who's in the kitchen: judy joszef

With a little help from my friends

Posted

Football season couldn’t get here fast enough. My baseball team, the Braves, are neck and neck with the Phillies for the worst record in the major leagues, but my Miami Dolphins are said to have a fighting chance this year — first game was a win. But the second game, on Sunday, was not pretty; we lost to the Jaguars, the NFL perennial doormat, not an easy fete to complete.

Earlier in the day my husband Jerry was inconsolable about his Giants, who started the season by losing two of the worst games in franchise history. They have set the league standard for seizing defeat from the jaws of certain victory in circus-like fashion.

The Giants appear to have meticulously and successfully adopted Jerry’s playbook for achieving chaotic time management and dysfunctional organizational skills. You see, Jerry has no concept of time and, let’s just say, he’s not very organized. Take, for instance, building the sukkah.

Over the years, Jerry’s attempts at building his sukkah reflected the wright brother’s early failed attempts at building a plane that could fly.

All the printed decorations and brachot ended up facing outside instead of inside. It also wasn’t built properly, so with the first gust of wind, the canvas was on the ground, and the wooden beams on top. All of his friends in Teaneck knew to come over to his house before sukkot to solidify the contraptions he built.

When we were married, my mother-in-law a”h bought us a beautiful large sukkah that could be put up with the greatest of ease.

Jerry pleaded (begged!) to be excused from putting it together, for fear of being exposed as incapable of building or putting anything together. He would offer my kids increasingly enticing gifts (bribes) to coax them into building the sukkah. They were only too happy to help Jerry out.

Within an hour the sukkah was up. After a few years, the kids were out of the house and it was Jerry’s turn to get off the bench and step up to the plate. Like mighty Casey, Jerry struck out. Last year, with all the poles, beams, canvas and the little specialty hammer that comes with the sukkah, he was set.

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