Pesach - The Final Frontier

Welcome and Dedications:
Welcome to LR #16 - Shoshana "I Finally Got Enough Shout-Outs so I Joined" Bender! I would also like to doubly dedicate this post to Ahava "More Content Less Poetry" Leibtag, and Sharon "I Told Sharon I'd Dedicate a Blog Entry To Her" Sturm.

For discussion: After Pesach, our reward for a month of scrubbing, shopping, vacuuming, emptying, schlepping, shopping, cooking, boiling, shopping, and then more cooking is....more cleaning, emptying, shlepping, and shopping! PLUS, the laundry that piled up because we're not allowed to do laundry on chol hamoed because it's really a chag and we should be relaxing, in between the cooking and shopping, of course. PLUS PLUS, all the pre-Pesach adrenaline that got you through scraping your sink with toothpicks at midnight is totally, completely, gone and all you really want to do is sleep to recover from this Holiday of Freedom, but your kids' sugar cereal level is quite low so off you go to the store!

A few more observations:
1. It is weird that for us, Pesach is now but a distant memory (well, except for the 4 boxes of matzah we have left over and the myriad jars of jelly that I kept buying for some unknown reason, perhaps guided by the Ghost of Fried Matza Past), the children have fortified themselves with endless bowls of cereal, I just finished a delicious lunch of pita and chummus (chametz WITH kitniot, can't beat that!), I am updating the blog....and many of my Loyal Readers are just waking up, facing one final day of Pesach rolls and kosherforpesachl'lochashashkitniot mayonnaise.

2. IF right after Sukkot the sufganiot come out to play, and IF right after Chanukah the oznei haman are seen frolicking on bakery shelves, and IF right after Purim the boxes of matzah start lumbering in....then what, pray tell, happens right after Pesach? I'll tell you - charcoal! That's right, on our trip to Cereal Heaven - I mean Supersol - the newest "for sale" item was large bags of charcoal. Why? Yom Ha'atzmaut, silly! The mitzvah d'yoma on Israel's birthday is BARBEQUE!

3. Motzei Pesach: An hour to take apart what it took a month to put together. Or, is it an hour to put back together what it took a month to take apart? Discuss. (And yes, it does take more than an hour, but you get the idea. Poetic license and all.)

As for the rest of our Pesach, we enjoyed it greatly, thank you very much. On Monday, we went up to Tel Meggido, which is an archaeological site (of course; this is Israel. Everywhere you go you're stepping on shottery pards and a mikvah.) Tel Meggido is northish, which meant we were stuckish in some traffickish getting there. We had a good time, probably Donny and I more than the kids because we're geeks about ancient historical sites and Ariella kept looking longingly down at the roped-off ruins of the palace, seeing a playground that was cruelly made unavailable to her. However, we were able, in full view of the ancient altar, located in the ancient temple, to change Yaakov's ancient diaper.

After hanging around for a while, we decided to go exploring in our car for more Fun. Following signs for a "Park" we met a man who said he knew the way to the Fun and we could follow him. After an hour of driving down a dirt - no, no, dirt is too refined for what we were driving on....After an hour of crunching on small stones and rocks, on a pathway no larger than the size of our dining room chair, we arrived at a....waterpark. Seriously. Smack dab the Midst of Nowhere, at the corner of Where the Hell Are We? and Dirt, was this waterpark. However, it was clearly closed down and fenced off. (Wonder why they couldn't attract any customers? Could it be the flier that said, "Turn left at the 438,975th rock, drive for about 60 bajillion blades of grass, and you're there!"?) We did eventually make it to a very nice playground area where the masses were, of course, grilling.

For our Chag Acharon, we had Yael and Yossie, with the indefatigable Hanani. A fun time was had by all, especially at our Final Matzah Fest, held Wednesday afternoon, at our dining room table. Finally, chag was over, the Pesach stuff boxed up, and our ROY (rest of year) goodies brought out of hiding. ("Boy, was I cramped!" they complained. "You think you were cramped? Try having Fleishig Ladle in your side for a week!" "Oh yeah? Well, let me reassure you that the handle of Mr. One Third Measuring Cup ain't made out of cushions." And so on.) Today was the post-Pesach shopping fest, which, on account of my good behavior, I got to do with BOTH kids! But they actually behaved very decently; perhaps it was the promise of the upcoming Cereal Fest which spurred them to such lofty heights.

And now, dear Readers, we have concluded the Festival of Freedom, of Unleavened Bread, of Passing Over, and lately, of Jelly. The staff of aliyahbyaccident wishes you a happy Isru Chag and a Shabbat Shalom.