Monday, October 5 - Tuesday, October 6 (Week 1)
I began to count the days of my sabbatical starting with the first work day that I didn't go into the office. This happened to be the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the last day of the week-long festival of Succoth. This was an appropriate day on which to begin a sabbatical, as it is a day similar in many ways to the weekly Jewish Shabbat, or in English, Sabbath, origin of the word sabbatical (noun). Shemini Atzeret is followed by another equally sabbatical (adjective) holiday, Simchat Torah. These days are spent in communal celebration, involving lots of food, dancing, drinking (which is needed to get the dancing going, since instrumental music is prohibited on the holiday and we must rely on our own voices to get a groove going), and of course there's worship in there somewhere too. The party actually started Sunday night (Jewish holidays are sundown to sundown), so by the end of the day Tuesday, we are all pretty much partied out. But there's no rest for the weary...
Wednesday, October 7
To do list for the day:
- Take down the succah and store the pieces in the garage
- Pack for the trip
- Write up instructions for Ori
- Try to get to bed at a reasonable hour
We eat in the succah for the week of the festival of Succoth. Taking it down and storing the pieces is a bit of a chore, and not without some degree of sadness, as Succoth is my family's favorite holiday and it always seems to pass too quickly. But this year, no time for tears. We've got a plane to catch!
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| The succah (without decorations or furniture) |
Then there's packing. I'm a very slow packer. It takes me hours and hours to decide how to pack for every contingency and somehow make it all fit in the smallest suitcase possible so that I can feel like I'm traveling light. It can take me 3 hours to pack for an overnight. Now I have to figure out how to fit 4 weeks worth of clothing for two continents with wildly disparate weather forecasts into any size suitcase at all. The problem is compounded by the fact that we're going to a wedding at the beginning of the trip, so David and I need to pack our suits, and do so in a way that will minimize wrinkles. We'll be doing laundry periodically, so I figure a week's worth of clothes should be about right. We buy and borrow some big sized suitcases, one for me, one for Sandra. We always try to fit into a carry-on, but if we are ever to carry a large suitcase, this seems like the time. Little did we know this decision would be the first domino in a cascading sequence of hassles.
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| Chai |
Our close friend and honorary son Ori was to house sit for the month we would be gone. The primary purpose was to have someone sleeping in the house so that our two pathologically deranged cats wouldn't become completely unhinged and bring about the total destruction of all our worldly possessions for lack of human contact.
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| Mocha |
When we got to thinking of all the things Ori would need to know, the list grew quite long, from how to deal with the litter box, to providing access to the cleaning lady, gardener and gas meter reader, to where all the emergency supplies are stored in case of earthquake, WWIII or zombie apocalypse during our absence. It was a few hours of work to get it all written up and printed out. He smiled at us kindly as we explained it all to him in a frantic fit of anal-retentive, control-freakish neurosis.
Somehow, it all got done. We were ready to go.
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| Ori prepares to spend a month with our cats |
