Complex Numbers

Vacation

Apparently, I can either play video games, or I can blog every day.

That's okay. I need a break every now and then.

One thing I have been sticking to is my eating less and exercising plan - surprising, because I was sure I would have failed by now. But I keep seeing positive results (that is, negative results in terms of weight), so somehow, I've managed.

That will all change come Thursday.

As this is my blog, I suppose I could provide a bit of background. Feel free to skip it if you don't give a shit.

I was raised in a Jewish family. My mom's side is from New York City. She had two sisters and a brother. One aunt, A, stayed in NYC and never married or had kids. The other aunt, E, moved to Indiana (of all places) and raised two kids there. Now, the religion thing is relevant to the story because A was very religious and we'd often have Passover seders at her place. E, in contrast, has been an atheist since before I was born. (Yes, I take more after E, but I was always closer to A - go figure.) So - bear with me, here - one of E's kids, who is a bit older than I am, moved to Manhattan from Indiana and married a born-again Christian. Later, E ended up moving back to NYC as well.

If you managed to untangle the above genealogy, you'll realize that A was both my aunt and my cousin's aunt, so we had that in common. And being that they were in the same city (albeit a good hour away; NYC is big), they saw each other more than I saw either of them. But some years, we still got together for Passover seders - though none of the rest of us were religious in any meaningful way, I did it for my heritage and my family.

Aunt A died a few years back, right when NYC was buried under three feet of snow. That put the "fun" in funeral, let me tell you. Anyway, ever since then, my cousin's wife - the Christian one - has taken it upon herself to organize a family seder every year, to honor her husband's side of the family, mostly Aunt A. This is actually a bigger deal than it may seem, because doing it right is work, and since Passover usually starts around the same time as Easter (a holiday she observes), things get busy for her. So I respect her for that.

All of which is to explain why I'm going away for a few days. I mean, I'll still be "here," as in I'm bringing my laptop with me, but this is the first real trip I've had since I started the whole weight-loss thing.

So I'll probably be bad. I might even be very, very bad. At a minimum, as you might know, the Passover seder includes drinking four glasses of wine. But since it's been so long since I've gone anywhere - Vegas back in December - I'm planning on taking the opportunity to drive to the vicinity of NYC early, find a brewery to sample, and then, after I see the family, I'm hoping to find even more breweries in the general area to visit. Make it a week - Thursday through Wednesday.

Bastards are probably all closed on Easter, though - but I'm sure I'll find something to do. I'm just hoping that the siren call of the Atlantic City casinos doesn't overwhelm my desire to sample new and interesting beers. We'll see.

When I return - there's a deadline for that as I already have a ticket to Avengers:Endgame on that Thursday - I can back off on the overindulgence again. Consider this a vacation. And maybe I'll pour one out for my Aunt A.