I know I must be approaching retirement because I feel compelled to share with you the many minor medical issues I’m suffering from this week. And like my other AARP buddies, I’m quite positive you will find them fascinating:

*A mysterious itching on my forearms that I am quite sure is leprosy but cannot confirm until my fingers drop off onto my computer keyboard because the dermatologist can’t see me until January.

*A back molar that will not tolerate hot, cold, chewing or brushing – and I’ve probably already got mercury poisoning from the loose filling.

*Two goopy eyes so bloodshot it looks like I’ve been out doing meth with hobos but is actually just a disgusting case of Pink Eye I most likely picked up a the most horrific PortaPotty you could possibly imagine because Little Yenta Girl couldn’t hold it for five more minutes until we got home.

*As always, a sore hip.

I spent more time in doctor’s offices this week than I did at work – I just love shelling out $40 a pop for co-pays, don’t you? I also squeezed in two visits to the acupuncturist who’s treating the nerve damage caused by last spring’s hip surgery (don’t get too excited – this is not covered by insurance.)

I have, however, to find an upside to this tsuris collection: Yesterday at the JEA Senior Lunch I managed to out-kvetch a table of 80-somethings.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go put on a housecoat, eat dinner at 3pm and fall asleep to “Matlock”.

I was planning to write a self-aggrandizing post about how this past weekend I:

*With the help of my co-workers, pulled off an ass-kicking “THIS Is What A Feminist Looks Like” Cocktail Bash (Hint: Feminists are hott)

*Attended an Autism Awareness Fundraiser organized by my friend Kim Spencer, a true balabusta, even if it was a Boston Butt sale

*Rollerbladed for the first time since my hip surgery last spring (and only fell on my tushy once!)

*Taught the kindergarten version of the Noah’s Ark tale at Shalom School, complete with prism rainbows spinning around the room and a thunderous chorus of “Rise N’ Shine” (sorry for disturbing your lesson on mitzvot, first graders!)

*Washed, folded and put away four loads of laundry, cleaned two ceiling fans and vacuumed seven hundred pounds of dog hair

*Read a pile of books aloud, kissed the snake, walked the dog four times and snuggled with the kids an extra ten minutes each in their beds.

I was feeling pretty accomplished until I met Bizu Riki Mullu today at the Savannah Federation Ladies’ Luncheon (which I accidently dressed down for because it’s Veteran’s Day and the kids had no school – a huge mistake, since everyone else was fapizted to the nines. I felt like such a putz – even worse than I did last week at El Yenta Man’s 20 Year high school reunion when the situation was reversed: I was all frontin’ in my Diane Von Furstenburg dress and all the other women were lounging in their Sevens. Why does no one ever tell me these things? Do you enjoy my fashion faux pas?)

Anyhoo, Bizu is a phenomenal jewelry designer and Ethiopian Jew who made aliyah to Israel as part of Operation Moses in 1984. She was part of a group of 24 children on the last plane out of Sudan and didn’t see her family again for 10 years. Gorgeous, articulate and warm, Bizu also works for the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem helping Ethiopian Jews assimilate to Israeli life after Operation Solomon brought over 14,400 more “home” in 1991 and recently started Chassida Shmella of North America “which seeks to help Ethiopian Jews assimilate into the greater Jewish community in America and keep their connection to Israel.”

The story of the Ethiopian Jews is so amazing – their faith, their dedication to ritual makes me realize how much we take for granted as American Jews. For instance, during her talk today Bizu described how life in a Jewish Ethiopian village meant making everything from scratch, by hand. Shabbat preparations started on Wednesdays. A entire month before Passover was spent making new dishes for the holiday because of the tradition of breaking them afterwards – can you imagine sitting at a pottery wheel whipping up table settings for the family after cleaning out the chametz? Not only that, but there was no ordering boxes of Streit’s – Ethiopian Jewish mothers made their matzah just like the ancestors did, and since leaving it out made it stale and reverted it back to chametz (I don’t understand why this is, but I believe her) they had to make new matzah for every single meal for eight days. Now that’s the definition of balabusta, yo. I am humbled – my weekend was a freakin’ vacation compared to that.

Bizu says that many Ethiopian Jews (also known as the Falash Mura, and later as Beta Israel) have jettisoned their strict traditions since living in Israel, where there are grocery stores and nightclubs and perfectly fresh matzah available on every street corner, and now the work remains to help the second generation remember their unique origins. It was wonderful to hear her speak, and thank you to Toby Hollenberg for inviting me to this event – and oy, sorry about the jeans!

First off, good morning! WE WON. And by “we,” I mean our entire country – may Obama’s ideals translate to a saner, more prosperous and kinder world for all of us.

And better news: Our new Prez, being the kind of fellow who taps the best and brightest to help fulfill his vision, is looking at supersmart Jew Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff! More of Obama’s Cabinet speculations here. (Me, I’m filling my cabinet with healthy snacks ’cause the Yenta children are still schizzed out on Halloween candy.)

But a progressive, dove-ish, brown-skinned president isn’t the irony of which I speak, ’cause it’s not really all that ironic at all (any slackers remember that line in “Reality Bites” when Winona Ryder totally chokes on the definition of “irony”?) No, ironic is the name of your favorite Yenta appearing on a marquee for a Catholic Church, dontcha think?

Now, why would the lovely Sarah Fleetwood risk excommunication by inviting me to speak at the Cabrini Mother’s Group last week? I don’t know, but I hope they’ll still let her back in. I talked feminism, Judaism and rock n’ roll, and bless their hearts, that super nice group of women didn’t even throw crucifixes at me when I performed my Kitchen Sink poem.

Thank you to Sarah and the moms – it was a blast – I even got to shake hands with a real, live nun! I’ve also enjoyed the confused phone calls and emails from my local readers who almost drove off the road when they saw the sign.

I have to say, I’ve always liked the Catholics best (don’t be mad, Dana, you’re still my favorite Methodist) – I’ve always had something of an obsession with the Virgin the Guadalupe statues, and besides, they believe all dogs go to heaven: Check it out.

Okay, I voted, it wasn’t nearly as psychotic as everyone said, I got my sticker, whew. It’s all over but the counting, folks. Which could take days.

I would like to state right here and now that no matter how many times the urge overtook me to the point of hyperventilation these past four months while walking my dog, I did not kick over ONE SINGLE McCain-Palin yard sign.

But I do have one of these on my minivan.

JTA has a piece up today called “Halloween or Shabbat: A Tricky Choice This Year,” addressing the balance between a kinda pagan, sorta Christian, definitely heretic holiday with the one day of the week God asks for a little love.

The author offers suggestions like trick-or-treating in the pre-Shabbos daylight then knocking off the sugar-schnorring to light candles and definitely advocates buying up half-price treats to use for Purim. But he makes the point that we can’t throw tradition out just ’cause it’s a secular holiday (albeit the most superfun of ’em all): “If assimilation is the real bogeyman, we need to find a way to creatively hold him at bay.”

I agree, but why’s it gotta be either/or? In the tradition of Chrismukkah, I offer to my mishpocha Shabbatoween: Tonight we will light candles, eat matzah ball soup and only trick-or-treat within walking distance.

And I’ll hand out candy dressed as a dybbuk in purple devil horns. Boo Shabbos!

That was the subject line in an email from my normally refined mother. This is a woman who once grounded me for two weeks for using the F-word, so the use of foul language meant that the matter either dealt with the price of health insurance, clubbing baby seals or Sarah Palin.

You know it was the latter.

Apparently there’s a rumor circulating that Miss Super Christian Of All Time is Jewish, which made me regurgitate my bagel and lox when I heard it. This piece of nauseation is based on the “information” that Palin’s mother, Sandy Sheeran, is descended from Schmuel Sheigam, a Lithuanian Jew whose surname was changed at Ellis Island.

A likely story, right? I mean, it happened to many of our grandfolks, nu? It’s not too hard a stretch if you’re trying to go that way – the blog Meet the Real Sarah Palin published a rather dubious-looking family tree based that is now being used on WikiAnswers as the “YES” version to SP’s J Question. User-generated encyclopedia, whoo-hoo.

But before you go vomiting all over your keyboard, please note that the “NO” version is actually based on serious genealogy and ya know, FACTS. Ron Kampeas of JTA has posted a comprehensive link that proves SP is nowhere near Jewish, no matter how many Israeli flags she flies in her office. However, it shouldn’t surprise you that there may be some married cousins up in there.

So, Mama, you can rest easy that this is a complete crock of shit. And I mean that with the utmost respect, so please don’t make me stay home from prom.

Y’all know I’ll never win Jewish Mother of the Year, but we must be doing something right around here:

Yenta Boy, who in spite of spending a lot of time at St. Paul’s Church since his induction into the Savannah Children’s Choir has been begging for a Star of David to wear to school. (The choir does perform several songs in Hebrew, which IMHO balances out the fact that my kid now hangs out with Jesus on Monday afternoons.)

“There are like A HUNDRED kids who wear crosses in my class” (there are only 20 kids in the class, mind you) “and I just want everyone to know I’m Jewish.”

How awesome is it that a Jewish kid going to public school in the deep South wants to shout out his yid-dom?

I told him he’d have to wait until Chanukah, but last Sunday at the Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival (where El Yenta Man slaved over a vat of grease for six hours to satiate Savannah’s tremendous appetite for latkes) we found treasures at my favorite booth. Every year, the Mickve Israel Sisterhood donates all its old, tacky, unwanted jewelry and sells it on the cheap as a fundraiser – and you know NO ONE has crazy bling like old Jewish ladies, am I right?

For six bucks, I scored a three-strand, heavy gold chain locket that may have been owned by Mr. T’s grandmother, a ring designed to look like Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture but large and sharp enough to double as brass knuckles should I need to defend myself, and a silver Jewish star necklace the size of a child’s fist. Needless to say, you-know-who practically spilled his egg cream all over himself with joy.

So the boy is now out REPRESENTIN’ his peeps with the biggest, baddest piece of religious jewelry in the entire freakin’ school. He’s like a small, white, Jewish Flavor Flav, yo. Thanks to the yentas of the Sisterhood for kickin’ down!

Only problem now is that I have to come up with another Chanukah present. I really think he’ll dig this rhinestone-encrusted Israeli flag belt buckle, don’t you?

Finally, a working Jewish mother can rest: All those freakin’ holidaze are over, another issue of skirt! is in bed, and Obama’s making gains.

As we end another week in this endless circuit around the sun, I am pondering two things: Is it kosher to just have wine for dinner? And, would this fashion-forward menorah will upstage my precious new boots?

Let me know on either. Or Both.

Thanks to all who commented (online and in person) on El Yenta Man’s Aliyah post. To my happy dismay, I was called to the Torah myself this week along with the other women present this week at Agudath Achim’s Simchah Torah celebrations. Which I found ironic until it occured to me that maybe that’s just what happens when you actually attend synagogue regularly.

Oh, and if you’re close enough to these parts, I hope to see you noshing at the Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival Sunday in Forsyth Park. Stop by the latke booth and say hello to El Yenta Man – he’s the one with the big spatula ;).

Tonight begins Simchat Torah, the holiday where we take the Torah out for a spin and do the jitterbug with it (or dork out with disco moves or even thrown down a little krump action if that’s your scene), and Chabad distills its true spirit in these tense times.

*sigh* If only the election could just come down to a dance-off.

Speaking of which, thanks to Hannah Banana for sending this: