Each day, I write whatever happens to be on my mind, with the goal of posting it to my blog shortly after midnight. It is now 11:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 5th (EDT), and I have spent the last 12 hours doing absolutely nothing. In fact, if my bladder hadn’t been screaming at me to pay attention, I might not have bothered getting out of bed at all.

I have days like this occasionally, when the news is either so horrific, or merely repetitious, that I can’t bear to dwell on it. I did try to think of something — perhaps a childhood memory or embarrassing experience — with which to amuse you, but nothing leapt to mind.

Instead, I have over-indulged in cookies, ice cream, and other sweets between meals; watched a half dozen episodes of “Would I Lie To You?” (on BritBox, highly recommended); sorted my pills for the coming week (five prescriptions and five supplements daily, if you must know); enjoyed a two-hour chair nap; made my to-do list for the coming week, most of which will undoubtedly be carried over to the following week; and got out the Gorilla Glue to re-attach two little rubber feet that had worked their way free of my iPad case.

And I’m exhausted.

I also re-educated myself on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which runs for a week beginning today (Monday), and is one of the few Jewish holidays that is actually joyous.

If you’re at all familiar with the history of the Jews, you know that we have had more than our fair share of troubles — in fact, 5,786 years of them — so we’ll take all the pleasure we can muster.

I’m reminded of the lines from “Fiddler On the Roof,” when the entire Jewish community is being expelled from their Russian village of Anatevka, and someone says, with a deep sigh of resignation:

“Our forefathers have been forced out of many, many places at a moment’s notice” . . . to which Tevye the Milkman philosophically responds:

“Maybe that’s why we always wear our hats.”

So a week of celebrating the autumn harvest and recalling the miracle of the exodus to the Promised Land is most welcome — especially when we’ve just survived the 24-hour fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, earlier this week.

(And to all of my Christian and Muslim friends: Yes, I know one day is nothing compared to the 40 days of Lent, or the month-long observance of Ramadan; but I didn’t make the rules, so please find someone else to yell at.)

To sum it up, I find I am able to justify my one day of sybaritic self-indulgence by recalling this brilliant summation of the entire history of the Jews (original author unknown):

“They tried to kill us.
They didn’t succeed.
Let’s eat.”

*. *. *

And now, it seems, I have actually completed a submission for my Monday blog, so it wasn’t a totally wasted day after all. I think that calls for some more Haagen-Dazs.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/6/25 – 12:01 a.m.