Tuesday, April 26, 2005

everyone get ready...really long post...
well, hey, i have a lot to cover, and thats about all i can say in my defense.
so on thurs, my sis (lotrfreak, hereafter to b known simply as freak) and my bro and me all go into the city to c our dad and spend the seders with him and our stepmom and stepsister and whoever she invited b/c lisa (stepmom) is the type who is only happy if there are ten guests. our apt has no room for that kind of extravagance but she still invited peeps and still woke up at 6 on fri to do the jewish mom thing - cook cook cook cook cook. im afrain neither i nor my own mom have that kinda devotion - she made EVERYTHING from scratch! - but it was kinda neat to watch her cooking everything. then fri nite we went to the synagogue where they were providing a good, chametzdic dinner for everone who had already cleaned their kitchens and couldnt cook chametz. for everyone who doesnt know, passover (if i slip and refer to pesach its the same thing) is a holiday when jews celebrate to exodus from egypt and in memory of how our ancestors left too fast to let the bread rise we eat unleavened bread also but for the whole 8 day of the holiday (last sun - next sat) we don't eat ANYTHING thats leavened and we dont eat stuff like rice and peanuts etc. this means that im facing a week of matzah-and-cream-cheese samdwiches *groan* ah well we bear the affliction with our ancestors lol. sry early morning making horrible jokes. tho i make horrible jokes all the time come to think of it. so anyway we cant have a single crumb of chametz (the leavened stuff ie bread pasta cookies) anywhere in our houses, so everyone cleaned everything for passover and then didnt want to get chametz all in it again but who wants to add one more day of matzah dependance than is necessary? so thats where we went fri nite. sat nite was first seder, a several hour long affair that can end anywhere from midnite to 7 am. basically, we retell the story of the exodus and cal God a lot of really wonderful things and use many synonyms for the ways in which we will praise (extole, bow to, revere, etc.) the Holy One (blessed be He.) then we eat but not before eating some horseradish to remember their suffering, and some charoset which is a sweet paste used to soften the effects of the horseradish usually made from chopped apples, nuts, grape juice/wine and spices but since im allergic to both apples and nuts and would go into anaflactic (thats not how its spelled) shock from one spoonful, we make ours from blenderized dried dates & figs and toasted sesame seeds and spices, yemenite style. then we get to the meal and all the excess food my stepmom has cooked (its GOOD food tho esp the matza ball soup) and theres also a guest, lisa's friend from israel avi who i liked at first but after he realized how utterly opinionated i am i think he stopped liking me which made me dislike him even tho its a common reaction in adults when they realize this 14-year-old has a brain and uses it to think about what the world should be and what the world actually is and then declares those thoughts publically b/c a lot of other peeps seem to just not get it and if thats a concieted way of putting it then im sry, im kinda pissed rite now. o yes and another aspect of the seder was recently developed: the hiding/finding of the afikomen. the afikomen is a peice of matzah that was broken in half early on in the seder, and then traditions vary. my moms side has the kids steal it at first opportunity and hide it, then hold it for ransom b/c we cant complete the seder w/out it. my dads side has the parents hide it then the kids get a prize if they find it. both give the kids rewards but i gotta say, my moms way is more fun. so for a while we were playing by the rules of whichever house we happened to b in until one year when i was 8 i think we took...ahm...preemptive action...and stole it from my dad b4 he had a chance to hide it. we werent really applying concepts from moms house to dads house. we were just being smart. if we get it, they cant hide it, and look at how much easier it is for us. that theory ended in my aunt helaine chasing freak until freak ran into the bedroom where me and my bro were waiting and we closed the door b4 she could follow. neway to prevent that this year my dad kept it actually on his person until he got a chance to hide it in the kitchen, but b/c he hadnt left the kitchen we knew where to look. this time around we had 5-year-old maya "helping" us. she was very good about helping us find a new place to hide it. then she went and told lisa where it was. i must say i was very annoyed but l8r she helped us find it again b/c she knew where lisa had hidden it so it works both ways at least. i got yosef (my bro) to distract maya and hid it again, where it stayed until time to take it out. that seder lasted til around 1:30 am and i was impressed - maya stayed up for the whole thing. of course none of us were rousable the follwing morning and so we spent the day lazing around/reading/playing in the park. that nite we had ANOTHER seder to which my uncle rich (my fave of my parental figures' siblings) and 2 of mayas friends (both age five) plus their moms had been invited. tell me, have u ever bn attacked by 3 5-year-olds with a need to tack "head" onto the end of ur name? a strange experience, as i can say firsthand. i must say tho i think i kinda bonded w/one of them. hannah is not like most 5-year-old girls - in fact shes rather as i imagine i was at 5 years old. she despises princess games and would rather play by herself than play a princess game. tho in this case she had the option of playing w/me, which she asked to do, and i was kinda touched. we played kosherland then at my insistence she asked that maya and rina play a dif game so i could go eat my dinner, guilt-free. o yeah and the 3 of them *helped* make lemonade - heres what it sounded like: ok, ill go make a pitcher of lemonade. hey i wanna help! me too! me too! wait for me! lemonade! ok ok fine uh maya will u plz go get the lemon juice? oo i wanna pour in lemon juice! me too! hey thats not fair i wanna go first! well im going second! guys please its not like we're gonna run out of lemon juice. now we have to add sugar. oo sugar can we eat some? no you'll get sick and if those fingers rnt washed get them out of the sugarbowl! hey let me put in a spoonful first! ok each of u can put in a spoonful order doesnt matter. hey she put in 2 spoonfuls we each get to do 2 now to make it fair! no no no ull make it too sweet... etc. so yeah then they had the brite idea of playing attack zelda, then lets have zelda and freak carry us around on their backs which i actually didnt mind but lets do math...3 impatient midgets...2 available backs...do u sense chaos? so then we played hide and seek and i was once again impressed - hannah hid everywhere i would have hidden were i that small. in fact i REMEMBER hiding in a place just like her fave when i was her age (god i sound so old!) by this point we had rehidden the afikomen but lisa was again trying to get them to tell where it was so, again, i tried to get yosef to distract them while i rehid it. but while rina and maya followed him hannah knew exactly what i was doing and followed me everywhere. then when i sat down on the couch to think, she stood staring at me for a moment, the she came over and said "ok, u can hide it" and kissed my cheek, then left. ISNT THAT JUST THE SWEETEST THING EVER? i no i really should say this but i kinda wish i got hannah instead of maya as my stepsister. i just sat for a moment kinda shocked by the sweetness of it.
b/c of all our shenanigans, that seder lasted till 3. uncle rich never showed up (l8r we found out it was b/c his previous seder had run till 7 b/c of a theological discussion on the nature of god and where was he during the holocaust etc. a ton of really deep matters i dont feel like getting into) the kids lasted till 1 then their parents collapsed and had to take em home. as soon as they were gone, freak, maya, and lisa collapsed into various states of sleep, leaving me, my dad, and yosef to finish the seder, which we did. we were harder to wake up yesterday morining as one might expect but my dad made kosher for passover pancakes which were good but really dense - but then its kosher for passover its not gonna be great quality. then in the afternoon we wanted to go to the park again and play kickball but it started to rain so we came back. good thing too or we mite have mmissed uncle rich who dropped by that afternoon and we had a very pleasant visit. he really is a lot of fun he tells us really funny stories about his and our dads childhood together and about doing a lot of the things we do now - hes really perceptive. also he makes movies which is what freak wants to do so she loves talking to him. so then we made havdalah which is the ceremony allowing us to do stuff like use electronics and write etc. again after a holiday or shabbos, and practically ran to grand central to grab a train back out to pelham. so, yeah, thats my weekend. hope everyone has a wonderful pesach!
~zelda
o yes if anyone wants a more detailed account or a more thoro description of any of the ceremonies or wants to complain about how long my post is (i did warn u!) just pm me ill respond asap i always do!