How Was 2020 For You?

New Year's resolutions are for suckers.

Seriously.

Let's examine the evidence, shall we? 

How far into this wasteland of 2020 did you get before you abandoned your resolution to live a cleaner, fitter, anxiety-free, and healthier life? When did the stress eating start and your couch potato lifestyle grow exponentially?

January? February? Marchtember?

Nope, I will not engage in empty promises that will most certainly go unrealized. Instead, I will offer up a few of the things I never thought I'd get to experience but actually did occur during this past year that was the living embodiment of the seventh circle of hell. Ready?

I played with a seal pup when he decided that my shoes were way better than the toys in the ocean. Honestly, this was the best thing about 2020. Before the world shut down, we travelled to the Galápagos Islands in January. It seems like a lifetime ago but it is without a doubt the most exciting place I have ever visited. This little guy was only part of the magic. 

I personally sanitized a hotel room in South Carolina. When we decided to race north from the Southern Home in March because there was a very real possibility that the borders were going to close, we had no idea what this virus was or how it was transmitted. We decided that we would pack food for the trip so that we could minimize our contacts but we knew that we were going to have to spend at least one night in a hotel. Doomsday prepper that I am, I packed spray bottles filled with diluted bleach, rubber gloves, hand sanitizer, and sanitizer wipes so that I could de-Covid the room. I wouldn't let The Husband touch anything until I was done-not the tv remotes, light switches, or toilet handle. Nothing. You really need to think back to those early days of Covid when we were all wiping down our groceries or unpacking them in the garage, to understand how it must have felt to be me travelling north. The irony? All things microbiologically considered, it was probably the cleanest hotel room we have ever stayed in.

I learned how not to kill a sourdough starter and to bake some of the most delicious bread that has ever come out of an oven. Ok, this is a bit of hyperbole but it was certainly some of the most delicious bread to come out of my oven. I have to give credit to my Sister/Cousin's only XX for this one. (We kind of share her.) She is a master bread baker and during the early days of Covid, she sent me some dried starter. She nurtured me and massaged my battered ego from afar when things weren't going so well, and she was quick with praise even when the results were less than optimum. As the prophet Joel wrote, "The old shall dream dreams and the youth shall see visions." I couldn't have asked for a better teacher. The crazy thing is, that before the lockdown, I would never have had the time nor the patience necessary to dedicate to the many days necessary for sourdough bread making. Now, I can't imagine not doing it. It really is a zen experience. "Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”~Unknown.

Sourdough English Muffins

Sourdough Babka

Sourdough boule

Sourdough focaccia

I made Ina Garten's brownies. I promised myself that I would never do anything this foolish but The Husband's birthday was coming up and we were finally going to spend some quality time outdoors with our kids. Brownies seemed like the perfect decadent treat. Have you ever looked at this freaking ridiculous recipe? It calls for a full pound of butter, over two pounds of chocolate, and six eggs. The concoction made enough brownies for three birthday celebrations and even after divvying them up amongst the offspring, there were over a dozen in the freezer for weeks. The chocolate alone was enough to induce a diabetic coma. Delicious? Absolutely. Dangerous? Hell, yes.

Which leads me to exercise. After all the carbs and sugar of the bread and brownies, keeping up with my workouts became a moral imperative. Walking is good but I need more. We are fortunate that we have a treadmill and weights in our home, so we were unaffected when the gyms shut down. Even the gym in our building is still on lockdown after almost nine months. In August, my treadmill, which is close to fourteen years old, needed repair. The part was on order and given the limitations of the pandemic, would take close to a month to arrive. The Husband suggested that to keep up with my cardio, I should run the stairs in our building. We live in an old factory building that was converted into lofts, so the stairs in the fire exits are quite high and the rise is quite deep. I have short legs and asthma. My first attempt at the stairs lasted all of ten minutes. I was sucking wind and dripping like Rudy Guiliani's hair dye. Six days later, I tried again. Why six days? Well, it took that long for the pain to subside and to be able to move my legs without screaming. Since then, I have increased my time on the stairs to close to thirty-five minutes and it is now a regular part of my workout rotation. I still hate it but I am afraid to stop doing it and reignite the leg spasms. Pain-avoidance is a great motivator.

I've taken to day-drinking. Friends and family know that I am not much of an imbiber but these are desperate times and they call for new habits. A glass of chilled chardonnay is just the ticket to unwinding after a tough day of doing absolutely nothing. I sent The Husband to the Wine Rack next door to purchase a couple of bottles of something light and white. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing. Alcohol consumption is still very rare for me but I'm finding that I don't hate the occasional glass. Any more than that and I am down for the count. There is a story floating around about me not knowing my left from my right after a couple of glasses of sangria. Lies! Don't trust unreliable sources. When I went to replenish my stock, the lovely guy at the Wine Rack pointed at the refrigerator and asked if I wouldn't prefer an already chilled bottle because of course, I was planning on drinking it immediately upon returning home. The man knows his business.

There was an episode with edibles which I shall not discuss here. Just know that it was chocolate and that is all I'm admitting. The rest is like Fight Club. What's the first rule of Fight Club?

I had a conversation with my two-year-old granddaughter via FaceTime while one of us was on the potty. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to figure out who. That said, can we all just say a small prayer of gratitude for video calls of all types this year? Without Zoom, Skype, FaceTime and Messenger I'm not certain that any of us could have maintained even a semblance of sanity.

I learned how to use Instacart. It isn't my favourite way of grocery shopping but it is better than being in crowds. There were a few glitches, like the time I ordered a single garlic bulb and received thirteen. For the most part, the delivery people have been amazing and lovely. I have over-tipped them because I am so grateful for what they are doing and I have given every single one of them a 5-star rating, even when they didn't really deserve it. These people have helped hold our city together. I would hug them all if allowed. 

This is a lot of garlic.

I watched far too much television and read far too few books. Concentration wasn't a strong suit this year. I am trying to get back into reading but it is definitely a challenge. Pandemic brain is affecting us all differently. The Husband and I realized that we don't watch any network television programs regularly. Netflix, Prime, Apple+, and Disney+ (thanks to Younger Son) have been our viewing habits in 2020. Oh...and The Big Bang Theory reruns. I can't explain why but those ridiculous nerds and their annoying laugh track have kept me entertained, even after dozens of repeated watchings.

We decided to refresh our living space. After four years here, we embarked upon a modest renovation. Of course, we couldn't go anywhere while the contractors were here, so The Husband and I holed up in the small second bedroom for three weeks while they painted. The day after they finished, our humidifier sprung a leak and ruined the ceiling in the front hall. How very 2020 is that? 2021 will begin with more structural repair and even more painting.

We have done jigsaw puzzles (they are not nearly as much fun without my mom beside me) and I have played my guitar, although not nearly as much as I'd like. I learned to work with royal icing and decorated cookies for Chanukah. I've yelled on Twitter, celebrated on Facebook, and played a lot of games of Words with Friends. We have walked the empty neighbourhoods in our area and have distressed over the scores of For Rent signs. And now, as winter has come and we are once again locked down, it is difficult to look ahead to the coming year without a huge dose of cynicism. I am not rosy-eyed in my predictions. There will be a vaccine for all of us, and we should be immensely grateful for the astounding advancement of science, but it won't come soon and I suspect that another Pesach seder will be held online without loved ones and that many more of us will experience a Covid birthday as I did yesterday. 

2020 has been brutal for so many of us. I look back on what I have written and I know that I have been amongst the most fortunate. I didn't have to work in an overrun hospital or deliver groceries. I was spared the horror of having loved ones in a long-term care facility and I didn't have to try to do my job with bored children at home, desperate for friends and school. My family is not separated by the border closure and I don't live alone. My employment didn't disappear because of the forever lingering pandemic. But, 2020 has taught me that nothing is certain and we aren't promised anything. I will take the lessons of 2020 and move into the new year with a renewed love and appreciation for my friends and family. I will resolve nothing, expect nothing, and cherish it all.

Bring it, 2021.

A Chanukah Rip-Off

I am usually loathed to call out businesses for bad behaviour on social media. I much prefer to settle conflicts amicably between the parties without having to resort to a public flogging. When we can work together to remedy a problem, it serves us well going forward and everybody wins. But, there are times when the business practices and behaviour are just so loathsome that they need to be exposed for the crookedness that they are. This is one of those times. The story is below but if you want the TL;DR version, here it is: My Zaidy's Bakery at Bathurst and Steeles ripped off a group of teenagers who were doing a Chanukah fundraiser. 

Here's the story.

My Zaidy's Bakery in Thornhill is the go-to place to purchase sufganiyot for Chanukah. They are simply the best and there is no denying the exceptional quality of their product. Every Jew I know who lives in the North Jewish Ghetto gets their sufganiyot from My Zaidy's. They have been written up in local papers and have consistently topped blog sites for the absolute excellence of their filled donuts. I say this as somebody who doesn't particularly like donuts or sufganiyot but even I can recognize virtuosity when I see it.

My daughter-in-law is a director of youth and family programming at a local synagogue. The teens with whom she works planned to do a fundraiser this Chanukah to raise a few dollars to renovate their badly outdated youth lounge. The kids were putting together Chanukah-themed baskets filled with all sorts of goodies, to be delivered to houses across the city this weekend. The kids pre-sold the baskets with the promise of many treats, including sufganiyot. My daughter-in-law first spoke to My Zaidy's back in November about bulk pricing for the donuts. She was quoted a price of $1.60/per donut and was told that she could place her order up until two days before pickup. The deadline for purchasing the baskets was this past Monday and it was then and only then, that my daughter-in-law could place the order for the donuts because she needed firm numbers. She had a Facebook Messenger conversation with somebody who works at My Zaidy's on Monday, during which the price of $1.60/per donut was affirmed. The person that she spoke with told her that this was their best price and that the deadline for putting in the large order of 43 half dozen boxes (258 sufganiyot in total) was the following day, Tuesday, otherwise, the donuts wouldn't be ready for Friday to put them in the baskets. She even double-checked on Monday evening that it was ok to place the order on Tuesday morning. The entire conversation is time-stamped and recorded in writing on Messenger.

She called the next day, Tuesday to place the order and was told that she was now too late to order and the woman acted as if the entire conversation the previous day hadn't occurred. When my daughter-in-law showed them the recorded conversation, they acted like they were doing her a favour, were incredibly rude to her, and hiked the price to $2.25/per donut. They claimed that they had no recollection of the previous conversation about the price, EVEN when confronted with the evidence from Messenger. They made an excuse that the new cost was now because they had to box the pastries. Were they expecting her to carry 258 donuts out to her car in her hands? As she was under time pressure and without other options for promised sufganiyot to be included in the baskets, she agreed to the extra cost even though it was going to gut the profits the kids were hoping to make for their project. She placed the order to be picked up Friday morning. Concerned about the entire affair, she put in a follow-up call on Thursday afternoon to confirm the order and the pick-up for the following day. She was told that all was good and not to worry.

Yesterday, she trekked up to Thornhill to retrieve the donuts. They told her that they "forgot" about the order and that they didn't have them. She was absolutely furious. It is her guess that they sold the donuts out from under her and expected her to just deal with it. You need to know My Son's B'shert to understand that she wasn't having any of that bullshit. She demanded her order. The owner asked her to come back on Saturday evening to retrieve the order but since the basket deliveries were happening on Saturday afternoon, that solution was a non-starter. They asked her to return later in the afternoon and they promised her the original price of $1.60/per to make up for the hassle. She was incredibly upset about having to make the trip twice and, when she made that known, the person at the bakery asked her where she lived. She told him and he responded, "That's not a Jewish area. Did your goy boyfriend make you move there?"

Now she was being ripped-off and insulted?

She returned to the bakery just before Shabbat. At that time, the manager told her that there was no way could they honour the $1.60/per piece that was just re-promised her in the morning, and that she would have to pay the extra costs after all. He tried to make it up with extra donuts but she was insistent that the money was far more important. It was for the kids and their fundraiser. He even started loading the extra donuts into her car even though she told him that her numbers were fixed and that she had nowhere to give out the extras. He said that the extra boxes would make up for the money he owed her. When she explained that this was akin to stealing from kids, he told her that he would make a donation but that she would have to come back next week after Chanukah to collect it. She isn't holding her breath and certainly doesn't expect him to make good on the "promise".

According to their Facebook page reviews, this isn't the first time My Zaidy's Bakery has screwed around with pre-ordered and pre-paid customers. That kind of behaviour simply isn't cool.

I understand that everybody is suffering right now and that small businesses are bearing an unfair load but that is no excuse for bad business practices or behaviour. My daughter-in-law went out of her way to patronize small local businesses for this project to help them out in this time of struggle. She was met with nothing but kindness from most of the local merchants she dealt with, many of whom donated for the cause out of their meagre profits, and for that she and her youth group are most grateful. At no time did she expect or even ask My Zaidy's to donate the donuts, rather she expected them to just honour their commitment. 

Those who read this space regularly know that I rarely name names. I prefer the subtleness of anonymity but there are times when it is necessary to call a gonif a gonif. This story irritated me beyond belief and I will be reticent to patronize My Zaidy's Bakery in the future because of it. Good sufganiyot simply aren't worth sacrificing my moral code.

Chag Urim Sameach

 I love Chanukah.

It isn't the most important holiday on our calendar by any stretch of the Jewish imagination but it is definitely my favourite and, in my opinion, the most fun.

I suppose that we could argue that Purim is also loads of fun and I do agree that putting little kids in costumes and letting them loose to scream like banshees definitely ranks high on the enjoyment meter, but Purim is more of the "drink until you can't remember that there is a holiday" sort of fun. Chanukah is a more "lovely and sophisticated, let's gather with friends and family" great time. There is no specific Chanukah religious service where we join in the synagogue, so Chanukah is that one time during the year when being together really and truly is the celebration.

And then came Covid...

Every year for the past dozen or so, my mom and I have hosted a Chanukah party at our Southern home. We cook and we bake and we pay attention to small Chanukah-related details. One year, I even learned how to make sufganiyot. This year, that get-together has obviously been put on ice as we are lighting our own Chanukiot from our own and separate Toronto addresses. We aren't pretending that we can put aside the Covid restrictions for the sake of the holiday and be together for even a short amount of time to celebrate. But while I am mourning the loss of our traditions, I am taking comfort in the fact that by forgoing them this year, we are keeping each other safe and there is the promise of holiday celebrations yet to come. 

I don't want to sound bitter or angry but I must admit to seething just a bit when I hear of people who observe other holidays pretending that Covid is on hiatus during those occasions. My family hasn't had a holiday together since March and most of them were far more religiously significant than Chanukah. We have done Zoom seders on Pesach and weekly Shabbat candle lightings. We watched YouTube Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur synagogue services on our computers and have held interactive Torah study sessions online. My community has joined with others across Canada for all-night study on Shavuot and Selichot and will do so again this Saturday during Chanukah. My husband sat shiva for his mother alone in our condo without the comfort of in-person visits with family and friends so, please spare me the lament that you can't possibly do Christmas with only the people that you live with.

I get it. We are all tired and sad. There is so much that we have lost this year. There is no normalcy. I should be with my mom making cookies in Florida and my granddaughter should be with her other grandparents celebrating the holidays in the Midwest. It really sucks. But, we can get through it if we remember that we need each other to sacrifice right now in order to literally survive. 

So, this Chanukah, my Chanukiot are set up in the window here in downtown Toronto ready to have their annual Hillel/Shammai candle debate. We are ordering our latkes from a local cafe in order to help out their business during the city's second lockdown. I baked and decorated (!!) Chanukah cookies. Gifts have been dropped off for Molly and a few surprises will hopefully be coming via delivery for my grown-up kids. (Baruch Ha-Shem!) I will Zoom with my synagogue family over the next few days for candle-lighting and my actual family more often than I care to mention. We celebrate alone this year so that we can all gather in person next Chanukah. Please, everyone, do the same. 

Chag Urim Sameach. May the candles illuminate the darkness we are all experiencing and may we all find health and peace.