Bat Mitzvah Chronicles

Between now and the bat mitzvah, I have three deadlines, S and I each have two benefits, and E is in a play. The first two benefits are on the same night; my second benefit is on the first night of E's play, and S's is on the second night. Did I mention that the bat mitzvah is three weeks from tomorrow?

Last week I had a horrifyingly realistic bat mitzvah anxiety dream. The party was in a hotel, in the kind of big open space that hotel restaurants and bars tend to occupy, and strangers kept wandering in and hanging out and eating our food. There were all these weird small and square tables, instead of the big round tables we are supposed to have. There were pink paper tablecloths on top of the teal and purple cloth tablecloths we're supposed to use. There were sandwiches, but no bagels, like we're supposed to have. The DJ had been placed in another room, and we could barely hear him. Then he was scrambling to find a place to put his equipment in our room, and trying to DJ at the same time. I was completely freaking out, and S kept saying "Don't worry, it will be fine" (which is what he really will say if any of this really does happen).

The weirdest real life aspect of the bat mitzvah is the postcards. The invitation included purple reply postcards with bright tropical fruit postcard stamps. A rush of them arrived right after we sent the invitations, and now there are one or two each day. But here's the weird thing: we have been receiving postcards we've already received, again, in our mailbox. First we received J and M's from No Longer Red State for the second time, then Lucy's, and today the M-F family's. At first I thought maybe J and M had gotten two invitations, but it had the exact same note. As did the others. They are really the same card, and somehow they are getting from my desk back into the mail. Very weird.

M is almost ready. She just has to write her dvar, and she has it outlined.

I suppose we are pretty ready. Really, I would still say that doing a bat mitzvah is not such a big deal. It has not taken over our lives, we are not consumed by it, perhaps because we also have deadlines and benefits and plays (M's play was last weekend). Then again, there's the matter of my to do list.

Last week, I freaked out and announced to M and S that we were making a to do list right now this very minute. Funny: they didn't have much to put on the list. But I did. Here's the list, with the things that I've done crossed out, just as they are in my datebook:

OK, no crossouts, as I can't figure out how to do that in Blogger, so here is the list with asterisks next to the things that are done:

bus*

M&Ms*

M - sweater, shoes*

B - shoes*

S - dry cleaner

table seating

program

challah

wine

oneg for Friday night

Chinese restaurant for Friday night

cupcake papers

poems for service

slide show

screen & projector

deli

dessert

dessert transportation

gluten-free something

speeches

Haven't gotten too far, have I? Some of these things are not so much as they sound--deli and desserts are pretty set, we just need to check in. I've started the program, and actually sketched out the seating, in a moment when I felt like I had to do something. If we don't do the slide show, it doesn't happen. But, uh, still, there are some things to do.

And then there's the other list, on the other side of the page, which is the non-bat mitzvah to do list, but which includes some things that need to happen before the bat mitzvah, like dealing with the 20-odd boxes of books we've just retrieved from Grown-Up E's house, since Grown-Up E has decided to sell her house, and needs our boxes out.

So, yeah, the bat mitzvah is coming up.