Yesterday afternoon, as I was eating my sandwich which consisted of ham left over from Sunday’s Easter dinner, something occurred to me. That’s always dangerous because who knows where that’s going to lead? Anyway, I began to wonder why ham became the traditional Easter Sunday meal. After all, Easter is the celebration of Jesus Christ rising from the dead and saving all of us lowly sinners. You know, Jesus, the faithful Jew, who never ate a piece of pork in the 34 years he was on this earth.

Yes, I know that many people celebrate Easter without a single thought about Jesus. These folks are focused on the bunny who hops around the earth on Easter morning delivering eggs and candy to the kiddies. I guess I can see why rabbit didn’t become the traditional Easter meal. It would be hard to tell Junior that the Easter bunny won’t be back next year because he was eaten. And doesn’t he taste a lot like chicken?

But why ham, one of the foods that Jews believe God prohibits them from eating? I put my sandwich down next to my half-eaten chocolate bunny and looked it up on the internet. There is, my friends, a simple explanation, and I’m about to tell you what that is.

Easter began being formally celebrated by Christians in the Second Century. It was the first Council of Nicaea that decided that Easter should fall sometime between March 22 and April 25 after the first Spring full moon.

Now picture life in those early days, all the way to the 20th Century, when refrigerators became common. In the fall, lots of folks would slaughter the animals that they have been raising and would then salt them and hang them in the cellar to be used in the Spring. You know, Spring, when we celebrate Easter. Thus, ham became a traditional Easter meal. Caroline Ingalls would have Charles go down to the cellar and bring up the rump of the pig that she has been salting down over the winter so that she could rinse it off and put it in the oven with some apples and onions and whatever other fruits and vegetables were left in the root cellar. Voila! Easter dinner.

Of course, another traditional Easter meal is lamb, and that one is easier for me to understand. I didn’t even have to put down my lamb lollipop to figure that out. Behold, the Lamb of God. Lamb was often sacrificed to God for many reasons. Abraham killed a lamb when God gave him a pass on killing his son Isaac.

Because I can never make up my mind, I always serve both lamb and ham at my Easter feast. And not just because they rhyme, sort of. Call me Dr. Suess. I don’t fix ham any other time of the year. It’s not my favorite meat, but I will tell you that it takes so darn good to me every Easter — and for a week or so afterwards.

As for lamb, well LAMB.

By the way, doesn’t anyone have any interesting ways for me to use a beautiful meaty ham bone?

Before I ever had my foot surgery, a friend of mine who had similar surgery this past October warned me that it would take quite a long time for the swelling in the foot to go down. I have been glad for her warning, because I’m pretty sure I would have been very discouraged by now if I hadn’t been expecting swelling and soreness three months following the surgery.

However, this week I was able to put on, and wear for several hours, a real pair of sneakers. It was the first time I could fit it on my foot. Not only that, but I was able to walk all the way to Basha’s with Bill to get some groceries.

It’s the small things, friends.

Have a great Easter Weekend.

Ring of Fire
Yesterday morning I was sitting in my chair reading. Suddenly I heard a loud boom in the area across the open space that runs behind our AZ house. Startled, I looked up and saw black smoke rising into the area from that same area. I got up and ran to the door, and yelled to Bill, “There’s a fire!” He jumped up and we both ran out to our backyard to look over the fence. We could see flames blazing high into the air, with the smoke billowing into the sky. There were loud intermittent booms coming from the area. I ran back inside the house and grabbed my telephone. I was reluctant to call, assuming someone else would do so. But you know what they say about assuming. I told the 911 operator that there was a fire that we could see from our backyard, and gave her the approximate location. She connected me with the fire department, and I repeated what I had said. He confirmed that a truck was on the way. Still, I was glad I called, because I’m sure we were one of the first to see the fire. Bill thinks the booms were propane or gas cans exploding. Even after they got the fire out, the street was closed for several hours. I asked one of the police officers if there had been a fatality, and she said no. Thank you Jesus……

Tart
One of the fellows with whom Bill boxes recently gave me a bag of grapefruits from his backyard grapefruit tree. I love grapefruit, but I almost never buy them because Bill can’t eat them because they interact with some of his Parkinson’s meds. I ate one the next morning, and then forgot that I had them. The other day, I stumbled upon them in our refrigerator’s vegetable drawer. They looked a bit worse for wear, but I decided to squeeze the juice from them and enjoy some fresh grapefruit juice. That night when Bill and I were having our cocktail party, instead of one of my usual imbibements, I made myself a Salty Dog, which is grapefruit juice and gin, served in a salt-rimmed glass. It was delicious and very satisfactory on a hot day…..

Construction
Our Canadian friends are back at their own home, and we are missing them very much. The house’s owner, who had leased it to them for two months, has returned. Since she arrived, there has been considerable construction going on in their back yard. There was a very large piece of children’s equipment that we could see over our fence that she has had removed. I’m not sure what else is going on but the workmen have been there for days. Yesterday I noticed one of the trucks was a pet door installer. Since she has a small dog, that gives me hope that perhaps she is not getting it ready to put up for sale, but instead is simply making it more friendly for her and her little girl. Fingers crossed.

Aarf
And speaking of that little dog, I met him a while back when we first arrived here in AZ. She came over to say hello, and she was carrying a little dog. When we left last spring, she was living with her boyfriend, who had a pit bull named Phoenix. Jen and I would laugh every morning when they would come outside for Phoenix to do his morning duties. We laughed because he seemed to be quite naughty. “Phoenix, no no no,” we would hear her yell again and again. Now boyfriend doesn’t live there any more, and there is only the small dog — a doodle dog of some sort named Turbo. No every morning I hear, “Turbo, no no no.” I believe she should not consider opening a dog training school.

Ciao.

I watched a television show recently in which the protagonist — a detective inspector in a small county in England — had a fear of clowns. Apparently he could face all sorts of scary miscreants and murderers without the benefit of a gun (because he’s in Great Britain), but a clown scares the bejesus out of him. Since he is the chief detective in a small English village where at least three people are brutally murdered every episode, it seems he should have more to worry about than clowns.

I’m not expressing doubt. Phobias are inexplicable and largely incurable. I should know. I have them myself. I’ve no fear of clowns, though. I never really found them amusing. Frankly, I always found them mostly annoying. But I understand that coulrophobia (fear of clowns) is a thing.

I’m a fearful person by nature. For example, I don’t particularly like heights. If I’m in a very tall building, I would prefer to not look outside. But looking outside doesn’t cause heart palpitations, and I can generally talk myself into taking a peek. Likewise, I don’t particularly like closed spaces, but I don’t hyperventilate in elevator. So I guess I wouldn’t call them phobias.

What does cause me to hyperventilate is glossophobia. No, this isn’t a fear of lipstick. Glossophobia is a fear of public speaking. Despite the fact that I was a communicator when I worked hard for my money, I resisted public speaking. It was forced upon me on a couple of occasions. The one that sticks in my mind like a bad nightmare was the one and only time I was asked to testify before a legislative committee. My voice was shaking so much that the committee chair kindly came to my rescue.

Another fear I have that I would classify as a phobia is emetophobia, or the fear of vomiting or seeing others vomit. I. Can’t. Handle. Puking. God was good to me as I reared my child. While he vomited as much as any normal kid, he almost always did it over at his dad’s house so that his stepmother had to clean it up. Ha. While in grade school, there were kids who would volunteer to clean up vomit so that they could get out of class. I would rather recite my multiplication tables than look at vomit.

I did some research to see what other kinds of phobias exist in the world, and my emetophobia doesn’t seem so weird. It’s rather normal when you consider that some people have arachibutyrophobia. When I saw the word, I assumed it would be a fear of something to do with spiders. Alas, there are people in this world who fear peanut butter. Yes, friends, there are arachibutyrophobiacs. My mother detested the taste of peanut butter, but I never saw her scream if someone offered her a peanut butter cookie.

Hippopotomonstrosequippedaliophobia is one of the longest words in the dictionary. Ironically, it is the name for a fear of long words. Hand to God, that’s what I read. Despite the fact that the internet is never wrong, the American Psychiatric Association doesn’t officially recognize this phobia.

I, along with the Shrinks, think hippopotomonstrosequippedaliophobia is a bunch of bullshit. Oops. Kakologophobiacs won’t like what I just said, because they have a phobia of swear words.

A question was recently posed to me. If money was no object, what would you change in your life? I was so struck by that question that I have been thinking about it for several days. It reminds me of when Bill and I periodically play Lotto, and speculate what we will buy when we win our billions.

I have learned in my 68 years of life that money doesn’t buy happiness. It’s a trite adage, but it’s arguably true. I say arguably because it sort of depends on what one does with the money. I can tell you for sure that all of the things that are in my Denver home’s basement that I now have to figure out how to get rid of never really made me happy. Clothes don’t make me happy. Expensive cars don’t make me happy. An enormous mansion to call home wouldn’t make me happy.

But there are things that money can buy that will — and do — make me happy. If I have an unusually delicious meal at a restaurant, I leave full and gratified. Our 2008 European adventure was an amazing experience that Bill and I still talk about very often. I’m happy we could do that while we were both healthy. I’ve been to many exciting American places — New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco, Boston, to name only a few — and I’ve been able to stay at nice hotels while visiting these places. A night at the St. Francis Hotel where I was greeted with a beautiful basket of fruit and an extraordinarily comfortable bed left me feeling content and spoiled. And happy.

I guess the bottom line is that it really isn’t THINGS that make a person, well, at least this person, happy. Instead, it’s EXPERIENCES that spark joy.

Having said all of the above, if money was no object, I would hire a full-time housekeeper and a full-time chauffeur. The housekeeper would make the experience of living in my existing homes pleasant. I wouldn’t have to look at the dust on my tables and know in my heart-of-hearts that I should be dusting instead of working on my puzzle. A chauffeur would take me wherever my heart tells me it wants to go. My first trip would be a drive to visit our family in Vermont on blue highways. Perhaps I would have him (or her) pulling an RV so that I have someplace to stay every night. Maybe we could take a detour to Washington D.C., and I could eat oysters at the bar at Old Ebbitt’s Grill and spend the night in the Willard Hotel. (It would be up to my chauffeur to figure out where to park the RV.)

It’s fun to dream, but it makes me happy that I’m content with my life, money or none.

For the first four or five years that we lived in this AZ house, a couple of about our age lived next door. We were friendly, but didn’t socialize at all. Eventually, the man of the couple became a nudist. Actually, I have no idea when he started living without a stitch, but we became aware of it after about five years of living next door because Bill saw him in the garage with nothing on except a baseball cap. He gave Bill a friendly wave, and continued with his garage business that apparently required a baseball cap but nothing else. After that first sighting, it became commonplace to see him with nothing on but a pair of thong underwear. And a baseball cap.

While we were friendly with him, at least to say hi and ask him to keep an eye on our place when we were back in Denver for the summer and fall, I spoke to his wife only once in my life. I have no idea whether or not she was also a nudist. She was fully clothed the one and only time we spoke, but it’s hard to imagine her sitting on the sofa in flannel pajamas and bunny slippers while he sat next to her naked as the day he was born. Who knows? They moved shortly after, and I will admit that I wasn’t sorry to see them go. I’m certain they found a nudist +55 community somewhere.

Anyhoo, the one and only time I spoke with the missus, we talked about the baby birds that had recently hatched and were living in a nest in our front yard tree. She had seen one of the baby birds fall (or was he pushed?) from the nest and was expressing sadness at its death. She had probably already cried on her husbands’ naked shoulder.

I think of her sometimes when I see the birds in our neighborhood and around our AZ house. We have nothing but cacti and thorny bushes in our AZ yard, having gotten rid of the front yard tree years ago (not because of the birds, but because it shed something literally endlessly and got on Bill’s last nerve). Our Denver back yard, on the other hand, is simply beautiful. Our lot is a third of an acre, and the front yard is small. So our back yard is lush and has many beautiful trees, including four fruit trees. I put out a bird feeder every summer. Ironically, we get an assortment of birds, and many of them, in Arizona, but I can’t seem to get even the smallest house finches to come to my feeder in Denver. They used to come, but something changed, and they turn their noses (or beaks) up at my feeder. I hear crows in our trees in the morning, but that’s really about it. Caw. Caw. Caw.

The other morning, I was sitting in my chair reading, and saw something land on our patio. It was two quails — a male and a female. I know their genders because one had a beautiful red cap and the other had none. You can guess which one wore the red cap.

You might remember that last year, a female quail laid her eggs in my geranium plant, and proceeded to sit on the eggs the rest of the time we were there. We left at the beginning of May, but returned for our nieces wedding in June. The eggs were hatched — all but two — and the birds were nowhere in sight. In my world, they flew away happily.

But back to the two quails that were on our patio. I have seen them — or I think it’s them — walking along our fence almost every day. This was the first time they had landed on our patio. As I watched, they came closer and closer to our patio door. They were right outside the door looking in when the mail did the funniest thing. He began pecking on our glass patio door. He pecked and pecked and pecked. It was like he could see in and wanted me to open the door to let them in. We were having an early heat wave, and he seemed to be saying, “Let us in. We can hear your air conditioner running, and would appreciate a break from the heat.”

Bill was in the kitchen, and I softly told him to come into the living room very quietly and slowly. He did, and we sat and watched those birds for the longest time. They finally gave up, and flew away.

God made some funny creatures, but I have to say that quails are among his best. And funniest.

I blogged about attending our granddaughters’ middle school play called Circus Olympus last weekend . The play was a unique and contemporary take on Greek mythology.

As I said earlier, I was proud of the girls. But I was also struck at how intently 7-year-old Cole watched the stories, and even more so, how much he talked about them after. The next day he spent time with me, and he asked questions and talked about the stories endlessly. He was especially taken with the story of Pandora’s Box. In this particular presentation, the character of Hope was portrayed by a young girl who performed a ballet dance. It made such an impression on Cole that he drew me this picture of Hope….

I love that there are creative ways to teach children Greek mythology. Perhaps if I had that opportunity, I would remember who’s who!

Have a great weekend.

Is It Hot Enough For You?
Today the temperature is predicted to reach 97 degrees in the Valley of the Sun. It’s April 8 doncha know? But according to the weather forecasters, An early April temp of 97 degrees is not even record-breaking. Apparently it’s been in three figures before at this time of year. I have only been in AZ during the summer one time, and that was for my nephew’s wedding. However, the wedding and reception were both indoors, so I can’t rightly say I totally understand what it feels like to be in 110 degree temps. What I can tell you is that last night, when I went to put our brats on the grill, I could barely touch the grill’s handle. Just sayin’….

Horror Movie
I wasn’t sure what to do with my outdoor plants while we were in Colorado over the weekend. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, because they were still so pretty. What’s more, our Canadian neighbors brought over the beautiful pink geranium plant they had purchased to enjoy during their two months here in AZ. My solution was to bring all of the plants indoors, put them in my bathtub with a few inches of water, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, when we returned on Tuesday, we had a minor horror movie. The plants were mostly dead, having been overwatered. But even worse, the plants brought in something in the neighborhood of a million gnats that were mostly dead, but covering the bottom of my tub. Bless Bill’s heart, he did a yeoman’s job of cleaning up the mess. So much for the best-laid plans. At least it was gnats and not scorpions!

Coming Up Sunny
Everything around here is all about the Phoenix Suns, the state’s pro basketball team. They are heading to the finals. Having not paid attention much to basketball this season, I was completely unaware of how the Denver Nuggets were doing, so I texted Court to ask if we were in the hunt. He confirmed that we were, but gave the caveat that he didn’t have high hopes because of injuries on the Nuggets’ bench. We’ll see.

Waiting for the Easter Bunny
I can’t believe that Lent is nearly over. This upcoming weekend is Palm Sunday, and then we enter Holy Week. Easter is just around the corner. Last Easter Bill and I were by ourselves, and I made a little prime rib. I hope this year I will be able to grill a leg of lamb and roast a spiral ham like other years. COVID, you didn’t defeat us!

Ciao.