Little Bo Peep has lost her… cows?

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for parental boasting. Proceed at your own risk.

It’s like watching a train wreck.

What with Yom HaAtzma’ut and even Pesach Sheni behind us, it’s just a matter of days before Lag BaOmer arrives in all its flaming, sooty, and incomprehensible glory.

For those just tuning in, Lag BaOmer, aka “the Night of the Tightly Sealed Windows,” consistently ranks (at least for adults) alongside Chodesh Irgun at the very top of the annual “what time of year do you dread the most” poll.

But while there’s absolutely nothing one can do to prevent Lag BaOmer from happening, one CAN turn to the time-honored traditions of avoidance and denial in a desperate attempt at mitigating some of its inherent unpleasantness.

To this end – and with your indulgence, of course - I’d like to take a few minutes to remind myself that being the Anglo parent of Israeli offspring isn’t always about heaps of smoke-infused laundry and enough stockpiled wood to light up, well, a small country…

After all, upon occasion, those very same Israeli offspring have a habit of accomplishing some pretty amazing things.

(Yes, this is where the aforementioned parental bragging begins…)

For instance, as you may recall, a few months ago I featured a poster that a certain Shiputzim daughter had skillfully drawn for her Mishnah class.

Recently, she had to make another project for the same class, and this time, she chose to make a diorama about Bava Metzia 2:9, which asks, “what is an aveidah (a lost item)?”

As you can see in the following pictures, the right side represents a case which isn’t considered to be an aveidah (“one who found a donkey or a cow grazing along the road”), and the left side depicts an example of something that IS an aveidah (“a cow runs among the vineyards”):

As always, please click on the pictures for a much better view.

</parental boasting>

What is your preferred method for dealing with Lag BaOmer’s nuisances?

!שבת שלום ומבורך

The Top 10 Ways You Know It’s Lag BaOmer

10. The entire country reeks of smoke.

9. Music is blaring from every speaker in your house.

8. All of your windows are sealed shut…

7. …But when your kids finally stumble home, with their clothes smelling like a bonfire, you wonder why you bothered.

6. The males in your household are no longer scruffy or desperately in need of haircuts.

5. No matter how veteran an Israeli you are, you still can’t figure out what your kids are doing all night.

4. You and your neighbors have been laying odds as to whose child will win the exciting finals of every parent’s favorite game, Who Can Be the Kvetchiest?

3. You overhear someone asking, “It’s 2:00 AM. Do you know where your kids are?”

2. And the answer is, “Out somewhere in the dark, playing with fire…”

1. The latest Haveil Havalim is available here. (Special thanks to my friend Toby for including two of my posts: A Decision Has [Finally] Been Made and My Blog in a Nutshell.)

Happy Lag BaOmer!

Tuesday. Definitely Tuesday

Helloooo, Our Shiputzim fans!

We begin today’s post by noting that we have reached another milestone: This is our 100th post. Not bad for a blog that was meant to last for only three weeks.*

In other news, everyone seems to have had a good first day (B”AH) at their respective educational institutions. (Specific details are available off-line from the Our Shiputzim information department.)

And turning to AMG’s closet, we have…. nothing.

Yesterday, the carpenter assured YZG that he’s going to call on Tuesday I”YH and then come on Wednesday. (Contact the Our Shiputzim bookmaker to lay your bets on the likelihood of this actually happening.)

Meanwhile, YZG and his talented team of assistants put up blinds in the boys’ room, as you can see here:

It’s hard to say which is more exciting – these window blinds or the attic light bulbs from this post. Feel free to weigh in on this issue in the comment section. YAT, I would really love to hear your opinion in particular.

And that’s about it for now.

See you next time on another enthralling episode of “Our Shiputzim”.

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* As our long-time readers will no doubt recall, the kablan initially told us that the renovations would take three weeks – at the most. Since we never took him at his word, we weren’t disappointed when the three weeks dragged into… well, let’s just say that they dragged into more than three weeks, and leave it at that.