(to the tune of “Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by***“)

Barefoot in the garden spraying my black oven racks.
Barefoot in the garden knowing that I must make tracks.
’cause you can’t get to Pesach by just wishing
or by sending in a fax
You’ve got to stand there in the garden spraying your sweet oven
spraying your sweet oven racks.

To “Clementine”

On a counter in a kitchen excavating for some grime
Were razor and a toothpick and a tired hand of mine
Oh my darlin’,
oh my darlin’,
oh my darlin’ it’s just fine
For together we’ll destroy it and be Pesachdik in time

To “Everything’s coming up roses”

Grab the bowl
Get the knife
We are having the time of our life
Now it starts, almost done
and then we’ll have a bowl of charoses

Apples first,
Walnuts next
Wine and cinnamon round out the text
Almost done, gee what fun
and we have our sweet bowl of charoses
********************************
What some people do to justify a break! The kitchen’s almost done, only 6 hours behind my estimate. It’s going to feel good to put my feet up and relax!

Oven: Done
Fridge: Done
Microwave: Done
Packaged Passover foods: In great profusion
Frozen gefilte fish: A virtual sea of mutated fish
Hallway obstacle course: More extensive than anticipated
Freezer: Clean and overfull– enough poultry to feed several African countries
Tablecloth inventory: Large, but virtually unnecessary as G-d has seen fit to endow us with clear plastic to put over fabric tablecloths.
Paper goods: Number of individual items approaching infinity

Still to be done:
Lining the shelves and fridge
Covering the counters
Purchasing fruits and vegetables
Purchasing dairy products
Making the kugels
Cooking the meal
Moving the furniture out of the living room
Taking a vacation

PPC= Pre-Peach Cleaning.

Assuming that I have now finished cleaning my fridge (I did), not yet done the freezer (I plead guilty) and only in a couple of minutes will turn on the self-cleaning oven, now I am officiallly at the point that I arrive at before every Pesach: panic.

No no. It’s not that I think that things won’t get done. It’s just that my house is starting to look unfamiliar to me. Suddenly there are newspapers around (waiting to line things), piles of packaged food items in the hall, paper towels strategically placed for drying the things I’ve cleaned and a general sense of disorder. At this point I begin to think that life as I knew it will never return. Of course the truth is that it will and that it won’t even take so much energy to make it happen, but the visuals on this one are hard to take. Add in the issue of shabbat and it becomes worrisome since all I want on shabbat is (strangely) a feeling of peace and order.

So today, in addition to cleaning the freezer and buying shabbat food, I will be doing a little self-cleansing of my mind by sitting quietly and consciously relaxing and picturing the beauty of the seder that I am privileged to be making.

Here’s what I want from a shopping experience:

I walk into a store. I wander around. I look at things. If there’s something that catches my eye, I think about whether I need it. If I do, then I look to see the price. If I like it enough that the price seems good. I buy it.

Here is what I do not want from a shopping experience:

I walk into a store. Someone attaches herself to my heels watching my every step (NOTE: I have never, ever in my entire life shoplifted. Why does she think that this will be my first attempt? Do I have shifty eyes?). I walk through the store ignoring said person and her nose ring, her eyebrow rings and that pesky one in her tongue which causes her to lisp, drool, and spit as she says, “What are you looking for?”
I tell her “I am not looking for anything in particular.”
She says, “We have some beautiful navel rings and they are on sale this week only…”
I tell her, “No thanks.”
She says, “Well how much do you want to spend?”
I say, “I am not sure I want to buy anything at all.”
She continues to follow me.
I foolishly let my eyes wander toward a pink fur lamp.
Quick on the draw she says, “That also comes in fuschia, chartreuse, and ebony.”

I leave.

We live in a building that has 3 stories. On each side there is a two story apartment and then on top of each of those there is a one story apartment. We have one of the two story apartments with a garden around three sides. About two years ago, we bought the small apartment that is above us. I hope to someday cut through a staircase and expand our home up while also leaving it possible to close it off for short-term rental.

The reason why it is “someday” is that along with the apartment we bought Grizelda (not her name.) Grizelda is a woman of about 70 who immigrated from an eastern European country that may no longer exist– or maybe from one that didn’t exist when she immigrated from it, or maybe one that only decided to come into existence because she had finally left and the average IQ skyrocketed.

Grizelda was a tenant at the time we bought the apartment. She immediately asked, “Do you want me to move out?” Before I had a chance to say “You betchem!” my husband said, “Of course not.” I forgot. I am married to a man who feels that every encounter is an opportunity for charity. “Of course you can stay! and at the same [ridiculously low] rent.”

So she is still here.

Now aside from some annoying habits like ringing our doorbell to say “Isn’t it sunny out!” and “Do you think that turning off the faucet might stop the water from running,” Grizelda does things that drive me crazy like repeatedly taking shopping carts from the supermarket and leaving them outside the door tothe building (I have issues with larceny) and leaving cases of water bottles in our lobby (thereby enticing the neighborhood hooligans).

But the thing that bothers me the most is that Grizelda does not understand the concept of gravity.

For years, Grizelda has been placing flowerpots and planters tottering on the edges of her balconies. At least once or twice a week, I would pick up the pots from my garden and place them at the entrance of the building to return them. She never quite got it. Her floor rags drying on the ledge of her balcony would often show up in the garden. That sponge one uses in the vegetable drawer showed up. Old sukkah decorations came tumbling down. Then there was the year that she decided to leave her sukkah up with a heavy plastic covering over the roof. And after a few rains, there was a sudden crash onto the glass roof of our sunroom. The water came down with such force that it actually bent the frame of the roof and sprayed onto our furniture. The roof was not damaged longterm, but she was getting on my last nerve.

Then we went away on a trip. When we returned, in our garden, lying on its side, was a wooden dog house. It is about two feet square with a roof that peaks at about 2 feet. I immediately realized that we were very very lucky. Had someone been in the garden when the dog house came down, that person could have been killed. I did not return the dog house. She has not asked for it. After that, all flower pots have become gifts to me.

Last week, my grandchildren were over. On the roof of our sun room was a pot with a plant in it. My grandson Daniel asked, “What is that doing there?” I gave him my stock answer, “Grizelda is experimenting to see if gravity still works.”

I started dancing when I was 4. There was a woman named Florence Cowanova who was a friend of Anna Pavlova and settled in Philadelphia to teach girls who in many cases became well-known ballerinas. My mother enrolled me in her school and i remember with only joy the dancing lessons where I wore an aqua organdy tutu and danced with other girls my age on the vast hardwood floor gleaming with the reflection of the light coming in through the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows. I loved listening to the piano accompaniment to our exercises- always beautiful music that fit the steps we were learning. The mothers sat and took notes so that at home they could remind us of 4th position and of plies and tour jetes.

Most of the time, we danced in ballet slippers, but around February of the year I turned 4, my mother took me out to buy me toe shoes. They were beautiful. They were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. They were pink satin and had wide pink satin ribbons to fasten them around my feet and legs. In the toes, there was a special soft cotton that my toes would rest on when I stood upon them. In those shoes, I felt beautiful.

When my mother would mention to others that I was already dancing on my toes, they would respond with surprise and tell her that usually they don’t recommend toe shoes until age 8 or 10. But my dancing teacher was an expert and so we trusted her.

I never had very beautiful feet. Actually, my feet were rather ugly. But I can’t help thinking that the early exposure to toe shoes might have had something to do with my bunions and hammer toes, both of which are the result of the big toe being pushed toward the center of the foot.

I only bring this up because I am about to tell you the saga of the bunion blacklist. (Anyone who is not into this is excused. I promise my next posting will have nothing to do with bunions.)

Several years ago (in 1999) I went to an orthopedist because I was having problems with my feet. He looked at my feet and said, “you would do well to consider surgery.” He ordered some xrays and gave me a referral to a colleague of his in Lod (a city about twenty minutes from here.) He gave me a referral to a hospital for another doctor to examine me and determine whether I needed surgery. After a few weeks, the day of my appointment at the hospital came and I arrived with all of my xrays and paperwork. After a long wait, I was finally called into the office of the doctor. I put down my paperwork and he asked me to sit on the examining table. He never looked at my chart. He never opened my xrays. He didn’t even ask me to take off my shoes. He said, “Well, do you want surgery?” I said, “Aren’t you supposed to determine whether I need it?” He said, “If you want the surgery we’ll do it.” I really wasn’t understanding the whole point of this appointment. He said, “Well? Do you?” I asked how long it would be from the time of my decision to the surgery and he said about a year. I said, “Well, I guess in that case, I could say yes and then decide later whether I want to go through with it.”

It was as if the full moon had risen and the doctor became a werewolf. “No!” he shouted, “You cannot do that!!! If you make an appointment for surgery, you must have surgery! If you cancel the appointment, you will NEVER have surgery on your bunions in this country!”

Well, that was a while back. I did make the appointment and I did cancel it about 2 months before the projected surgery– mainly because at the time I was having issues with my shoulder. But it was with full knowledge that I might just have doomed myself to being on that infamous Israeli “bunion blacklist.”

A few weeks ago, the lower joint of my second toe on my left foot having grown to epic proportions, I once again went to see an orthopedist. He is an English speaker. He said, “The only answer is surgery.” He told me that he operates at the very same hospital where I canceled my surgery. I told him the story. He looked at me incredulously and said. “[expletive deleted]” (meaning “that’s nonsense”)

I spoke to him yesterday and we have begun the march, so to speak, toward the correction of the damage done so very long ago.

And now we return to topics that are less earthy…..