The Burrow

Amster and I hosted the Nearly Annual Hannukah Party on Sunday night.  With Perfect Patty manning the frying latkes,  I was free to meet and greet, to play dreidle, and to watch the lights. I looked around the room and smiled at the diverse circle my Iowa born friend has accumulated. There were Jews from Arizona, and one from Argentina, and several others from the East Coast. They were the sprinkles on top of the agnostics and the practicing and non-practicing Christians of all stripes - there weren't many of them, but they made their presence known, and I was grateful for them.   After all, the dreidle is not self-explanatory. There was the quintessential American side dish - green bean and Campbell's mushroom soup casserole, topped with tiny fried onions - next to the turkey and the latkes and the home made applesauce.  There were jelly donuts and bakery cookies and Amster's Rice Krispy treats which flew off the table as fast as the latkes. I rea...

Amster let me use her house and her guest list.  All I had to bring were the supplies.  It's a shame that Little Cuter and Elizibeth aren't in town, but we somehow managed to soldier on without them.  It's Hanukkah in the Old Pueblo, and I am the mistress of ceremonies. It started innocently enough, with Amster asking if I was making latkes this year.  Like most of my projects since January 8th, this party grew from family only to half the western hemisphere.  I'm not complaining.  I'm just sayin'.... as Big Cuter has opined from time to time this week. Costco made dinner and provided the potatoes and the vegetable oil and I brought the cuisinart and the plastic bowl and every Hanukah decoration in my possession. It filled the back of the Schnozz. Chanukah-themed Go-Fish, thanks to a timely gift from FAMBB, was a big hit. G'ma and the Littlest Little One kept one another amused while I peeled and sliced and shredded and Amster pret...

The doorbell rings and the FedEx guy is disappointed because I'm not home to accept the gifts.  If a doorbell rings and no one is there to answer it has it really rung at all?  I wonder about these things at this time of year.  I have no time to worry about politics or the economy or the sorry state of health care or any of the things that occupy  my brain when it's 117 in the shade.  No, December is a marathon and I must stay focused. As FAMB remarked in her delightful card, yes Hanukkah is the earliest day ever this year.  I like it when my December celebrations don't bleed into one another, but this has certainly robbed me of any wiggle room when it comes to baking and mailing my brownies. The ingredients stay out in one corner of my limited counter space and suddenly the 10 pound bag of sugar at Albertsons doesn't look that big at all.  Having been the recipient of and falling in love with a big version of Perfect Brownie Pan Set last year (tha...

It's probably a good thing that there aren't more Hanukkah items in the stores.  I know I'd own them all.  IntrepidCat referred me to Modern Tribe and the Cuters were the beneficiaries of their catalog last night, on the first of the eight nights of lighting candles and reciting prayers and eating latkes (and donuts, as Roomie reminded me) and opening gifts.  Denizens, let me be the first person outside your family to wish you a Happy Hanukkah! Please do not conflate the importance of Christmas to Christians with the importance of Hanukkah to Jews.  Hanukkah is not a biblical holiday.  That is to say, the story and rituals do not appear in the Pentateuch (the 5 Books of Moses) nor in what is called The Hebrew Bible by Wikipedia - a long list of texts which are common to both the Christian and "Old" Testament.  None of these texts deal with the zealots in the hills who thought that they could defeat the invading and defiling Greeks (the ones living in Syr...

I'm in mid-brownie baking mode and my brain is fried. Every moment is consumed with melting and mixing and cutting and bagging and boxing and labeling then driving to the post office where I am a whiz at the very cool APC (Automated Postal Center) and then coming home and starting all over again. Coherent thoughts are few and far between. ******** The fact that I know the name of the self-serve machine in the lobby of the post office gives you some idea of how I've been spending my time lately. ************** My mind is filled with conversations. It's reminding me of putting books onto library shelves in a new house. The characters are adjusting to their new neighbors and I'm talking to the recipients and yes it's all a bit .... can I actually be thinking of using this word???..... surreal but is it possible that you might know what I mean? I'm choosing cards carefully and my box of bubble-wrap-on-a-roll is my new best friend and I'm grinning from ea...