Happy Easter: Part One

On Easter Sunday, we all got together at Kris’s house. Everybody contributed food for lunch. Bun brought perfect empanadas stuffed with black beans and butternut squash; I brought oven fries, kale, and red bean dip; Mom brought watermelon, green beans, and really great parsley potatoes (just ask Sophie); and Kris made some terrific jerk seitan patties.

It was another strange, burning hot spring day (it’s too hot and we desperately need rain). We gathered at Kris’s house and started eating right away, after we took pictures on the golf course across the street. I was so excited because Sophie consented to try one of my oven fries. She put it in her mouth. She chewed. And then a look of disgust came over her face.

“Leslie,” she said, in an incredulous tone, “what did you do to these potatoes?! They’re hot! They’re disgusting! What did you put on them?”

“Um, a little cayenne pepper,” I said sheepishly.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Well, you jacked them up,” she said.

Mom cried, “Oh, Lez, these are wonderful potatoes!”

“Mom feels sorry for me,” I said to Sophie.

“Well, I don’t,” Sophie said. “You jacked up your potatoes.”

“What’s going on?” Kris asked, coming into the kitchen.

“Sophie was offended by my oven fries,” I explained.

Kris laughed. “And she didn’t mind telling you about it, right?”

“Right.”

We started eating under a big umbrella by the pool.

Bunny took a bite of a seitan patty. “Kris, these are good!” she enthused.

“They’re from Walmart,” Sophie said, rolling her eyes.

“They are not from Walmart!” Kris protested.

“They’re from Walmart, Bunny,” Sophie said.

Sophie’s meal was pure white. She ate Mom’s potatoes and some dinner rolls and nothing else.

After lunch we looked at Sophie and Jake’s Easter baskets. They were so extravagant. Sophie’s was basically a bushel basket, absolutely stuffed. Before Easter Sophie said to Kris, “Mommy, could you tell the Easter Bunny that I only want toys, not candy?”

Jake made this observation about the Easter Bunny: “Mommy, I’d have to say the Easter Bunny is pretty unusual for a rabbit. I mean, some rabbits might hop into your house just out of curiosity, but they can’t usually read addresses or hold things like baskets in their hands.”

The Easter Bunny brought Sophie and Jake masks and snorkels, cute stickers, bunny and frog magnets, peanut butter cups, and marshmallow Peeps. Sophie got an origami kit and Shrinky Dinks, and Jake got Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (one of my favorite books).

Sophie also got an outfit for her American Girl doll. While she was distracted, I quietly opened the box to admire the plum-colored corduroy jacket and khaki bellbottoms, the little purple beret and matching clogs. It was truly a marvelous little outfit. I was holding the beret (very carefully and gently) when I heard these stern words:

“Drop it, Leslie. Drop it now.”

It was Sophie!

I nearly jumped out of my skin. We all know how fussy Sophie is about her American Girl stuff. Once Tuxie, Sophie’s cat, dragged Lanie, one of the American Girl dolls, down the stairs, and Kris caught her. She said, “Tuxie! What are you doing? What if Sophie saw you? Don’t you value your life?”

Sophie did find it in her heart to forgive me (eventually). So we decided to do a little origami—she and Bunny and I.

It took us a little while to choose exactly which project to work on.

“How about this one?” I suggested, pointing to a page in the little instruction manual.

“No,” Sophie said. “That’s supposed to be a mouse, but it doesn’t look like a mouse.”

“It looks like a mouse to me,” Matt said.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “You don’t know what a mouse looks like.”

We finally ended up making foxes. I needed lots of help. Origami is way too hard for me.

. . . And I’ll tell you more in a little while.