Monday, October 13, 2008

Getting Ready to SHAKE it!

What an interesting weekend I had down in the Poconos with Evan. We saw a bear by the side of the road in the community, not to mention wild turkeys wandering around someone's driveway. We stopped at a most magnificent waterfall (which you see pictured here and which you can see more of over on my Flickr ), and we spent most of one day this weekend at a flea market/craft fair/harvest festival where I procured some delicious jams/spreads from some nice Quaker girls (who had a yummy-looking loaf of challah that I resisted buying).

The weekend was all around beautiful and relaxing, and the services at the shul in the community were, well, interesting. I got nothing spiritually from them, but they were amusing in that the chazzan was funny and had some interesting things to say (he even brought up "Mallrats," which no one seemed to know about except the chazzan, Evan and I). But there was probably a 40-50 year age gap between us and the rest of the people there, though there was a mighty showing, it being an older community. They used the old -- we're talking the ORIGINAL -- Reform siddur, which made me want to cry, but the building was beautiful and the company was nice and the chazzan was plenty friendly. We will probably go back, I just have to figure out a way to do my prayers on my own. I think it's time to suck it up and buy myself that transliterated Artscroll so I can daven solo-style.

At any rate, the sukkah is up in the grad courtyard and we did some l'chaims earlier to celebrate it's construction. It's incredibly tall and was purchased from PopUpSukkah.com, but it'll get the job done for what we need. I spent the afternoon mulling about with the Chabad rabbi's youngest boy (age 2-ish) who ... wow ... I want 10 just like him. I can't understand a word he said, but we were looking at water in a drain pipe and watching planes dart across the sky leaving smokey skies behind. I got him to start saying "bye bye! bye bye!" while waving frantically and it was seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen. So tomorrow evening begins Sukkot -- also known as Sukkos or the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths -- and I'll be spending my time probably at the Chabad rabbi's place for dinner and services on Tuesday morning since I'm not sure what Hillel is doing and I can't seem to get enough of the wee one (and the older one calls me Chava and Ahava, which amuses me but I'm down with it cuz he's cool).

So with Sukkot approaching, I implore everyone to quickly get a copy of Ushpizin (one of my most FAVORITE MOVIES) and watch it with joy. It is THE Sukkot movie, and if you haven't seen it, you're really missing out.

This will be my first "observant" Sukkot ... and I'm stoked. I'm ready to get my shake on -- are you? The only thing is, I've never done the shakin' before and I don't know the rules and regulations ... good thing I found this video! (Not!)







Moadim l'simcha!