Seattle 105, or A Night at the Kibbutz

After two seders, we were done. Done with crowds of people, done with schlepping chairs, even a little bit done with cooking for the crowds. This week has been all about reconnecting with one another - a party to watch episodes of Northern Exposure (the collective favorite rerun), lots of inter-house wandering, Tamar's matzah pizza and matzagna propelling us through Pesach.

Last night, I was resigning myself to a night at home alone, when I heard not-my-house voices in the kitchen. Went to investigate. Jim had come over to share a hookah with Sergey. Neal and Shaul just wanted to be around people. Neal hadn't eaten dinner yet - brought asparagus, brussels sprouts, tofu. I added shallots and zucchini and chopped tomatoes, made us a nice little ratatouille with roasted asparagus and tofu on the side. Much more colorful and filling than what I'd originally planned for dinner (I'd planned to eat matzah and cream cheese).

After dinner, I folded laundry while Shaul and I talked girls. Then, the lights flickered - once, then twice. Then the power went out.

Shaul and I took a walk around the neighborhood - about four or five solid blocks of darkness. We grinned. We love power outages. At Aleph, Erica and Masha and Neal were already getting cozy on the couch, candles ablaze. I remembered Gimel's gas fireplace. We trooped over to find Ilana and Sergey with their feet up, fire going, drinks full. We joined them, considered eating all the ice cream in the freezer, story-talked about other dark nights and fires.

When they did come back on, remarkably quickly, no one was ready for the lights.