2017 Life Logs, Day 100: Passover Seder with the Goldstones
Date: Monday, April 10, 2017
Weather: Sunny; High 64, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Last night after I sent my log, I found out that Justin and Jo have had more sadness in their lives with their animals. First, Coco’s beloved little puppy, Annabelle, disappeared and a few days later her body was found by the road where she had been hit by a car. Then on Friday, while Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco were in San Juan to celebrate Ziggy’s birthday with two days of fun, they got a call from the house sitters that wild dogs were killing the goats, the momma Cloudy, and her two babies, Hanna and Cooper. The house sitters were totally freaked out and didn’t know what to do. Justin and family headed home, but it is a two-hour drive from San Juan to Rincon, and by the time they got home the babies were dead and the mother goat was dying. I am so very sad for them all, but they seem to be taking things in stride and moving forward. At least Ziggy’s dive experience went smoothly and I look forward to talking to him about that in the next day or so.
My day started at the gym for the Monday morning 20-20-20 class, a combination of 20 minutes of cardio exercise, 20 minutes of weight training, and 20 minutes of core balance with stretching. I returned home after that and started a batch of chicken mineral broth using the bones from Sunday dinner. Bone broth needs to burble most of the day, so I had planned to go through paperwork that has been piling up while waiting for it to do its thing. I leave for the Bahamas a week from today, so I want to make sure everything is in order—thus, the paperwork. But that plan got derailed when I got a call from Heather. She had picked Ollie up from school at 1 pm and was heading home to fix Passover dinner. On the way home, Ollie decided he wanted to spend the afternoon with Oma making animal masks and biking, so I said to bring him on over. I love spending time with Ollie and who wants to do paperwork anyway? Ollie brought a folder of art work from school from their recently completed study of the rain forest. One of the items was a black panther mask and that led to wanting to make the other animal masks. So, we made masks, we colored a rain forest picture together, we watched a little rain forest slide show on YouTube recommended by his teacher, and just generally enjoyed the afternoon.
Around 4 pm, we decided it was time to head to his house so he could go biking. I then stayed for the Passover Seder. Jed’s father was Jewish and Heather and Jed want to make sure the boys know something of their Jewish heritage, so every year they observe the beginning of Passover with a Seder. If you are not familiar with Jewish rituals, a Seder is a feast to mark the beginning of Passover. The Jewish people celebrate Passover in memory of their liberation by God, through Moses, from slavery in Egypt. The boys and Jed wore their kippahs, a cap most commonly referred to as a yarmulke or yamaka.
And Heather fixed quite a feast. We had brisket that she had cooked all afternoon and it was delicious. It was accompanied by other traditional foods of the Ashkenazi Jews including a salad topped with poached fish dumplings called gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, charoset or haroset which is a mixture of fruits and nuts, and potato kugel which is like a potato pie. We had roasted asparagus which I don’t think is traditional, but delicious, and all this was all topped by a flourless chocolate decadence cake made with coconut oil and coconut milk instead of butter. It truly was a feast and most delicious.
As the boys were getting ready for bed, Ollie gave us a little harmonica concert. Last night at my house, he found one of Mark’s blues harmonicas and just started playing it. He’s not playing real songs, but what he plays is quite pleasant.
Add to that the almost full moon and tonight was quite spectacular.
Last word—One week from tonight I will be on my way to the Bahamas!
