Retreat, Pesach, deadlines, tired.

noghri and mrieser [Edit: AND melissaagray] are coming to the TBS seder! Yaaayyy!

So far I'm not actually faring too poorly on the pre-Pesach use-up-all-the-chametz food plan. (Sometimes I really start to get starched out, which I suspect adds to the pre-Pesach strain.) I have another several things I intend to cook yet (e.g., a chickpea stew for Wednesday; another pancake brunch at my house this Sunday 4/4? anyone?), and that may carry me through to next Monday not too painfully. But I really have to start cleaning, also. And sell my chametz. And ablock wants to make a grocery run, tonight if possible. It seems too early to think about buying all the Pesach groceries; I'm not really going to feel ready until considerably later in the week. But now really is the time, I guess, before everything good is sold out. Last year I missed out on Rocky Road macaroons altogether; let that be a lesson.

I have in mind a new ambition, which is to organize at least part of the Shir ha-Shirim reading (on Shabbat Pesach) as a responsive reading: a male reader and a female reader. (Yeah, "God" and "Israel" if you favor that interpretation, although I'm not sure how strictly I do.) Unfortunately, I don't know that we have any women who can do it at the moment; yes, I would like to learn the trope, but it's unlikely to happen in the next 1.5 weeks. (Hopefully this discredits ablock's rather uncharitable assertion that I only came up with this idea as a way of insinuating myself into potentially scandalous public interactions with any of a number of respectable married men. Feh! ;-)

***

This weekend was the Honorable Menschen group retreat. ( It was fun. )

We're now trying to figure out a plan for a spring concert at Tremont St. in May -- that is, hopefully to firm up details before the April/May newsletter goes to press, which was supposed to be today, but since I control that outlet as well... mwahahaha! But it looks like we have the go-ahead and our spring concert will be motzei Shabbat on May 22. Mark your calendars, a cappella fans!

Okay, off to do dinner and groceries and then finalize the newsletter and maybe, just maybe, get to bed at a decent hour tonight.