Sukkot (reminder to self)

[cellio]

I realized today what I need for my sukkah for next year: cable ties.

Not for the sukkah itself, but for the lights. I use strings of lights of the "plug one into the end of another" variety, to make a long chain of them, but they all lead with a fairly long expanse of cord without lights. That makes sense for the first set of lights in a series, if they're assuming these would be plugged into a wall somewhere (instead of my outdoor-rated heavy-duty extension cord run from the garage), but the result is expanses of non-light or wrapping up that extra cord length somehow. I wrapped up the extra cord length in a suboptimal manner, and then remembered that a solution exists.

Onto the shopping list, then.

Sukkot starts pretty soon here, so chag sameach to all who are celebrating.

Comments

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

Odd that all of them have the non-lit section. We use 2 light cords for my parents' sukkah* and the non-light parts of each are physically connected to the plugs, so we remove that part of the second cord when we connect it to the first. We also use cable ties for the cords, to hang them. Our current pattern is along the ground from the house to the corner of the sukkah (useful for night-time seeing where the cement ends and grass begins), up to the roof, back and forth lengthwise (hanging from the 2 beams which hold the s'chach) and then down to the waist-level horizontal poles and around as far as the rest of the cord lasts, so we have general lighting from the roof level and additional lighting at reading level for sitting people part of the way around.


*They live a few blocks away and have a space for a sukkah while we don't, so they provide the space (and storage) and we do setup/take down.

[cellio]

Oh, cable ties to hang them would be useful, too. I currently use string. I run the cord from the garage to the top of the entrance, then run the strand around the wall (at the top) and then diagonally across. This year I concluded that I don't need all that light at the walls and I'd do better to zig-zag across (could do four times with my current lights), to get more of the light over the table in the center. Either way, all my attachment points would be at the frame (not from the bamboo rafters), so that's easy. (I have the metal-frame type, not the wood-frame type.)

[devreux.livejournal.com]

You could probably also use twist-ties in place of both cable ties to bundle the non-lit sections and string to fasten the light strand to the frame. :-) I always have a small stash of twist ties from grocery items, and I use them during the winter holiday season to secure long runs of extension cords associated with festive outdoor lighting.

[cellio]

I used to use twist-ties, but then trash bags stopped coming with them. I hadn't thought to save the ones that come from grocery stores for reuse. (For most of my produce I just tie a slip knot in the bag, but some stuff like bread comes in bags with twist-ties.) Thanks for the suggestion.