(no subject)

I hope every who pesachs is having a great Pesach and everyone who easters is having a great Easter and that everyone else is enjoying the chocolate.

Things are very small and quiet here, beacuse it's been a bit of a difficult year. Yesterday I sent Passover greetings to everyone in Les's address book (and I got a shock when I printed out the replies and one of the was from a well-known Jewish actress - it turns out that Les and she were working out if we were related). Today is mostly myself and Mum, which means I get to sleep lots (which is good, because I can't seem to do much else). Tomorrow I get to send Pesach greets to everyone in Mum's address book. I'm also helping hang curtains and eat food.

I've already seen two close friends. One picked me up from the airport and the other came to breakfast today.

What else have I done? House stuff. Family stuff. Borrowed Mum's library card so I can catch up on my reading.

Mum told me I had enough when I had filed the green bag, but she's promised I can return on Sunday. I didn't know what book to read first, so I'm reading four at once. Jack Dann's Civil War book, Paul Park's alternate Roumania book, The Faery Reel and a vampire book. Each of them fits a mood I've had since yesterday afternoon, but I'm not going to be rude and tell you which book fits which mood.

I'll post when I remember, but, for the next few days, I may or may not remember. Unwinding is something we all need at this end

(no subject)

This is an informative post.

I need to tell certain people that they were right and that if I don't get time off, I'm going to be in trouble. I've had 2 days with no work and my aches are 20% less. (No saying "I told you so," please. It is uncouth.) When I get back to normal, my typing might be a little less extraordinary. I make no promises.

In other news, Elijah's place* at tonight's seder was taken by Toby, a very elegant ginger cat. He stayed for the rest of the evening,and sought extra pats during each verse of Echod mi Yodeyah**. So this is the way the world's-end is announced, by a cat slipping softly in the front door. A very gentle Armageddon***.

In other news, my age has regressed considerably. I was the child at tonight's seder and I read the four questions**** (all sing after me "Ma nishtanah..) and I hunted the afikoman*****. My advice for hunting afikomans at advanced ages? Look on the kitchen bench. My prize for finding it will be a book, of course. I'm happy to take recommendations.



* we open the door to him first and second night of Passover and we have cups of wine poured so that he can warn us of impending doom. My mother and I were debating the number of glasses he would quaff. We think that even after New Zealand he would be rather unsteady on his feet. What I want to know know is what he would say to Hawaiian Jews, who are just the wrong side of the dateline to meet him sober.

** While I have told many friends that this is a Jewish version of 'Green Grow the Rushes O" it really isn't. For one thing, it makes sense. It has numbers, though.

*** Toby didn't want the wine. He wanted cat food and cuddles. To misquote TS Eliot "This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
not with a bang, but with some off key singing and a gentle scritch under the chin."

**** Children need educating in asking questions. Of course they do. No child has ever asked "Why?" every other minute for six days at a stretch. I think it goes something like this: the child asks "Why is this night different from all other nights?" and the adults spend a whole evening (fortified with much wine) debating the impossibility of answering questions beginning with "Why."

***** a piece of unleavened bread, carefully hidden. Until we've eaten it, the seder continues and continues and continues. The nightmare scenario is that the afikoman is never found and you're stuck in the same family event for all enternity. This is why Mum carefully hid it behind her on the kitchen bench, within my direct line of sight.