this week there were two grand events worth celebrating. i hope you noticed your calendar and were therefore able to join in with your own commemorations.
the first, as you can almost not have not noticed (er, what?), was on wednesday, february 29th. that’s right: leap day!
well, i forgot to leap, i must admit … and i didn’t ask any poor, hapless chap for his hand in marriage (whew), but my small group marked the occasion by having an extra-special dinner together.
that, folks, is super-fancy, super-tasty meatloaf with chorizo arrayed down the middle. (next to it is a rotisserie chicken from price chopper, but we won’t mention that.) the maker of the meatloaf also made delicious mashed red potatoes to go along. yum.
we played apples to apples (i was “saintly” and “busy”), ate, sang, shared life with each other, prayed, ate some more, and generally had a wonderful time.
we also laughed a lot, as usual. it was a good day to celebrate something that happens only once every four years (except that we were told it happens every five years every hundred years, or something like that. i guess the calendar resets itself, basically).
so, that was wednesday.
thursday, march 1st, was st. david’s day. st. david is the patron of wales (and was actually welsh), so my mom fixed a special meal so we could celebrate properly, and i raced home almost the moment i finished my last newspaper page of the evening, hoping no policemen were out and about on the five-minute drive home (if any were, they didn’t catch me).
we had cawl, a traditional welsh stew made with beef, potatoes, carrots and rutabaga. the recipe also called for bacon and leeks, but those didn’t end up in this particular batch. next time. i’d never had rutabaga, but it was actually pretty good. it has a unique flavor, certainly.
we also had welsh cakes, which are a little like a biscuit, and a little like an english muffin, and are full of currants and deliciousness. apparently mitt romney and his wife had them on thursday, too. so there you go.
oh, and then there’s friday. friday, which is my favorite day of the week (i was born on a friday, so am naturally prejudiced in its favor), is a cause for celebration in itself. and i went to see moss hart and george s. kaufman’s play you can’t take it with you. i love the frank capra film starring jimmy stewart and jean arthur, but the play has its own special, quirky magic — some of which was probably not up to the snuff of 1930s-era censor boards. i laughed until i cried, which is always a very good way to end the week.
it’s a wonderful life, isn’t it? God has given us so much to celebrate — here’s to making the most of every chance we get to do it!
