Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, is a foundation of the Christian faith. The exact origins of this religious feast day’s name are unknown. Some sources claim the word Easter is derived from Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility. Other accounts trace Easter to the Latin term hebdomada Alba, or white week, an ancient reference to Easter week and the white clothing donned by people who were baptized during that time (as discussed in the 2015 Easter edition of this blog).
Whatever! None of this explains how we got from all of that to eating chocolate bunnies, Easter bunnies and Easter bonnets with all the frills upon it. More interesting would be the explanation of how someone connected rabbits to eggs - hard boiled and colored, chocolate or jellied. I am sure retailers and making money had something to do with it and, of course, the greeting card people got in on it, too. As with most holidays, we have managed to obscure the actual meaning of the day and turned it into something entirely different. Don’t get me wrong. I like eating chocolate eggs wrapped in foil as much as anyone. I just don’t necessarily see what they have to do with Easter or why we have to wait a whole year to eat them again.
This past week the lovely Elaine had to re-enter the hospital. As luck would have it, she got a room right near the requisite yeller. You know who I mean. Every time I have been to visit a family member in the hospital, there has always been one patient who is constantly yelling. One time there was a guy yelling for Gloria and saying he had “the diarrhea”. Another time there was a woman begging for help saying that she needed help getting up so she could leave. The nurse pointed out, on numerous occasions, that she couldn’t get up because she had a broken leg. I am sure you have heard someone like that at one time or another.
The one near the lovely Elaine was interesting. At times he would just repeat the words help me over and over. Another time he was saying, “Oh god, oh god, oh god!” I was not sure if he was in real pain or having sex. Another time he kept asking for help and saying he needed a knife. Then we didn’t hear him anymore. We don’t know if they moved him, sedated him or gave him the knife he was asking for.
Please excuse me for jumping around, but I have a couple different things to discuss and I don’t want to forget them. My next issue is something I have noticed while ironing shirts. I am sure that this is something that has been in existence for some time, but for some reason I only noticed it recently. This question has two parts. Part one is why is the last button hole on a shirt horizontal when all the others are vertical? Part two is why is that button hole sometimes sewn with a different color thread? I have spent a fair amount of time wondering about this and have not been able to come up with a reasonable explanation. I will have to do some research on it and I will let you know what I come up with.
Another issue that I noticed recently is my neck. I was looking in the mirror and noticed that when I hold my head the way I usually do, I have this, for lack of a better term, pouch where my neck used to be. I realized that if I lifted my head up a little, the pouch went away. I was left with that old man wattle-type thing instead. The up side is that you can see that I have a neck. The down side is that as I grow older and my skin continues to sag, I will have to raise my head more to get rid of the pouch. At some point I will be walking around looking up in the air. This will result in my walking into things because I can’t see where I am going. If this becomes an issue and you see me, just say, “Bill, live with the pouch and watch where you are going.” Thanks!
This week our fact tells us that about 8,000 Americans are injured by musical instruments each year. Many of the injuries are preceded by the phrase, “If you don’t stop playing those bagpipes I am going to shove them …” I am sure you get the picture.
Have a good week and enjoy some paella.
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