*Walks in and hands Mr. Blog gold lame egg-pillow and basket*
Hi Mr. Blog, don't you love that pillow? Found it at Ostrom's
where there are millions of fantastic and overpriced gifts.
Better lie down because this is a very long sad and happy story.
*Waits for him to lie down on his new pillow*
So, after I saw you Friday morning, Patty and I went shopping
for Easter and yard supplies. She came over and I drove us
out to Home Depot where I found some saws for the kids
and garden stakes for a secret project that I will tell you about
in a few years. The saws are for cutting down small trees
while the boys are on spring break. Speaking of boys...
Did I tell you Teddy won an excellence in school award?
I was so proud and his certificate says, "Theo."
He says that is his name that his friends call him at school
so I said, "That's nice Theo."
He looked at me and said,
"Not you mom. I am Teddy to you."
Well, that was nice since he has been my little
Teddy-bear since he was born.
With those big brown eyes.
My eyes.
And warm, agreeable nature, like me.
Both Terry's are quite stubborn and obstinate at times.
So Patty and I finished up at Home Depot and she
wanted to go to Grocery Outlet.
My goodness, they had some great prices Mr. Blog!
I asked the checker where she is from and guess what Mr. Blog?!
She is from Africa!!! I am so excited that when Grocery Outlet
moves across the street from me I will be able to talk to someone
from Africa! I forget which state, but I'll find out for you.
I asked her about a job for Troy and she said to have him bring
a resume on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday for Leslie.
I'm not sure he will be brave enough tomorrow but we'll find out...
Patty and I popped in Safeway and I had all the food I needed for
Easter and when she went home I dug right into work.
I plugged in my trusty PowerBook G-4 and set it on the ledge
above my kitchen sink and started my My Name Is Earl festival.
I happily used my new used Daisy Stripper to peel potatoes.
I didn't know they still made electric potato peelers and I had
worn mine out five years ago and looked all over for one.
Then one day I saw this one at Saint Vincent DePaul.
Thank God for Kenmore Saint Vincent DePaul!
I also made a ham and cheese fritatta for Easter breakfast.
Daniel had slept over and Teddy was at Tyler's so
Troy and Daniel were playing a video game in the basement
when Carlos burst through the door!
I was startled and he exclaimed,
"I got my license!"
Well, he ran to the basement and there was much shouting
and cheering and the house started shaking as
those giant teenagers came flying up the stairs and
running out the front door!
I peered out the window and watched happily as they
piled into Gene's pick-up truck.
I knew Carlos was not allowed to have anyone not related to him
for the first six months and that he could get his license pulled
and revoked until he was eighteen. I knew he knew it and decided
not to run out to the street and shout at him and ruin his moment
of glory. He slowly pulled out and drove off with my son and Daniel
and I started crying a little. How fast the years had flown by.
Troy met Carlos and Daniel when he was six and I made him
play t-ball for Kenmore Little League. He was so frightened
and didn't want to go but I forced him to be brave and he
made his first two best friends.
Carlos and Daniel.
They were in my first cub scout den
in 1999 and they were so tiny! Daniel was really tiny
and had a jet-black, silky mullet and looked like an adorable elf.
Carlos was so thin I thought he would surely
go down the drain with the bathwater!
Funny that ten years later the three are still best friends.
I wonder if they will be best friends forever?
So, one million gallons of Kool-Aid later,
they are are taller than me! Troy and Carlos are well
above six feet tall and Daniel is about five feet nine inches.
Carlos drove off in the light blue metallic pick-up truck
and they were only gone a few minutes so I'm guessing they
drove to the end of the road and back.
So they all hung out around the house all day and every
ten minutes Carlos had to drive somewhere.
Because he could.
I'm so proud of those boys.
Turns out they all grew up to be fine men and they will all
make very nice husbands someday. Especially Troy!
I have trained him to dote on girls
and to clean windows, bathrooms, floors, dishes
and he signed up for cooking at school and can really cook!
Well, speaking of cooking...
I made my mashed potatoes and a cake and cleaned up my mess
and went to bed to read my book. It was so chilly
that I put my heating pad under my feet and took
off for Botswana and my friends at the
Number 1 First Ladies' Detective Agency.
I'm on the fifth or sixth book now and I find the books
very calming on my deteriorating nervous system.
Saturday I got up to start filling the eggs and guess what I forgot?
Easter candy! I was so disgusted with myself.
It was cold again but I forced myself to jump around
with my daily dose of my Jane Fonda tape and then
take a hot shower and bundle up and walk to the Dollar Tree
store across the street. I found everything and was relieved
that the sons had gone off roaming around town with their
friends. Our new Comcast television has something called
On Demand and I managed to find and play one of my favorite
movies, Alien, starring Sigorney Weaver. I remember when
it came out when I was twenty and it is still just as scary!
I happily sat on my dear couch and filled plastic eggs with
jelly beans, scared to death. I hadn't watched that movie in
thirty years so it was very exciting!
I had found something at the Kenmore Dollar Tree
that I remembered from my youth and hadn't seen for years!
Circus Peanuts. They are orange marshmallows the shape
of two inch tall peanuts and quite disgusting and tasty!
Yum, yum, Mr. Blog. I only ate two and was quite delighted
to remember my mother hiding eggs my whole life.
Even when she was a depressed welfare mom living
in Holly Park housing project in 1959, she still hid eggs!
I wonder in two decades, when I am dead and gone
if my sons will remember having Easter Egg hunts
well into their teens.
I have decided to hide eggs for them and make their
baskets until I die
because they will have a few decades to live after that
and maybe a few struggles that fond memories can help with.
Well, that is my plan, but if I get hit by a bus tomorrow
I won't care because I will look down on them
from Heaven and know that they will find their
old baskets in the attic at some point and smile
and remember.
So I went to bed to wait for the boys to go to bed.
At ten, I heard Terry tell them to go to bed.
I was getting tired and needed to hide the eggs
and at eleven thirty I told them to go to bed.
They were playing some hideous game on the
X-Box 360, which I will be removing one day soon
and Troy was quite sassy with me.
So I woke up Terry and he came upstairs
and was cranky and sided with the kids!
That feckless nimcompoop! Ugh!
I glared at Troy and stormed downstairs
and told them to say good-bye to their
X-Box 360. I hope the inventor of that burns in hell-fire!
They went to bed and I put out their darling baskets and hid the
eggs and I took a diphenhydromine to help me sleep.
Funny, as angry as I was when I fell asleep, I was my normal
cheerful self when I woke up!
It was eight thirty and Terry and I had coffee and I popped
the fritatta and cinnamon rolls in the oven and waited
for the boys to wake up. As teens they sleep and sleep and sleep!
At nine they came out and both showered and Terry left
to empty all the trash containers which was annoying but
to be expected.
Troy and Teddy shouted with glee and raced around the house
collecting their eggs.
When they finished, they sat on the couch and looked through
their baskets and Troy said, "Teddy, I am sentimental
over all these old toys."
Teddy had the trick money holder and noticed
it had a five dollar bill instead of a one dollar bill for the first time.
They squeezed their giant bunny-doll hands and laughed as they
played the Archie's song, "Sugar sugar."
Well, we had that fine breakfast and everyone
got dressed for church in the suits I had laid out
and Troy drove us to church.
It was packed and Troy told us later that his Spanish teacher
had come in late and sat behind us.
As you know, Mr. Blog, I am completely
obsessed with Botswana Africa at the moment so you can
imagine my glee when the choir sang the opening hymn
and it was, "Song of the Risen One" which is African!
I looked at the choir and they had on African print
stoles over their golden Easter choir robes and I
thought I had died and gone to heaven! Or Botswana
which I think is heaven on earth, except for the snakes.
Then I saw my new friend Robin was playing an African
drum that looked like a very tall conga drum.
Ever since I went to that church women's retreat
church has become very exciting for me because
I know some people a little better and enjoy
watching them sing in the choir and play instruments.
We went into the first hymn for the rest of us which of course was,
"Christ the Lord is Risen Today."
It made me weep a little thinking of my mom, whom was
particularly fond of that song. I shut my eyes and visualized her in heaven
with Lyle and Grandma and Grandpa and
for the first time I saw my Auntie Ann, rejoined with
my Uncle Dick. He had died as a young man of fifty
and I was happy to seem them standing together in heaven.
Well, the Easter banners of gold thread were shockingly beautiful
and I am glad you are here Mr. Blog.
It will give me so much pleasure someday to remember the
beauty of those banners!
What gave me the most pleasure of my entire life
was to have my fine handsome sons standing between
us and to hear them sing! Oh how they can sing!
Teddy has been in choir all year and sings tenor
and Troy on the other side of him sang a flawless bass line!
Well, Terry and I don't know how to read music Mr. Blog so
it is very exciting for us to hear them sing.
When they were both in grade school at Kenmore Elementary,
their music teacher, Judy Bonet, told me they
both had perfect pitch, whatever that is and that
I HAD to sign them up for choir when they go to junior high.
Well, that was good advice and I took it and Troy was
voted best male vocalist all three years and Linda Hamilton
told me she tried to talk Teddy into solos without success.
Troy was a bold, happy singer and did a solo up at
Bastyer when he was in seventh grade. Blake Lewis, from
American Idol came out and sang after them.
He had started his singing career at Kenmore Junior High!
But poor Teddy, as good as a singer as he is...gets
stage-fright and looks like he will throw up any minute
when he is up there at the school concerts.
So, I will never forget Easter of 2010 and the
pure joy of hearing my sons singing my mother's favorite hymn.
The next part of the service was shockingly funny.
Pastor Laura had the children come for their part of the service
and she taught them how to do a wave like at a football game.
Well, I had a hard time not laughing at this.
Then Pastor Laura had the ENTIRE congregation do a wave
while shouting hallelujah! I had NEVER seen anything like that
before but was very delighted.
Reverend Stephen Tarr did a fantastic sermon,
"When the Tough Get Going."
I laughed when he talked about Jesus telling Mary to spread
the word to the disciples that he had risen from the dead
and that he chose to think of Jesus as empowering Mary to
spread the good word and liked to think of it in modern terms
and then this, small Scottish reverend, took the stance
and voice of a black, inner-city sister and said very loudly.
"YOU GO GIRL!"
Everyone laughed at the image and couldn't stop.
The modern voice of Jesus telling Mary to send out the good word.
I was so delighted by this as you can imagine!
Teddy started fussing at this point at not wanting to go
up for communion. As is my way when they fuss
I did what I always do and ignored him. When it was time
to stand and line up, I gave Terry the signal and I led
the way without looking behind me. The boys followed
and I could feel Teddy behind me as I followed
the line to share God's blood and body with the hopes
that my numerous sins could be forgiven
and that one day I could be with my mother and father
and grandparents again for eternity.
WE got back home and I took a long nap for the day
and woke up refreshed at four and put dinner on.
Pam had dialysis so it was just my tiny family and our friend Dean.
He was kind enough to pick up Martinellis and we
feasted on ham, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, potato salad, asparagus
and strawberry short cake with tea for dessert.
I tried not to think about missing fruit salad but I couldn't afford it this year.
Maybe next year. Imagine having a job again Mr. Blog!
Having fruit salad!
Perhaps putting in a floor to replace our old one
with the dozens of patches of duct-tape.
I was exhausted after dinner and left Terry and Dean to clean up
and I crawled in Bed with my new book,
"Blue Shoes and Happiness"
and waited for Brenda to call.
I was so excited when she called from Pahoa
to find out that one of her orchids I had bought
her had flowered! Six large purple-trimmed white blossoms
on Easter! Now how amazing is that?????
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