A little housekeeping, before we start.

After last week’s outpouring, I found, on the pages of last Friday’s Jerusalem Post, a proposal for a possible ‘day after’ scenario that was not as bleak as my conclusion. Amotz Asa-El is a political commentator with an enviable grasp of the sweep of history and his is the first column I read every week in Friday’s paper. Well, not exactly: the chess problem is the first column I read, but his is the first serious column I read. While you may find his suggestion a little Polyannaish, it makes thought-provoking reading. You can find it here.

Incidentally, reading last week’s chess problem, I discovered that Humphrey Bogart was a keen and talented amateur chess-player, who was a regular opponent, in friendly games, of the world blindfold champion George Koltanowski. Lauren Bacall was, I believe, not a chess player, which explains why she said to him: ‘You know how to castle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.’

And now that we’ve got that out of the way, I should explain that this is one of those weeks when I’m not going to be writing a post. I just haven’t had the time. It is now gone 9PM on Monday evening, and I still have not a single idea about what to write.

The problem is that, in the last week, I haven’t had a moment to stop and think. Much like the moon blocking the sun and ploughing a swathe of still, silent blackness across North America, various major bodies in my universe have conspired to align themselves this last week, leaving me scarcely time to load the dishwasher.

First, there is the constant proliferation of medical appointments and tests. My medical year ebbs and flows like the sea’s day, although, in my case, the prime influencer is not the moon’s gravitational pull but, rather, our trips to Portugal. Scheduling of routine medical checkups is regularly deferred to the month after we return from Portugal, so these last few weeks have been very busy, from my teeth to my feet.

My latest appointment was to remove accumulated earwax. This is something I used to schedule whenever I woke up one morning to discover that overnight I had lost all hearing in one or the other ear. A couple of years ago, it occurred to me that if I scheduled to see my little Russian ENT man every six months, I need never wake up deaf again. Fortunately, he does a monthly afternoon gig in Maale Adumim, where I strongly suspect I am his only patient. This means that I can always get an appointment, and, since suctioning wax from the ears if it has not had a good 18 months to build up is a 15-second job per ear, I can, as I did today, leave home at 2:20 and be back home at 2:32, good to go for another 6 months. It gives me a sense of what a Formula One racing car must feel like after a smooth pitstop.

The doctor pointed out after he had waved his magic wand how propitious my timing was. I have taken Pesach cleaning to a new level; even my ear canals are chometz-free.

Which reminds me that, of course, Pesach cleaning is something else that really has to be treated as a priority. Every year, we become more and more efficient in our cleaning. A couple of years ago, I started tackling just one drawer unit a day in the kitchen. This year, I suspect that if I want to follow that plan I need to have started several days before I did, but we know we will get to the finish line.

Then there’s the shul magazine, the editing of which is one of the tasks that gives me a great deal of pleasure and also involves considerable levels of stress which, I read, are what is needed to stave off Alzheimer’s. Crossword and Sudoku don’t cut it, apparently; there needs to be something at stake that gives the challenge an edge.

The gathering, editing and translating of the articles all goes fairly smoothly, although there is always a period when I fear only three people are going to submit articles and then, in the space of two days, twelve people who didn’t mention anything to me send in articles. We are timing this edition to come out for Yom Ha’atzma’ut. Given the looming presence of Pesach, I pushed all the deadlines earlier, and we are in very good shape, with all but one of the articles already received, edited and translated.

Starting with the last edition, we lost the services of our very talented graphic artist, unfortunately, and were unable to find a replacement. I therefore took on that function as well. I freely admit that I have shamelessly copied the existing graphic style of the magazine. Fortunately, my skills as a forger/imitator are fairly well honed. I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of laying out the magazine, but it is very time-consuming. So, this last week has seen some long days and late nights.

Lastly, our cupboards, as always before Pesach, contain some items that are chametz gamur, which we cannot sell for the duration of Pesach but must get rid of. So, last night, I made rye bread, rye and spelt crackers, and granola. Whenever I attempt these multiple bakes, I draw up a timetable, which ensures, on paper, that the oven becomes free of Recipe A just as I need it for Recipe B, and that the prepping of Recipe C will neatly fill the baking time of Recipe B. These schedules give me immense satisfaction; on paper, their cogs and springs mesh together as in a mid-20th Century Swiss watch. On paper! Sadly, in the real world, nothing ever seems to work out. B needs to go into the oven when A still has 15 minutes in a much hotter oven. I am only halfway through the prep of C when B needs to be taken out of the oven.

Last night, uncharacteristically and magically, everything aligned in real life just as it had on paper, and I was done, washed up, floor swept wiped over, everything cooled, wrapped, and packed away, in record time. Unfortunately, I still had no idea what I was going to write about, and I was ready only for the intellectual stimulation of The Times Quick Cryptic crossword and bed.

All of which explains why (and not for the first time, as you probably don’t need me to remind you), I have nothing to write about this week. I’d like to promise that next week will be better. However, Pesach will, by then, be casting its shadow over the doorstep. The printer will be asking when the magazine is going to be ready. At least I can be confident that my earwax won’t have built up yet, so that’s 12 minutes saved!