How I decide to work on Rosh Hashannah

How I decide to work on Rosh Hashannah We drove to Iowa City yesterday, to have Rosh Hashanah with my family. I took the kids out of school and told their teachers its the Jewish New Year so the kids will miss school. I said it in front of the kids so I can teach them that we take off a day for the Jewish high holidays. The truth is, though, is that today is the day. Last night was the first night and today is the first day. But I cant take them out of school today because, well, first of all, what would we do? There are no other Jews where we live and we can last only so long on apples and honey before we get sick. So I sent the kids to school. And, anyway, I have a meeting. I told Ed, the CEO, that I cant go to the meeting because its on Rosh Hashanah. He said fine, because this is why hes a great CEO. He knows when to push and when not to. But then, it turns out, that the company is opening an office in Washington, DC. This is not a huge surprise to me. Ed is in Washington, DC in some sort of huge estate which I havent seen, but I have heard talk of an uppercase and lowercase balcony, which makes me think hes not moving to Madison in this lifetime. So were in the next phase of the company and its scary and exciting and Im already doing so many new things that the idea of opening a new office in DC, and having a meeting about it, and me not showing up because of Rosh Hashanah is all too much for me to think about. Also, I have to always make sure that Ed likes me because I think I am hard to like. Maybe not in little blog post snippets, but in long meetings I am hard to like, and Ed still likes me, I think. Because every time I write a desperate paragraph like this about my need to be liked Ed sends me an email saying he likes me. Which normal people would not need to receive, but I need to receive and Ed knows that which is why, as I said, hes a great CEO. So its Rosh Hashanah and I am driving to a meeting in Milwaukee with Ryan Paugh for the meeting. And Im over the bad-Jew part of things because I figure that now that I live on a farm I have to feed the animals, so I fed the chicks, too. Heres a cool thing about the chicks: we got them via US Mail. The hatchery we bought from, Murray McMurry, hatches them on Monday. And in a normal hatching situation, chicks dont hatch at once, and the mom doesnt get up until they all hatch. So chicks can sit under their mom for up to two days while their siblings hatch. Which means the hatchery can put new chicks in a box they arrive two days later in good health. Taking care of our chicks doesnt count as work, right? I dont know. Som e good Jew will comment about this nuance in Jewish law. But I think feeding the chicks is like feeding my kids. Rosh Hashanah is not a time to starve. (Thats Yom Kippur.) Speaking of Jewish, the plumber who installed my trying-to-be-steampunk kitchen sink had a last name of Goebbels. And I said, What?!!? What??? And guess what? He had never even heard of Joseph Goebbels. I didnt realize that anyone had not heard of him, and at first I thought, Darlington people are so sheltered. And then I thought, Wait. No. I am so sheltered because I didnt know people like this exist. So of course, I think no one will think sinister thoughts about me hiring a babysitter so I could go to Milwaukee to work on Rosh Hashanah. I am nervous that everything is out of kilter today. Its scary that Im actually living on a farm. And its scary that my company is moving away from me. Yes, its good that my company is opening an office in DC because the company is getting bigger and more ambitious, which is what I want for the company. But I know that I am not good at leading a company doing such things. And come to think of it, I know myself pretty well. I know that I dont like working on Rosh Hashanah, but I do my part for the meeting and I take care of the chicks and today is an exception I feel okay about. I am starting to think that I am not as lost as I thought.