I have someone who delivers), the dairy products, and the vegetables.

A second post with further instructions is on its way… but I am off to buy the raisins and ketchup I forgot the last time….

When I was young, I used to think of what it would be like to grow old. It was hard for me to believe that I would ever get old. The years passed and although I had children, I didn’t feel as if I were growing older. As I entered my 40s, life was good and I was active and I didn’t feel old. When my children started getting married, it was OK. When the grandchildren started being born, it was wonderful. And as the years passed and I watched the little ones grow, I still felt young. At 50 I made aliya. I opened a whole new chapter in my life. Eventually we bought our house and we settled down to a stable life here in Israel. And it’s all been good.

But suddenly I am looking at the fact that I am getting older. I think I still have a lot of energy. I have decided to stop teaching and I do very little supervision and practically no therapy. I enjoyed it for many years. Now I look forward to the trips I take and even more to the trips I lead. Learning about new places– their history, their culture, their arts, their people is exciting and fascinating. Seeing the world through the eyes of a Chinese person or a Cambodian is wondrous. I get excited about the things I do.

But at the same time, harsh reality pokes me in the eye. My dear cousin, the one who spanned generations between mine and that of my parents, has died. And although I hadn’t seen him in years, we had begun writing to each other sporadically and I was looking forward to having him and his wife come and visit and asking him some of the questions about our family that I had never gotten to ask my mother. He was a good person. He had an infectious smile and a good sense of humor and a depth that was apparent when through all the turmoil of that family, he maintained his equanimity. He was always pleasant and friendly. I will miss him.

And that means that I am now the old one– and I am too young to do this. In my head, I am still in my 30s. Where did those years go?

Time is precious. We should never take it for granted and we should use it wisely.