Ethiopian Holidays

I just learned that both my birthday and James' birthday fall on Ethiopian holidays.  James' birthday falls Enkutatash, their New Year and my birthday is the same day as Timket, or Epiphany.

I found the following information at the British Ethiopian Embassy's website.

The Ethiopian New Year falls in September at the end of the big rains. The sun comes out to shine all day long creating an atmosphere of dazzling clarity and fresh clean air. The highlands turn to gold as the Meskel daisies burst out in all their splendor. Ethiopian children clad in brand new clothes dance through the villages giving bouquets of flowers and painted pictures to each household.

September 11th is both New Year's Day and the Feast of St. John the Baptist. The day is called Enkutatash meaning the "gift of jewels." When the famous Queen of Sheba returned from her expensive jaunt to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem, her chiefs welcomed her back by replenishing her treasury with enku or jewels. The spring festival has been celebrated since these early times and as the rains come to their abrupt end, dancing and singing can be heard at every village in the green countryside. After dark on New Year's Eve people light fires outside their houses. 

The main religious celebration takes place at the 14th-century Kostete Yohannes church in the city of Gaynt within the Gondar Region. Three days of prayers, psalms, and hymns, sermons, and massive colorful processions mark the advent of the New Year. Closer to Addis Ababa, the Raguel Church, on top of the Entoto Mountain north of the city, has the largest and most spectacular religious celebration. But Enkutatash is not exclusively a religious holiday, and the little girls singing and dancing in pretty new dresses among the flowers in the fields convey the message of springtime and renewed life. Today's Enkutatash is also the season for exchanging formal New Year greetings and cards among the urban sophisticated in lieu of the traditional bouquet of flowers.

Timket, or Epiphany falls on January 19th, just two weeks after the Ethiopian Christmas. It is actually a three-day affair, beginning on the Eve of Timkat with dramatic and colorful processions. The following morning the great day itself, Christ's baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist is commemorated. The third day is devoted to the Feast of St. Michael, the archangel, one of Ethiopia's most popular saints.  Since October and the end of the rains, the country has been drying up steadily. The sun blazes down from a clear blue sky and the Festival of Timkat always takes place in glorious weather.  Enormous effort is put into the occasion. Tej and tella (Ethiopian mead and beer) are brewed, special bread is baked, and the fat-tailed African sheep are fattened for slaughter.Gifts are prepared for the children and new clothes purchased or old mended and laundered.

Everyone men, women, and children appear resplendent for the three-day celebration. Dressed in the dazzling white of the traditional dress, the locals provide a dramatic contrast to the jewel colors of the ceremonial velvets and satins of the priests' robes and sequined velvet umbrellas.

On the eve of the 18 January, Ketera, the priests remove the tabots from each church and bless the water of the pool or river where the next days celebration will take place. It is the tabot (symbolizing the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments) rather than the church building which is consecrated, and it is accorded extreme reverence. Not to be desecrated by the gaze of the layman, the engraved wooden or stone slab is carried under layers of rich cloth.  In Addis Ababa, many churches bring their tabots to Jan Meda (the horse racing course of imperial day) accompanied by priests bearing prayer sticks and sistra, the ringing of bells and blowing of trumpets, and swinging bronze censors from which wisps of incense smoke escape into the evening air. The tabots rest in their special tent in the meadow, each hoisting a proud banner depicting the church's saint in front.

The priests pray throughout the long cold night and mass is performed around 2:00 a.m. Huge crowds of people camp out, eating and drinking by the light of flickering fires and torches. Towards dawn the patriarch dips a golden cross and extinguishes a burning consecrated candle in the altar. Then he sprinkles water on the assembled congregation in commemoration of Christ's baptism. Many of the more fervent leap fully dressed into the water to renew their vows.

Following the baptism the tabots start back to their respective churches, while feasting, singing and dancing continue at Jan Meda. The procession winds through town again as the horsemen cavort alongside, their mounts handsomely decorated with red tassels, embroidered saddlecloths, and silver bridles. The elders march solemnly, accompanied by singing leaping priests and young men, while the beating of staffs and prayer sticks recalls the ancient rites of the Old Testament.

Chicken Pot Pie

I made this for dinner one day last week.  It was good, but I think it could use a bit more salt and pepper than what it calls for.

Ingredients
1 cup potato, diced
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup carrot, diced
1/3 cup melted margarine
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 cups chicken, cooked and chopped
2 pie crusts (either store bought or your own recipe)


Preheat oven to 400°F.  Saute onion, celery, carrots and potatoes in butter for 10 minutes.  Add flour to sauteed mixture, stirring well Cook one minute stirring constantly.  Combine broth and half and half.  Gradually stir into vegetable mixture.  Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thickened and bubbly.  Stir in salt and pepper; add chicken and stir well.  Pour into shallow 2 quart casserole dish and top with pie shells.  Cut slits in pie shells to allow steam to escape.  Bake for 40-50 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly and cooked through.

French Bread Pizza

This is yummy and really easy to make.  I got the idea from my mother-in-law.  Her version uses green onions, cheese, black olives, butter, and mayo.  It is very good too.

I loaf of french sliced in half
marinara sause
toppings of your choice (I used turkey pepperoni, onion, bell peppers, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese)

Bake uncovered at 35o degrees for 15-20 minutes.

I do not saute the veggies before I bake the pizza.

Highlights from our trip to NYC

We arrived in NYC Friday afternoon, and that night we went to China town. There were lots of street vendors and a number of these little pharmacies pictured below. We ate dinner at a restaurant called Joe's Shanghai. It was really good, but noisy. You sat at a table with 4 other people, kinda like at a hibachi. We had potstickers and soup dumplings. Soup dumplings are what they are know for.

Saturday morning we took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. FYI for anyone who has not been there since 9-11-01, prepare to feel robbed of your liberty upon entering. You have to go through security twice before you can even go to the museum at the base of the statue. The first time is before you board the ferry, and then you have to go through it again after you arrive at Liberty Island before you can enter the base of the statue. (There were no tickets available for the climb to the crown on Sat.) It was worse than airport security. You had to completely empty your pockets, no liquids were allowed, and I even had a park ranger give me trouble about taking my camera bag inside - because it is a backpack style camera bag. No backpacks allowed. I rolled my eyes at her and she gave in. Thank goodness. I wouldn't have gotten irritated about it if it hadn't been for the fact that they allowed women to take in these gigantic purses that a couple small kids could fit into. If they don't want people to take backpacks inside, then they should not allow giant purses either. Next time I will just take a giant purse to put my backpack style camera bag into. HA!

The ferry ride was nice. The weather was great, but we both got a bit of windburn from standing at the bow of the boat.

After we got back from the Statue, we walked to Ground Zero. The memorial is still under construction, and will not be finished for quiet some time from the way things looked. The fire station that first responded to the emergency is located right across the street from where the Twin Towers once stood. There were a couple of long plaques on the exterior of the fire station. There one pictured read "Dedicated to those who fell and to those who carried on." There was a poster that had a photo of each firefighter who died in the rescue efforts, and there was a small place for people to leave flowers.
Saturday night we went to see "Wicked." It was a great show. The music was well done and the costumes were fantastic. The picture below was taken in the lobby of the theater.
Sunday afternoon we went to a Yankee's/Red Sox game. It was rainy, and the game was delayed for about 1 hour. It was nice to see the new stadium. I liked the architecture, but Busch and Wrigley are still the best to us. The Yankee's won the game, and thus their division. It was also their 100th win of the year. The heckling between the Yanks and Sox fans was way more intense than anything I have experienced at Cards/Cubs at either Busch or Wrigley. If I had to listen to that kind of trash talk during the games, I don't think I'd go to Cubs games at Busch.

Sunday night we went to Madame Tussoud's Wax museum. It was James' idea, and I will admit that I was not fired up about going. I mean, it's a wax museum. . .

I'm glad we went. We both had fun. Unlike other wax museums we'd been to, you could touch the models and pose for pics with them. There were models of celebrities, presidents, foreign heads of state, professional athletes, musicians, and even Sponge Bob Square Pants. There's James below doing what all of us Microsoft users would like to do - giving Bill Gates a piece of his mind.
Monday we went to the Museum of Modern Art. James didn't really want to go until he found out that they had Van Gogh's Starry Night there. They also had some of Salvador Dali's work, and Picasso, Monet, Warhol and Jackson Pollock. We spent at least two hours there and we still didn't see everything they had. This pic was taken in their outdoor sculpture garden.After we left the MoMA, we walked about the square at Rockefeller Center. I loved seeing all the flags. It was so colorful!

We walked around the outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral. We didn't have time for a tour. It is a beautiful church.

For lunch, we went to the Hello Deli. It's a little place that Letterman helped put on the map. The owner, Rupert, who has appeared on the Late Show a number of times, was running the register and taking orders.
After lunch we went to the Guggenheim. I was really impressed with the building. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The opening scene of "Men in Black" was shot there, and that kept playing in my head the whole time we were there. HA. Most of the museum was showing the work of one artist, and neither of us were enthralled with his work, so we didn't stay there too long. Their permanent collection did have some famous piece from Degas, Picasso, Renoir, and Van Gogh.

Tuesday was our last day in NYC. We were able to squeeze in some sightseeing before we had to go to the airport. We went to the NYC library. There is a Gutenberg Bible on display - that's what James is standing next too.
Our finally stop was a tour of Radiocity Music Hall. Our tour guide was great. He had been working there for 12 years, and he loved his job through and through. We got to meet a Rockette.
Our flight home was interesting. We flew from NYC to Baltimore then to STL. When we got to our gate in Baltimore, I noticed that were were a lot of people in wheelchairs waiting to board. I pointed it out to James, because it was unusual. It turns out they were all World War II veterans from the STL area who had been in DC to visit the monuments and to see the sights. They got a round of applause on the plane, and when we landed in STL, there were 4 firetrucks there to do a water salute.
There was a welcoming party inside the airport along with a local news station.

Some refections on Hurricane Katrina

Four years ago, I had returned to work after an unexpectedly long weekend. Hurricane Katrina had ravaged New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I didn't know what to expect when I returned to work, and was certainly not mentally prepared to meet the grief and loss that I was met with.

I had obtained my LA pharmacist's license only about 6 weeks before, so I was still new at the business. I was working for a grocery store chain -Albertson's - that had pharmacies in its stores. The state had given pharmacists authorization to fill prescriptions for medically necessary medications without having to obtain a legal prescription. We just needed some kind of "proof" that the patient had been on that medication. Sometimes they still had their bottle from their last refill. Sometimes the only proof we could obtain was a pill - that they didn't the name of - and they name of the doctor who had prescribed it. One person has stuck in my memory. He was an elderly veteran from St. Bernard parish. He came to the pharmacy with his daughter and son-in-law. They had just found out that they had lost everything. They had oily nasty water filling their home all they way up to the roof. He wanted to see if he could get his meds refilled. He had four or five different looking pills wrapped up in a kleenex that he carefully presented to me. He didn't know what any of them were called and he didn't have much an of idea of what they were for, he just knew that his doctor told him that it was very important that he take them everyday & he was almost out. He told me he just thought he'd be gone from home for the weekend, like he had been before. He -like the rest of us - didn't know how bad things were going to be until we were right in the middle of it. I used a database to find out what his meds were, and got his refills ready, found some kleenex for his daughter, who had been crying, offered my condolences and hopes that things weren't as bad as they seemed. They thanked me for the meds and went on their way. I have often wondered what became of them.

Days at work after the storm were long & very hectic, and sometimes just plain uncomfortable. I had to work one day at a pharmacy with only the back-up power running. (Were were still out of power at our house.) There was one light, one computer, and one cash register that would work in the pharmacy. The phones & the fax were down. The fridge had not been running, and I had to throw the insulin out because I was not comfortable filling RX's with insulin that probably had not been refrigerated for at least three days - it was very warm to touch, and I wouldn't have wanted to take it myself. I stumbled around in the dark a lot that day trying to fill prescriptions.

Pharmacists had to be on the lookout for people trying to take advantage of the situation. I had a number of people present prescriptions for controlled substances (pain meds, muscle relaxers, etc) that looked possibly legit, but they were dated on the day that the storm hit. How did they find a MD in the middle of a hurricane? I refused to fill those because they were probably fake, and referred the patient to a nearby urgent care clinic just in case they really did need medical attention.

James' story is a lot different. LSU was closed the week after Katrina, so he went to work at a church down the street from us that had been turned into a shelter. He spent most of his time trying to reunite families. Sometimes he had good news, and sometimes he didn't. One of the pharmacy technicians that I worked with didn't know where one of her nephews was for almost a month. He was about 6 years old, I think. He had been taken out of New Orleans on a bus, and he got separated from his parents. He was taken to Atlanta, and it took about a month for his family to find him. How traumatic that must have been for a 6 year old!

The storm impacted our lives, and we were only spectators compared to the people who were trapped on their roofs or stranded at the Superdome. I've wondered if we might have made Baton Rouge our home if it hadn't been for that experience. Who knows. I'm glad we're where we are, and I am thankful for the three years when Baton Rouge was our home.

Why I'm not a Harry Potter Fan

I know I'm going to get some flak for this, but I have to vent. This is a re-post of one of James' posts from almost exactly 2 years ago. I share his sentiment on the Harry Potter movies, and and I couldn't say this better myself.

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The New Harry Potter Movie

I haven't seen the latest movie, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" yet, but I don't really need to. I already know what's going to happen.

1. Harry goes back to Hogwarts.
2. There's a new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher who seems suspicious.
3. Malfoy is stuck-up and arrogant towards Harry & Co.
4. The Old Witch Lady gives Harry & Co. explicit instructions NOT to do something.
5. Hermoine tells Harry not to do it.
6. Harry does it.
7. Hagrid helps out.
8. The aforementioned DADA teacher is either Harry & Co.'s greatest enemy or their greatest friend. Either way the audience will act surprised.
9. The Old Witch Lady is initially upset that Harry & Co. disobeyed her orders. But since everything worked out ok, she just grins and gives Harry a trophy.
10. Harry & Co. humiliate Malfoy without losing the audience's respect.
11. End Credits.

Oops, I just spoiled the movie for you. Sorry. -James

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I just don't understand the fascination with these movies, because the all have the same plot! I have continued to watch them - after they make it TV, I'm not going to pay for it - just to see if anything changes, but I am always left scratching my head wondering why these movies aren't so transparent to everyone else. I will admit that I have not read the books, and maybe I would appreciate the movie better if I had read them. The thing that puzzles me most regarding these movies is the number of Christian parents who let their kids watch these movies. There is always a terrible problem brewing that Harry and company know about, but the adults either are oblivious to it or think it doesn't matter. The adults tell Harry not to worry, & are impotent to solve the problem in Harry's eyes. The kids disobey the rules, but solve the problem, making their elders look like fools. That is just telling kids, "Your parents are really stupid and incapable of doing anything when you have a problem, so forget listening to their rules, instruction, and wisdom. Have your own adventure saving the day." And you wonder why your kids don't take what you say seriously. . .

Summer Rolls

A few weeks ago, I made my first attempt at making spring rolls. We first had these at a restaurant in Baton Rouge, and we love them. Here is the recipe that I used:

1 lb. cooked shrimp
cellophane noodles
1 Tbs. seasoned rice vinegar
Boston lettuce leaves, separated and dried
fresh mint, basil, and cilantro coarsely chopped (no quantity was given for the herbs in the original recipe that I had, so I just grabbed a handful of each our of my garden)
carrot, coarsely shredded
Rice paper rounds (8.5 inches in diameter)

To prepare the cellophane noodles, cover them with boiling water and let soak for 15 minutes. Drain well and pat dry between paper towels. Toss with Rice vinegar.

Fill a pie plate with lukewarm water. Immerse one rice paper round in warm water for a few seconds, just until it is flexible. Remove from pie plate & let rest on a kitchen towel for about 30 seconds until it is more pliable.

Arrange one piece of lettuce on bottom half of soaked rice parer, folding or tearing to fit. Leave a 1 inch boarder along edge. Top with shrimp, herbs, cellophane noodles, and carrot.

Pressing down on the filling with your fingers, fold the bottom end of the rice paper over the top of the fillings and roll into a cylindrical shape halfway. Fold the left and right sides inward and continue rolling.

This is served with peanut sauce, here's the recipe.

1 bunch fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 Tbs. sesame oil
1/2 c soy sauce
3 Tbs. sugar
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbs. hot chili sauce
1 Tbs. rice vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth.