So this weekend I was back in London for brief celebratory visit. It was time for my little cousin Andrew to have his barmitzvah and become a man. Our tale begins on Thursday morning at 6am as my father came bounding into my room to wake me up. We were off to synagogue... hurrah. Bear in mind I haven't been there for 2 years, I'm a bad Jew. You see on Thursday morning Andrew had his first call up and read from the torah for the first time, thus making him a man. After he had sung so beautifully my Uncle Michael asked me to help dress the Torah. To be more precise, I had to lift it. This is no easy task, that thing weighs a ton. I joked around and said 'what's the worst that can happen!?' Well the worst that can happen is I drop it and everyone who sees would have to fast for 7 weeks. The pressure was on. I walked onto the bimah and shakily hoisted the torah skywards. Wobbled a bit and then sat down. Phew. I turned to look at the Ladies Gallery where my Mum was sitting. I called out to her 'Are you proud Mum!?' She wasn't.
Thursday morning was amazing and I achieved something I have never achieved before. I ate 3 breakfasts. Yes.... 3. Before Setting off to listen to Andrew I wolfed down a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in order to give me the desired energy for that time of morning. After Synagogue there was a brief but sugary selection of treats in the lobby. I made my excuses and managed to eat 4 to 5 of those. Fantastic, it wasn't even 8am and I had managed to eat two breakfasts. Then, like music to my ears I heard we were going back to Aunty Shelly and Uncle Michael's for breakfast as everyone was hungry. Now I wasn't hungry but two breakfasts wasn't going to be enough. A plethora of bagels and smoked salmon back at 17 Pine Grove meant that by 9:30 I had achieved the seemingly impossible, I had eaten breakfast 3 times.
The Friday night dinner at our house was a lovely affair. All the family together (that's nearly 50 people btw.... we're a big family), speeches made, jokes cracked, but more importantly... Duck Rolls eaten. Quite simply the Duck Rolls being handed out at my house on Friday Night were the greatest thing I have ever put in my mouth. Vegetarians can go fuck themselves, this stuff was golden. I must have eaten a good 10 of them. In fact they were so good I had them the next day for dinner cold.
The Saturday was fantastic. I'm not going to go into the details of Andrew's performance, but put it this way, I was bloody proud. That kid made me shed a tear! After his barmitzvah we decamped back to the Gilbert's for Shabbat Lunch.
As I walked in I almost got an erection. A waitress wandered up to me, stuck a platter in my face and said 'Duck Roll?' That was the second time I cried tears of happiness that day.
It was then onto the Sunday. Party time. Despite the histrionics of my to sisters with regards to being ready in time we were at the venue with minutes to spare. Photos done and it was time to begin the party.
I won't do the party justice by describing it here for you. Instead I will focus on one facet of the party... the Vodka. And by the Vodka I mean the means by which it was distributed. After all the speeches were said and done we headed to the dance floor where we were met by a vision. Three girls dressed in outfits the Rabbi would not have approved of, despite it being his birthday, with Vodka bottles strapped to their waists. It was on. Immediately I sought out Andrew Myers and Broando, they were two steps ahead of me, they each held an empty shot glass in their hand and had already decided their favorite Vodka giver. It was at this point I reminded them they were married with kids. After a few more shots we had built up a rapport with the girls, one of them was a model who had done a few glamor shoots. We nodded inquisitively as she told us this, as though she was a learned professor at a Museum telling us about how the Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. Actually if professors looked like that I would have done much better at University. We had a mission, find out her name. With all the stealth of James Bond (drunkenly asking her what her name was) I unlocked the secret and two words came rolling out of that oerfectly formed mouth of hers..... Sammi Pennington. Like a flash I was off to report my findings to Andrew and Broando. Three minutes later they came bounding up to me like a couple of twelve year old boys who had found pornography... except they were men in their thirties who had discovered pornography. A quick google on Andrew's phone had revealed the gold mine, Sammi Pennington's nude photo shoot. As the party wrapped up with everyone singing 'We Are The Champions' a little part of me felt like a Champion.
In reality though there was only one boy we were singing to. Andrew Benjamin Gilbert, that was a great weekend!
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