Easter Sunday

Our second Easter without Rocket Boy (though he did call the boys on Skype just now, annoying them both, bad teenagers). I just can't tell you how much I didn't want to do this one, but the thought of NOT doing it -- of having no eggs to hunt, no stuffed rabbits on the coffee table, no lemon meringue pie -- was worse, so I did it. 

I bought the candy at Target. I had a few bags stashed away, but when I went back to buy more, a week ago or whatever, I couldn't seem to estimate correctly. (I've been very spacey in stores since the shooting.) I kept putting bags and boxes in my cart, and as a result we have enough jelly beans and chocolate eggs to last us until summer. Filling the baskets (which we have been re-using for about 10 years) last night, I was mildly horrified at the amount. I could barely stuff it all in. I still have one bag of jelly beans left, for refilling later in the week.

And the boys surprised me this morning. They made a low-key attempt at finding everything -- interestingly, Teen A was more into it than Teen B, who usually finds most of the eggs -- and then they sat down at the kitchen counter and requested breakfast. Gone are the days of candy breakfasts: they wanted ramen. We settled on scrambled eggs, which they gobbled down. A few hours later, Teen A heated up his leftover mac & cheese (from Panera, our Saturday night takeout treat).

The member of the family who was most interested in Easter this year was Mr. Merlino, appropriately the youngest. He and Sillers were in the bedroom with me last night, watching me fill the baskets and the plastic eggs. I say I never buy any new supplies except the candy, but a few years ago I picked up a couple of finger puppets at Grandrabbits -- and then lost them. Last year I found them -- after Easter, of course -- so this year was to be their debut. I placed them in one blue and one green metal basket, and then continued my work. Mr. Merlino was winding his way through the piles of junk on the bed, and he spotted the yellow duck finger puppet. Ah ha! He plucked it out of the basket, jumped off the bed, and began to play with it. Eventually I retrieved it, but I realized he was interested in the fluff sticking out of the head, which reminded him of a bird. (He also attacked every Christmas ornament that had fluff.) 

Another thing that appealed to him from the baskets were Rollos, those little roundish chocolate candies with caramel, because, hey, they roll. And this morning, as the kids quickly tired of the hunt, Mr. Merlino was busy batting jelly beans around the living room floor. Rocket Boy, when I told him about this, expressed sorrow that we no longer have a mouse -- who could have feasted on the beans that end up under the furniture. Hmm.

I was reading last year's blog post about Easter and was amused by how much snow we got that day: 17 inches, followed by another 17-inch snowfall a few days later. The schools were already on lockdown, so we just had school at home, but good grief, 34 inches of snow in less than a week (though apparently it all melted between the snowfalls). This year is completely different -- it's been in the 70s the last few days, close to 80, and will be again today and tomorrow. A slight chance of a few snowflakes Tuesday night, and then there's a little bit of a cooldown, but for the most part it looks like the snow is over.

Of course, this is Colorado, so there could be more snow later in the month, and for that matter in May. Or June. But it feels like the snow is over for the year. We'll see.

What else happened this past week? In last week's post I wrote about hoping that nothing else bad would happen, which I knew was tempting fate -- and sure enough, the next morning I discovered that Teen A's bike had been stolen. The thieves neatly cut the cable and the bike was gone. But oddly, they left it in some bushes about six blocks away, where we were able to retrieve it after I posted about the loss on our neighborhood listserv and two different neighbors reported having seen it.

So in some ways that was a positive occurrence, since it demonstrated how great my neighbors are. I still have to buy Teen A a new lock, but for now his bike is locked to mine (with a much stronger lock), and both bikes are on the back patio where they're less visible. Rocket Boy's bike is still on the front porch, locked with a cable about as thick as Teen A's was, but I've packed the bike in with a lot of noisy, clingy objects such as folding chairs and a scooter. If someone tries to steal it, they'll make a lot of noise getting it out, which I think would discourage most thieves. We'll see. (Obviously this wouldn't work if the bike was being used regularly, but since Rocket Boy is in St. Louis...)

On Monday we also got our new stove, which I am still getting used to. One thing I don't like about it is that the burner dials aren't marked "High," "Medium High," etc. Instead, it's 1 to 6 (1 is marked "Low" and 6 is marked "High" but that's all). So is 5 "Medium High," 4 "Medium," 3 "Medium Low," and 2 -- what? "High Low"? I feel that there are too many numbers, and "Medium" is more like 3.5, but I'm not sure yet. Maybe 2 is "Low" and 1 is "Warm." Also, everything cooks a little differently on those burners, not just because I can't figure out what temperature I'm using. The oven seems to work well.

My covid test results showed up Monday night and were negative, thankfully, so I went in for my mammogram on Tuesday. The nice technician told me that it could be three weeks until I get my results, because they hadn't gotten my old films from Kaiser yet -- but no, they were in the system by the next day. All clear and good. On Wednesday I went in to pick up my new glasses, Thursday I finally had that bloodwork done, and Friday I got my first dose of the vaccine. A nice old lady, presumably a volunteer, took my picture afterwards.

My second dose is scheduled for April 23rd, and by May 7th I will be considered fully protected. Just before Mother's Day. We're thinking seriously about a trip to Missouri after school gets out. Of course, the kids won't be protected, but I think that's OK. They've started testing kids (using spit) at their middle school once a week. Teen B got tested this week (he was negative) and Teen A will be tested next week. Very reassuring.

This coming week looks a lot less busy, which is great. Teen B sees the orthodontist tomorrow, for his first big appointment where they make molds and take x-rays. Other than that, my blood test results will probably come in, and that will mean more discussions with my doctor, but I don't know exactly when. Unless I'm forgetting something (like last week I forgot Easter), that's my week. So, here are some plans:

Week of April 5-11:

• Monday: Take Teen A to the orthodontist at 9 am; otherwise, do school with the kids. Take a walk, make something easy for dinner. Get Teen A to plan his meal for this week. Call my niece and wish her a happy birthday.
  
• Tuesday: Get the kids to school. Spend some time writing. Do their laundry. Call the electrician again or look for a different one. Write a letter to my friend in Los Angeles. Lift weights, take a walk, fix dinner.
  
• Wednesday: Get the kids to school. Do some cleaning, or take the sewing machine out of its box. Go to the/a grocery store. Cook dinner with Teen A.
  
• Thursday: Get the kids to school. Spend some time writing. Lift weights, go for a walk, fix dinner, put out the trash and recycling in the evening.
  
• Friday: Get the kids to school. Pay bills, do my laundry, do some cleaning or sewing, take a walk. Fix dinner.
  
• Saturday & Sunday: Go for walks (get the kids outside both days, maybe even someplace special), blog, get takeout on Saturday, make something easy on Sunday.

It all looks good. I know this isn't how things will really go -- probably something medical will interfere, or some other part of the house will break. Or who knows what will happen. But at least in my plans it looks like an easy week.

Even in Colorado, with its frequent late snows, early April shows signs of spring. Some of the green things in this photo are grass, but several are onions, those purple alliums that I love. They spread like crazy, so Rocket Boy digs them out of the lawn and plants them over here in this sort of dead place between the east driveway and the house.

The most fun spring thing we have going on this year is a red-breasted nuthatch digging a nest cavity in the dead-ish aspen on the side of the house. I say dead-ish because neither Rocket Boy nor I can remember whether it's totally dead or not. It might still have a few leaves, not sure. Anyway, the first time I saw the nuthatch, over a month ago, I thought it was looking for insects. But it kept on digging away, and eventually I looked it up online and learned that nuthatches like to dig themselves new nesting holes -- they don't like to borrow other birds' old holes. It takes a long time for a tiny little nuthatch to dig a nesting hole in an old dead-ish aspen, but they are certainly persistent.

Here's the thing, though. Today, when I went out to try to take a better picture of the bird (I have many blurry shots where it moves just at the moment the camera clicks), I stood back to get a shot from farther away. And that's when I realized that there wasn't just the one nuthatch digging a hole. There were two nuthatches, both digging holes. The other one was way at the top of the tree, and it hadn't gotten very far with its hole yet. I think they were both females.

They're both in this picture. I know you can't see it, but one is at the top of the main trunk (you can see just a little thing sticking out to the left) and the other is about two-thirds of the way up.

And now I'm puzzled. Are we going to have two red-breasted nuthatch families in the same little tree? Aren't they territorial at all? Or do they like to be close to others of their kind?

I'm still hoping we'll have another hummingbird nest, too. I think it's too early, but I might as well fill up my feeder, just in case. Sugar water is cheap, and whenever the hummingbirds do arrive, it'll be nice to have a meal waiting for them.

I haven't been back to the memorial fence around King Soopers, even though I want to go. I'm glad I went twice, but now I feel nervous about going back. Back and forth, back and forth -- do I want to think about this, or do I want to set it aside for now? On Friday, after my vaccine, I went to the King Soopers on 30th Street, even though I don't like that store, because we were out of a lot of things and I figured I'd be more likely to find them there. The store is organized differently from my store, so I did a fair amount of backing and forthing, but I eventually found everything except raspberries, which they were out of (serves me right, trying to buy raspberries in early April). There was an armed guard in front of the store, and all the clerks seemed subdued. 

I had purposely left my cloth bags in the car, because I knew I didn't have the strength to bag my own groceries, and when I started filling an evil plastic bag, a little old man (realistically, he was probably about my age) came over and asked me if I'd like help. "Yes, thank you so much," I told him, and we chatted a little as he worked. He was apparently visiting from another store. "Where did you find applesauce?" he asked me. "That's the one thing I can never find. I know where it is in my regular store, but they hide it here." "I don't know where I got it," I had to admit, even though it made me sound like I had Alzheimer's. I had come upon the applesauce unexpectedly. "Maybe in the cereal aisle?" I knew what he meant, though. I don't even know where applesauce is in my regular store. I just trust that if I walk down every aisle, I'll eventually spot it. I do sound like I have Alzheimer's, don't I? Whatever I have, it has been exacerbated by the shooting. Especially in stores, but not only in stores, I feel like I am losing my mind.

Well, I just have to hold onto enough of it to get through the days. No pressure, not much that needs to get done this week. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

In my support group meeting yesterday, we were talking about the shootings, and I mentioned Teri the bagger. The leader of the meeting, who leads many other such meetings, said he'd been hearing about Teri the bagger all week. "I think half of Boulder must have known her," he said. What would Teri the bagger have thought of that? Life is so sad, and so strange.