communication error
Sep. 10th, 2002 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioArgh. That was close.
Our garage came with an ameteurish "wood-burning stove" that we have never used. It was, essentially, a 55-gallon drum with a chimney and a barrel of wood scraps. The previous owner of the house used the garage as a workshop. We use it to store cars.
A couple months ago our garderner asked if we would be willing to sell it to him and we told him to just take it (so long as he didn't leave a hole in the wall). We also told him he could have the wood pile. When Dani and I talked it was about taking the barrel and the box of wood scraps, but apparently, either Dani said or the gardener mis-heard "clear out everything". The stove etc disappeared during Pennsic, I think, and I didn't pay much attention.
This morning something in the back of my head told me to make sure all the parts of my sukkah are in good shape. (Sukkot begins a week from Friday night.)
You see where this is going, right?
Fortunately, the gardener still has the expensive roof part, which -- as a roll of laced-together bamboo really ought to have set off the "this might be important" alarm, but didn't -- and he will return it tomorrow. The other important piece is gone, though, so I will have to fabricate a new corner post. Fortunately, it isn't expensive in dollars, just time. (Three corners are anchored to existing architecture; the fourth is a free-standing post with braces and stuff.) Just what I needed, a project to be done in the next week.... I'm pretty inept at carpentry, too. Someone competent could probably make this part in 10 minutes; when I did it before I think it took a couple hours.
Our garage came with an ameteurish "wood-burning stove" that we have never used. It was, essentially, a 55-gallon drum with a chimney and a barrel of wood scraps. The previous owner of the house used the garage as a workshop. We use it to store cars.
A couple months ago our garderner asked if we would be willing to sell it to him and we told him to just take it (so long as he didn't leave a hole in the wall). We also told him he could have the wood pile. When Dani and I talked it was about taking the barrel and the box of wood scraps, but apparently, either Dani said or the gardener mis-heard "clear out everything". The stove etc disappeared during Pennsic, I think, and I didn't pay much attention.
This morning something in the back of my head told me to make sure all the parts of my sukkah are in good shape. (Sukkot begins a week from Friday night.)
You see where this is going, right?
Fortunately, the gardener still has the expensive roof part, which -- as a roll of laced-together bamboo really ought to have set off the "this might be important" alarm, but didn't -- and he will return it tomorrow. The other important piece is gone, though, so I will have to fabricate a new corner post. Fortunately, it isn't expensive in dollars, just time. (Three corners are anchored to existing architecture; the fourth is a free-standing post with braces and stuff.) Just what I needed, a project to be done in the next week.... I'm pretty inept at carpentry, too. Someone competent could probably make this part in 10 minutes; when I did it before I think it took a couple hours.
Sukkah...
Date: 2002-09-10 05:23 pm (UTC)It's supposed to be a temporary structure, but (as far as I know), there's no requirement that it be created by a Jew. There are interesting aspects to one, though -- for example, a certain amount (I'm not sure at the moment how much) can't be permenant. (Although you can have some permenant parts.) And the roof has to be open to the sky -- imagine loose thatching which you can see through. I've seen 'em with canvas walls (imagine a tent with loose bamboo sheets as a roof); a friend of mine (Reb. Al) has the nicest Sukkah I've seen in Spanish Harlem, complete with a window. I'm going to help him with construction sometime this week, actually...
The Rabbis discussed the minimum sizes of these structures quite a bit, which leads to some interesting geometry discussions (if you must have a minimum square table of x units long, then what's the minimum round Sukkah that would be OK?) There are even some math errors, I seem to recall... I'm pretty sure that they approximate pi as 3, for one thing...