Today is Sunday, September 25, 2022. It is also Rosh Hashanah Eve, the Jewish New Year, which is observed tonight through Tuesday. After that, it is the countdown to Erev Yom Kippur which is on Tuesday, October 4. This is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar in which Jews observe a full day of fasting and petition to be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. People usually attend services in shul (synagogue) and are supposed to atone for their sins committed during the previous year and ask for forgiveness from God. Though I haven’t been in a synagogue for quite a while now, owing to the pandemic in part, and the other owing more to my growing agnosticism relating to Jewish observance, I still continue to fast on Yom Kippur, more out of tradition or more out of meeting a physical challenge for myself, I don’t know which. In the past because of my heavy caffeine consumption, I used to wean myself out of drinking coffee a few days before the big day, but now, I can surprisingly just give it up on the day without any arduous preparation. Which I think is odd, don’t you? You would think it gets worse as you age, but for me, it’s actually not much of a big deal. Watch, this year I’ll experience headaches and who-knows-what-else as a result of my revealing this in the blog a week before the holiday. I will have to keep you posted.

On this holiday, I will be seated in temple, though, this coming Tuesday when I attend services with my longterm friend “Harold” and his wife “Rachel,” as he is given an honor that morning to read a passage from the Havtarah which is considered a significant honor, so he’s been practicing the passage for months now. I feel it’s important to be with him on this day in which he performs an aliyah, which is the calling up of a member of a Jewish congregation – Harold – to the bimah (altar or raised platform in a synagogue from which the Torah and Prophets are read) for a segment of Torah reading. Unfortunately, Elliot will not be with us, as he’s staying home with our poor cat Jocelyn. So this will mark my first service attendance since before the pandemic. It should prove to be interesting, to say the least. I hope I can stay the course since these services seem to go indefinitely.

Yesterday we greeted two of our friends to an informal prehoilday dinner prepared by Elliot: beef stew and pea soup, while “Mark” brought a delicious salad. For an appetizer, we had cheeses and humus with crackers. Our friend, “Gene,” who was in Truro, Massachusetts, the entire summer, brought a six-pack of Angry Orchard Hard Cider, which I gingerly tried and found it quite good. I bought a honey cake at Andre’s Hungarian Bakery earlier in the day. Elliot served the cake with whipped cream later, topping it off with blackberries and strawberries.

Then we repaired to the living room where we watched a film I taped off TCM: Radio Days, Woody Allen’s paean to the heady days of radio with an all-star cast, headed by Dianne Wiest, Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner, Wallace Shawn, Tony Roberts (in a minor role), Jeff Daniels (also in a minor role), Josh Mostel, and Kenneth Mars (as a rabbi). Allen himself narrates the story of an adolescent, Joe, living with his Jewish family in the Rockaways and their attachment to the golden age of radio, while other vignettes show the glamorous world of those who plied their trade on the airwaves. These are the “celebrities” of radio, the twosome who host a show from their chic Manhattan apartment, the genteel, urbane hosts of another show. Farrow was very good as a cigarette girl who achieves stardom on radio through several fateful incidents, starting with her affair with the male half of a famous duo of radio hosts. The film had some funny moments, but overall, it was more episodic without a true frame of reference. I did enjoy Wiest’s character who was the narrator’s aunt, Bea, who was living with the title character’s parents in this extended household in the Rockaways bursting at the seams with a passel of family members crammed together. She was incessantly looking for Mr. Right throughout the film, always coming up short in the romance department. I saw the film probably when it first came out, which was 1987, before the scandals that rocked Allen’s career later on.

Then it was getting late and our guests were getting tired. So it was time to bid adieu to them and call it a night.

Our cat did not interact with our guests for most of the time, which is not like her. Again, she is experiencing some form of physical decline since we brought her home from the vet about two weeks ago. However, she still grooms herself and makes her way to the kitchen to eat, even though she seems to be eating less these days. She is sleeping at this moment by the door, which is her new spot. It’s almost as if she’s withdrawing more from the two of us and that, metaphorically, she’s telling us she wants out. We have to just wait and see what happens.

I have decided not to write about the usual topics tonight, as you could probably gather already. That can wait until either Tuesday or Wednesday. I’m not committing myself to writing the blog on Tuesday when I return from Cherry Hill. I have to see how I feel.

So I will wish my brethren “Shana Tovah” and to enjoy the holiday any way they are able to.

Stay safe and be well.