easter_and_everything_after raze i think i used to miss the chaos. i missed being in a room full of people who didn't care about anything i had to say. i missed watching them melt into their phones after they ran out of pleasantries to parrot. i missed eating so much of someone else's food i thought i might die. i don't miss that anymore. i like the quiet. we made our own christmas dinner eight months early. we watched a third of a movie that made us laugh until we cried. it was the dog eating the squeaky pig toy that did it. he was so casual about it. i've got a pig just like that one, only mine is green, and he isn't for chewing. he keeps loose change in his belly. i found him at value_village. i don't miss the friends who used to call me on the phone to wish me a happy whatever-it-was. not that anyone ever really did that anyway. maybe i miss cadbury creme eggs a little. and chocolate bunnies. i might be the only person i know who likes the hollow ones best. something about all that air moving around inside my mouth between two thin layers of sweetness. the eggs i always wanted to eat the most were the ones that would have made me sick if i bit into them. the ones i painted when i was young. when my dad was a kid, he tried to eat a robin's egg. i knew why before he even told me. some things are so beautiful, you want to make them a part of you. you're sure they taste like the best parts of everything all smashed into one better thing, as wrong as you know that idea is. the older i get, the more the map of my life shrinks, until the only countries left are the people i love enough to keep close. it's the only geography that's ever made any sense to me. now my bedsheets and my body are clean, and my mind is as clear as it ever gets. i'm thinking if all the holidays i have left are as uneventful as this one's been, i'll take that deal, and i'll call it a bargain. 220418 ... tender_square brea found a home movie shot at grandma grace’s house. her living room was filled with people: my aunt rena, my uncle johnny, my mom, my cousins stacey and tj, brea and i, my sister candi, and my aunt carolann and her husband at the time, gavin. my dad silently films while uncle terry shoots his mouth off in the kitchen and grandma flits in and out of frame. it isn’t christmas. there is a marigold bunny sitting on the top ledge of grandma’s striped couch recliner. we think it’s easter. and as we watch mom says that this is the first holiday that aunt carolann is spending with us, after mom located her following twenty or more years of separation post-adoption. aunt carolann and gavin give us small cards with blue five dollar bills that we wave around excitedly. mom takes the money for our piggy bank, reminds us of our manners. brea and i are waddling around in white tights and black mary janes, wearing dresses with lacy dickies, reaching up on tiptoes with arms outstretched to hug the adults and say thank you. i leave uncle johnny’s lap and beeline for gavin, throwing my arms up at him and kissing his cheek. i don’t even think i hug or kiss my aunt. it’s always the boys i’m after. everyone in the video is talking at once, except for candi, who sits on the periphery wearing her walkman headphones. behind her, i spot the shelf of pictures that has been passed onto me, the one i use as a plant stand, painted the same marigold as the bunny seated above aunt carolann’s head. there are twelve of us crammed into grandma’s small living room, the last house she lived in before moving into the retirement community, the nursing home. i still have dreams about being in that house. “that was back when we all used to do things together,” mom says as we watch these ghostly images, before our family was irrevocably fractured. “but at least we had those times,” she says. over dinner that night there’s only five of us. brea says her boyfriend is sick, that it’s from sushi, but it sounds like a jeremy piven line to me. she’s quieter without him here, more at ease than usual. on the car ride home, watching the streaks of dusk mingle with the diminishing daylight above detroit’s skyline, i say “i actually prefer how small our gatherings have become.” it’s not that i don’t miss candi and terri--i do--but they also come with extra when they arrive: on-again/off-again boyfriends, their kids, their drama. we fall into our old patterns of a loud household, everyone vying for dad’s attention, everyone speaking at once. i don’t miss the excitement or the headaches. i don’t miss the perceived slights and silent wounds. i don’t miss pretending that everything was fine so long as we were together. 220418 ... kerry i am happy and relieved to finally leave easter behind, as much as i can. rocco and genise showed up to the genise restaurant with enormous easter baskets, bigger than the ones my mom used to leave by the front door. i cringed (inside) when i saw the easter baskets from rocco and genise. i smiled but couldn't even muster any gratitude for the gesture of it. perhaps for an instant, as a kid, i'd believed they were left by some benevolent rabbit. but more likely, it was the image of it that i liked. i've always been fond of rabbits. i have one tattooed onto my right inner forearm. for me, easter evokes feelings of reluctance, emotional distance, falseness. there was always the inevitable easter dress, which i dreaded. one year my mom unveiled a dress with sleeves puffier than the curtains in my room, giant red and yellow flowers splashed all over it, white lace around the neck. i had to wear opaque white tights and shining black mary-janes. i felt like a clown. easter meant going to church, which meant discomfort and boredom and bewilderment that anyone in the place truly beileved in the words they sang. it meant watching my parents sing hymns, or mouth them, which made them temporarily strangers. hunting for easter eggs was kind of fun, i guess, but not a thrill. there were a couple other things i enjoyed, mostly food. there was a ham my uncle would carve, and the slices were thick and sweet and decadent. there were deviled eggs and my mom's famed potato salad and when i was old enough, spicy bloody mary's. but being around that side of the family has always been uncomfortable. we were (are) the black sheep, the four of us, and they were (are) nonchalantly wealthy, and i clung to my dad who never quite fit in. this year i sat in front of the tv ate half of a hollow chocolate bunny and went back for seconds and thirds of jelly beans and solid chocolate eggs until i felt nauseous and then i took the basket outside and threw it in the garbage can. and i'm hoping this is the last easter. (faat chance.) 220419 ... kerry bleh, excuse the typos. i was ranting too quickly! 220419 ... nr i went over to my brother and sister-in-law's place to have an eastover (easter/passover) dinner with them and hang out with my nephew cat, though he mostly slept. we video chatted with a few family members before they had to go do things they said they had to go do. between loss and the pandemic and distance and people's lives changing, gatherings get smaller and smaller. 220419 ... nr also, happy half-price chocolate day(s)! 220419 ... e_o_i ...Was good, and it was nice having Lia over (although she wanted to wait to bring her dog to meet our dog). But some of it started off as a_series_of_petty_annoyances: I went to Laura Secord on Saturday to get some treats for people (Mom, Y., Lia) the next day. At the cash, I forgoed one of my items - a box of cashews - for small chocolate eggs. Besides, there were cashews already in the gift basket I got for Mom and Dad. The bill came to almost $57 dollars. When I got home, I saw "cashews" on it. "No! They charged me for something I didn't get." But Fairview, the shopping mall, was already closed. Over Whereby, I complained about this to David. "I know you can't prove NOT getting something, but you should try getting a refund or at least the cashews," he advised. "It's only fair." Sunday, Easter, it was closed. Monday, it was open. I went there shortly before it closed, explaining the situation, but the person there said I'd have to come back the next day when her manager was there. I knew it wasn't her fault. But my thoughts as I walked down the hall were all grumbly. Yes, getting out was a way for me to work on my take-home exam. Exercise. But grrrr. Then I got home. Looked at the bill. And realized I'd been charged for the items of the gift basket separately. A weird choice, perhaps, but no mistake on their end: the cashews I paid for were the ones I got. "Laura Secord is getting too expensive," I told Y. "I could get stuff from Bulk Barn." He looked shocked. "Bulk Barn!" Mom: "The drugstore has some good chocolate sometimes." Y.: "No, no, no, no. It's worth the extra expense to get good quality chocolate." Me: "But you're fine with getting clothes at Value Village. Why not candy at Bulk Barn?" Y.: "That's different. Laura Secord is a local store." Me: "It's not. It's all over Canada." Y.: "Not just Quebec?" Dad gets into this. "No, she's a national figure, so it's a national store." Me: "Something about warning about Americans coming? In the war of 1812?" Dad: "And being a good colonialist, despoiling the Natives..." Y.: "Dad." Me: "You're going after Y. now." Dad: "Well, maybe. But all of them contributed in some way. To colonialism. By being colonists." Me: "Even Susanna Moodie?" Dad: "Especially Susanna Moodie." 220420 ... e_o_i "$57 dollars." Department of Redundancy Department. 220420 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Also, I like how Value_Village is mentioned twice. And I didn't know it was in THREE countries (Professor Google says U.S., Canada, and Australia). 220420 ... ovenbird This year brought me home for Easter for the first time in well over 15 years. It was surreal to sit around a table with my aunts and uncles and cousins eating scalloped potatoes and laughing at some story my uncle has told at every family gathering back to the dawn of time. My aunt brought me and all my cousins chocolate bunnies. There was so much kindness in that gesture and so much nostalgia. Sometimes all it takes to collapse time is a pound of rabbit shaped milk chocolate. 250420 ... e_o_i A weird_day, all things considered. Mr. Sz wants to forgive Dad, but he wants Dad to ask_for_forgiveness first. I'm not listening to the church part, but I'm pleased at seeing so many people there - friends and relatives of regulars, it seems, including one named Anderson who kills it on the bongos. The gathered people, not the drums, remind me of voting the day before. Advance poll at the community centre. Community of people who don't normally commune: weirdly endearing. ... In the early afternoon, Lia comes with her dog Trixie. I've been cleaning up, I haven't had lunch yet, so the three Young(ish) People and their dogs are delayed in starting out for Wild Willy's, an ice cream place sort of far away. Tradition, though. ...and everything_reminds_me: David called it Wet Willy's. (Me: Ha, that sounds dirty. He: I thought it actually WAS that.) But yes. We go along the bike path, against the chilly wind. Lia has a modified baby carriage for her little old lady Lhasa Apso. Her fur sensibly trimmed, she's shivering. Lia wraps her in a blanket. "Like a burrito." "Babushka burrito," I say. ... We eat ice cream in the cold. Somehow, there are mosquitoes. Lethargic little bugs, not seeming to bite. I flick one away anyway. ... My brother walks on the rocks at the lakeshore and Shiloh nearly knocks me over trying to leap after him. ... Soon after we get back, a neighbour-ish couple, their daughter Rachel, and a friend of Dad's join us for supper. The table has been extended with two leaves. (Why are planks of wood called "leaves" here? Does it make them feel lighter?) First, Rachel has a bag of clothes that she's giving away. I can sort through them and see what I want to keep. I do this in the living room, mostly before supper. I'm practical enough to be pleased, but impractical enough to feel the unease of inequality. Why do I get her hand-me-downs? It's happened before, too. Oh, but she has belts. I wanted new belts. But not THAT one, it's too worn out. (Kirsten, just think that, don't say it.) ...After supper, I offer her clothes and extra seeds in trade. She takes a striped jacket and parsley. Oh yes, and Dad pilots the conversation towards airplanes when Rachel's dad echoes a Pierre Poilievre talking point. See, Bill's politics are kind of the opposite, aaaand Rachel's parents have been lowkey arguing about petty things this whole time. In video game terms, it's like... Goal: avoid more bickering. Character Specs: Bill is an aerospace engineer while the other man works at the airport. So! Ask Bill about his plane!! This will lead to both people talking about planes!!! (It works. See ask_for_forgiveness, too: I wish I had an ounce of Dad's diplomacy.) ... I eat too much. The next day, today, breakfast is a small meal and Mom makes her planned brunch late in the afternoon. So, lupper. I'm too full for supper. Then I have choir practice even though Monday_is_dessert (aka, a day off). At nine PM, singing, I feel a pang in my stomach. Why pain? I'm not sick, am I? But no, it's plain old hunger. My body is very committed to the whole three-meals-a-day deal. So I eat at almost ten, and now it's quarter to midnight, and I need to sleep sometime because I'm tutoring starting at 9 tomorrow. Onward! 250421 what's it to you? who go blather from