This is something that happens yearly in most synagogues. It's a primary form of either fundraising, honoring deserving members of the community or both. In the normal form, the synagogue raises money by having members both buy and sell ads in the dinner journal, at different price levels. They also sell "tickets" for the meal itself, or use the tickets as incentive to sell more ads. The honoring comes in on two levels. One is, people know the honorees and want to show how they're appreciated. The other is, the families, friends and business associates of the honorees will often pay for both ads and tickets to show their love or support, or whatever. And this does produce a lot of money.

This year's was very nice. Instead of being in the synagogue itself, it was held in a lovely place called the "Picnic House." This is a brick structure in Prospect Park, which is one of the loveliest parks in NYC. It's unheated and uncooled, but it can be opened on either side, and tonight was *perfect* - just cool enough.

We moved away last September. This was the first time we've seen a lot of those people since then. I wore my suit. It's dark with pinstripes. The skirt reaches way below my knees, and there's a long slit I really need to have made into a pleat. The jacket reaches below my hips. When I first tried it on, I used the dickey, the little modesty panel that fits inside the v of the jacket, that came with the suit - the same pinstriped material. It looked wrong. Dark They gave me a pale, pale green one instead, and all of a sudden, it was beautiful. The jacket and the waistband are a tad tight, but not noticeably to others and they are wearable. I wore black tights and my good shoes, which are lace up low heeled ankle boots because I have rotten feet, and my white Shabbos hat. My boss, who is also the synagogue treasurer, kept saying how pretty I looked. She herself wore a pretty dress - a lace top over a taffeta skirt. It's so weird seeing your boss in a social situation entirely unrelated to work.

We just had a lovely time. I'm glad I went, and I'll be happy to go next year.