there's a wild kind of purple weed that grows well in lawns people don't take much care of, including ours, and this lavender purple color is all over town now, especially out on the edge of the cornfields that ring around the edge of town. i had forgot it was easter, but i was enjoying that purple color on the lawns as i went out on the breakfast run for my son.

he's disabled and we don't expect him to work, but the problem is that he's attracted some other disabled kids and now the t dollars we're willing to spend on junk every day has to be split, and also he has an enormous appetite for sugar in the morning. so i'm a little dreading trying to put the ten dollar limit on him when i know how hungry he is and how those kids are on him, and, because i'm not in the mood, i don't hassle him. he ends up with about twelve dollars most of which is cheetos, the currency of youth. he's not in a great mood either.

one squirrel has trouble crossing the street on the way, and another, when i arrive at his house, is half black, half brown, but lost his tail. it's a cold morning, cold and wet, promise of rain but with that chill that will chill your bones. i remember thirteen easter campouts in a row when it rained and we finally gave up having campouts on easter even though the sunrise was really fine. in my religious times it's a really fine holiday as spring is arriving whether it is cold and rainy or not. there is that whole divine resurrection thing too but i don't get all deeply into the theology of it, only to say i don't generally believe in the symbolism of buying thirty bucks worth of chocolate and little stuffed-animal or live bunnies. i'm a rabbit myself and to me a certain amount of that is abuse of the live rabbits, and i don't enjoy chomping off the heads of the chocolate ones either.

i did however agree that my wife could buy a basket for our daughter because she also doesn't want to have the whole egg-dying paz experience, yet she wants her daughter to feel she had something. in a way my grinchy self (look at me, begrudging a broke and starving teen some cheetos in the morning) doesn't believe in splurging for thirty bucks of chocolate junk just for a symbolic present-sugar-christmas type experience. don't we have enough of that? don't these kids get enough chocolate? i'd forgot to even mention that it was easter to my son, yet when i came back home i remembered that i'd left that basket for my daughter in the car, where i'm sure my wife found it as she drove off this morning; she hesitated when she got out of the garage and i didn't see why, as i was shutting the garage door.

the problem is that she was taking with her, the enormous and over-enthusiastic puppy, who wakes up in the morning dying to play and run around and chew up stuff, she got a friend to meet her at the nature preserve where both dogs can tear around to their heart's content and it will wear him out a little though not much. yesterday he tore around all day and never seemed to run out of steam even at the end.

so anyway now i'm sure she hesitated, on the way out of the garage, because she realized she would be driving around with this huge dog and all this chocolate out in the country and she'd have to somehow control him and drive at the same time. hah!

as for me, i saw two homeless guys in the grass off near the caseys, and a woman walking down the street talking and gesturing to no one, so i kind of had an urban experience though this is a small town with literally weeds growing through all the cracks. it's hard to see the glorious resurrection of our savior though i'm sure we need it, most especially those starving kids off in the house that's a little too big for them. the daughter, she'll appreciate the gesture even if the big basket comes back destroyed by the dog. the dog might not survive the chocolate though and that might be the key to my wife's worry. i didn't see it at the time. she thought she was saving herself some trouble by buying a simple (but large) basket structure but yet there was some trouble involved.

happy easter - he has risen!