פסח שמח

Chemo side effect wise, things are pretty good right now.  Stomach issues are mostly gone, and I've been sleeping reasonably well for a little while now.  Of course, it's not that long before the cycle starts all over again.  My third round of chemo is scheduled for Wednesday.  It'll also be the third different place, since the first was in the hospital, the second was at my oncologist's office in Oakland, and this will be at the cancer center in Berkeley.

I'm also continuing to put on weight. Given both the intra- and inter- day variances, it's hard to give an exact number, but I think that I've solidly passed the 5 pound mark and am starting to approach a gain of nearly 10 pounds from my low. I wouldn't mind keeping off maybe 5 or so of the 25 that I lost, but I've still got a little while to go. Which is good news for my sweet tooth. But I do need to over time increase my activity and exercise level so that some of this is muscle and it's not all just fat.

The cold is still persisting somewhat, which is kind of annoying, but I feel that I turned a corner on Friday and things are getting better.  I felt well enough today to do some yard work out back in the afternoon, and it was nice to be outside in the warmish sun.  I didn't get as much done as I had wanted to, partly because we had a tiny Passover seder tonite (just Lorien, myself, and Dylan) and I had some prep work to do for that.  Made motzah (it's really not that hard -- just two ingredients, flour and water), made horseradish sauce, made charoseth.  I also had to tend the potatoes and the brisket while Lorien made a quick last minute run to the market.  We've got a day of yard work planned for tomorrow, and some friends are coming over to help, so I can finish up then.

Dinner took a little bit longer to prepare than we had hoped (and the yard work didn't help), so we were on a somewhat later schedule than optimal for the Seder.  So that Dylan wouldn't get too cranky, we kept it *very* quick and simple.  Not that I think any seder with a toddler, no matter how early it is, could really be that long.  Our basis was the following "2 minute seder".  Although we felt it was just a bit too abbreviated in some respects and ad lib'd some -- I'm okay with a little bit of Hebrew in my Seder, at least that which I know by heart and don't need to look up.  Nevertheless, this quickie seder seems to do a better job of actually telling the Passover story of the exodus from Egypt than any haggadah we used growing up.  They were all so full of tangents and random stuff (e.g. Rabbi Akiba says this; the meaning of all of the days and the nights, etc.) that they never actually getting around to doing any kind of decent or even remotely linear telling of the story that's supposed to be at the heart of it all.

Dylan managed to mostly behave during the seder, although in addition to the role as the child to young to ask a question, he occasionally assumed the role of the wicked child.  Dylan both likes (homemade, at least -- we haven't opened the store bought box yet) and can say the word for motzah.  He also seemed especially fond of the charoseth.  In retrospect I wonder if the red wine that's in it may have contributed to that.

This being Passover, and me feeling a bit better, we decided to open a bottle of wine.  I'm okay to have alcohol in moderation other than when I'm actively getting chemo drugs at the beginning of my cycle.  It was nice to drink some wine with dinner again.  It was really only a very small amount of wine (between Lorien, myself, and the charoseth, we finished 1/2 a bottle), but it was the most I've had since I believe early January.  Hopefully I won't regret it tomorrow.

Dylan has this book called "Where is the Afikomen?" that we found used in a bookstore when my Mom was here, and she bought it for him.  (And read it to him again and again and again on demand.)  For any goy out there not familiar with Passover, the Afikomen is a piece of motzah (half of the middle one from the seder plate, maybe?) that has a tradition that goes something like this:  The head of the seder hides it sometime during the meal, the kids look for it, and when it's found the head of the seder then trades back for it with gifts for the kids.  Or at least that's one way.  I guess another way is for the kids to hide it, then the head of the seder needs to look for it, and if he can't find it, trade for it with gifts.  Anyway, the book has it the first way, with a little girl looking in various places for the Afikomen.  In every picture her cat is with her looking as well, which makes both us and Dylan more fond of the book.

The girl eventually finds it hidden behind a cushion on the back of someone's chair.  So Lorien decided to put a pillow on her chair, put the Afikomen there, then read Dylan the book while he was in his high chair.  Then take him down from the chair and ask Dylan to go find the Afikomen.  Somewhat to our amazement, Dylan proceeded to head straight for the chair and grab the pillow.  Alas, lest we think that Dylan is an Afikomen-finding genius, he totally ignored the Afikomen.  Instead, he ran with the pillow to his room and tossed it and joyfully (almost crazedly) rolled around with it just like he does with Bop (his security blanket).

By this time Dylan was more than ready for bed, so we saved dessert until after putting him to bed.  For a couple of weeks we've noticed every time we walked by Masse's Pastries in North Berkeley that they were advertising the dates for both Passover and Easter.  Finally a couple of days ago I was curious what they sold (they're a French pastry shop) that was kosher for Passover, so we stopped in.  French macarons are made with almond flour, so allegedly they qualify.  So that's what we had for dessert -- it's not necessary to limit yourself to instant cake mixes from Manischewitz.  Although there's this one particular mix (Marble Cake) that seems to be comfort food for Lorien, so we do have a box of that right now, and Lorien is probably going to make it tomorrow.

I think I'll skip the traditional "Next year in Jerusalem" (which I've always found a little odd anyway), and instead end with "Next year without cancer".