Banks are normally closed on Sundays anyway.
Oh shit! I have to buy a bottle of wine! All the stores will be closed!
Remember back when NYC was that eeevul librul secular town and everything was fucking OPEN on Christian holidays?
I'm pleased to find that my local coffee shop (in east Tennessee!) is open today.
(I don't either, but my dad is convinced that any place where Chinese restaurants stay open on Christmas Day must be evil. I say, Mmmm, szechuan.)
Are the stores closed? Shit. I need to buy things.
I have to ask if I can use the oven, too. My thing needs baking.
...and my ChinesePod.com subscription ends today and all I really know how to say is "How have you been recently?" "What country are you from?" and "Where are you going?" I am useless and frustrated.
I'm going to miss making egg salad and deviled eggs. That was always the best part of Easter. It so saddened me to throw out those jars of pickle juice last night that I'd been saving up when I cleaned out my fridge.
(My egg salad/deviled eggs recipe: mix the yolks of hard-boiled eggs with yellow mustard, mayo, and the juice from a jar of sweet gherkin pickes in an eyeballed ratio. Either fill the whites and make deviled eggs or chop the whites and stir them in for egg salad.)
Bloomingdales was closed today! What the hell? Thank God Zaftig's was open for brunch. I heart Brookline.
Sadly, the local Home Depot is open.
Turns out Sip at 5th and St. marks is open -- a very nice little wine store. And the little organic bodega is open. Yay for the Jews and Muslims and atheists of Park Slope!
Some of my students gave me some confetti eggs, which pleased me enormously.
I am just comforted to know I'm not the only one doing nothing.
It's nearly over here. I did quite a lot of laundry, if that has any theological significance.
I'm becoming convinced that Google enjoys making K-Lo at the Corner mad.
Hers is evidently an anger that can only be expressed with extra commas.
I suspect that this is a small taste of what it's like to be a member of a non-Christian religion in America. So frustrating.
Yep. The one that really pisses me off is not so much Easter as Good Friday; lots of stuff's closed on Sundays anyway, but it's very irritating to have to do something on some random Friday and find out that everything's closed and there's all these big processions all over the place taking up all the sidewalks. Fucking Christians.
We took my sister and my niece for an easter egg hunt, here. Which is about as much as I've done to 'celebrate' Easter in my entire life. Nice day out, though.
Semi-OT, but serious question: what is the Muslim take on the crucifixion? Did it happen or not? I was ambushed in conversation by a taxi driver on Thursday, and I couldn't work out where he was coming from.
It seems to me that the non-Christians here should be worrying a lot less about holiday retail hours and a little bit more about an eternity of hellfire. Am I wrong?
I can still say that, right? Or have they taken over entirely?
re: 21
From memory, having discussed it with Muslim friends, iirc, he wasn't killed on the cross.
[Having checked wikipedia, that seems to be right]
According to some Muslim traditions, Jesus was replaced by a double; others suggest it was Simon of Cyrene, or one of the disciples such as Judas Iscariot. A minority of commentaries of Ismaili or rationalist (falāsifa) leaning affirmed the crucifixion by arguing that Jesus' body had been crucified, but his spirit had ascended. However, this interpretation was generally rejected, and according to the Encyclopedia of Islam, there was unanimous agreement amongst the scholars in denying the crucifixion
22 makes sense of what my guy was saying, but I couldn't work out if it was a real double, like somebody who looked a bit the same and was shit out of luck that day, or a ghost double, or what. I suppose it's no more or less likely than the Xian version.
I'm planning to pull my partner's truck's starter/solonoid unit assembly module, disassemble the solonoid, silver solder on some hunks of copper to make new contacts, reassamble and reinstall it. The truck's been dead for more than the traditional three days; time for the great Toyota to arise and live again. For it shall be raised, incorruptible. Working on one's pickup truck on Sunday is very much a religious observance, shared by Jews and Muslims, too.
I tried to fix the chainsaw yesterday, but it seems condemned to an eternity of misfires.
It seems to me that the non-Christians here should be worrying a lot less about holiday retail hours and a little bit more about an eternity of hellfire.
No more today than any other.
Wow, it's a beautiful day here. I think I'll celebrate Easter by going out and photographing some of the churches in my neighborhood.
20, 22: My non-expert understanding is that the majority of Muslim theologians think Jesus was replaced by someone else (Judas, Simon, an "image" of Jesus, etc.), but that the text of the Koran doesn't make this clear, only stating that Jesus did not in fact die on the cross, but that God tricked the Romans into thinking this was so; the exact details of how the divine hoax went down are left to debate.
I'm an atheist in general, but especially about auto repair.
27. I'm betting there were one or two Gnostic traditions that would have gone along with some version of that.
One pre-Muslim Christian sect was accused of believing that the actually-crucified Jesus was fake and that the real Jesus was in the crowd laughing at him.
The dominant Christian view of Christology was only settled in 429 AD, not long before the rise of Islam, and dissenting churches survived in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and the Persian Empire. So the Muslim view is not far different than some of the Christian views of Muhammed's era. (These churches survive to this day in Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and the Middle East.)
So far I've spent my Easter vomiting repeatedly on a flight from Amsterdam to Chicago.
re: 26
Photography is always a good way to spend the day!
It's long been my belief that if the Emperor Whatsit hadn't fixed the vote so that the Arians lost out to the clearly barking mad Athanasius, Mohammed would have emerged as a Christian reformer. Whether this would have made any difference to history, I'm less convinced.
I really like Easter, but woke too late to make it to any church but the beautiful little one nearby that I don't visit because the happy families in the pews remind me of the shadow versions of myself and Ex-Girlfriend No. 1. I think I'll go slam a taxi door shut on my hand or something.
there's all these big processions all over the place taking up all the sidewalks
That sounds fun. We never have anything like that here. (Well, maybe in the North End, but there it's always accompanied by sausage sub sandwich sellerssssss.)
Sorry to hear it, Leblanc. Get well soon!
32: It's a good thing that you didn't go to the French Laundry first.
English non-Christians are actually more inconvenienced than in the U.S. even though the U.S. is a more overtly Christian country. School holidays always fall on Easter. Most people get Good Friday off, and Easter Monday is a bank holiday.
I went on a procession with a wooden crucifix through sites in Boston which help the homeless. Spit on that, you atheists.
I want to say that athiests don't fix Vauxhalls, but I can't quite get it to work.
Becks, I will eat a piece of huckleberry pie in your honor this evening -- this will surely do something good for your immortal soul. (They're a little harder to find this year -- I think it's a combination of last year's harvest being thin and increased worldwide demand. We have to stop talking about huckleberries with the outlanders).
The non-Christians here should be worrying a lot less about holiday retail hours and a little bit more about an eternity of hellfire. Am I wrong?
Well, yeah, you're wrong. Isn't the defining characteristic of non-Christians pretty much that they don't worry about an eternity of hellfire?
41 is a nonsequitur. The defining characteristic of non-Christians is that they should be worrying about an eternity of hellfire, but aren't.
If the non-Christians don't not worry about an eternity of hellfire, who will?
Speaking of nonchristians and an eternity of hellfire, how 'bout that Pope? Thanks for helping with world peace and everything.
My gym and coffeeshop were open, here in the People's Republic, where we've banned religion, or at least sued them nearly out of business - although the wacky "Vineyard" sect has taken over the former Catholic church at the end of the street and parking is always terrible here on Sunday. Speaking of religious oppression, having the parking rules not in force on Sunday seems like quite a concession to have.
LeBlanc, I'm so sorry. That *almost* makes up for my envy of your trip. Not quite, but almost.
Speaking of religious oppression, having the parking rules not in force on Sunday seems like quite a concession to have.
Yes, but I benefit from that when I drive to Brookline for brunch. Go Jesus!
The pictures. There are a lot of churches in this town.
Fucking Christians.
Teo, He is risen today, so I think that should mean your people are off the hook.
18: Teo, if you didn't live in Mexican Catholic central, you wouldn't have that problem.
BG, your Easter observance sounds kickass.
re: 50
Heh, that's about as far as you can get from British church photos. Which tend towards the moody, gothic and dark.
We were at my SIL's and we had snow! And went down into a weird cave and then walked around the shut and deserted town centre, wondering when we could go back to SIL's house for a cup of tea.
Looking forward to another day's holiday tomorrow, but all the shops will be open.
Heh, that's about as far as you can get from British church photos. Which tend towards the moody, gothic and dark.
Yeah, the contrast between the old parts of the Methodist and Episcopal churches (which I'm sure aren't nearly as dark and Gothic as British churches but are clearly going for that aesthetic) and the new parts is striking.
43 -- Jesus, Becks, we have to stop talking about the huckleberries!
It's snowing here in Whitefish. Hope it snows all night.
I am adoring my Easter.I adore Easter ont he whole. I have warm feelings about my growing-up Easter traditions, though they were informed by religiosity I no longer subscribe to. And I love my own Easter tradition - a wholly secular big brunch party with lots of kids hunting for plastic eggs and lots of alcohol. It represents for me the nicest possible combination of self-determinism and nostalgia.
Annoyance, e.g.: Spending four hours dyeing an Easter egg (pysanky) in order that your husband might crack it while attempting to blow out its innards.
It's Easter. Today we have hope.
The quote is from the other post, but lest it go unsaid this blessed day: we have hope because He rose today and didn't see His shadow. Spring is here!
Oh, this reminds me of a wedding I went to several years ago in Connecticut around Easter, and we went during the weekend to the Bruce Museum, a lovely building and grounds, with a sweeping approach, a sort of anthropological arts and antiquities collecting place; while we were there (late March), it began to snow, just at dusk. Magical.
I have a huckleberry bush in my front yard, and have never known what to do with them.
Speaking of people with the initials JC, did folks catch this lovely bit from the Times upon Richardson's endorsement of Obama?
"An act of betrayal," said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.
"Mr. Richardson's endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.
(Apologies if already discussed somewhere; I'm behind on the threads.)
a wholly secular big brunch party with lots of kids hunting for plastic eggs and lots of alcohol
That sounds awesome. We're very low key--here's a basket kid, now let's sit around for the rest of the day--but maybe next year we'll add the "big brunch with lots of alcohol" plan. Once we have some friends locally, I mean.
have not celebrated easter at all unless it counts to feed the pet bunny rabbit mint leaves. which he loves! so. maybe?
and soon it will actually be springtime enough outside that i can break off a lilac branch or two and feed it to him, flowers, branch, and all. hooray for the sweetest smelling rabbit of all possible worlds.
(yes, that's all part of a healthy bunny diet - no worries)
The thing that's so great about Easter is that the egg hunting occupies kids forever, and can be redone over and over with different adults of varying blood alcohol levels are in charge of hiding them. Plus it's not as crass as christmas and can so easily feel meaningful (spring, casting off of seasonal affective disorder, remembering cycles, etc) without being religious. You are invited to my brunch next year, B.
66 is teh awesome.
67: Done. My sister will be happy to hear I'll be visiting her for a holiday for once.
I used to live next door to a church that provided an outdoor egg hunt for children. Really cute.
In my own home, my mother had to keep notes on where she'd hidden the eggs (candy), for we would inevitably fail to find a few. Standard story, she lost the list one year, melted chocolate found months later behind a plant.
mmf! Lilacs are fantastic!
My parents used to hide the baskets, invariably leading to one calasis losing her shit because she couldn't find hers.
The episcopal cathedral reminds me of the genzyme plant. I guess the Genzyme plant's supposed to look like a Cathedral of Science. Which makes me wonder if they're doing something awful in there.
When we were kids the dog once ate our (hard boiled) eggs before we got outside to find them. Apparently that was the year my mom started the "indoor treasure hunt, with notes" tradition.
Cala, That was actually on Good Friday. I went to the Vigil last night and went to a party with some friends from 10-12ish.
mcmc--Are you talking about the Episcopal cathedral in Boston? Because that is one ugly building. I think that the Genzyme plant is better looking.
My family tradition is for a multiple-day hunt for See's Candy, with mocking, doggerel-rhymed clues (one a day!) written by my father, who was every year out of town for a hockey tournament so couldn't be yelled at.
74 is pretty awesome. Especially the See's candy part (PK got a See's bunny this year, but other than that I was VERY RESTRAINED since quality of chocolate isn't a big issue for him yet).
72 continued: I knew I could find this picture somewhere. I'm *pretty* sure that's the year the dog ate all the eggs and we had the treasure hunt; at least, the only treasure hunt prize I can remember is those water guns.
We always had clues. Usually we do them here, but we did it SIL's way today. Last year, one of the kids had an egg that got hidden (not by me!) in one of our wheelie bins (the recycling one, not the rubbish one). So ... dark plastic bin .... out the front of our house which is east-facing .... warm sunny morning .... yes, she found a cellophane bag of melted chocolate.
Thanks! I know it's immodest to say so, but it really is pretty damn adorable, isn't it?
A wholly secular big brunch party with lots of kids hunting for plastic eggs and lots of alcohol.
Call me old fashioned, but I think that kids Easter doses of alcohol should be small.
We didn't really have observances -- Easter was a food holiday, along with Thanksgiving and to a lesser extent Christmas (which is a loot and food holiday combined). Mom took me to an Easter egg hunt a couple of times at the local art center rather than hide things herself, probably because of the risks implicit in 69.
I'm hoping the bakery is a) still open and b) still has hot cross buns. Mmm, hot cross buns.
have not celebrated easter at all unless it counts to feed the pet bunny rabbit mint leaves. which he loves! so.
(yes, that's all part of a healthy bunny diet - no worries)
I think I'd love to eat a bunny with a lot of mint leaves in his diet.
I had two hot cross buns and a sweet pretzel for my Easter feast. No lamb unfortunately.
I am now off to the Late Late Mass (11:15 PM) in Georgetown.
I was going to slough off Easter entirely but got invited to a dinner consisting of lamb AND ham AND a delicious celeraic-beet casserole that looked like the flesh of Christ, made by AWB. I made bread pudding, which turns out to be just about the easiest dessert in the whole world. Mmm.
Mom took me to an Easter egg hunt a couple of times at the local art center rather than hide things herself, probably because of the risks implicit in 69.
Jeez, and people thought *I* was sick for making PK *lick* my butt.
Bave's bread pudding is to die for. Yum. I got to stuff plastic eggs and hide them for the kids! Turns out, I hide things a little too well.
I hide things a little too well.
Do tell, AWB.
Inside the watering can. COME ON.
Did you put them all there? That does sound like a sad Easter.
I was hoping the answer would be "in AWB's cooter", but then, I missed a lot of context.
Also: a Canadian informed me of Easter Monday, a federal holiday there. Bastards! I want to sleep in tomorrow, too. I drove all over this weekend visiting people, and I'm tired but road-wired from caffeine.
My little Lutheran school gets Monday off for Easter Break. But that's the last break we get until summer vacation starts in May, so it's not all fun and games.
Working for NYS, we get off tomorrow too. Yay!
Maybe when the US settles into ex-empirehood we'll all get the Monday after Easter off. Yay!
92: PK has tomorrow off; it's "teacher buy-back day." We're going to go look at houses.
Oooh! I love looking at houses.
Actually, my most frequent recurring dream is that I'm living in a house with a complicated layout and dealing with the layout. Like getting back and forth to an attic that requires you to climb up stairways that start in the backs of closets, or rooms that I've never seen before. There are probably 10+ dream houses I know very well.
Because everyone loves hearing about my dreams. And this one time there was a pony.
One of my favorite *day*dreams is "how I would redecorate, no, wait, remodel!" this house that totally doesn't belong to me.
Nothing like economic meltdown to bring down house prices.
Basically, if you ever invite me to stay in your home, you can be assured that I'm spending part of my time mentally rearranging things, knocking out walls, etc.
We're going to go look at houses.
So that one day when he's old, PK can tell his grandkids about going out with his mother to look at all the houses for sale, and all of the sad people trying desperately to unload them before the economic cataclysm. Kind of like our generation's grandparents' stories about seeing breadlines during the Depression.
101: But I wonder, has the economy melted down *far enough* yet? Maybe if I dawdle a couple more months, I can get a *Spanish* style house for $400k, instead of a boring house house....
knocking out walls
Sure thing, Mommie Dearest.
But I wonder, has the economy melted down *far enough* yet?
I'm thinking there's a ways to go, especially in So. Cal.
I know exactly what walls I want to knock down in this house. And I want to take out the ceiling so that you can see the rafters in the attic and have a nice airy cathedral ceiling.
103: Well, of the three that I'm seeing tomorrow, the one where we can actually afford the asking price (and it's possibly *still* overpriced) has actually been foreclosed on already. It was at $589 in September, when the owners were still living in it; now it's empty and the bank's asking $400k.
106: Yeah, I'm trying to find the sweet spot between "wait" and "stop paying $2600/month in rent."
$2600, yikes. Quick, someone make an Elgin, ND joke.
Maybe if I dawdle a couple more months, I can get a *Spanish* style house for $400k, instead of a boring house house....
If you move here, you can get a Spanish-style house for a hell of a lot less than $400k.
If you move to Mexico, they'll be even cheaper than in Teostate.
My little Lutheran school gets Monday off for Easter Break.
I don't know why the hell I'm bragging. I'm sitting here grading calculus tests, and I have to go in tomorrow to catch up, anyway.
Yes, but the cost of Mr. B.'s commuting to his job by air would probably be even bigger than our rent.
Yes, but here you can get all the atmosphere of living in Mexico (seriously, you should see some of the neighborhoods I took pictures in today) with all the amenities of living in America.
Mr. B could probably get a job here, actually. Granted, it would definitely pay a lot less.
This is the part where I remind everyone that I pay $270/month in scenic and historical Virginia. Nyah.
Yeah, but you have to live with your crazy roommates.
He happens to love his current job. In fact, he just gave notice to the contractors last week because the government's hired him on directly. Boo paying back moving costs, yay getting credit for 12 years in the AF when it comes to (re)starting his government pension.
115: I could totally challenge you to a Mexican Atmosphere-Off. We've got Meximosphere coming out our cascarones like it's snowing.
Fair enough, and congratulations to him.
Yeah, but you have to live with your crazy roommates.
One of them just held up the cat like a gun and pretended to fire the cat's butt into my wine glass. I kid you not.
120: Ain't no place more Mexican than Martineztown. I've been meaning to take some pictures of it anyway.
Yeah, but you have to live with your crazy roommates.
And you have to work tomorrow.
And you have to work tomorrow.
Zing. Zang. Zoom. Goddammit.
I also have to work tomorrow, and the other legal assistant is still on vacation, which means massive amounts of extra work for me.
I'd see your Martineztown and raise you one Seguin, TX. But I'm too embarrassed to photograph it.
I don't think I could deal with an adult pretending to fire the cat's butt into my wine glass. PK, maybe, but only once.
128: He may have been "on the ganj", as the kids say.
I concede that if any place can equal the Mexicanness of Martineztown, it's probably Seguin. Though I've never actually been there.
I bet your Martineztown is probably pretty Mexilicious, too. And I bet you get a fried egg on top of your enchiladas there.
131: I wouldn't know; there are no restaurants in Martineztown.
Hey, while I've got you here, could you ask Jammies if he knows of any good restaurants in Farmington? We're trying to find a place to take people after my dad's unveiling, but it's proving to be a very difficult task.
Sadly, the local Home Depot is open.
See, if I'd known that, I might've gotten more done on my kitchen today.
Oh well. I had a nice, quiet day at home, with a ham from a local, pasture-raised pig. Thank you, pig, for being so fucking delicious and fatty.
He says there's a Red Lobster and a country club - you could have a nice lobster dinner?
Yeah, see, that's the problem we're having.
I was being funny. See, I'm funny.
Was the country club part of the joke?
It's a bacon-shaped country club. They do serve Jews though, at least those that can pass.
Was the country club part of the joke?
There were very well-dressed people firing cat butts into everyone's wine glasses.
They'll serve anyone, meaning anyone, and to anyone at all.
Don't you start in on the jew-hating too, Stan.
I think they'd all been smoking the wacky tobacky, IYKWIM. And I mean pot.
And I mean pot.
Great, now we're all accomplices.
Teo, I take back what I said about the pig in 135.
I take back what I said about the pig in 135.
Hey, what you do with pigs in the privacy of your own home is none of my concern.
I believe in multiple punchlines per straightman set-up, Stanley.
Really? Because that was just one. And barely that.
Cat butts aren't very accurate artillery.
I think I'd love to eat a bunny with a lot of mint leaves in his diet.
raise your own then, buster.
max indicates he'd like to poop on you, except that he is too well-trained, because you don't resemble his litterbox enough nor are you coated in fresh timothy hay. sadly. he might flick his heels briefly in rabbit-disgust at you as his 3 lb. self races off into the dusk. cheers.
