Apple Picking and Rosh Hashana Prep

I am back from Rochester, where I've been since Thursday evening. I had a wonderful weekend at home, and was glad I was able to be with my family for Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are the most important Jewish holidays, known as the High Holidays, or even the High Holy Holidays (I don't know if anyone other than me calls them that--Jewish readers?). This is going to be a wicked long post, so I suggest a hot beverage while you read.

Thursday, September 17: Dulles Airport is located really close to my office, so getting to the airport was a snap. Getting from the Economy parking lot to the gate was not. I made my flight, thankfully, and was picked up at the other end by Dad. My parents and I went out for Thai food at our favorite restaurant. When I got in the backseat of Mom's car, this was sitting beside me:
In case you can't tell, it's the Torah blessings--the prayers recited before and after the reading of the Torah. My temple keeps a copy of them on the podium so anyone with an Aliyah (being called to the Torah to say these blessings) won't choke and forget the words. And they were in my mother's car, along with the Shabbat and Yom Tov candles. Temple Sinai holds its high holiday services at the JCC, and my mother is in charge of the move. That means she directs a team who counts chairs, stacks prayer books, and makes sure the Torahs are in the arks. You see now that I come by my propensity for being in charge honestly.

Friday, September 18: Mom and I started the day with a trip to the JCC to ensure that everything was in place. I got to carry a Torah in from someone's car. I chaneled Sbolts, leaning my cheek on the cover, savoring its history and trying to radiate my respect. After I handed it to a volunteer to place it in the ark, we discovered that I had been carrying it upsidedown. So much for that.

I spent a little bit poking around the JCC, where I spent much of my early youth. I took every manner of class at the J, from ballet to pottery, and went to nursery school and camp there. This staircase struck me as an emblem of my childhood there. I think that groups of children did not go down these stairs; there was another set that they led us down. But when my mom came to pick me up we used these stairs. I remember eating lunch at some chairs at the bottom of these stairs; tuna fish sandwiches out a rigid lunchbox shaped like Mickey Mouse's head. And playing on the stairs while mothers chatted. Like many things from youth, they don't look like much now.
We then headed to one of my dearest places in Rochester: The Apple Farm. My family has been going apple picking there for almost 20 years. We have taken visitors from all of the world to The Apple Farm for picking, fresh cider, and homemade cinnamon cider donuts.
On weekends this lawn is full of families. I used to roll down that slope, parents yelling when we got too close to the road. This place symbolizes fall to me. Mom and I headed into the orchard to pick some Macintoshes. They aren't nearly as red as the apples pictured, but these not-yet-ripe Red Delicious made a better photo.
The view from the orchard always takes our breath away. It is just an elevated view of the surrounding farmland, but there is just something about it that feels vast and free. I have always felt this way, and just learned that my mom does too (and so does the son of the owner of the farm). Mom was a little chilly here.
The family rule of apple picking is as follows: one must eat an apple upon arrival in the orchard. I am about to bite into my first apple. New York apples taste the best, in my opinion, and there is nothing like a piece of fruit that was attached to a plant a moment before.

The cider donut was as good as ever, and we left with a bag of Cortlands as well as Macs. Cortlands are crisper than Macs and really white on the inside. They are my favorite kinds, in addition to Empires, which come out later in the season. A mutual love of apples was something that connected Sarah and me early my senior year. I enjoy living further south sometimes, but fall makes me remember that I am an upstate New York girl at heart.