hannah | With a big slice of lemon.

Very rarely I get a full moon on my birthday. But sometimes, it's not just around the same time as Purim: this year, today, it's Purim and my birthday together. So I didn't feel bad about taking a couple extra hamantashen, especially when they were poppyseed, which is objectively the best filling in the known universe.

Besides the night's holiday, most of the day was spent strolling through the woods. I'd thought of the Botanical Gardens, but instead it was the Teatown Lake Reserve. Which might even have been better, because with the lingering snow and wind chill, it was freezing, and so there was basically nobody else around. It wasn't anything close to heavy hiking, just a nice heavy walk. The trees creaked in the wind, and the ice crunched underfoot. Bridges crossed back and forth over streams and through a little frozen swamp. I spotted a pair of swans all the way across the lake and because they hadn't flown away by the time we got around to them, I was able to get a closer look at them. They made the Canada geese look small. Between the ducks, geese, and swans, it was pretty much all major waterfowl groups accounted for in a single day.

There were turtles and snakes and a couple of salamanders in the visitor's center, and a Flemish giant rabbit in one of the outdoor enclosures. One of the non-releasable crows seemed interested in what I had to say, but ended up paying more attention to the stick we offered it.

On the drive back, we missed the turn-off to the main south-bound road we needed - but in continuing on in looking for an alternate route back, we found a gas station and stopped to fill up the tank, which we'd needed to do anyway. And we managed to get onto that first road eventually, so it was a case of one mistake canceling out another.

So, you know. Not a bad way to become 31.