Seder, birthday, garden

Pesach came early this year, on Friday the 30th of March. That’s the day before my birthday, today. The former firechief of Wellfleet Dan Silverman, who had hosted a large seder [25 people last year not counting tiny children], this year chose to spend it with his elderly mother in Boston. Therefore we put on a much smaller seder at our house. Having gotten used to cooking for 25 at Dan and Janice’s house, I made way too much food. I tried to cut down but didn’t cut back enough. We’ll have leftovers today so all I’ll have to do is heat things. The disaster with my MAC that erased all my document files, left me with no Haggadah to update form last year. I typed in the whole 37 pp. – with a number of typos – and did the usual; tweaking. Every year I had a poem and/or remove some of the prose.The food was excellent. Since I was doing the choosing, I got better gefilte fish. We began with a Sephardic cucumber fennel egg salad with an olive oil and lemon dressing. Then the pike and whitefish gefilte fish. Then Woody’s matzah ball soup. Then a carrot and almond dish and cinnamon lamb and Helen’s green salad. We had four desserts.   I left that to friends to bring. Years ago, I spend a couple of hours making a cake based on potato flour. It came out of the oven gorgeous and promptly collapsed. So I ask others make or buy kosher l’pesach desserts.This week we finally got into the gardens. Woody uncovered some more perennial beds and planted spinach. We grow a lot of spinach in the spring and I freeze two thirds of it. I panted six6 kinds of lettuce, red radishes, arugula and cress. Today is sunny and I hope to get into the herb garden today to see what survived and clear out the dead stuff.It finally feels as if spring might be here. Sure, it gets chilly. But many daffodil and tulip bulbs are growing nicely. We have dark blue hyacinths, golde daffodils and intense blue scillas in bloom, and the witch hazel is still blooming. The feeders are crowded. The turkeys are here every day. Some of the hens enjoy looking in the dining room windows and watching us. There’s a raised bed right outside the south side of the dining room where hyacinths are blooming, so they can easily see us. The cats find it alarming. The turkeys are birds but too big. Birds should be small and cute, they feel. Mice are still coming in, but they rarely last the night. Xena’s mother told her to eat them all, because you never know when you’ll have another meal. Willow, who was born in Joan Norris’s comfortable no kill shelter, never even takes a bite but displays them as a gift to us.I’m on a steep learning curve with my switch from my possessed MAC to a new PC. I’m especially having trouble with WORD. It’s so changed. I was using a WORD from 2007. 2016 is so different that it seems a new and strange program. I have, however, been able to get back into what I hope is the last ultimate absolutely FINAL draft of my novel. I’m close to hallway through. I want it out of here again. Between revising the novel THE HOUSE AT HOPE’S END and starting this year’s gardens, I only wrote one poem this week. I went to my new dentist for what I hope is the last time until fall. Even though she’s 50 minutes away in winter and almost impossible in summer, I like her work. I never saw a dentist till I as 17 and went on my own. I do not have strong teeth. Also due to not eating well or much in childhood.My birthday this year is a gorgeous day and I’m hoping to get outside, to weed and clear, and maybe even to walk at the pier. My agent is negotiating with CBS about a possible deal to film WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME. I hope it happens although I always wonder why no one thinks to make something of HE, SHE AND IT which I consider more 'filmable.'