This week has been nuts. NUTS. I spent all last week battling a dreadful cold, but I was up against some tight deadlines for projects at the theatre, so I didn’t take any time off to rest or recover until Friday afternoon when the Discovery Guide for The Odd Couple had been safely delivered to the printer. Then Saturday morning I caught a wicked stomach bug that kept me camped out in front of the bathroom door in a makeshift bed unable to keep down 7-up, jello, or saltines. I kept my germy, exhausted self home from work on Monday, and just when I thought I’d recovered, I had a relapse Monday night. And the tail end of this cold is still hanging on. In between all of this there have been multiple annual doctor appointments and biannual dental appointments for both me and Ted, we’ve been on the hunt for new prescription glasses, sunglasses, and safety glasses for Ted, and I’ve been trying to keep up with the couponing and grocery shopping. I. Am. Exhausted. But Ted has been a saint…taking loving care of me, running to the store for saltines and 7-up, making jello, cleaning the house, helping with all the coupon shopping, and a million other things.
But before all this went down, I did have time two weekends ago – while soaking in a toasty bubble bath with a glass of wine – to ponder what on Earth a freakish life-sized rabbit that supposedly hides baskets packed with chocolate and jelly beans and fake, shimmery grass for children to find on Sunday morning could possibly have to do with the Christian celebration of Easter. Ultimately, I decided that this whole Easter tradition stuff is so commercialized and far-removed from what Easter is actually about for me as an adult, that I didn’t really care where it came from. None of it is necessary or expected for me to enjoy Easter.
{via – How did this become the picture of Easter?}
BUT that’s not to say that I don’t appreciate a delicious breakfast of prettily-dyed hard-boiled eggs and cold Polish sausage, or a good Easter basket, nonetheless. My vision of what constitutes a good Easter basket, however, has evolved since I was eight years old. Not that an Easter basket of chocolate eggs and jelly beans and sugary Peeps is without its tasty merits (just ask Ted, who still gleefully awaits the arrival of a candy-laden Easter basket each spring), but as a woman in my mid (late?) 20s, my ideal springtime basket o’ goodies delivered by a mythological tall, talking bunny in the middle of the night (which is now highly creepy, but hey if he’s going to bring me awesome stuff, then come on in!) would look something like this:
The 20-Something Easter Basket
- Chocolate strawberry wine (preferably this stuff because it is the nectar of the gods)
- Cheese (milky merlot-crusted goat cheese, powerful white cheddar, mild gruyere, caramely gjetosta…I’m open minded)
- Bubble bath (I’m out)
- Windshield washer fluid (is it just me or does this stuff disappear at an alarming rate?)
- Hair ties (I can think of no female with would not be delighted to discover a pack of hair ties to replace all of her other hair ties that seem to miraculously vanish every night. Maybe the Easter Bunny has something to do with this? It sounds plausible)
- A bracelet key keeper (the handiest, most practical and useful thing ever)
{via}
- A dozen Boston cream pie cupcakes (duh)
{via}
- A multi-purpose pocket tool (something that’s part pen, part flashlight, part scissors, part screwdriver, part pliers, part wrench, part corkscrew, part tweezers, part knife, part needle, part laser, part whistle….you get the picture)
{via}
- A trinket (sweet stud earrings, a colorful bottle of Essie nail polish, an adorable kitchen gadget like a tea-bag squeezer or pie bird…something cheap but cute and useful)
- This bunny
I am in love with this bunny. I want to be his/her forever home so badly. I can’t help it…I don’t choose my animals – they always choose me. It sounds completely hokey, I get it, but I can always tell when an animal needs me. Now, I’m going to get all serious on you here for a sec because I want to be clear about something: I’m not advocating that children should receive a live Easter bunny in their Easter basket. A pet is not a toy or a gift, but a commitment. I hate that approximately 1/3 or more of all bunnies received in Easter baskets each spring end up at shelters or on the streets after the novelty of their newness and cuteness has worn off. I think adopting a bunny for a kid for Easter is irresponsible and harmful unless everyone in that household has done an enormous amount of research and is prepared to care for and love that bunny as a family member, even when it’s not Easter, and the bunny is no longer tiny and adorable, and is chewing on your baseboards and eyeing your electrical cords and needs $250 to be neutered and must have its cage cleaned every few days. But since I am not a child, and I know how to commit, and I am responsible, and I know how to love and care for a pet, and I have done my research….I would be over the moon if I found this particular little one nestled between a bottle of chocolate strawberry wine and a jug of bubble bath.
I guess what this means, in all reality, is that I should never ever be allowed into a space with animal adoptions because when I lock eyes with a certain animal whose eyes say that they need me, it’s totally devastating when I cannot give them a forever home because it’s just not in the cards for us financially. Even more of a kicker is that Ted – who is either allergic to or wouldn’t want to own (for whatever reason) pretty much every pet out there (aside from our awesome crays, obviously) – grew up with pet rabbits, likes them, and actually loves this particular little bunny as much as I do, but the only reason we have to say no and hope that a wonderful forever home with another family awaits him/her is because we just wouldn’t be able to afford bunny’s vet bills and other “maintenance” necessities. Le sigh…on second thought, maybe this Easter bunny could fill My Ideal 20-Something Easter Basket with cash instead, since he’s so insistent on monopolizing every grocery store from February-April each year anyway. Might as well be useful, right?
So, I’m curious! What would be in your ideal adult Easter basket? I can’t be the only one who’s thought this through!
