![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I was exhausted last night, and am still tired today despite having done little. Happy, though.
As she posted,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adrian_turtle came to visit us and to my aunt Lea's seder. For reasons of logistics, my aunt has decided that it is legitimate to have a second seder later than most people, the logic being that the Jewish calendar counts days starting at sundown, so if the second night is Thursday night, Friday afternoon is part of that same night. A bit odd, but it means my other aunt doesn't have to travel in the dark.
My cousin Janet leads the seder (some combination of desire and willingness). We use the Maxwell House hagaddah, and zoom through, editing on the fly to remove at least some of the gendered language. Singing is, at this point, somewhat minimal and chaotic; my grandparents had better memories for Hebrew and these specific songs than any of us who are left.
As Adrian notes, my family seem to like her, and one of the things they like is that she can sing, and knows the songs. She is also good at reading quickly.
I impressed my aunt, who had asked me to bring a dessert, by actually baking; if I go next year (which will depend on variables that we can't predict this far ahead), I'll probably bake the same chocolate torte again, because it was relatively simple and everyone liked it.
The pleasant surprise was that my cousin Jonathan was there. He's my second cousin, and I hadn't seen him in quite a few years. In the interim, he's had some serious medical problems, with the result that the list of things he cannot safely eat is depressingly long, enough so that he referred to food as a "lost pleasure." . It would be inappropriate for him to try to keep Passover (because it would make him sick to do so), and in fact the only things he ate and drank were a can of soup he'd brought and asked my aunt to open for him, and seltzer. He talked, some, about the medical stuff, until people suggested we change the subject because it was during a meal. This despite my cousin Janet's boyfriend John talking over him somewhat (on the subject of Jonathan's medical regimen).
The other person who hadn't been there in a while was Karina, my cousin by marriage (Lea's husband's niece), who I haven't gotten to know well but like. I introduced Adrian to her and to Jonathan, in both cases with "This is my girlfriend, Adrian; this is my cousin, $name." Jonathan said "I thought you were married," and I said yes, I am, butcattitude had to work that afternoon. He then asked after my brother and parents, which left me, for the first time in years, needing to tell someone that my father had died. Jonathan expressed sympathy, and I thanked him and said that it was, by now, an old grief; Adrian helped me remember how many years it had been. Karina works for the national Girl Scouts organization, and there was some conversation about that organization, including need for volunteers and the unfortunate fact that the Girl Scouts, which do not discriminate on grounds of religion or sexual orientation, lost the use of space in some school districts because the Boy Scouts were kicked out for discriminating and the people who make such decisions apparently concluded it would be unfair to host Girl Scouts and not Boy Scouts. Karina and Adrian seemed to hit it off well, which pleased me.
All this leaves open the question of how much which of my relatives understand about the relationship between me and Adrian. What is clear is that they don't think it problematic, and that's good enough. If anyone is puzzled and thinks it important, I hope they will contact either me or Mom and ask.
I was finding Janet's John difficult to deal with, but he apparently has some appeal I haven't seen; this is the second time Janet has brought him to a seder, meaning they've been together for over a year. Political disagreements happen, and are arguably traditional at our family's seder [Janet's father and my father had one every year], but making fun of my cousin's name is just immature and unkind. Coming up from behind me on Eighth Avenue, after we had left separately, grabbing the box containing the leftover dessert, and saying "Can I have that" in an aggressive tone, was more than immature. Purely on automatic, I said "No, you can't have my dessert" before realizing who it was. When I realized, I added "but would you like the recipe?" which led to Janet saying that no, John wouldn't use the recipe.
So, we went home, where we found Cattitude waiting for us;alanro had landed at JFK around the time Adrian and I left my aunt's, and got to our house about 8:30. We ordered Chinese food for dinner, and had the remains of my chocolate thing for dessert. And there was much rejoicing.
Saturday morning, we hung out and took it easy. Adrian made matzoh brei for lunch, and then Cattitude took a nap while Alan, Adrian, and I went out to Brooklyn to visitroadnotes. We talked—a lot of catching up and filling people in, and just the pleasure of being in the same place, not just phone calls or text—and helped Roadnotes move stuff. Books and CDs were shelved, and when Velma said something about wanting to get rid of an old monitor some time, I asked "what monitor?" She told me, while saying I shouldn't, but it wasn't too large for me to carry, and I reminded her that I lift weights, and took it out of the apartment, freeing valuable surface area.
After a while, Alan and Velma went over to Atlantis to visitbaldanders, and Adrian and I headed home. Cattitude made us all a very nice dinner, involving a roast leg of lamb, which went into the oven around the time Adrian and I got back, and was ready soon after Alan returned. Today, Alan and I have done little, which we needed; Cattitude went to work (yes, on Sunday). I have taken tomorrow off; Alan and I will probably go to the Museum of Natural History.
The excellent dish Cattitude makes with leftover lamb is now simmering.
As she posted,
adrian_turtle came to visit us and to my aunt Lea's seder. For reasons of logistics, my aunt has decided that it is legitimate to have a second seder later than most people, the logic being that the Jewish calendar counts days starting at sundown, so if the second night is Thursday night, Friday afternoon is part of that same night. A bit odd, but it means my other aunt doesn't have to travel in the dark.My cousin Janet leads the seder (some combination of desire and willingness). We use the Maxwell House hagaddah, and zoom through, editing on the fly to remove at least some of the gendered language. Singing is, at this point, somewhat minimal and chaotic; my grandparents had better memories for Hebrew and these specific songs than any of us who are left.
As Adrian notes, my family seem to like her, and one of the things they like is that she can sing, and knows the songs. She is also good at reading quickly.
I impressed my aunt, who had asked me to bring a dessert, by actually baking; if I go next year (which will depend on variables that we can't predict this far ahead), I'll probably bake the same chocolate torte again, because it was relatively simple and everyone liked it.
The pleasant surprise was that my cousin Jonathan was there. He's my second cousin, and I hadn't seen him in quite a few years. In the interim, he's had some serious medical problems, with the result that the list of things he cannot safely eat is depressingly long, enough so that he referred to food as a "lost pleasure." . It would be inappropriate for him to try to keep Passover (because it would make him sick to do so), and in fact the only things he ate and drank were a can of soup he'd brought and asked my aunt to open for him, and seltzer. He talked, some, about the medical stuff, until people suggested we change the subject because it was during a meal. This despite my cousin Janet's boyfriend John talking over him somewhat (on the subject of Jonathan's medical regimen).
The other person who hadn't been there in a while was Karina, my cousin by marriage (Lea's husband's niece), who I haven't gotten to know well but like. I introduced Adrian to her and to Jonathan, in both cases with "This is my girlfriend, Adrian; this is my cousin, $name." Jonathan said "I thought you were married," and I said yes, I am, but
cattitude had to work that afternoon. He then asked after my brother and parents, which left me, for the first time in years, needing to tell someone that my father had died. Jonathan expressed sympathy, and I thanked him and said that it was, by now, an old grief; Adrian helped me remember how many years it had been. Karina works for the national Girl Scouts organization, and there was some conversation about that organization, including need for volunteers and the unfortunate fact that the Girl Scouts, which do not discriminate on grounds of religion or sexual orientation, lost the use of space in some school districts because the Boy Scouts were kicked out for discriminating and the people who make such decisions apparently concluded it would be unfair to host Girl Scouts and not Boy Scouts. Karina and Adrian seemed to hit it off well, which pleased me. All this leaves open the question of how much which of my relatives understand about the relationship between me and Adrian. What is clear is that they don't think it problematic, and that's good enough. If anyone is puzzled and thinks it important, I hope they will contact either me or Mom and ask.
I was finding Janet's John difficult to deal with, but he apparently has some appeal I haven't seen; this is the second time Janet has brought him to a seder, meaning they've been together for over a year. Political disagreements happen, and are arguably traditional at our family's seder [Janet's father and my father had one every year], but making fun of my cousin's name is just immature and unkind. Coming up from behind me on Eighth Avenue, after we had left separately, grabbing the box containing the leftover dessert, and saying "Can I have that" in an aggressive tone, was more than immature. Purely on automatic, I said "No, you can't have my dessert" before realizing who it was. When I realized, I added "but would you like the recipe?" which led to Janet saying that no, John wouldn't use the recipe.
So, we went home, where we found Cattitude waiting for us;
alanro had landed at JFK around the time Adrian and I left my aunt's, and got to our house about 8:30. We ordered Chinese food for dinner, and had the remains of my chocolate thing for dessert. And there was much rejoicing.Saturday morning, we hung out and took it easy. Adrian made matzoh brei for lunch, and then Cattitude took a nap while Alan, Adrian, and I went out to Brooklyn to visit
roadnotes. We talked—a lot of catching up and filling people in, and just the pleasure of being in the same place, not just phone calls or text—and helped Roadnotes move stuff. Books and CDs were shelved, and when Velma said something about wanting to get rid of an old monitor some time, I asked "what monitor?" She told me, while saying I shouldn't, but it wasn't too large for me to carry, and I reminded her that I lift weights, and took it out of the apartment, freeing valuable surface area.After a while, Alan and Velma went over to Atlantis to visit
baldanders, and Adrian and I headed home. Cattitude made us all a very nice dinner, involving a roast leg of lamb, which went into the oven around the time Adrian and I got back, and was ready soon after Alan returned. Today, Alan and I have done little, which we needed; Cattitude went to work (yes, on Sunday). I have taken tomorrow off; Alan and I will probably go to the Museum of Natural History.The excellent dish Cattitude makes with leftover lamb is now simmering.
Tags: