Megillah Meme

This is the first time someone tagged with with a meme. Unfortunately, this one appears totally freeform, unlike others that are fairly easy to do (e.g. songs on iPod or places I lived), but here goes...

What did I think about during the Megillah reading? Nothing complex, so prepare to be disappointed:

1) Watching my oldest son, who finally reached the age where he GETS it. He is so into it. He is poised over the megillah with a greggar (see #2), and constantly keeps repeating "Daddy, where are we?" as my finger skims frantically down the page trying to keep up with the ba'al koreh.

2) The fact that due to lack of planning, I brought a very improvised noisemaker to the shul. I was actually reading about what Jews used to do in Europe centuries ago, and one of the customs was to bang pots with a spoon. My wife told me she'd divorce me if I brought one of her expensive pots to bang on, so I compromised on a trivet. Banging a trivet with a spoon makes a lot of noise! My son thought it was really cool. Don't know about the rest of the crowd...

3) Of course, there are parts of the story that are confusing. I don't want to get into the controversies of historical authenticity or all the other rhetoric that you can find elsewhere. The most puzzling to me is the fact that when Mordechai gets to write a new scroll to undo the one that Haman sent out, he doesn't try to stop the impending battle, but just to allow the Jews the chance to defend themselves. Seems like it would be much easier to write a scroll saying "In the name of the King, don't attack the Jews", or "In the name of the King, help the Jews attack Haman's supporters". I must be missing something there.

4) Interestingly, the name of Haman's father - Hammedatha and his sons' (Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha) sound Aramaic to me, and not Persian. I guess that would make sense if he was an Amalekite. I guess it is possible that just like Mordechai - a Jew - became a trusted advisor, there's no reason why another non-Persian couldn't be a trusted advisor. Maybe someone can elucidate...

That's about it.

I guess I have to tag someone? How about Shoshana and Tobie?