Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you had a deeply spiritual Lent and a fantastic celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord, or at least a reasonably good weekend if you don't go in for that Christianity stuff. My Triduum was wonderful. Because they have merged Our Lady of Perpetual Sobriety with another parish, we did not have Holy Thursday or Easter Vigil services in English. That's fine with me - I got to practice my Spanish! I'd rather do that than go to the other parish, which is what they want us "white" people to do. Seems a little racist...
Thursday night I went to the Lutheran church to sing for their Maundy Thursday service; we did Byrd's "Ave Verum Corpus," and you could feel how moved the congregation was by it. That was offertory, so I had heard all the readings in English, then I ran to OLPS and got there during the homily, so I was at a Catholic church for the entire Eucharistic prayer. Perfect! Afterwards Rich, A-Fooze, her Mexican fiance, and I had a late, late dinner but luckily I had taken Friday off of work, so I got to sleep in. At noon we had a Good Friday service at OLPS (the only service of the Triduum in English at my church!) and then in the evening I sang with the Lutherans again for their beautiful service. "Ah, Holy Jesus" and "Oh Sacred Head, Now Wounded" in four-part harmony. *Sigh!* On Holy Saturday Rich, A-Fooze, and I were again the only "Anglos" (actually, I'm the only Anglo since he's Italian - well, half Sicilian - and she's a Canadian Hungarian) at OLPS, and I was the only blonde. The Exultet is just as beautiful chanted in Spanish as in Latin! The Easter Vigil is the most incredible service of the entire year, with the church starting in darkness, then the priest lights the Easter fire and we all light small candles from it, and then at the Gloria all the lights are thrown on and all the bells ring. So gorgeous! Afterwards Rich, A-Fooze, her fiance, and I went to the restaurant across the street for some pie to celebrate the end of the Lenten season.
Every year, Lent always seems both too short and too long to me. I used to feel so much joy during this liturgical season, which might have been partly physical; I seem to have some food sensitivities, so when I gave up sweets for Lent, I was then not consuming fake vanilla and whatever else, so of course I felt a million times better. Now that I always try to eat well, there isn't a marked difference in how I feel physically during Lent and any other time of year. Still, there is something very appealing about simplifying your life for forty days... until you just WANT TO DO SUDOKU and then you think, will this Lent never end?? But it has, and I celebrated by immediately doing a bunch of word game puzzles, after coming home from eating pie and singing to my bunnies (EASTER bunnies!) such Easter favorites as "Christ is Arisen" and "O Sons and Daughters of the King." My favorite? Probably "Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands," a very Lutheran hymn... guess that's why I sing with Lutherans!
Sunday morning I wanted to sleep but did drag myself to OLPS to sing alto on Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" and Victimae Pascali Laudes in Latin, then I went to the Lutheran church to sing soprano on the "Hallelujah Chorus" and Victimae Pascali Laudes in English. Then Rich had a bunch of us over for Easter dinner (my contribution? bread, of course! from my bread machine) and it was such a beautiful day that many of us sat out on the porch to eat. The Lutheran choir director brought an egg the banjo player had given him, full of Svedish Søperstår candy like Paskaskum (which we guessed was Swedish for Easter Scum) and Skumagge (Scum Eggs). The Scum Eggs weren't bad, but the Easter Scum was like one step up from Peeps. They were little marshmallow... things, I think they were supposed to be birds but they looked to me like the carvings I saw on the pyramids at Teotihuacan. Somehow we got on the subject of tofu, and when the Lutheran choir director asked if it were soymilk that has been whipped, Mr. Icon (he seriously looks like he just stepped off a Byzantine icon) said no, it has been thoroughly defeated. The Lutheran choir director did tell us an organist pal of his sent an actual email he had received from a bride-to-be saying she wanted a particular song at her wedding, she couldn't remember what it was called but it went "dum-de-dum, de-dum." (I think I know that one! Isn't it "Coconut Grove"?)
Saturday during the day I took a very long walk, wearing my Famous Hat for the first time this season. I took a sort of unsanctioned shortcut on the way home, cutting across the railroad tracks, and people on both sides of the tracks looked at me somewhat askance. Maybe they thought I was trespassing? I can just see the police report: "Unknown white female wearing a Famous Hat spotted crashing through the underbrush and heading north across the railroad tracks." Is my hat famous... or notorious???
Famous Hat
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And the Cubs won on Easter Sunday, which makes it doubly a great day. ePlush was given out at Miller Park, so the Tailor part of Hardingfele and Tailor was conviced to go. Sounds like you had a good Easter. I wonder if peeps or skummagge would improve Bridge Burner's disposition. Perhaps they can be used as a mute on her violin :-)
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