Isn't it ironic??
Like rain on your wedding day, is your favorite ice cream flavor on the first day of Lent. Yep, yesterday I went searching for Fruit of the Forest Ice Cream- what would have been my last taste of it. But it was nowhere to be found. I settled for a mediocre hazelnut milk shake. And then, today, right in my neighborhood Supermarket, enough FoF Ice Cream to make me ill. Oh well. What a cruel world.

That's right, today is my first day of Lent. This may confuse you since many of my readers will have been fasting for weeks by now. You see, this year, Orthodox Easter comes almost a month after Protestant Easter. So I realized a while ago that I will not be home in time for protestant Easter and I will leave before Orthodox (Romanian) Easter. Not wanting to miss out on the most important holiday of the church year, I decided that celebrating Orthodox Easter in America is preferable to celebrating Protestant Easter all by myself.

After that decision was made, there was the usual pre-Lent ponderings. What to give up? Why do I even fast? How to explain it all to my less traditional friends/family? Well, I decided if I'm going to celebrate with the Orthodox, I will prepare with the Orthodox. Which meeans 40 days of meatless, dairy free, non-alcoholic meditation. This is going to be tough, especially when I return to celebratory post-Easter America. But I am going to try. And aside from all things spiritual, I don't think it will be a bad thing to return to indulgent America in a spirit of self-denial and restraint. Just because so much more is available doesn't mean I should consume everything in sight. So the celebratory lattes and Long Trails will have to wait until April 28. I hope you'll understand.