Hamantaschen

Here are some of the students in Daddy's college class, of course familiar faces.  Josh is there too though - he came to sit in on class.  We have about thirty or so students, and Daddy was speaking for a bit on Purim this morning, which of course is the Jewish holiday upcoming.  We were talking about standing up and standing out, and to an even greater extent, standing up again.  The outline worked rather well, but the icing on the cake, so to speak, was the effort that Mommy put into class this morning.  She made hamantaschen for everyone.  So what is hamantaschen?  Yes, not even spellcheck knows what it is!

To this day, the Jewish people celebrate Purim by telling the story, and ringing loud noise makers every time the name of the villain Haman is mentioned.  This is to help blot out his memory as instructed.  Although you have to remember the name in order to ring said noisemakers.  Which is slightly counterproductive, but fun!

Anyway, he apparently wore a trip-corner hat, sort of like the pirates did, or George Washington.  Daddy knows this because he was looking for a picture of Haman wearing this hat.  You'd think a simple query of words like "Haman" or "Haman hat" would do the job.  But no.  Every picture of Haman that we see online has him wearing a crown, or no hat at all.  So you get a failing grade, internet!  Because the Jewish people have got to be right, otherwise their doing this cookie thing all wrong.

What?  Oh, you don't know about the cookie?  That's what a hamantaschen is.  It's a three-cornered hat that looks like the one Haman wore.  The Jewish people eat this cookie as a part of remembering the story.  This again is somewhat counterproductive though, as it helps us remember his name.  And is there some sort of symbology going on here?  With the other Jewish feasts, each food is a symbol of some attitude or event.  In this case, we're remembering a villain, and eating his hat.  And one more question:  the jellied stuff in the middle of the cookie, is that supposed to symbolize Haman's brains?

Yes, we're overthinking it.  Anyway, Mommy made these delicious hamantaschen cookies this morning, so they were really fresh, and everyone loved them.  It was a great class!

Today was a long night for ballet practice, as kids were doing their regular class plus a run-through of certain parts of the upcoming "Into Grimm's Woods" ballet.  Madison got to see some things for the first time, including the goofy sisters of Cinderella, which cracked her up.

Meanwhile, Daddy and Mommy were grocery shopping, and looking around for some holiday items. We've got Easter and St. Patrick's Day coming up.  And don't forget Pi Day!

Daddy is typing this up on a new laptop that we got.  My computer at work was one of the first there, and as such is one of the still-working oldest computers known to mankind.  It's that old.  It still works, kind of, but it's in that "kind of" where we made a decision to get a new laptop.  This is a wonderful blessing, as we can now do a bit more work from home, as our computer at home is in fact significantly older than the other one Daddy has at the office.  Yes, it was time for an upgrade.  Although it might take some getting used to.

We got home, and Tinkerbell arrived.  She will be perfect!  To be clear, Tinkerbell is this $30 green laser pointer that Daddy ordered.  Madison and Daddy went out to the front yard, and after a good warning about damaging eyes and so forth, we pointed Tinkerbell down the street - way down the street - and she showed up really clearly on this house all the way on top of the hill, pretty much as far as we could aim the thing.  It's pretty bright!

Madison went to sleep later tonight, as the ballet went later.  We still read from the devotional and Jack Sparrow's book, "Silver."  We're really sailing along with these books.

So tonight, everyone went to bed before 10:00.  Daddy is feverish, and Mommy was tired from a bad night's sleep last night.  But regardless, a really loud storm rolled through at 3:30 am or so.  It was a fireworks show that was quite impressive, complete with all the explosions of light and equally impressive thunderclaps.  Perhaps not at 3:30 am in the morning, it would have been more appreciated!