P minus one week, 3 days

Next Saturday night Passover starts. Am I ready? Is that even a question?

Of course I'm not ready! I've worked on no menus, written no shopping lists, barely started cleaning my office (which is the Pesach kitchen). Thank G-d some people are beginning to realize that dust is not chametz, and that spring cleaning can wait until Shavuot-time. A lot of the load is off because my parents, instead of flying in for the holiday, are going to a hotel in Miami.

I understand why they're doing this--they are getting too old and infirm for a 17 hour flight. But I'm glad we never did this when I was younger; I used to love Pesach prep. I was the only one small enough to get into that really long corner cabinet under the stovetop, and I got to drag out all sorts of treasures we never saw during the year (don't ask why they were kept, since we never did anything with them but pack them up for Pesach and unpack them afterwards) and I had the job of getting into the empty boxes and stomping down the wrapping paper. My kids miss out on some of the lessons of Pesach since we don't pack up the kitchen, just tape it closed and move to the other kitchen, but we do still pack up the dining room cabinets. (These thoughts were prompted by Bat-Sheva Marcus's column on "going away for Pesach".)

On the other hand, we do have our plans for Pesach pretty well in hand. We'll do two sections of the Israel trail, one in the center of the country and one up north. We'll go to family for the last days. G-d willing and my son passes his road test today, we'll let him do a lot of supervised driving.

I love Pesach. It's just the matza I hate.