Photoessay #787 - When it's over

My niece's bat mitzvah occupied my sister (and niece) for several years. My sister was determined to carry off an affair that met local standards. Not as elaborate as others but definitely with most all of the moving parts.

On a limited budget.

She concentrated a lot on all the details. In fact for the last several months until up to the day of the event, if you asked her anything about it, she would go over every single detail from one end to the other. I think it somehow reinforced her confidence that she was really thinking of everything.

It was important for her to have as many family as possible to attend. The combo of her own more modest bat mitzvah in Rockford in April plus Teresa's here in Lafayette in July marked the first bat or bat mizvahs in my family on either side for many generations (these reform Jews....) She did well with my mother, brother, cousin, husband and daughter attending. Ed had his brother and sister and two nieces. Pretty respectable.

Soemhow I thought I was going to have a lot to do at the event. You know the drill, if you're related, you better be back in the kitchen doing the heavy lifting. For example, when Ilana ran the mom and me event, Dennis, Naomi and myself helping the cook put out spaghetti dinner for 200. We ended up BEING the kitchen crew. But my sister has everything organized and double and triple organized. My mom contributed and she ended up hiring some kitchen help for a few hours (WELL worth it). So, you really couldn't do anything except by direct order. Dennis points out that the only thing we really did was put placemats out on the table. That's about it.

Kudos to my cousin Mary Ann (who I refer to as the 'brains of the operation) who came from Connecticut to accompany my mom. Now my mom was determined to enjoy every single minute of it and didn't want to miss a thing. But Mary Ann came to Rockford the day before, went with her to Lafauette, shared the room with her, kept her pointed in the right direction and went home with her. Now THAT's some heavy lifting. My mom and Mary Ann have always been close. "Glad to do it", said Mary Ann, "Pam was there for me and I'm happy to return the favor". Several years ago, my sister went with my mom to Connecticut for Mary Ann's daughter's wedding. At that time, Pam said "I'm doing this for Mary Ann so she doesn't have to worry about Mom"

Pictured are the flowers used on the bima in the sanctuary and on the tables. Teresa decided on the color scheme of yellow, orange, red and light green. Kind of Early Spring. It all looked great IMO. A lot of flowers.

And how my sister felt after it was ALL OVER......

Update: One person at parent group was quite disappointed that I didn't bring the jello cake I wrote about a few days ago. "When I saw that picture, I thought you were going to make it and we could all have some" she said wistfully. Funny :)