It's almost 11:00, and I've already done way more than I did yesterday. My bathtub, tile and grout, are sparkling. This occurs in my house with the frequency of a total eclipse of the sun, so those others I live with had better enjoy it while they got it. I've cleaned and/or vacuumed all floors. I've even dusted. God.I avoided dusting for years and years -- well, I minimized it -- but not having tchotchkes out. [tchotchkes: trinkets, knick-knacks.] But now I do, and I have that wonderful Swiffer duster, but basically, I still don't want to do it. My OldFriend works in a store that deals in antique glass, and she's swiffer-dusting all the livelong day. She wants to do commercials for them. But I'm thinking that the stuff in her store is heavy, so it just slides right around them. But some of my stuff is really small, and if I don't pick it up and dust under it, than I knock it right over, and that's a pain. Yes, yes, my mother taught me to dust; it was one of my regular chores and I did it all the time. Probably why I don't want to do it anymore.
I cleaned out the freezer in anticipation of the Jenny food coming in on Saturday. Yes, I'm giving Jenny a go, not because of Kirstie Alley, but because it worked for the Sibs and I know about it some because I went to the first few sessions with her, and I went in yesterday to ask if they could accomodate my low sodium and diverticulosis needs and they said they could. Which they hadn't when I went in originally with the Sibs. So now I'll be reporting from the Jenny front. I'll let you know.
I even went to Motor Vehicles this morning and returned the license plates that we took off the old car when we got it and registered it to us, so these were the plates in my Niece's name. Maybe this is universal, I don't know, but until the last couple of years, I don't think anyone returned old plates ever, at least not in New Jersey. Every garage, it seemed, had old license plates nailed up inside somewhere. But they've been making this big deal about returning them and getting a receipt, so I did, and got them off one of my living room chairs where they've been sitting for over a month.
The FIL told me once (before I was married, I think, so a long time ago) that he was a C & E Catholic. He explained that this meant he never went to church except on Christmas and Easter, and for the first ten years I knew him, I don't think he went on Easter, either. They went to midnight mass on Christmas -- we all went, until we had little kids -- because the church was so pretty and the music is nice. Now that he's retired, and old, he and the MIL have become weekly regulars at church, which is lovely for them. The FIL's sister and her husband, I know, are now daily go-to-mass folks.
What put me in mind of this is that for the last two days as I am off work and driving around, there are simply scads of people on the street, which is so uncommon here in the suburbs, and especially in Bizarro Town, but they are all walking to Rosh Hashonah services. They walk solo, or in pairs, or in family groups. Every male, even the littlest boy, is wearing a yarmulke [skullcap] and here and there, I see a grown man whose shoulders are draped with a tallis [prayer shawl] which says to me that once he gets to the shul [synogogue] he means business.
Bizarro Town has a population of 31,637 (2002) within an area of 5.2 square miles. (I just looked it up.) There are at least seven synogogues, possibly nine. Two of those are Orthodox, one is most likely a Russian congregation. And I haven't even passed any of the actual buildings in my two days; I'm just seeing people walking out from my neighborhood in all directions, seeking out their particular place of worship. When I was a kid, and we had just the four big synogogues, their sanctuaries could not hold all the people who would come to Rosh Hashonah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement, that's next week) services, and so they would rent out the auditoriums in the bigger schools. Ho ho, you don't see that anymore.
Anyway, I just keep thinking that these must be R & Y Jews, the ones who only go to services on the High Holy Days. Perhaps that's harsh; I don't know. My mother's father, who was Orthodox himself, never could afford to pay the membership fees of a synogogue and so rarely went to services although he prayed at home the mandatory two long sessions every day [davening] as well as every five minutes whenever he sneezed or whatever. He always knew someone who could get him tickets to services on the High Holy days; he'd have to pay for that as well, but I guess he saved up for it. Even as a small child, it struck me as incredibly absurd that anyone should have to pay to attend a religious service, but maybe that's just me. I'm sure they've got some reason for that, eh? (In fact, they don't pass a collection plate generally, so it's still shearing the flock, just in a different way.)
Okay, I have towels to fold and a wash to switch into the dryer.
