Which would you rather do... go without food and water for one day, or be forced to eat foods that you find repugnant for eight days. As part of my religious beliefs, I am required to do both of these actions during the course of the year. By far, the most difficult of these activities is eating foods I don't like. Passover is a holiday that celebrates the Jewish people's release from bondage in Egypt, and because they had very little time to prepare for this release, they had to forego many baked goods (due to the time it took for yeast to rise).

To help us recall the gravity of the situation, there are many rituals that make up the celebration of Passover. Unfortunately, many of these are tied to food; both foods that you must eat, and foods that you must not eat. I am vastly oversimplifying here, but if anything, the simplification is minimizing the inconvenience this holiday causes me. Let's get to the point. Bread is a staple of my diet. Not only is bread not allowed, but really nothing made from grains mixed with yeast is allowed. It is not just the grain that is taboo, it is the yeast. So, basically, the only foods I am allowed for the eight day duration are: beef, chicken, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, potatos, unleavened bread (bread made without yeast) and non-fermented beverages.

The next time you go to the grocery and pick up food, any food, check the label for corn starch or yeast. It will amaze you how many products contain these ingredients. For the length of the holiday, these are not allowed. Unleavened bread (matzoh) is flat, dry, and for the most part, tasteless. In modern times, manufacturers have tried to spice it up by adding eggs (for flavour and some inherent moisture content, I would suppose). I've been told, though I have no way of knowing for sure, that this unleavened bread is similar to the wafers many people place in their mouths during communion. Can you imagine living off those wafers for eight days?

Anyway, Passover begins tonight, with my dinner meal. If this year is like any other, I will be an absolute bear to be around. I will be more surly than usual, and hungry all the time. Also, the foods I will be most comfortable eating are those that I have been trying to cut down on (meat and eggs) as part of the treatment of my high cholesterol. I suppose no one is going to stand behind me with a gun to my head and force me to eat these foods, or even celebrate Passover. It's a choice I make, a choice that causes me some discomfort, but one that I am willing to tolerate.

Passover is always celebrated at "approximately" the same time as Easter, due to the fact that both holidays are based on the lunar calendar. This year, they coincide, and this will cause me even greater discomfort. You see, my wife is not Jewish, and she likes to celebrate Easter with her family eating a traditional meal. She has altered it somewhat (to avoid me puking my guts out), and she does try to be accommodating by offering at times to have this meal outside our home (as she will do this year), but knowing that there's this really good meal that everyone but me will be eating still leaves me annoyed and somewhat envious.

Oh well, I've vented enough on that subject.

On another subject, we had a big snowfall yesterday. As the snow fell, I smiled inside, knowing that this time I'd have a new snowblower waiting to take care of the white stuff in record time. I knew the snowblower was working, because I had already used it once this season. Well, it didn't work. I pulled on the chord, and the engine would teasingly come to life, but only for a few seconds. The longest I was able to keep it running was less than 10 seconds. Over a period of 45 minutes, I was not able to coax it to sustained life. I went back indoors, when I realized my toes were tingling. After warming up for about an hour, I went outdoors again. I tried one more time to get it running, but to no avail.

Thank god we still had a manual, old-fashioned shovel. Actually, it wasn't so old fashioned. It was made of some synthetic material (like plastic, but more rigid) that made it very light, and it had an aesthetically designed handle and stick, so that you didn't need to bend your back to make the blade contact the concrete surface at just the right angle. For the first 20 shovelfuls or so, I was picking up the snow and throwing it onto the lawn. But the snow was heavy, and I soon decided it would be easier to simply put the blade on the ground and push the snow across the driveway. On my very first pass, the shovel's stick caved in, folding back on itself. So, I have a driveway full of snow, a snowblower whose engine refuses to stay running, and a snow shovel whose handle has been folded in half.

I hope it warms up today and tomorrow.