Invitations Sent (T-37 days)

Last night, after Shabbat, we finished stuffing and addressing the envelopes and putting the cute little sticker to close the envelope. This morning at 9:20, Odia and I met at the post office; I got there first to get a number, and the whole scene was unusual calm and the customers well behaved.

We bought 100 stamps for local invitations -- the stamps were very colorful with all different kinds of fruits that grow in Israel. We bought 30 stamps for out-of-Israel invitations (mostly to the U.S.); we needed 2 different stamps -- one I took off my glasses and still couldn't discern what the picture was of, and the other was larger and pretty and celebrated the Israeli fashion industry. We came back, put the stamps on, and Odia returned to the post office to mail them.

Whooooo. Glad that's over.

But now the harder part: Nervously waiting to see who decides to come and hoping we approach the 130 people we hope to come.

The Invitations Aren't Done Yet (T-39 days)

The invitations have a mind of their own.

The envelopes are stuffed, but there are still about a dozen addresses we don;t have and we have to go to the post office to get the stamps. Hopefully, the whole mess will be done on Sunday.

There still the issue of how many people will come and figuring out how many invitations to send out, when to make a calculations, if and when to send additional invitations if too few people choose to come. It's like you need a complex ERP system to handle all this. Maybe this is a good software project for SAP.

Addressing the Invitations (T-40 days)

This is the first of many tasks, I'm sure, that will have come upon us at 120 kilometers per hour without warning. It didn't even cross our minds.

Now that we worked so hard creating an invitation, how do we address them.

Who will write the address? One person or several? One of us or a professional? Who among us has good handwriting? What writing implement will we use -- pen, marker, something else? Will we get a sticker or stamp for the return address? Are the addresses in Hebrew or English? Do we have to write ISRAEL for the Israeli addresses?

It reminds of how we explain the problem that Yoni (our 5 year old son) has with communication. To simply give out plates for lunch at the kindergarten requires so many subtle but crucial questions: From whom do I get the plates? Do I take them one by one or all together? How do I hold them? What if they fall? Who do I give first? How do I get to that person? Do I put it on the table or hand it to the person? Do I acknowledge the person and wait for OK until going to the next? What do I do with mine? What do I do when I am done?

The invitations, just one of many, many bat mitzvah tasks, is making ME disoriented.

In addition, we have a list of people to invite, but it is written on 10 pages in a notebook, about 10 to a page. Not all have addresses. Some addresses are in Hebrew, others English. We are only in the middle of making an Excel sheet for tracking who we invited and who is coming.

Odia and I are starting to feel the pressure of this event, and it is still almost 7 weeks away. Will we survive?

The Invitations (T-41 days)

You get a lot of invitations in the mail, and the all seem to have that magic -- cool color scheme, translucent paper, artistic design. Then you have to come up with someone unique for your invitation, and you draw a blank.

Ellie is artistic, so the invitation lady thought Ellie could draw something and we could use the drawing to make the invitation personal. Ellie is into making color geometric patterns on graph paper, and so that what she did. It took a while for the idea to grow on me, but in the end I like the way it came out. The inside uses the pattern of dots, but in a much simpler way, a simple line of dots of the same color.

We made 2 or 3 proofs -- it would be a complete disaster if the family of 2 technical writers ended up sending an invitation with typos. We sent the order and the invitations should come on Thursday. Then its on to stuffing and sending them out. More fun to come.

The Tasting (T -42 days)

Last night we went to "the tasting" -- we already booked the hall for the bat mitzvah and now we are back at the hall, attending some family's bar mitzvah and tasting their food, so we can decide which food we want to serve at our event.

It is a little weird to attend a complete stranger's simcha, sitting in the back with other parents who are also planning an event, eating hummus, moroccan cigars, chicken, roast beef, mushroom salad, and lox. Most of the time you are eating and not paying attention to the people, but there is down time, and you watch the parents greet the guests, the kids say their speeches, the DJ play the family movie. And you can't help but wonder how you or your wife or your daughter will fill those roles in another 7 weeks.