Easter-Related Musings

We celebrated Easter yesterday with lots of eating and sitting around, two things at which I could excel except that on most days I only have five minutes to shove a meal in my mouth before racing off to some activity. When I retire I plan to devote more time to eating and sitting around; it would be practically un-American not to. We also went to church and the minister told a funny (to me, anyway) story about receiving a promotional email from a company that will provide the equipment to enable people to fly during church Easter productions. The email said something like, "You know what's missing from your Easter production? Flying!" I'm a little bit upset that I've never received an email saying that that the one thing missing from my life is flying, because it's true. I already get 1,000 emails a day telling me that what's missing from my life is the perfect pair of ankle-cuff sandals or some new outdoor furniture, but not a word about flying. After the minister told the flying story he said some religious stuff, little of which I retained because the Boy distracted me with pictures of soldiers that he was drawing on the prayer request pamphlet in the pew. Since I left the pamphlet there, I  hope someone finds it and decides that it's a prayer request for the military and not just random vandalism.

Holiday Traditions

I grew up celebrating Easter, but we often we would attend a Seder with Dad's family in Philadelphia. Mostly I didn't understand anything that was happening during the Seder, and I'm not necessarily sure that I was alone. Poor Dad would often lead the Seder because he attended a Jewish high school after getting bounced from public school. He is a great speaker, he's a professor after all, but he looked like he wanted to be swallowed up by the high-pile white carpet in my Aunt Shirley and Uncle Harvey's apartment as he struggled to read the Hebrew. One of my younger cousins would have to ask the four questions and Dad would wipe the sweat from under his yarmulke while the attention was on someone else. When the Seder finished, my grandmother would always complain, "is that it? I remember it being longer," in a disappointed voice. "Nope, that's it," Dad would say quickly, closing the prayer book with a snap.

Then we would eat. The food is what I really remember best because it was so unappetizing to me. I didn't mind my grandmother's matzoh ball soup, but the plain matzoh was like eating cardboard and the gelatinous gefilte fish with the bright magenta horseradish looked too revolting for words. When my grandmother would remind us that we had to leave the door open for Elijah, I would wonder why she thought anyone would show up to eat the food. At some point, people began taking broad liberties with the menu and my aunt started making atomic chicken wings. This came in handy when Passover coincided with March Madness.