ghost of purim present

Purim has come and gone, and it was not pleasant. It seems that Israelis, who grew up with the traditions of the holiday, are quite blase about the whole thing. For me, it was an opportunity to break out of routine and be silly. For all but two others in the whole company, it was worse than business-as-usual: they wanted to bust out, but they were at work, so they were just bummed out instead. On the Tuesday of Purim, I put my hair into a bunch of kooky little ponytails of various colors, which made people smile and say "kol hakavod" [good for you!] to me all day long, which in this situation means, "It's nice that somebody is making the effort to show some Purim spirit because I sure as hell don't have the energy."

On Wednesday, we were having a Purim activity during work hours, but off-site -- instead of the company's usual evening Purim party. We were informed of this a couple of weeks ago, and I just knew it would be hell: An afternoon activity (2:30-5) that I would have to drive to, meaning no alcohol and probably no food either, since it was right after lunch. What the hell would we be doing? Games of some kind, no doubt. It was actually worse than I expected, with the games being competitions between work groups (and my boss and I were the only present members of that tiny group), children's entertainers dressed up in clown costumes desperately trying to build enthusiasm, and ear-deafening music being played by a DJ ... but no dancing. Aargh.