It's Over. I'm tired.

Well.

Purim, as usual, was a big WHOOSH! Blink and it's over. Sunday morning we were out bright and early (while it was still bright outside) to deliver our mishloach manot. At one point, Ariella complained she was thirsty; it brought back fond memories of delivering mishloach manot with DADZ (through some quirk of the calendar, Purim is always, ALWAYS during tax season, but DADZ always took off for deliveries and seudah). Us kiddies would be sitting in the car, snarfing down junk food as soon as it entered the car, and inevitably we would soon be complaining of thirst, hoping with every house that THIS would be the family that included some sort of drink in their mishloach manot, and finally, finally, when we hit gold - usually a warm juice box or an equally warm small bottle of grape juice - we would fight over it like it was the remote control when WWWF and She-Ra, Princess of Power were on at the same time.

Luckily, Ariella soon scored with a Tropit. Yaakov was ignoring any thirst issues by happily sucking on a lollipop (I believe his 50th of the chag). His diet yesterday consisted of:

Breakfast: A lollipop
Mentos
Jelly Beans

Lunch: Half a bagel with cream cheese
3 chocolate chip cookies
Gum

Dinner: Two hamantashen
Two wafers

We fortunately were able to complete our deliveries during the two dry hours of the entire day. As we finished our last house, the skies opened up and God unleashed enough rain to, hopefully, "make the Kinnewet ve-e-e-e-ewy, vewy high."

We returned home for Seudah #1 with the Balsam clan, or as Yaakov knows them, LISA and the other people who come with her. Donny read the megillah for the ladies, and then we chowed down on bagels while Donny tried - unsuccessfully - to get our resident teetotaler (Nafi) to drink from his (water-filled) flask. Though Nafi refused, Lisa practically drank Donny under the table.

Then it was time to head to Maaleh Adumim for Seudah #2 with the Sassoons. A fun time was had by all. The kids played, the men drank, the women did everything else. There was dancing and singing, including an original song composed by Robbie. Despite the vast quantities of alcohol at the table, I did not pull a Betty Draper and so remained sober throughout the meal. I drove home, through heavy rain and fog, though Donny was successfully able to navigate, despite his inebriated state.

So all in all, Purim = Big Success. Now everyone's back to regular life; good thing there's no huge holiday coming up that requires massive amounts of list-making, cooking, cleaning, and shopping. I sure am grateful for that.