Excercise the Orthodox Way

The Orthodox Easter was this past Sunday, which is one of the few weekends were I take on the traditional gender role and spend all day in the kitchen and the rest of the time at Church. (OK - Maybe this is traditional gender roles in the 18th century.) I made it back in time for the Good Friday Service so was able to get in some extra Aunt Olga time as a bonus. As an aside, I've always wondered why it's called Good Friday when it's the day that Jesus actually died. Sunday is good. Friday sucks! It should be called Sad Friday. Anyways, in the Orthodox Church, we like to take laps around the church on Easter weekend as part of the service. Usually, the preist stops at every corner and says certian prayers, but on Friday it seemed as if he was on crack or trying to turn the service into a workout because the pace was definitely faster than normal. Well, Aunt Olga is 82 years old (see below for a picture of her birthday party at Cooks Forrest) and her ability to walk in heels (which looked to be at least twenty years old themselves) has greatly diminished. We walk around the church three times and during the course of this hike a pattern developed. During the slight incline on the one side on the church we would start lagging behind the procession and Aunt Olga would start breathing a little heavier than normal. At the front of the Church, she would comment that we are falling behind and then decide that it is imparitive we catch up as we begin to walk around the side of the church, where there is a slight decline. At this point, my 82 year-old great aunt begins running, which looks much more like she is falling, down the hill to catch up with procession. So on and so forth. This was the point when I a) realized it was only Friday and I had only just begun my Easter weekend, b) remembered why Easter is my favorite holiday, and c) began anticipating the remaining of the weekend with increased excitement.