SUMMER HAIKU

fits perfection
variety
loehmans rules

kaimisha,monticello,poconos
bungalos ,mosquitos
off to the country we go

miles of open road
lovely scenery viewed
"Are we there yet"?

summer day warm,
but breezy!
wear a sweater

line drive hit
slide home
change dirty uniform.

the beach sparkling
waves crash
please don't get wet

big, bigger, biggest
small, tiny
hand me downs arrived

enough food for an army.
best linens out
the baby is here for a week

By Shelley Gail Weiss Lightman
BAT MITZVAH v BAR MITZVAH OBSERVATIONS

By Shelley Gail Weiss Lightman

____Aside from picking out a tallit/prayer shawl, which can drive you demented from both (It's too long, short, looks like a table cloth, etc. ect.), with a boy it's very simple; buy a suit, get it over with....PARTY! No fuss, no agony, only the anguished mantra repeated over and over as you approach the hour of doom;
"I'm screwed. I'll fail. I'm doomed. My mind is blank. I Forget it. I'm going to be embarrassed. Please, whatever you do, don't embarrass me!" ....etc etc.
____With a girl it's a totally different story. Forget about buying a suit two weeks before the event (This happens usually, because the bar mitzvah boy has managed to grow three sizes in two months, so it's not worth it to bother until the very bitter end). What is more, the old suit he felt was acceptable for the night before the main event will absolutely not pass muster.
____With a bat mitzvah girl, forget it (I speak from hands on experience). Oh by the way, from the minute she learns her service and torah portion, as far as she's concerned", "I can do it on my head, but that dress has to go"!
____Doesn't matter that she might grow six inches and three sizes. AH AH! The treck in search of "THE DRESS" starts as early as a year before the main event (no joke)! But even more amazing is the hair style and the jewelry; all those little niceties a boy does not want anything to do with. Like centerpieces (plants are fine).
They must be this color, have just so many balloons and have some sort of significant chatchka in the center (in our case, it was phony Oscars).
____Next comes what she will wear the night before for the Friday evening service. He's happy with pants that fit and a shirt that's clean. Ok, maybe she'll accept a nice dress that was handed down from another dear friend or one of her cousins, but it has to have "Significance" to pass muster. So you, as a mother, have to treck from store to store in search of something that might fit her six months to a year later. FUN AND GAMES. When you do ultimately find it, then you pray she doesn't see anything else two days later, because it's another treck back to compare items.
____And so it goes, as she changes the theme six or seven times and complains that the food ordered is gross, etc., etc. And finally, when it's all done you wonder about ever making it through that sweet sixteen party three years down the road!
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