I'd say Rosh Hashana was mostly a success in my house. most of the new recipes tried out by my mom went over pretty well. with the exception of the pumpkin soup. it was.....well, I'll just leave it at that i can safely say i won't be seeing it over Succot. on an interesting note, there were three new recipes that contained some measure of alcohol. beer chicken, Bloody Mary meat, and rum cake. a little more and we all would be staggering drunkenly out of Yom Tov.

I survived shul with only minimal social embarrassment. for years i have been arguing with my mother over the subject of whether or not people stare at you when you walk in. her argument: you're just an insecure teenager, and you think everyone is looking at you. (well, not in so many words, but that was basically her point) but I'm convinced people do stare. my uncle told me when he comes into shul he stands next to the door, pushes it open, waits a minute for all the heads to swivel in his direction and then face front again, and then he walks in. smart move. but i don't have a door frame to hide behind. so this time i went to shul really early, before most of the people were there, so i escaped with only a few stares. but when my sister walked in, i looked at the other people.

they WERE staring.