Passover Preps

With Passover just around the corner - here in a coupla hours - the past week has been real hectic. This is not like any holiday on the planet. For this holiday, you have to get rid of everything in your house that is made of "bread", including flour, wheat, barley, oats - stuff like that. And the customs of what to eat and what not to eat vary within the Jewish community. Depending on how observant/Orthodox/strict you are with this holiday, it may take weeks of preparation. When we were Orthodox Jews living in Canada, we began 4 weeks ahead, cleaning the upstairs bedrooms of any crumbs of anything - perhaps pretzels and peanut butter sandwiches - leafing through the pages of each book, going through pockets of clothing, windowsills, etc. Once that room was finished, a sign would go up on the door - Kosher for Passover, which meant you weren't allowed to eat in that room.

Nowadays, I don't go through that extent, but do change the kitchen around, which is probably the most tedious job of all. We have separate pots/pans, dishes, cups, small appliances just for this holiday alone, as you are not supposed to use the utensils you use during the year. Our boxes of Passover "stuff" are stored in our plastic garden shed.

This year I didn't take off work, as most do, one or two days before the holiday to get it all ready. Hubby said we'd hire a cleaner to clean the stove and fridge, which had to be emptied out and which hadn't been cleaned properly in 3 years. Neither did the house see a professional cleaner since we moved in 3 1/2 years ago.

The first frantic phone call was at 9:00 am from Hubby.

"The cleaner's not here. What shall I do? It's very unprofessional that he's late."

"OK - I'll call up the cleaning company.

I asked them what's going on with the cleaning person.

"He's on his way" they told me.

"Did you confirm with him last night?"

"Of course we did"

"Because nobody called me to confirm"

"Don't worry, he'll be there shortly."

Hubby called me very distressed at 9:30 because no-one was there and we had to empty out cupboards where we would replace dishes, pots and pans, etc where the Passover stuff would go into, plus the entire kitchen had to be scraped down and cleaned thoroughly. Who was going to do that by tonight? I gave him the number of the company for Hubby to hash out with. He took the day off work, so he's got more time to argue.

He called me back 5 minutes later.

"The cleaner can't come because his dad had a heart attack."

I didn't know whether that was a real excuse or a lame excuse but that's no reason for us to get a heart attack.

I called my Gypsy friend for help. Her sister was unemployed, just sitting around the house and we were going to pay her well. I was at their home which is spotless and figured I'd help out a friend's family. Hubby had to drive 1/2 hour to pick her up from the Old City.

I'm sitting at work with the Professor and my kids are calling me every two seconds since they've been off from school since the beginning of the week for step-by-step advice.

"Dad wants to throw the eggs out. Should we keep them? What can we throw out in the fridge?"

"They're ORGANIC EGGS!" I screamed into the phone. "Do not let him throw them out."

He can toss out most of the crap we have in the fridge, I'll be especially glad to see the moldy tomato paste go and whatever it is in there that smells of fish. It's pretty gross to stick your head in there for longer than 10 seconds.

I smiled at the Professor and said - "It's just pre-holiday chaos at my home."

"Can you come into the board room now?" he asked me, not giving two fucks what was going on in my home at the moment.

I'm sitting in the board room, hearing my cell phone ring every five minutes. It's scary. I finally am able to get to it when the Professor takes a break and it's the social worker from the Reformatory where ex-Criminal daughter is at.

"She was supposed to go home tonight with one of the staff workers who lives in your area, but we have a rule that she cannot be alone in the car with a staff member without an escort. She'll have to go tomorrow morning. She'll be very disappointed since she planned on coming home tonight for weeks now. Can you come and pick her up?"

What's a round trip three hour drive on the busiest day of the year?? I told her I'd have to get back to her before she hits my daughter with the bad news.
I dreaded calling Hubby who was supervising the kids, the Gypsy cleaner and Abed who was helping with the heavy stuff.

"I'm having a bit of car trouble, but I could be there this evening. We owe it to her."

"Are you SURE??" I didn't want to encourage him, because if something happened along the way, I'd be accused of making him do all this shit.

The Professor paid for a taxi back home for me, and I was thrilled to be cabbing it back in luxury instead of taking two buses. Ah, the perks of work. Princesses don't take buses and he's been calling me "Princess" lately. It pays to be royalty.

I got back home to hug and kiss Hudra the Gypsy sister of my friend and Abed had worked on the fridge, dousing it with a hose and oven cleaner so that the varnish on the front came off in streaks. I didn't care about how it looked on the outside, because I had never seen it so clean since I bought it 8 years ago. Trouble is when we went to plug it back in, it caused a electrical shortage.

"Leave it for a few hours until it dries and then it will be ok"

"Are you sure???" I glared at him because no one fucks with my fridge and if he ruined my fridge I would kick his ass all the way to Mecca.

Meantime,I had given them both all the stuff in my fridge that didn't have mold on it and they were very grateful.

Meanwhile, Hubby had gone to pick up my daughter, and he was 15 minutes away from her place.

"MY car's overheating and the temperature is way up. I can't drive it anymore. It's stalling and I'll have to have it towed to Jerusalem."

That will cost a small fortune, I thought. He was distraught but I knew he was at a busy intersection. I told him to take a taxi to where Daughter was and bring her back to the car and wait for the tow truck. He thought I was a genius for the idea, because he couldn't think straight at this point.

He was back by 10:00 pm, with daughter, with car (which was running fine but had lacked water in one of the tubes or whatever near the engine) and my fridge was finally working.

I felt like we had relived the Passover story in just 12 hours. From slavery to freedom. Happy Passover.