Thank God Lent is Over

I had always thought that the season of Lent went right up until Easter Sunday. Well, last night (Friday night) when I got home from work, my daughter Alexa informed me that Lent actually ends on midnight the Friday before. So, being the good catholic that I am, I quickly did some math and figured that it was indeed past midnight in Jerusalem and cracked upon a great bottle of White Oak Chardonnay! Oh yea, for those of you that haven't been keeping up, my sacrifice for Lent was not drinking any alcohol for that period of time.

Now, I did have a slip up here and there (probably two or three times) over the forty days/nights but that's the cool thing about being a Catholic - you mess up and then go to confession. You should try it, it works. No guilt here. Although Christine would always argue that I was born guilt free. For those purists out there, yes I am human, yes I do believe in choice and the freedom of self expression, so if you don't like it - oh well!

So tomorrows Easter, the kids are all excited, they still believe in the Easter Bunny (so do I but in my mind she looks a little bit different :-). Easter is the only holiday that I know about that isn't the same weekend every year. It's actually determined as the first Sunday, after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (btw, the vernal equinox is when the sun crosses the equator from south to north and the amount of daylight equals the amount of sunlight at that point - it always happens on or about the 20th of March. It's also known as the first day of spring. When it happens the other way, crossing from north to south, it's called the autumnal equinox - our entry to fall). So this year the vernal equinox is on the 20th, the first full moon is on the 25th and viola - Easter is on Sunday the 27th!

Another tid bit of information. The Great Sphinx - one of the 7 wonders of the world - was positioned to point to the exact spot of the rising sun on the day of the vernal equinox. Also, the vernal and autumnal equinox days are the only days when you can balance an oblique object on its point - that's why you can balance an egg on its end on the 20th of March every year.

OK, full disclosure - every vernal equinox I sneak to the fridge when no one is looking , take out an egg and try this.