Does our costume contest have an "Avodah Zarah" category?

It's Purim! Chag sameach!

I don't always do much costuming for Purim services, but for this year, I was feeling saucy and decided to trot out the Maenad costume that I put together for Halloween of 2002 (photos archived here). I adored that costume and have kept all the pieces lovingly stored (and, in some cases, displayed in my living room) all the intervening years. Mind you, at the original party, I walked in and found a dryad (coraline) and a satyr (jonathanjo) and we got a group photo, and scholargipsy walked in shortly thereafter and exclaimed unprompted "Nice thyrsos!", which still ranks among my favorite compliments ever. Sadly, this time around, it was not as well received wearing it to shul last night. Rather, although it was much admired, I got a lot of "Oh, you are Spring! Oh, you're Mother Nature!" Um. I would have liked to add an animal-skin wrap and a kantharos, but realistically I don't think that would have helped much. :-} I think for next time I need to create a special label for the bottle that glosses from Edith Hamilton or something.

Anyway, I was also playing Vashti in the tremontstshul Purimspiel, so I ALSO brought the black velvet dress once ruled too dangerous for shul, and a silver tiara, and did a quick costume change after megillah reading. It was worth doing.

And justom was with me. *beam* Because it was his spring break, in fact, he was here all the past week, which was wonderful, and there were restaurant outings and Cheese and at least one lazy morning. But he's on the bus back to NYC at this very moment. Sniff.

Now I have to head out for Menschen rehearsal, so instead of a more in-depth entry, I give you a meme. Stolen from suntop, it's ( this silly A-Z meme. )