Happy Easter, Arrrrrgh!

Easter once again has some meaning now that Daughter is old enough to hunt for eggs and help me reenact the Passion.  That said, this is my kid, so naturally she has somehow gotten it in her mind that Easter involves not only bunnies, but pirates.  In the weeks leading up to Easter, whenever anyone asked her if she was excited about the Easter Bunny, she would say something like "Yes, and the pirates are coming on Easter too, and they bring you presents and candy."  Jester and I have no idea where this came from.  Not even our Somali nanny can figure it out.

Saturday afternoon, we went out to my mom's house.  Without reason, my mom has switched from your standard two-ply toilet paper to something I would describe as prison-grade.  This is neither here nor there, but Saturday I was having some gastrointestinal issues, so I became painfully acquainted with this development.  I don't even know where she gets this stuff.  She lives in the suburbs, not on Rikers.

Anal plundering aside, Saturday afternoon was an exciting one for Daughter because we dyed hard-boiled eggs.  I could just about choke the bastards at the egg-coloring monopoly Paas.  First, none of the colors of the tablets match up with the actual color of the dye.  So I drop a red tablet into some vinegar, and it's yellow dye.  I drop a purple one in, and it's orange.  Second, they now have some kits with glitter.  I supposed I should be more pissed at Jester for buying this than Paas for making it, but I choose to chop the heads off snakes.  Glitter gets everywhere.  For someone who enjoys eating copious amounts of hard-boiled eggs, I can't express my frustration enough.  It's a big enough pain in the ass to pick the egg shell off without having to worry about getting glitter all over my hands and precious egg.  In the midst of my angst, I made a deviled egg (sans glitter):

Sunday morning was generally enjoyable.  I wish I would have been videotaping Daughter's entrance into the living room because it was an unmitigated disaster.  My mom and aunt have a very real illness when it comes to taking pictures.  These are the people that would make my brother and I come down the stairs several times on Christmas so they could take a picture of us looking excited when we saw our presents beneath the tree.  If I am ever in a picture and making a face that makes me look like a jackass, it's because I was forced to wasted hundreds of hours of my life sitting for unnecessary pictures (and usually multiple pictures in one sitting "in case one doesn't turn out").  Anyway, as a result of this disorder, while Daughter was on her way downstairs in the morning, they had already propped Lollipop up right in front of the Easter baskets and wanted Daughter to sit next to her when she entered the room, in hopes of taking a nice picture of the two sisters in front of their Easter baskets.  (Lollipop was given an Easter basket too, even though her religious leanings are more Zoroastrian than anything else.)  These women somehow believed that Daughter would walk into a room containing a basket full of candy and dinosaurs, and willfully sit still for a picture.  She did not.  When she noticed her Easter basket, Daughter broke into a brief sprint towards Lollipop and the baskets.  In her excitement, she tripped and fell forward, knocked her head into Lollipop's head, sending Lollipop tumbling face first to the ground like a domino (since babies don't know how to catch themselves when they fall), and causing both of them to start the day in tears.  Happy Easter!

After a minute or two, Daughter calmed down.  Chocolate has that effect on children.  She then began hunting for the eggs the Easter Bunny expertly hid.  I would rate her hunting skills as fair, at best.  She missed some obvious ones, but of course, she has no competition at this point, so there is not a need to ramp up the effort.

Lollipop, on the other hand, placated the sexagenarians in the room by pretending to be Carmen Miranda dressed up as a rabbit.  Notice the traditional Easter "worm wreath" in the background.

As you may or may not know, this year I gave up meat and sweets for Lent.  I started hitting the chocolate pretty hard Easter morning.  For some reason, my mom did not have any meat options at breakfast, which is a slap in the face considering that dinner the night before was chicken (I ate cheese and bread).  Needless to say, lunch yesterday was at Taco Bell.  Those beef and potato burritos are pretty damn good.  Then again, so is everything there.  With the T-Bell and gorging on chocolate and jelly beans the whole day, I essentially equalized the several pounds I lost in the last month.  Thanks, Jesus.

Sensing she was losing me, Jester made it her mission to play the sport of queens, badminton.  When it was determined that my mom did not have a net, any racquets, or any shuttlecocks, Jester sprung into action.  Limited by the holiday and that fact that there is no demand for badminton anywhere, especially in a notoriously windy locale, Jester managed to track down a set at a Menard's two towns over.  She hopped in the Blaab and returned a little while later with a shit-eating grin and a badminton set.  We set it up in my mom's yard, and quickly realized that a $14 badminton set contains mediocre shuttlecocks.  No worries.  This also doubled as a volleyball set, since volleyball nets are usually six feet tall and barely able to withstand a strong breeze.  We inflated the volleyball that was included in the set, and quickly realized that a $14 badminton/volleyball set contains a mediocre volleyball.  It was made of lightweight rubber, and was more appropriate for punting than for serving.  I like punting things.

With that, we burned the net to the ground, had a good group punt, went inside, watched a man with lady hair win the Masters, ate some dead pig, and talked about resurrecting the net we just burnt to the ground.