
The invitation.
So I don’t know if you heard, but we had a bar mitzvah around these parts.
AND IT WAS AWESOME.
From beginning to end, including even the bits that went slightly awry and/or agley, because of course, as we all know, the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley, and the question is only how it’ll be handled, AND IT WAS ALL AWESOME.
And, yes, Timmy the ThinkGeek monkey actually attended.

Timmy wearing the kipa I fashioned out of the toe end of a sock, and finished with clear nail polish. I crafted! (PS – I turned his tshirt around, for a more formal look).
He was going to go in (and stay in!) my purse, but as I am a person with an uncontrollable anthropomorphization impulse, I worried about him. So I took him out and placed him on the girl’s seat — and as she is a nine year old person and an anthropomorphizer, she included him in everything! He sang, he bowed at all the right times, and at the very end, he was perched on the back of a pew — and the rabbi asked, with a smile in her voice, just before her final blessing: “Who’s guest is Jewish Curious George?”
The timeline (typed out mainly so that I can revisit the glow for a minute or two):
- Thursday morning, 8/16/12 – Attend morning prayers, boy reads from Torah and thus officially (and kind of nicely sneakily) becomes bar mitzvah while almost no one is watching. Official photographs taken.
- Thursday evening – Eleven Israeli relatives (the boy’s grandmother, uncles, aunts, and cousins) arrive, hang out, eat the first meal I’ve been able to prepare for all of them in my own home in 14 years, hang out some more.
- Friday during the day – The Israelis + the kids and the husband go downtown; I do final errands (one of which was to fix a thing gone agley – and it worked out!) and wind up writing (unplanned) for Open Zion (a post you should totally read, if only to marvel at the fact that on the literal eve of my son’s bar mitzvah, I managed to write).
- Friday evening – Friday night services at shul, during which the boy did us all proud, and after which: Big fancy family dinner out.
- Saturday morning and afternoon – THE MAIN EVENT. Services (two and a half hours long!) at shul, at which the boy absolutely wowed the crowd, both with his skills at prayer-leading-Torah-reading-Haftarah-chanting and his speech, and everything was warm and wonderful and I felt just bathed in love and joy. The very best moment (other than all the ones in which the boy was being The Best Thing Ever) was when a friend whispered “You all look so happy!” Then luncheon in the shul’s stained-glass-window-lined social hall (a luncheon I hear was good! I didn’t really taste any of it. Like you do), and I gave a speech which, though I cried through the whole thing, I kept breathing (no mean feat for me) and thus was able to say every single word (and apparently I made a bunch of other moms cry, too, so: Score!).
- Saturday evening: WhirlyBall! (And laser tag! And video games! And pizza! And cake!) ‘TWAS TEH AWESOME!!1! Oh my goodness, those kids had so much fun, as did the handful of adults who tagged along and whooooooooo!!!
- Sunday: Brunch at Chicago’s premier spot for Swedish pancakes, Ann Sathers, followed by a visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, and then a dinner of luncheon-left-overs at our house.
- Monday: Nothing (well, the four of us talked and giggled and took a walk and made S’mores in the backyard. But other than that).
- Tuesday: The Israelis + my three went museum-ing as I made faux-Thanksgiving, complete with roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish and cornbread (and pumpkin pie!), because I’ll never get to invite the Israelis to Thanksgiving! My family joined us, and everyone sat around and talked late into the evening and it was exactly as big family events should always be.
- Wednesday: First day of school. The Israelis came by in the afternoon for coffee and cake and goodbyes, and then went to the airport.
- Thursday: I made my usual bi-weekly Open Zion deadline. And collapsed on the couch.
Yes, really.
I would be remiss if I did not make a big point of pointing out that while I may have been In Charge of all of the above? The husband was an absolutely stellar First Officer, and aside from anything else, had he not kept washing all those dishes (and bear in mind that we keep kosher, so he was also switching from milk to meat and back again all the time) the entire jig would have been up.
After the jump, [UPDATE: figuring that most people who wanted to read this and see the pictures have done so, I’ve now removed the pictures after the jump, because kids’ faces can be seen in them (not all of them my own kids, even), and it honestly just makes me a little nervous to slap my kids’ faces up on the ‘net, given my day job] you’ll find the text of the boy’s speech (d’var Torah) – because he’s a mensch, and I’m just so proud – but first!
Pictures of the single best present the boy got (and which, btw, he presented to me as “the best gift I got”): A fully functional, The Fault in Our Stars-inspired wallet made out of duct-tape by one of his school friends (oops! Chosen by one of his school friends. Note correction, and how you can buy one for yourself [’cause you totes should] here).

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TFIOS was written by John Green, author, Vlogbrother, host of Crash Course, and Nerdfighter extraordinaire, and the last line in the boy’s d’var Torah was a shout-out to Nerdfighters everywhere (and yes, in case you know what the hell I’m talking about and are wondering, he had his DFTBA bracelet on the whole time).
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