Spencer's Life: Spencer does the holidays

So this past weekend was my first religious holiday weekend. No, not Easter...although we'll get to that in a minute. It was Purim, a somewhat marginal Jewish holiday, but a distinctive one. To summarize, Jews were oppressed (shocker) and broke out of their oppression, and now we celebrate it. This pretty much summarizes every Jewish holiday, I guess. But this one is a bit different. I'll be brief...

It takes place in Persia (now Iran, but then probably part of the Axis of Sin). The King of Persia selects a Jewish woman as his queen, not knowing she was Jewish. His Prime Minister, a guy named Haman who wore a triangular hat, hates Jews and tricks the King into destroying them. So the Queen saves the day by convincing the King that Haman is a bad guy, saves the Jews, and...get this...the King kills Haman and all his children. Sounds a bit like Texas. Or Iran. Strange how they're so similar that way.

So what do we Jews do on Purim. First, any time the name Haman is spoken, we make noise. OK, that makes some sense. But we also eat special cookies called Hamantashen - they're triangular cookies shaped like Haman's hat. Doesn't this strike anyone as strange? Do we eat crullers shaped like Hitler's moustache on Holocaust Remembrance Day? Omelettes shaped like Castro's beard on Bay of Pigs day? Hamburgers shaped like Joan Crawford on Mother's Day (Mommie Dearest - rent it)?

We had Hamantashen anyway. They're yummy.

We also went to an Easter dinner at our friend Patrick's house, where I got dressed to the nines in my fancy blue gingham overalls. I looked hot hot hot!