Easter

Easter in the Boltgirl household this year meant a picnic at the park with the kids, dogs, and part-time housemate. The weather chipped in with sun and just enough breeze to keep things cool in the shade of the big eucalyptus we chose. Himmel Park was teeming with life, with a mongo ultimate frisbee tournament on the fields on the east side, kids at the playground, picnickers filling every available table and shade tree, and every grill doing a Krakatoa of charcoal smoke. Burnt offerings for the pleasure of the sky god, perhaps not so much. Grilled offerings for the pleasure of nostrils all around, definitely. We stuck around long enough to watch successive shifts of picnickers at the adjacent tables, including one group who very energetically hid eggs for the toddler faction of their party. At least five eggs ended up about six feet up in a tree; maybe they were planning on tossing the kid up there to see what would stick to her on the way down.

Candy preferences vary widely enough with my group to make trades easy. I would be happy with a basket of nothing but robin eggs--those heavenly speckled malt balls I can eat by the handful--preferably the mini ones. The boy and the part-time housemate favor jelly beans, which I really don't like, and everyone but me likes milk chocolate, meaning all the Hershey's Special Dark fun size bars end up in my pile. Hey, the gym will still be there tomorrow.

The downside to the rapid negotiations and trade agreements is the speed at which the hi-graded piles are stashed in big ziplocs and squirreled away. How the hell am I supposed to steal robin eggs out of the boy's basket when I don't even know where he hides it?