Man Plans

But little Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy

—To a Mouse by Robert Burns (Standard English Translation) 

דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט
Man plans and God laughs

—Yiddish saying

Inherently, I am an organized person. Sometimes, it's difficult to see that by the state of my closets and email inbox, but hey. 

I'm all about lists, and timetables, and plans. I plan out my week on Saturday night, and know what day I'm going to wash the whites, and what day I'm going to iron. I know which child has to be where and when.  I'm not one of those who forgets to buy dishwashing liquid, or ground nuts. I might, occasionally, forget that I did buy more paprika and now have 14 bags of the stuff in my cupboard. I also might not remember the name of any child offhand. But hey. 

I like to be prepared. For just about anything. 15 people coming for Shabbat? No problem, I will always have enough flour and chocolate chips to make cookies. Kid suddenly remembers he needs clean socks for reserve duty? I will have enough detergent and fabric softener handy for the entire IDF. 

That's all small on me, as they say in Hebrew. 

Therefore, the first COVID-based Lockdown in March threw me for a loop. I was NOT prepared. I was also torn between the primeval instinct to stock up on cookies and macaroni and the need to get rid of all the chametz before Pesach. It was soul-wrenching.

Somehow, I survived. With my soul only slightly damaged, after the lockdown ended in May, I swore, in the words of Scarlet O'Hara, that as God is my witness, I will never go unprepared again!

I spent the summer preparing. For any eventuality. 

Here, in the Holy Land, at the end of May 2020, our numbers vis-a-vis COVID were very low, and there was lots of room for optimism. We thought that by the autumn holidays we would be almost back to normal. We even had hopes that we would have guests from abroad. 

Quickly looking at a calendar, I saw that from Rosh HaShana on, we were going to have six special weekends in a row - either holiday weekends, or private happy occasion weekends. Six Shabbatot in a row were marked off. 

I began my preparations for those Six Shabbatot by opening up an excel file.
Obvs.
I began to make my lists.
So far, so good.
I began to shop.

I decided that I would buy enough over the summer, while stocks were plentiful and I was healthy, to last for the Six Shabbatot that were coming. That way, if there were any last minute shortages of say, soy sauce, I would have enough to tide us over*. And if I had to go into quarantine or, God forbid, I became sick, my kids would not have to worry about going without corn flour or baking powder.

(*Over Pesach, there were severe shortages of eggs. Afterwards, there were shortages of brown sugar. And there has been an intermittent shortage of butter for over a year. )

I scoured for sales. I made numerous lists of pantry ingredients that were mandatory to have; Canned pineapple and tomato sauce, crushed almonds and pickles. 

I bought two large bags of cocoa. 

Barbecue sauce, sweet and sour sauce, tabasco sauce, and silan. Rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, wine vinegar, and regular vinegar to clean vegetables. Bread flour, whole wheat flour, pizza flour, and cake flour. 

It was with the oil that things began to go awry. Canola oil was on sale, so I bought three bottles. And then three more. I used up one bottle, so I bought three more. And ten kilo of flour. And six more bottles of soy sauce. And fifteen bags of pasta (hey! they were five bags for ten shekels!). My cupboards were full of cans of mushrooms (three cans for 9.5 shekel - I bought 12 cans) and mini corn, my freezer full of frozen broccoli and artichoke bottoms. I have no idea what to do with artichoke bottoms but hey. They were on sale. 

In the meantime, I was creating menus for the Six happy Shabbatot that were rapidly approaching. I jotted down recipes that I had never tried because I had bought a bag of lima beans. I had nine bags of rice - Persian, basmati, and jasmine, just in case I decided to make rice for each of the Six Shabbatot, (not nine of EACH - that would be ridiculous). I also had three bags of bulgur, four bags of oatmeal, one bag each of barley and buckwheat, and three bags of quinoa for the guest with celiac. 

By the end of summer and seven bags of dark brown sugar, three of light brown sugar, five of icing sugar, and ten of white sugar (I used one white sugar, so I bought six more) later, I began to realize that those Six Shabbatot in a row might not work out exactly as planned. It had long been evident that there would be no guests coming from abroad any time soon, and a week before Rosh HaShana, we discovered that we weren't going to have any guests from Israel either, as we headed into a second lockdown. 

We are now exactly half way through those magical special Six Shabbatot. 

I would like to state that my planning and preparations have allowed me to enjoy these times. I would like it to be known that I am under no stress, no anxiety, no self-recriminations.

I would also like to declare that I used up all eight jars of chicken seasoning and sixteen rolls of paper towels, and that all my kitchen cupboards open without sacks of walnuts falling on my head and close again without having to rearrange the bottles of juice concentrate and bags of bread crumbs. 

I would also like to think that I have not utterly lost my mind. 

But hey.