What day is it? + Timo’s Poem + Podcast: Fondant Peonies by R. Cheadle

Photo of Khashayar and da-AL with their Persian New Year decorations.

What day is it? Those sprouts among the Persian New Year decorations got left (as is traditional) at the park to regenerate in their own way, but first K-D-doggie had a fun time tossing them about, a fun substitute for the squirrels and rabbits she was forbidden to chase.

Want to listen to a podcast/audio version of Happiness Between Tails? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.

People wish my husband and me all kinds of things around now. It would have been easy to laugh this year when we were wished a happy Purim and a happy Ramadan. However, it’s sweet that anyone wishes us goodwill and that they know something non-United-States-originated is happening about now.

Sorry, I didn’t snap any pictures of us, my husband and extended family, celebrating Sizdeh Bedar last weekend. We were all too shivery. Under chilly (at least for us thin-skinned Angelinos) gray skies, we had fun despite our shoulders hunched to our ears and our hands buried deep into our pockets. We ate quickly before picnic foods cooled from tepid to cold, like the fresh bread I baked that morning, and Khashayar’s thick noodle stew with beans (better known as Aash Reshteh) that he’d wrapped to keep warm like a baby.

K-D-doggie was desperate to check out the many squirrels and bunnies at the park where we gathered. Nonetheless, she was a very very good doggie because so long as she got some affection, she didn’t bark, run, or whine.

If a thirteen day can potentially ward off evil spirits, then it’s okay that it was a grim one. Several days later, we’ve got a heatwave, up from the 60s to the 90s. Rain or shine, one can’t predict what’ll happen in April, the month of my birthday, of April Fools, of tax returns needing to be submitted —and we’ve got my brother-in-law coming. No one knows how it’ll wind up for him, how challenging it might be for him to acclimate, yet we hope for the best and are excited to see him.

I wish the planet well, that our leaders will commit to more than grandstanding and worse. Leaders who don’t mind the oblivion that can result from working for peace. Harmony provides far less spectacular headlines than warring and experimenting with iffy new currencies.

Today’s guest, Timo Schmitz, blogs from Germany. He describes himself as a language fanatic, philosopher, journalist, poet, and book author. Visit his site for more about him and more of his thoughtful poems like this one…

Photo of Timo Schmitz.

Dark Ink by Timo Schmitz

Dark ink, dark as the coming night,

How is your year faring?

Happy Norooz! + Twinkl + Cats Fable Video + Podcast

Khashayar with me at our Persian New Year haft-seen table.
Khashayar with me at our Persian New Year haft-seen table.
Want to listen to a podcast/audio version of Happiness Between Tails? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.

Persian New Year partying is a two-week affair, so we’re still in the midst of it! Here’s the haft-seen table that Khashayar arranged. In another video, I explain the history and the items.

More to celebrate: given that I’m writing soon-to-be-published novels, Twinkl (a resource by teachers, for teachers and homeschoolers in early childhood and elementary settings that featured me before) listed me among authors and bloggers on their To Be Read List 2022: Top Book Picks From Authors and Bloggers!

Now for a story with a moral. The lives of Lucy and Mooshie are Grimm-inspired reminders of how smarts are better to have than good looks (more about Mooshie here)

 

What’s your fave book or fable?

Happy Persian New Year and we just got our 1st COVID-19 vaccines


Happy Persian New Year!

Note: I just got my 1st COVID vaccine, a Moderna, yesterday. I won’t lie — it’s knocked the stuffing out of me so I’ll keep this post brief. Make no mistake, as uncomfortable as I feel (achy, chills, fever, headache, poor sleep, which means my body is building protection, doing what it’s supposed to do), I most certainly will get my 2nd shot and totally recommend everyone get immunized.

Persians like my dear husband celebrate the Iranian New Year on the first day of spring. The celebration is two solid weeks of partying and time off from work, much like our winter holidays. Same as the European New Year, Nowrooz is a secular holiday. However some regard it also as a holy time.

No-rooz mobarak: Happy New Year
Eid-eh shoma mobarak: Happy New Year to you (formal)
No-rooz pirooz: Wishing you a prosperous New Year
Sad saal be in saal-ha: Wishing you 100 more Happy New Years

Here we stand before the “sofre” that Khashayar puts together annually. Items represent a plethora of auspicious things that start with the letter “s” (in Farsi, of course). Here and here when I posted earlier about it, you can find out more. What a delight to see that my local Ralph’s grocery store put out a sofre with detailed explanations.

Khashayar and da-AL standing before their Happy Persian New Year arrangement.
Khashayar and da-AL with their Happy Persian New Year spread.

And what would a holiday be without a cute little dog licking her lips at the sight of those tasty pastries?

Our doggie sits politely for pumpkin seeds.
Anyone got a pumpkin seed?

Have you been immunized against COVID-19 yet? If so, which brand did you get, and how were your first days, and later?…

Video music nirvana + Happy Nature Day all days

Our Nature Day picnic turned out nicer than we expected. Our impromptu Nature Day picnic turned out nicer than we expected.

Did you know that April Fool’s Day is celebrated in Iran too? Thirteen days after Persian New Year (our 1st day of Spring, which you saw us celebrating here and here and here), Persians stay out all day and play games. It’s Sizdah Be-dar (literally 13 Outdoor), also called Nature Day. One must dispel any potential bad luck from the number thirteen. Some people like to play innocent pranks on that day too!

Often that 13th day falls around Easter, filling local parks to double their capacity. So many people gather that folks will run into childhood friends, ones from other countries.

Sheltering, quarantine, house arrest, what’s in a name? Yes, it’s grim, but it also bespeaks of a hopeful world, one where everyone is pulling together (not counting the every-present handful of conspiracy theorists). (Here and here and here and here and here and here are a few more posts to cheer you through the crisis.)

Nature Day was an at-home workday for us. Half-heartedly, my husband and I set a modest picnic under the dwarf kumquat tree in our little front yard. Our sweet doggie joined us for a quick round of cards over tea and Persian cookies. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were having fun. Then we ran back indoors to return to our at-home work. Dinner involved more Persian deliciousness – see in this post that reveals how Persian food has something for everyone!

Get in close to smell Khashayar's bubbling tomato-bean-potato stew. Get in close to smell Khashayar’s bubbling tomato-bean-potato stew.

No, I don’t have a right to complain — not when people have suffered far worse and continue to do so. We’re all well here. This far, California seems to have evaded the tsunami of illness that’s still predicted to swell, probably thanks largely to our horrid mass transit that scares folks off from piling together into busses and subways.

Family in Iran, thank the heavens, is fine if we don’t count how the country has been walloped by the epidemic, amid a grossly hobbled infrastructure.

I’m rambling. Forgive me. This is what one does when one is cooped up for weeks, relegated to video chats and to regarding anything to do with life outdoors as if its all of it is radioactive waste, from people to food to petting — hands off! — each other’s dogs, and why aren’t you wearing a mask? Well, I thought outdoors…

Thank goodness for the arts. I’ve got this video-post about my enchantment with those who pursue arts and hobbies for no other compensation than inner glee.

A gift to you from Iran! Here’s some of my extended family there sharing fine musicianship — enjoy their classical Persian music performance of “Tak Derakt: Single Tree”…

With that loveliness in mind, here are a few photos from my dear husband’s visit to Tehran several years ago. (Here and here are more about that same trip.)…

The whole of Tehran turns green in Spring. The whole of Tehran turns green in Spring.
Even at night this Tehran bridge is colorful. Even at night this Tehran bridge is colorful.
Flowers in Spring in Tehran. Flowers in Spring in Tehran.
Tehran's spring-time snowy mountains. Tehran’s spring-time snowy mountains.

If you want a better idea of how a real Sizdah Bedar is meant to be, look here and feel here.

How are you fairing indoors, dear reader? Healthy and happy, I hope…