I t boggles the mind honestly that no one ever invented fish perfume.

I stabbed a fork at the salmon fillets I’d bought from the caf? around the corner — tonight’s main for dinner now sitting in the oven — and sniffed. They didn’t smell up the kitchen the way normal fish does when you buy the raw thingies and cook them for real instead of picking up two $20 entrees and pretending you’d prepared them on your own. At some point Efraim was going to figure out that I can’t cook; I’d been doing this the entire week since sheva brachos were finally — finally — over.

In a world of chrayonnaise cholent Crock-Pot baggies pre-peeled potatoes and Nish-Nosh salad dressing no one ever thought to invent fish spritz? Ridiculous.

The doorbell rang and I shut the oven and hurried to open the door. It was Shana our next-door neighbor whom I’d met just briefly last week when we’d moved in.

“Hi!” she chirped extending her arm to give me a plastic container. “Welcome-to-our-neighborhood cookies! I bake them for all the new people.”

“Oh wow! Thanks!” Maybe I’ll pretend I use a special fish-neutralizer air freshener. If such a thing exists.

“So how do you like it here?” Shana was saying conversationally.

“Lived here all my life actually ” I said thoughts racing. Maybe it does exist — I need to check Amazon — and I could just leave it out on the windowsill so he can come to conclusions on his own in case he gets suspicious. (Excerpted from Calligraphy Succos 5778)