The signs

My average Friday afternoon is a hair-raising experience. Regardless of what time the sun descends, I am down to the wire preparing for the Sabbath. This past Friday was fairly typical. I had guests coming for dinner, my challah was baked, my banana bread was ready to go, and my attempt at a chocolate mousse fizzled and collapsed Thursday night. I still had dinner to make, the apartment to clean, and the baby to pry off the furniture. To spice things up a bit, my husband had an extra class that left him exactly an hour to get home before I had to light candles, and a party to prepare for Saturday night. I pushed back my hair, rolled up my sleeves, and bolstered myself with a stiff coffee and a deep breath.

Few things go as planned. I should have read the warning signs in my coffee grounds or in the eerie cloud formations, but I pressed ahead. An hour before the nursery school pick-up, I stopped off at the video store to find Beauty and the Beast for the kids, and then I stopped off at the candy store to pick up a nice gift for friends who were having us over for Saturday lunch. The baby bugged-out at the candy store. Containers, shelves and jars full of brightly colored liquids, powders, and packages sparkled around her. Soft, sweet, enticing stuffed animals beckoned her curious hands to reach out for them. Piles of glossy, deep brown truffles hummed an intoxicating siren song, to me, actually. We were in a very dangerous place. I should have read the signs.

I picked out a cheerful container of sugar-coated gummy bears, shiny ice cream cone-shaped candies, and brightly hued round tart treats, dragged out the whimpering and salivating toddler, and went to pick up big sister. I pushed the remote key to unlock my car door, and...nothing. I tried again and again and received the same sinking silence as my oblivious child pulled me back towards the magical place with the gravitational pull. We went back in and the owner kindly offered his car alarm battery, but alas, it didn't match. His head shook sadly when I asked if there was anything in walking distance. I felt the panic creeping in.

I whipped out my cell phone and started calling the Skokie girls. Help! I implored. Rescue me! I begged. And in seconds, the cavalry arrived. With my battery in hand, my Skokie girl sped off to the pharmacy to bring me the shiny round instrument of my salvation. She arrived minutes later and I grabbed the battery installed it, pressed the button, and...nothing. The same fear tinged silence greeted me once more. I pressed and pressed, turned the thing over and over, and still, the defiant silence remained. The panic no longer creeped, but spread over me. Here I was, stranded with a squirmy toddler, two children waiting to be taken home and no way to get into my car without setting off the most obnoxious alarm this side of Manhattan. I wouldn't have minded driving with the alarm blaring, but the ignition wouldn't even turn when the alarm was set off, so what was the use?

What am I going to do? I knew there had to be a fail safe method to disengage the alarm, but I didn't have a clue what it was. My Skokie girls came to the rescue yet again, giving me, my children, and the other girl we were going to take home, a ride. All of this on a Friday afternoon, when we all faced the same looming deadline, and we all had guests coming that night. Thank the Benevolent Lord on High for true friends.

I arrived home, adrenaline coursing through me like Drano bursting through a clogged pipe. I called my husband frenzied and shrill, as I chopped vegetables with one hand, marinated chicken cutlets with the other, and sauteed spinach with the other. I uselessly AND pointlessly yelled at my small children, still in diapers, to CLEAN UP YOUR MESS!!

The typical Friday afternoon in my Orthodox home. Sabbath peace, indeed.

My husband clearly sensed some new level of shrillness and anxiety in my voice and miraculously arrived in considerably less time than his usual one-hour commute.

I would like to say that the house sparkled, the meal was perfect, and I was showered and relaxed by the time my guests arrived. Frankly, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but we've certainly had more organized and relaxed Shabbat dinners. And certainly more chaotic and half-baked ones, as well. It was fine. Of course my friend and I were nodding off to sleep at our end of the table while our husbands and the young, single, waif-like law student with the wild partying social life compared exam stories. It had been a long day for law school widows.

* * *

Saturday morning was not an improvement. My husband awoke with a chorus of angry cane toads in his throat, coughing up gobs of indescribably icky phlegm. I just wanted to stay in bed, warm and toasty, and shake the trauma from the previous day from my bones. My baby kept coming in and waking me up.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" She shouted at me. "Dypo! Quita! Oooohwa! Nack!" She demanded quite insistently, as if I should have a clue.

Uh huh. I muttered half asleep, and then drifted the other half of the way.

Sometime later, we had the same exact conversation. Uh huh. I responded. "Hack, cough! Ggggluuuuch!" My husband added, before he groaned and rolled over again. I finally dragged myself out of bed, fed my hungry children and sent them off to get dressed for synagogue. My husband informed me that he would not be joining us as he was a tad under the weather. At least, that's what it sounded between hocking up goo, and gaging on his own bile. I glowered at him.

For an hour I coaxed, pleaded, and begged my children to get dressed already! while I wrestled the baby into her tights and skirt. For an hour they ignored my entreaties. My husband responded to my requests for assistance with gurgles and snorts.

I lost it.

We're expected at our friends for lunch!!! I shouted at everyone, including the neighbors up and downstairs. What am I supposed to do?! I asked, genuinely not having a clue how I was supposed to get two distracted and defiant kids to stop being distracted and defiant and get dressed. For half an hour I argued with my son to wear his only clean pair of pants.

"But they're too long!" He whined, showing me his preference for high waters. I took a deep breath and proceeded to engage him in a discussion of fashion essentials. It's better to wear your pants a little long than a little short. I sensibly explained. Five minutes later I tried a different tack: Put your pants on NOW! That seemed to work better.

I finally got the kids out the door and to synagogue, after giving my husband a fond, you better feel better, or else! before we headed out without him.

Lunch was a delightful surprise. It was nice to be with friends who looked more haggard and worn than myself, and to see children running around more hyped up and frenetic than my own. From the beginning of the kiddush, the prayer over the wine, to somewhere during the salad course, my friends and I repeated calm down about twenty times, and in about thirty different ways, and then the husband emerged from the kitchen with beautiful glasses filled with a golden-amber nectar. "Amaretto sours," he explained. One was quite enough to turn the afternoon around. We shared child rearing horror stories, and laughed about our attempts to organize our lives.

I arrived home with three happy and chatty kids. My husband fed them and got them ready for bed while I decompressed aware that my work was not yet done. In less than an hour, Shabbat would be over and I would be frantically preparing for a small get-together of a dozen or so law school students and their wives.

* * *

A dozen lawyers are sitting around a table, six Methodists, six Jews, and a rabbi. No this isn't the opening line of a joke, it was my Saturday night married law student's party. I made an 8-layer dip, homemade green and red salsas, crudites and onion dip, a fruit platter, and banana bread. We sat around drinking beer, talking about weddings, bell choirs, and the true meaning of the ketuba, the Jewish wedding contract.

Did you know I'm worth four goats?

We had a full saxophone quartet at the party, including a professional musician who shared the name of another famous musician. The law students had an interesting discussion of the legal ramifications of sharing your name with a celeb. And mostly they commiserated about exams, legal writing classes, and hairy schedules.

I just breathed deeply and thanked the Good Lord Above that I ignored all the signs.