Catching Up

I was so full of thanks for the marvelous 90th birthday party Grotzes threw for me that it pushed the seder out of my mind, briefly. It was a good one this year, everybody deeply involved in the ritual. It’s a confusing time to be a Jew and it was incumbent upon us to get into that. And always, to discuss how we can act to change what must be changed. How we can affect what’s going on here and in the Middle East. The food was delicious, of course. Lilli could not come as she was recovering from two heart operations done at the Cleveland Clinic. But Rona form my poetry group was able to attend.

I made Sephardic charoset, and boiled egg-funnel-cucumber salad with a lemon dressing and roasted a leg of lamb. ASnd no seder of ours would be complete without Woody’s matzoh ball soup.  His matzoh balls are extraordinarily light. Some I have had at other people’s seders are akin to eating golf balls. Dessert was macaroons and a wonderful fruit salad. I had forgotten how good truly ripe black berries can be.

Rona and I tried to see if it would work for her to be my assistant. We figured out it wouldn’t work. She lives 60 miles away and she thought it would be fine, but she realized it would be impossible.  In summer, July thru Labor Day, it would take her two hours to get here and at least two to get back. I’ll finally put an ad in the paper, the wonderful Provincetown Independent.

I’m so far behind, I wonder if I’ll ever catch up.  I haven’t been able to send out any poems. I’m catching up on bills and should catch up today.  But filing is just a mess. Somewhere there’s a box of stuff to be filed, but I can’t find it and Rona didn’t remember where she put it. Woody has some ideas.

Spinach is up, garlic is growing rapidly. I have to check lettuce today and see where it’s at. Today, I plan to start the last spring in-house seed starting.  Zucchini, patty pans, sunflowers and one last marigold. We had a huge crop of parsnips this year. We gave a bunch away and I’m collecting parsnip recipes. We eat them in some form a least three or four times a week.  They don’t keep well out of the ground.

Some daffodils near the house are in bloom and a lot more that will flower in the warmer days expected this coming week. We both have appointments with our osteopath, Dr Dworet his week. Looking forward to it for a sore back and sore neck and sore shoulder. At 90, always something or often a bunch of somethings are making trouble for me.

I love the slow Outer Cape spring. Others complain. They want it to be 70 already. I am happy to savor each incremental new event: the first crocus, the red winged blackbirds arriving, the juncos leave flying North. Buds are swelling on the forsythia. Each new sign is a pleasure.