“The tomb is empty. The Easter Bunny hasn’t been.”
This Easter Sunday found Katr and I motoring off to Barrie, Ontario, for an Easter lunch hosted by my grandfather and step-grandmother. I had whipped up a batch of my famous “stuff we bought at Dominion on Saturday” and was all drugged up in advance. My step-grandmother, in defiance of the pet moratorium imposed upon her by my allergic, asthmatic family, brought cats into their home a few years ago and now every time we visit, I get to experience the watery eyes and gritty, disgusting cat-throat that are my birthrite. But lunch was delicious, the company rowdy (mainly due to a high level of children and the family close-talker) and the cranky old folk amusing.
I don’t know about you all, but Easter was a bittersweet holiday for me as a young creampuff. I was a greedy, candy-loving child and while I’m sure the contents of my Easter baskets were commensurate with those of the kids around me, it never felt like enough. I coveted my brother Jaro’s candy - I coveted Elku The Bum Checker’s candy next door and most of all, I coveted the dual Easter basket haul of Amwe, whose parents were guilty and divorced. Sure, their attempts to outdo each other over the years caused Amwe to develop the nervous facial tic she sports even to this day, but when I think about those glorious, groaning, glittering Easter baskets - Amwe, it may have been worth it.
Fairly early on, my parents sneakily tried to divert my attention from the candy aspect of Easter by putting more THINGS in my basket than candy - books, toys, sugar-free gum - but I was having none of it. The issue became quite contentious and for a few years there, there was no match to the trauma caused by Easter, with the exception of the trauma caused by the OTHER “candy holiday” in the childhood calendar: Hallowe’en.
I attribute the healing of my Easter past to my ex-roommate Skip. Always a child at heart, she decided that we should have an Easter egg hunt, with elaborate clues and multiple hiding places, in our apartment every year. Unfortunately (for her), Skip is one of nature’s hoarders, which means that she could often draw her Easter candy out until the following year - unless she left her basket near my chair. I’d never take the big stuff, of which she kept a count on her computer. But there were many layers of little eggs under the fake grass of that basket and a few MAY have found their way to liberation. In my stomach. Where all things roam free.
I have carried on this Easter tradition with Katr, another creampuff in need of Easter healing. This year, she wrote all of her clues for me in haiku form. A sample:
Loud churning cleansing
vat; sometimes your dial is
set to delicate.
I know, I know - crackpot? Or GENIUS? I leave the question to posterity.
Anyway - I record this for any of you creampuffs out there whose inner children still feel deprived at Easter time. When the good news of the Lord’s resurrection doesn’t quite cut it, I highly recommend this intensive therapy. And if you missed doing it on actual Easter, all the better - ‘cause NOW, the candy is on SALE. Just keep your hands off that giant Lindor Rabbit - I pulled back the foil, I licked it already and that thing is mine mine mine.
Comments:
I want to hear more about The Bum Checker.
Comment by E-dawg — Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Oh my god, WHO DOESN’T? That kid was a perv.
Comment by Rose — Wednesday, March 30, 2005
I try to be good
staff kitchen creme eggs taunt me
there are still three leftComment by Shbu — Wednesday, March 30, 2005
I am pleased to see that the haiku is experiencing a resurgence! Everyone, post a haiku! See, if comment-spam ads were in haiku, I’d probably let them stay on my blog
Comment by Queen Katicus — Wednesday, March 30, 2005
this has nothing to do with your current post.
but here is some pastry-related artwork i promised:
http://www.donuthos.com/
http://www.mypapercrane.com/Comment by becky — Wednesday, March 30, 2005
