Weddings! Bar mitvahs! Chopped liver!

‘Tis a season of most joy in Yentaland these days as we recover from yesterday’s Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival and prepare for my Brother the Doctor’s wedding this week, along with the continued and possibly never-ending planning of Yenta Boy’s impending ritual of manhood.

Yes, simchas are all about GOOD TIMES. But as most grown-ups know, fun TAKES WORK, which no one ever tells you when you’re a free and easy single. Or maybe someone did, but you weren’t listening because you were too busy smoking weed in the back alley and snarfing all the free canapes. So let me tell you: Every party or event you ever enjoy was made possible by a committee of tired and delirious people who excreted blood, sweat and tears into it. Literally. Especially when it comes to the latkes you ate at the Jewish Food Festival, so let’s pass out the Tums all around.

As for the Food Fest, I did my part in advance by pumping up the event at the day job (read about the epic baking efforts of Savannah’s Challah Back Girls here) but it was El Yenta Man who dragged his tushie out of bed at dawn Sunday morning to load all the trucks. And what a turnout! Thousands of strudel-lovin’, egg cream-downing, lox-licking goyim packed Forsyth Park, reinforcing the well-known axiom that Jews don’t need to proselytize when we’ve got blintzes.

Then there’s Bro da Doc’s wedding taking place this weekend, and though he and his betrothed planned the entire shebang themselves, there’s is the issue of packing fancy clothes for the entire family as well as selecting a wedding gift for people far more fashionable than you. Thank the Lord for Modern Tribe.com, where I found a classy seder plate and Jonathan Adler bird bowls for next Passover, when we will descend upon their clean and childless home and probably break them. (Yes, they already opened them so I’m not spoiling the surprise, AS IF they have time to read this blog a week before their entire families arrive for their wedding.)

I think they’re pretty nice, considering my brother makes it a practice to buy the most obnoxious Chanukah gifts he can find for his niece and nephew and I could’ve paid him and his bride back by sending them this.

Then there’s the monkey on my back, the albatross around my neck, the gremlin that wakes me up at 4am to whisper “You haven’t found a caterer yet. Did you invite ALL the second cousins? Band or DJ? What about a tallis? Should you pay extra for the fancy chairs?”

I’m telling you, the bar mitzvah planning IS GETTING TO ME. It’s a lot of details I’ve never considered before and I’m very grateful event planner Mindy Nash has stepped in to save me from becoming a Jehovah’s Witness just to avoid this mishegoss. I think I’ve finally addressed all the invitations, even though deciding to forego the lined envelopes sent me into an tailspin.

There’s a lot of work still to be done, but I’mma gonna do my best to keep my bodily excretions out of it.