HAPPY SHAVOUS, the joyous festival that commemorates God’s giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses.
(Yes, it is fashionable to use the Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation shah-voo-awt but I identify as Ashkenazy so shuh-voo-uhs it is.
Shavuos holds a special meaning for me. After seeing the 1970 film “The Boys in the Band” Shavuos became a euphemism for NEVER! When the party was over Donald said, “Good night Harold, see you again sometime,” to which Harold cynically replied, “Yeah, how about a year from Shavous?” You did not have to be Dick Tracy to understand that Harold had no desire to see Donald again.
From then on for me and eventually, by association for Linda too, Shavuos was a time never to come since nobody knows when it occurs. “Should we invite the Trumps over for dinner?” “Yeah, how about a year from Shavuos?”
The problem is that now I know when it is, in one year I will have to see about 150 people I have put off until a year from today. How do I get myself into these things?