Succot, Starbucks, and SATC

Oh, man, you guys. Remember when I used to update my blog regularly? And not just like, when there’s a full moon? Those were some good times. I’m now back in the swing of things at my job, so between that and spending time with J and the kids at night, by the time 8 o’ clock rolls around, I’m torn. Torn between my laptop…and the DVR, which contains glorious bounty in the form of both Kenley and Tyra’s insanity, True Blood (which seemingly can’t decide whether it wants to be an acclaimed television program or soft-core porn. MAKE UP YOUR MIND, SHOW), and of course, the latest exploits of Serena and Blair.

Guess which one wins?

Oh, and let’s not forget the Jewish holidays. May I speak openly for a moment? Yes? Good. As you well know, I love my faith, but goddamn, the fall holidays have been kicking my ass this year. For one thing, they’ve all been mid-week, so that sort of kills the whole flow-of-work thing. Second, they’ve necessitated us packing up all of our shit, all of the children’s shit, and visiting our respective families--on pretty much a weekly basis--for the fall holidays of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), Yom Kippur (the one with the fasting), and Succot (I’ll talk about that in a minute). I feel like I’ve been living out of a suitcase for a month. Which, you know, I HAVE. Fortunately, we’re finally, finally back home. The holiday of Succot, however, is still going on, and this is one of those holidays that is Very Interesting to Explain to People, because, in a nutshell, it involves roofless outdoor huts, very expensive citrus fruit, and palm fronds.

YES, REALLY.

Seeing as I’ve gotten a few messages on Twitter asking me if I knew anything about it, I figured I’d take the opportunity to describe it here.

Essentially, the huts are to commemorate the journey of the Jewish people from Egypt to Israel during biblical times. Remember the whole “wandering in the desert for 40 years” thing? Well, during that time, they lived in huts, and the holiday commemorates that. The basic rules about the huts we build are that they have to be outdoors, temporary (no concrete huts, for instance), and cannot have roofs. They must instead be covered with something cut from the ground, like bamboo, or branches. Oh, and we don’t live in them, but just eat a few meals there. (Some stricter Jews actually do eat all their meals there during the week-long holiday and sleep there, as well. I am not one of those Jews.)

As for the other stuff mentioned above, at certain times during the holiday, we say a prayer over a citron (it looks a lit like a lemon, BUT COSTS ELEVENTY BILLION DOLLARS MORE. Or more like upwards of $50.) and a bunch of palm fronds, myrtle and willow branches. All together, they look like this:

There is a specific significance to why these four items are chosen, but basically, they each have specific characteristics that they others don’t, and together, they represent the idea of unity. Which is pretty nice.

Have I weirded you out enough yet? No? I bet I will with this next statement. And I’m well aware I may be alone here, but it must be said:

I HATED THE SEX AND THE CITY MOVIE. (Which I just saw for the first time earlier this week. So I realize this rant is like eight months too late, but whatever.)

I know. I KNOW. I loved the series, but my god, this movie was the worst. First of all, it lasted for approximately seventeen hours. It was like the night J wanted to watch the last Lord of the Rings movie, and I ran out of the apartment so fast there was a me-shaped hole in the wall. I went out to dinner with friends, did some grocery shopping, went for a long walk, came home, and he was still watching the movie. That’s what this felt like, timewise. And I must quote the venerated New Yorker here, which clearly felt the same way, as I remember reading this quote and giggling when the movie came out:

…[S]pare a thought for the director of the film, Michael Patrick King, who also wrote the screenplay. Faced with the flimsiest of concepts, he had to take it by both ends and pull until he stretched it out to two and a quarter hours. Two and a quarter! When Garbo made Anna Karenina in 1935, she got happy, unhappy, loved, left, and under the train in less than a hundred minutes, so how the hell are her successors supposed to fill the time?

True dat, New Yorker.

I don’t want to ruin anything, but I had major problems with a lot of the messages in the movie. As for my issues with the characters, I didn’t quite understand why they saw fit to make Samantha look, speak, and dress like an aging drag queen whose vocabulary is limited to the words "fabulous," "honey," and sundry cheesy double entendres. Nor could I wrap my head around why Charlotte’s daughter randomly appeared in scenes throughout the movie, just…sitting there. Doesn’t she ever have playdates? Or school? Or, I don’t know, a nanny squirreled away somewhere in that Park Avenue apartment? Miranda was Miranda, but don’t even get me started on Steve’s voice, Steve’s attitude, or Steve’s very existence. OR HIS DENIM JACKET. As for Carrie, I couldn’t help but wonder. Just how in the hell is it that she'd become even MORE whiny, self-pitying, and materialistic in the few short years since we last saw her?

And the puns! The INCESSANT PUNS, PEOPLE! What kind of world are we living in where a character named Louise who comes from St. Louis, is nicknamed “Saint Louise,” and loves “Louise” Vuitton passes for cute cinema? Gah. DID NOT LIKE.

Ahem.

I’m sorry, I just needed to get that off my chest.

Also!

I just started the 30 Day Shred last night. Man, you guys. Jillian is NOT fucking around. My bum hurts, as do my legs, arms, and most of my now-battered internal organs. I respect her methods, though, and am more than a little scared of her. Much more than I do John Basedow, whose constantly-playing “Fitness Made Simple” commercials never fail to make me giggle uncontrollably. Please tell me this isn’t just a New York thing, because seriously, the world must know about him.

Seriously.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Can you imagine him and Jillian in a street fight? Or—OHMIGODEVENBETTER-on a DATE?

I’m off to go ponder the hilarity of that while I sip my Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. Which, yes, may be the best fall drink ever. Well done, Starbucks. Well done.

*****

One more thing! I wrote a post over at Work It, Mom! about my secret online cheap shopping spots. Check it out, and pretty please tell me what yours are!