Holidays

Last week I was able to celebrate not one, but *two* religious holidays, which is a lot more than this atheist usually manages. My friends J, M, and J came for a visit, only a month after my visit to NYC, and we had a Passover Seder. I have not taken part in one in several years, and it was super interesting and full of delicious food. I did not realize that there are so many different versions of the Haggadah (the text that you read telling the order and story of Passover), and the one we used focused on workers' right and collective action, which was novel. 

J, M, and J are all experts at fitting into a single selfie.

I also sang in an Easter Catholic Mass for the first time. My friends N and E invited me to be part of their very small choir (as in, with me included there were seven singers) that sings just at Easter and Christmas. I had to practice a lot in the preceding month to learn the music as well as the others, but it was delightful to be singing difficult, Latin-text music again. Medieval music has such unusual harmonies. I have attended a few Catholic masses in the past, but this is the first time I really needed to know exactly what was going on and when to sing all the various parts of the service. 

Practicing with N and E the day before. They both had to crouch down to fit in the picture with me. 

Now it's back to boring old holiday-free life, which is actually pretty awesome too.