Sunday night humdrum.

[hannah]

When I was sitting outside on the back steps drinking some tea, a cardinal landed on the top branch of the tallest tree in the yard. Right up against the blue sky, with the early-evening light shining right on him, it was an even brighter shade of red than during winter. He called out several times, and after a little while, he got an answer from what must have been a female of the species. They went back and forth for a couple of minutes, with me looking over to where the female was coming from, back to the male, back to the female, as their call-and-response continued. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back to where he'd been sitting, he was gone - hopefully off to where she was.

It made today feel like worthwhile. I've done little of value - I got my strawberries back from the friend taking care of them and watched some Sports Night with her, edited an assignment so it needs twenty more minutes of work to be turned in, and that's been it. I feel like I should joke about saving up my motivation for tomorrow to use it during job applications. It's my goal to send out at least two applications a week, hopefully more - and writing individual cover letters, even if they follow a theme, requires a very particular mindset, a good deal of deliberation, and mood music. Besides, I have to get up early for work tomorrow.

Also, I had no idea there was such a thing as an Easter dinner until last Tuesday when the other people at work told me about it. I knew about the egg hunts and the miracle of the Resurrection, but I had no idea people got together for a specific evening meal for the holiday - it'd never occured to me, given the emphasis on morning services. What made it very weird was learning that most people ate pig, instead of the more appropriate lamb or rabbit. The things you never need to learn.

Anyway, my own major springtime holiday which celebrates the end of the nation's slavery will end Tuesday night, and I'll mark that by baking cookies.

Comments

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

My family has dinners on all the major holidays. Usually it takes place between one and three in the afternoon!

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we always have honeybaked ham. Christmas is for roast beef, Easter is for ham. And like Thanksgiving, it's generally later than lunch but earlier than usual dinner - around 3.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

I've never understood about the Easter ham, myself, but Americans have a weird tendency to bake hams for any holiday meal other than Thanksgiving. With so many options available, I lament our utter lack of creativity.

"Dinner" in the sense of Easter dinner, is an afternoon rather than an evening meal, much like Thanksgiving.

[euclase.livejournal.com]

What made it very weird was learning that most people ate pig, instead of the more appropriate lamb or rabbit.

because unclean gentiles love pissing off jews. :P

lots of people eat lamb, too, dude. but eating pork has nothing to do with easter (just like everything else, except mass, has NOTHING to do with easter). it's because meat used to be slaughtered in the fall and cured during winter and eaten in the spring. and people like to get together after church and are usually hungry, and pork is cheap and convenient. and therefore american rather than appropriate, as with most religious anything.

what kind of cookies are you baking?

[tourmaline1973.livejournal.com]

most people ate pig, instead of the more appropriate lamb or rabbit

Maybe during childhood Easters they'd experienced the trauma of being told "Awww fluffy bunny rabbit" and/or "Awww sweet little lamb in the field" and then been presented with the meat of one such fluffy animal on the plate and be expected to eat it. My parents finally stopped buying rabbit meat as it meant dealing with two kids who refused with lip-wobbling determination and howling protests that they would never eat something that friends kept as pets.