Rosh haShonah is in Jewish ritual just that, the birthday of the world. It also begins the Days of Awe, a period of self-reflection when we consider what we have done and undone of what we intended to do and what we must change.  It is also a period in which you must go to anyone you have offended or injured in any way and make amends.  It is also a period in which you must forgive those who ask it of you. Finally the Days of Awe leading to YomKippur are a time we consider our own death – both the small deaths of our failures and the final death we all must experience.  We also remember those who have died in the year that just ended and those who died long before.

We used to go to services in the havurah we founded decades past, but the holiday services have become bland and unchallenging.  I began some years ago doing a small service along with a holiday dinner.  There were eight of us.  My service, mostly poetry, went over well.  We had our gravlax, followed of course by the ritual apple dipped in honey. Helen brought enough of her own honey for the dipping.  The apples we had picked up in Maine.  Then we had a first fruit of the season.  Bonnie and David brought figs from their tree in South Wellfleet. 

Then we had sesame lamb, tomato avocado salad and Woody made kugel.  Bonnie and David brought a good bread from PB boulangerie, our local real French bakery.  Elaine and Skip brought a honey cake she had baked, using a recipe Norma Simon had given her last year – Norma came every year and always brought her honey cake but this year she died.  She was a good friend of 45 years and a wonderful children’s book writer.

Our refrigerator went insane and the refrigerator freezer filled with ice and snow.  It was a true horror show. That’s how I got the very painful and slowly healing ice burns on my already problematic ankle. We found a refrigerator at Crane Appliance that would fit in our fixed space and they delivered it today.  We were nervous because we have company coming for supper tonight and because Woody was worried the new fridge wouldn’t fit in the space where the old one was.

It’s amazing how much food a smallish refrigerator holds!  It took us close to three hours to remove everything and clean it.  It’s a walk down mouldy memory lane. Forgotten jars, lost now disgusting cheese, where did that fudge sauce come from and when? What is that weird dried up probably veggie?

I like the cool weather. It invigorates me.  I have heard nothing from Knopf.  The bills keep coming from the lawyer my agent hired for the two years of negotiating with CBS streaming. I still have received no money at all.  My previous agent had a lawyer on retainer so checking contracts never hit me so hard in the pocketbook. [She died of lung cancer a few years ago.  We were together from 1973 on, friends as well as author and agent].  I’m sorry we ever entered into this endless pissing of money for a series that never happens.  Being an author  used to be a much better way to make a living than these days, when the pay is poor if it exists at all. 

The summer veggies are over. I cooked the last eggplants and pattypans this week  Now it’s time for Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, leeks and many, many salads.  I will be cooking more of the pumpkins. The rabbits ate all our winter squashes but after gnawing on one small pumpkin, they left them alone.