Val-isms: Passover 2009... the anticipation

Since tomorrow night I'll be busy making Matzo balls and watching the UCONN women win their 6th Championship, I will tell you what our Passover is looking like.

My original plan involved just the 3 of us - Linda, Sophie & me. My parents remain in Jerusalem where they will join my brother David and his family for Passover (which I deeply miss being apart from). My brother in California does not partake in the Passover festivities and is probably unaware that it IS Passover.

My sister has become rather remote over the past year, for personal reasons that I completely understand, so I had no idea what she was doing for the holiday. I was pleasantly surprised when she e-mailed me last week, upon her return from Israel (having taken her kids Maisie & Noa there for spring break!), so I ventured to invite her and the girls up to CT to join us for Passover. As it turned out, she preferred to host it at her place in Manhattan.

So between us, though she is certainly being MUCH more domestic than I am, the Passover Seder will take place on the the 1st night of Pesach. Sophie is thrilled (as am I) that we will be having more of a crowd feel, as a Seder of 3 can be a bit quiet and quick.

Liz has invited one of her closest friends (who just happens to not be Jewish) and her family (husband and 3 children), and 2 other friends, so a crowd of 13 will gather and most likely have a disjointed but guaranteed original Seder! The cousins will most certainly have a fabulous time!

We'll pick Sophie up from school on Wednesday at 3:30 and get on the road, only stopping once at Stew Leonard's for a 'seltzer run'! (We'll see just how many 12-can cases of seltzer can fit in a Mini Cooper!) and hoping to get to the Upper West Side by 5-ish.

In addition to the seltzer, will be the hard boiled eggs, my parents' Seder plate, and the matzo balls! I think that roasted chicken, some vegetables and who knows what else, will be served that evening.

The ride home will have Linda & Sophie happily snoozing and I'll enjoy the peaceful silence while I rehash the evening in my head, remembering Passover dinners of my past. I will wonder why I never really appreciated those times when we were all together. How it was a chore to have to spend an evening with my family. And why must we read all that stuff out loud? If only I had realized then how precious those evenings were.

As I've only had 2 Passovers with Linda & Sophie, I'm still in the process of getting into any kind of 'traditions'. I hope that in the years to come, I come to create a certain kind of 1st night for us and get confident enough to invite any family and friends over to join us.

Thursday morning, Sophie & I are taking the morning off to go to a family Passover service at Temple. The Jr Choir is singing and it should be a fun service with our Community. Linda doesn't have that kind of flexibility with her job, so she won't be joining us.

This is the 2nd year that Linda & I have been invited to 2nd night Seder at our friend Bari's home. She has between 20-25 people over and it's a very creative Seder with a diverse group of people from our Temple. It was a lot of fun last year and I'm sure it will be this year, as well.

Early Friday morning, I'm dropping Sophie and my ex at the train station as theystart their journey to Florida for spring break. They'll be gone until the 19th.

Linda & I will get on the road to Cape Cod about 9am on Friday morning as we've been invited to spend the weekend with our friends Brenda & Mary at their summer home in Wellfleet, MA. Though the weather isn't supposed to be very warm or sunny, it will be nice to get away with them. They were our roommates when we went to Vermont back in January.

We'll be back late on Easter Sunday. No bowling.

My next post will provide a comparison of what I anticipated versus what REALLY happened... should prove to be interesting!

So, to all those who celebrate Passover, have a Happy Passover and to those who celebrate Easter, have a Happy Easter. For those who are just enjoying the beginning of spring, have a great rest of your week!