Sukkah Time, Almost

Today was a perfect day to erect the frame of our sukkah, the temporary hut-like structure that is central to the holiday of Sukkot. Technically, you’re supposed to wait until after Yom Kippur this Saturday, but I’ve never been a technically religious person. I’m more into the tradition and ethos of a holiday than the strict precepts that have evolved over the centuries.

So, the speed-rail frame went up, with hardly a miscue. I’ll wait until after Yom Kippur to drape the sides, drop on the lattice roof and decorate the inside with hanging plastic fruit, garlands of colored leaves and some white Christmas lights that give it a real holiday feeling.

For those who want to know more about sukkah building, here’s a link to an older blog: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/09/sukkadah-time.html


Handy Man. Not: My sukkah-building prowess notwithstanding, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a handy-man around the house. Oh, I manage to fix some things, but more often than not I am construction-challenged.

Gilda’s favorite story about my do-it-yourself skill set harks back to our first house, a Tudor-style three bedroom home built in 1932 that we bought 33 years ago. It had a large master bedroom with a walk-in shower in the master bathroom. The showerhead was one of those large round fixtures mounted in the middle of the ceiling tile, the kind that provides a soft rain spray. I prefer a more invigorating shower so I got my tools out to replace the showerhead with a WaterPik Shower Massage, back then the gold standard when it came to powerful replacement alternatives.

Try as I might with my wrench, I could not get the showerhead to budge. After 30 minutes I confessed my inability to Gilda. She calmly walked into the shower, climbed the ladder and turned the showerhead until it came off. Voila!

Had we not moved from that house several years later I would still be suffering daily embarrassment as water cascaded down over me. Not that Gilda lets me forget about this misadventure. It’s just that she’s kind enough not to bring it up except when I’m lauding my DIY skills to those who don’t know any better.

That first house produced some great memories, including the time I flooded out the basement bathroom trying to replace a valve in the tank. I wrote about it more than a year ago, so if you’re interested in reading more about my ineptitude, here’s the link: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/06/water-water-everywhere.html