2 posts tagged “easter”
Well, I've certainly eaten enough chocolate to pretend this is my Easter. Once again I've restarted the "diet" - it's more of an attempt to bring my comfort-binge-eating tendencies under control and do more exercise - and it's all going well. Actually, the exercise has been going well since January, not to tempt fate...
The four day break has been great; we shopped (JB got me underwear for my birthday present and I spent vouchers and freebie points for other things), we slept, we ate lots, we frolicked with my downright adorable nephew who charmingly gave everyone kisses and duddles (cuddles) and we bought a Wii. I fear my right elbow is now doomed to a lifetime of RSI, but I have soundly beaten JB at Wii Bowling and Wii Tennis, so that's okay.
Naturally, the nickname for the console is the Wiieasel.
The whole "weasel" thing started as a song lyric.
"This is my country / and these are my reasons" - Fergus Sings The Blues, Deacon Blue
JB pointed out that reasons sounded like 'weasels' and so it stuck. Now we are weasels, stoats, otters (holding hands, of course), ermine, ferrets... You name it, we're Mustelidae. I've even written and published a book for JB on Blurb about "stoatly living". Because, in our universe, stoats steal pants. Knickers pants, not trousers pants. Ferrets dance, otters and romantic, weasels are spies that are everywhere and polecats and pine marten know all the best places to pootle.
How can you tell the difference between a stoat and a weasel? Weasels are weaselly recognised and stoats are stoatally different.
I'm sure that makes perfect sense to you all, right? One day I might even explain the A & JB alternative definition for the Hebrew word "tov".
This Monday was the beginning of Lent for those of us of the Greek Orthodox persuasion. A food-fest like no other, we fall over ourselves to think of elaborate and tasty ways in which to fast and deny ourselves a few luxuries.
Of course, like most modern Greeks - especially most modern Greeks living in England - I only fast on Kathara Deftera "Clean Monday", our equivalent of Ash Wednesday, and during Holy Week, anyway. Naturally, I also make a big deal about it, as if being vegan for a mere six days is the most stressful thing to ever happen to me.
The fast, if you're not familiar with it, goes like this: no animal products at all, with the exception of certain types of sea food or creatures with ink instead of blood (cod roe, octopus, squid and prawns among them). Basically no blood and no luxuries are the order of the day. With all our nistisima (Lenten) foods, from gemista (rice-stuffed peppers and tomatoes) to hortopitta (veg pie made with seasonal greens), we enter it with gusto, completely forgetting the injunctions to leave each meal a little hungry and remember that we are fasting to remind ourselves of how much we have.
Last year was particularly tricky. My Jewish boyfriend, henceforth JB, and his lovely mother had me over for Pesach. The thing is, Greek Easter is always, always, always at the same time as Pesach, so there is an overlap. There she is, with three huge dishes of chicken, beef and lots of eggs in salt water, and there's me with my salmon, pretending that fish and eggs are okay because she's already gone to the trouble of making me vegetable soup when everyone else had chicken and I can't bear to put her to more stress four months into our relationship.
What was worse: "cheating" at a voluntary fast that I have already restricted to just a handful of days out of my Western idleness and lack of willpower, or making a kind woman who was welcoming me into her home and family run around me more than she already had?
I probably answered my own question there.
Still, this year, success! Pesach comes in at the weekend, pre-empting Holy Week and allowing me to indulge guilt-free.
Shit; I'm sure I can find something to be guilty about.
