Senioritis and Passover Prep

You know it’s time for a sabbatical if while teaching Symphonie Fantastique and the witches Sabbath all you can think about is Sabrina the teenage witch on a broomstick. Another clue is cursing repeatedly in front of undergraduates and wondering if music 101 really needs a final exam or if it’s not just too much trouble. Failing the sexual harassment quiz for the third time and forgetting to return already graded papers to grad students for about five days also suggest a certain senioritis. The other symptoms along this line are not fit for public consumption. The real telling factor though involves a desperate urge to finish a book, to remember why this whole business seemed like a good idea in the first place. One of my grad students helped with this realization during class on Monday. I suggested that in parsing a hard sentence of critical theory we just leave out the part about castration. His response was “Isn’t that your thing?” Indeed it is….. Now in fairness to me my castrated men are pre Phallus so Freudian readings don’t quite apply but still the sentiment works…

Meanwhile I’m in the middle of a doing a retail relay order for Passover. (This is charlottesville’s life changing grocery delivery which brings yummies from all kinds of stores, local farms, and specialty shops) This week’s order involves feeding 12 people for a festive meal and attempting to fill the house with food that will satisfy six kids and six adults. My computer keeps crashing; it doesn’t like the idea of ordering four dozen eggs. It might have also been bothered by the juxtaposition of organic kindly fed pork chops and gefilte fish. My mom talks about the way that food possessors would have revolutionized her grandmother’s life at the Jewish Holidays. Well Retail Relay has revolutionized ours. How delightful to order all of this food and know that it will also come with giant bins in which we can stow each of the six children when they get rowdy. And it can even bring wine and beer.

We’re preparing the house in other ways too. I’m attempting a massive cleanup, not in the traditional get the break out way but in the put all toys away so that they can be taken out again and clean the guest room so a set of adults can sleep in relative peace. I’m trying to delegate these responsibilities but somehow that’s not quite working. We’re all a bit worried about sleeping arrangements. My sister’s baby, two year old Jacob, has apparently been climbing out of the crib. If he stays in it mostly seems to involve stripping everything including a poopey diaper. I apparently did this at about ten months old but my kids have all been perfectly happy in the crib. My three and a half year old, who could step over the railings with no effort, loves his crib and rather than climbing out prefers to issue forth loud commands from his little haven. “Mommy get me out, Mommy I need a cone warrior, Mommy I need another book, Mommy what are ya doin? Mommy is it waining out?” While this complacency may indicate great laziness and lack of drive on his part I have absolutely no desire to have him running around the house and intend to keep him locked in his crib at least until Kindergarten.