Not much happening today; it is beautiful outside but a bit chilly. Needless to say I didn’t go riding looking for photo ops. Last night was one of much evil; I was not able to go to sleep until past daylight this morning. I finally did get a couple of hours sleep, but now I am feeling the hangover; blurry eyes, sleepy, and listless. This morning I did make another two tulip photos but I cannot see well enough to know it they are of satisfactory quality.
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On her blog, Jola tells us a bit about Easters with her grandparents when she was a little girl. Easters for my family were somewhat the same as hers and also much different in ways. When I was little, I always had an Easter basket filled with candy eggs, jelly beans, chocolate rabbits, and other confections. On the day before Easter, my mother would hard boil two dozen eggs, color them with bright dyes–the dyes were very colorful when prepared, but I was always disappointed when the eggs came out much duller and flatter than what I desired. However, it was a fun time as I helped her with the coloring. On Easter Sunday, it was out of bed for me, dump the candies into a poke (brown paper bag), and refill the basket with colored eggs. Easter being an iffy time weather wise, we usually had a 50-50 chance of not having it rain and the air being warm enough to play outdoors. I would anxiously await the arrival of my cousins but I seemed to always be underfoot because I kept running to the kitchen to savor the meal being prepared by my mother and grandmother. Like Jola’s Polish Easter, we usually had a ham or pork shoulder in the oven surrounded by pots of boiling vegetables. My family, although serious believers in God, seldom went to church when I was very small; therefore Sunday mornings were put to use reading and discussing the newspaper by the men and cooking by the women. When my cousins finally arrived and the weather was at least fairly decent, we conned my uncles into hiding the eggs all over the yard and sometimes all the way back to the woods. When they finished concealing the ovals, we would grab our baskets from their hands and take to the bushes in search of dozens of eggs; laughing and hollering every time we found one. This went on until dinner was ready, usually around 1pm; the grownups always gave the local preachers time to shoo off their congregations and come calling for a free meal. It didn’t happen often, but when it did we all felt blessed that he and his family were there to give thanks and share the provisions of the Almighty. After our meal, the uncles sort of disappeared and the kids were left to conceal and hunt Easter eggs in a hide-and-go-seek style. Being kids and being cousins, we usually ended up wasting a few eggs as we tried to hit one another on the noggin with good, hard throws. This lasted until someone got mad and told the grownups. We then settled in to eating eggs and candy, thus ruining our supper appetites. Sometimes in summertime when I was out playing or exploring, I would come across an egg that had been too well hidden and was still uncracked; it usually wound up slung against a tee trunk and stinking to high-heaven. When I got a little older, my mother decided a dose of old timey religion should be enjoyed by her only offspring, so on Easter it was less candy, but I got new clothes to show off at church on Sunday; I much preferred the sweet goodies.
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Have a great Easter week, my friends.
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