Purim 5771

On Purim we are told that everything is switched and that certainly is holding true for this purim...

Since seeing the Lion King in London a couple of months ago, I had grand plans to dress like Rafiki for purim. I have this brown sweater and a frumpy skirt. Ari has a stick (long piece of bamboo). My hair is also short enough to spike. I figured that I had everything that I needed...and then I looked at a photo online and decided that I what I had, would not cut it. Plus Ari did not know what he was going to be.

So here was another Purim where I am planning a "costume" in the 30 minutes before heading to megillah reading. What were we? "Matching". We wore leggings under shorts with sneakers, long sleeve shirts under "going out" tank tops and I spiked our hair.

So there we were- "matching" even though nothing that we were wearing matched. We matched eachother...cue sappy music.

We went to shul and both participated in the megillah reading (ironically we both played the parts of women in the interactive megilla reading) and handed out over 40 mishloach manot.

We walked home in the rain talking about how we might order a pizza for dinner, and on the way upstairs, stopped at our landlord's apartment to drop off some mishloach manot. (The landlord stories are for a different time and not in a written forum.) They were thankful and invited us in for a cup of wine. We went upstairs, changed out of our matching outfits and went downstairs for a l'chayim. The glass of wine turned into motzei which turned into dinner.

Apparently once a year (because it is so labor intensive), the landlord's wife makes a special buchari dish of beef dumplings. We each were served two helpings- one with a garlic tomato sauce and the second in a bowl of clear broth with vegetables. YUM! They now have 5 kids- the baby was born about 2 months ago and the kids were getting a bit wild. The three middle ones put music on and started to dance, skip and cartwheel around the house.

Then came this song...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5vaoaRbFs4 (you should watch it to the end)
This has been a favorite of mine and Ari's since we discovered the video on youtube. And I knew that it was popular- I mean with over 44,000 hits, it has to be a "hit" but besides youtube videos, I had never heard anyone sing it. Until tonight! We got a full blown concert. Of course we could not help but sing along. I think that we made their night and that was before Ari told them how he was related to Yaakov Shwekey. It was almost like the KBH was singing!

I have a feeling that the kids might try escaping and we might get visitors....or they will start yelling over the wall on our porch.

Happy Purim!