I'm totally smitten, in case you couldn't tell. But I must say Batch's Lenten vow of vegetarianism is less than ideal, though not a deal-breaker. At least at this point. I can't say where I'll be on the issue after another weekend of pumpkin tortellini, delicious as it is. No promises.

Lent started the 21st of February and ends Easter Sunday, April 8th, so Batch has been tempting—make that taunting—me with a pork roast practically since we met.  And I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. 

Of course, I want him to enjoy his Lent to the fullest. I fully respect—I can even sympathize—with his vegetarian vow. Pumpkin tortellini for dinner, and kashi for breakfast—I wish that did it for me, buddy.  I really do. But the truth is I don't want to become someone who does this regularly, or once in a while, or even ever again.  It scares me. Life without meat scares me. I'm exploring it in group, but I'm just not there yet.

So I have been searching for a loophole that will allow us to enjoy that pork roast together before it's too late. And I think today I may have found it.

I actually stumbled upon it on wikipedia when searching for the date of Easter this year. I'm not good with birthdays or resurrections, and when Batch and I were talking about that pork roast last weekend, I could not tell him when Easter was. He asked if it was in March, and I said I thought it was always in April. I was thinking it was one of those holy days that are set in stone—like Christmas, which is always on the 25th of December.

But clearly Easter is a Christian adaptation of a pagan festival, because it's tied to the cycles of the moon. "A simple formula to know the exact date is that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the Spring Equinox." It's not as simple as if it was just the first Sunday of April or something, though, is it?

Anyway, here's the part that got me to thinking the pork roast might be legal:

Ash Wednesday, which may fall anywhere between February 4 and March 10, occurs forty-six days before Easter, but Lent is nevertheless considered to be forty days long, due to the fact that Sundays in this season are not counted among the days of Lent. The traditional reason for this is that fasting was considered inappropriate on Sunday, the day commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus.

Could it really be this easy? I mean, we could be feasting on pork roast this very Sunday, according to wikipedia, without the least threat of apostasy or excommunication.

Batch isn't doing it because he's particularly religious. If he were religious, he might not be doing it quite this way. "Cultural Catholics" in Latin America (according to a Colombian student of mine I asked about it) don't abstain from meat during Lent, except on Fridays, when they eat fish instead.

Even during the middle ages when Lent was more serious, and giving up meat and dairy products for the duration was de rigueur, "dispensations for dairy products were given, frequently for a donation, from which several churches are popularly believed to have been built, including the 'Butter Tower' of the Rouen Cathedral." Clever, eh? I mean, you have to hand it to the Church.

I sent Batch a little email alerting him to the loophole, and said I did not think God would punish him for making a roast this Sunday. He may punish me, somehow. But we'll see.