Procrastinating on Purim

The lab is silent except for the whirring of the glove box pumps and whoosh of the fume hoods. Today is Purim, and most of my lab mates are taking advantage of the mid week holiday to chill out with their kids and/or nurse a hangover.

Purim is the only holiday where Jews and expected to dress up (like Hallowe’en) and get drunk. All week we have been seeing kids dressed up like cowboys and jedis going to Purim parties. If you want to know the religious meaning of the holiday, check out the book of Ester. Basically it is a celebration of avoiding a much earlier biblical Holocaust.

This is the funny thing, in most of Israel, Purim was yesterday but for some strange reason, in walled cities like Jerusalem the holiday lies a day later. So yesterday there were lots of silly hats walking around campus and the odd princess or shepherd costume even though the holiday is officially today. I wonder if there will be more celebrations tonight since today we saw two guys on the street in a fro and a jester’s hat.

All night, music was pumped though our window. And when I say all night, I mean it. At one point I heard the dawn call to prayer and the music was still playing. I was awake because it was on of those awful nights where my mind races about possible catastrophes in the lab caused by me. “Did I unplug the heating mantle? I remember pushing the off button. I think. Maybe I have started a fire. But I would have noticed the smoking mantle before I left. Did I leave the solvent wash bottles near it? Should I walk to work? No, it should be off….”

When I got into work this morning, the heating mantle was unplugged and sitting benignly in the fume hood. Staring at me. Mocking me. I need a nap. Maybe I can take one on my desk since no one is here.