the ocean

Last year, our Easter was cancelled outright due to the pandemic.  My mother was overcome with visions of the Illinois State Police erecting barricades and preventing 70-year-olds from entering Oak Park to see their grandchildren, and my sister was essentially erecting barricades to stop anyone who might conceivably cough on her children.  So I think we did a Zoom or something.  I was actually kind of cool with not sitting in a packed church for an hour and a half, though I did miss the traditional brunch buffet.

Now, with things gradually improving on the plague front, we were able to get together to allow the children to fight over the empty plastic eggs in their backyard and watch the half-hour mass while gradually stripping nude, at least in the case of my niece.  The catering was provided by, well, us, including Ian's spectacular rendition of Patti LaBelle's mac and cheese recipe and a store-bought lamb cake, which was quickly beheaded in the traditional style.  The Diet Coke flowed freely and, for a brief time, even Bluey himself was in attendance.  It was a gala affair.

Of course, we have a long way to go before we're back to anything approaching normal, and I definitely wouldn't trade human lives for a chance to visit an omelette station, but I do take the little victories where we can get them.  We may not have been able to spend St. Patrick's Day drunkenly fingerbanging in an alley, but at least we're tricking children into thinking there's an Easter Bunny, damn it.