Hope everyone had a blessed Easter and is enjoying the first days of spring. It's certainly spring here: the trees and bushes are all in a riot of bloom, with the Bradford pears and the forsythia already past their prime and both white and pink dogwoods brave with blossom, and the daffodils and tulips bob their heavy heads Spring in the South would be gorgeous if everything wasn't coated with a pervasive yellow haze of pine pollen. The only Easter decoration I put up outside was the lily/cross flag, since all the spring decorations are clotted in yellow and I don't want to get the Easter things dirty. It rained today, but the only thing that did was to create a yucky yellow-edged scum over everything.

Not to mention every bird in the neighborhood is singing a territorial song of domination and the sweet courting sounds of the chickadee (fee-beeeee, fee-beeee...) are still heard occasionally.

I'd enjoy spring better if horrid, sticky, sweaty, summer with its sickly rancid asphalt-and-rotting mulch stench didn't follow.

Due to our late night last night, watching The Amazing Dr. Pol and Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet, we were up very late this morning, giving me just enough time to perambulate the pooch and us to eat breakfast before we were off to the movie theatre near the old house to see Zootopia. Saw a whole bunch of Disney previews (Jungle Book does look compelling) and nothing more, so no Fantastic Beast this time.

Zootopia was, in a word, terrific! I enjoyed the characters, especially Judy and Nick, who are Betty Roberts and Scott Sherwood in an alternative universe, the mystery plot, the villain reveal, and even the little lessons that were snuck here and there painlessly. And the ending! Oh, goodness! We will have to get the Blu-Ray, just to see all the details, because the picture on our television is probably three times better than the screen we saw it on—this was the bargain theater and the picture was so dark. We sat in the front, a little to the side, because I didn't want to sit in front of a little girl¹, and both sides of the screen were so gloomy that we really didn't get all the brilliant details of the film. I've heard digital films are darker, but...really. And still love the wonderful joke with the sloths at the DMV: someone has visited the Rhode Island department of motor vehicles for sure.

By the time we got home, it was almost time for dinner. We had ham with pineapple sauce, potatoes and butter, and a wonderful diced cucumber/tomato/onion salad with lemon balsamic vinegar and garlic olive oil. Tres manifique! We ate and watched Rick Steves' European Easter, which was pretty cool. He basically showed Spanish, Italian, Eastern European, and Greek customs, and I especially appreciated the latter, as I had never seen an Eastern Orthodox service before. The Spanish "procession" was very beautiful with all the golden floats representing Christ's life and passion, and the somber statues of a grieving Saint Mary.

Later we watched the two annuals: The Easter Promise (the third Addie Mills story, with Jean Simmons as a local actress with a secret) and Rankin-Bass' generally rollicking Here Comes Peter Cottontail. The song "The Puzzle of Life" has helped me in a lot of unhappy moments.



¹ I always snap back to my days going to Disney movies at the old Majestic Theatre in downtown Providence, now the home of the Trinity Square Repertory Company. The Majestic was a big old marble-facaded vaudeville house, and its seats were such even back then that everyone should have gotten a good view. Mother and I always came early, to get good seats. In case we needed to use the bathroom, we'd sit near the back, but she was always careful to pick a place where I could see the screen. And then, invariably, two minutes before the big red velvet curtain opened to reveal the Buena Vista opening screen of the 1960s Disney films, some tall adult would sidle in the row in front of us and invariably plunk down right in front of me. I remember a succession of films, from Thomasina to The Jungle Book, with some stupid grown-up's head right in the middle of my field of vision. And that's why I never sit in front of little kids, even with stadium seating!

Labels: Easter, food, holidays, movies, television

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