Saturday, April 23, 2011

Easter Dissonance

People spend a lot of time arguing about the damnedest things and, in the process, generally try to ruin things for others who don't follow their narrow viewpoints.

Case in point....Easter.

Easter means many things to many people. For some, it's a holy day. For others, it's a celebration of spring. For still others, it's a Sunday in April, big deal. For kids, however, it is a very big deal indeed and has nothing at all to do with religion...it's about candy. Easter eggs! Chocolate rabbits! Jellybeans and Peeps. It's a hunt, a hide and seek game played with a mythical rabbit that stashes goodies in the yard for girls and boys to find.

But that isn't good enough for some who insist that such activity is blasphemous to their idea of what Easter is all about. Somewhat ironic since even the name "Easter" is derived from some Germanic goddess. Then, on the other extreme, there are those who go nuts at any public display of anything that hints at a practice of religion. These are the people who rename things "egg hunts" and "spring spheres".

Above it all there are the retailers who go ga-ga in selling as much candy for the day as they can, knowing that another chance will not occur until Halloween.....a holiday that really sets the pious on edge.

Why destroy Easter? Pray at sunrise if that's your thing. Dance naked in a field if that has meaning to you. Sleep in and skip shaving if you desire. Let the kids have fun. Enjoy the start of spring. Easter is what you make of it not what you want to make it for others.

As for me.....I'm going hunting for a chocolate bunny.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Fraidy Cat

Completely off track. I finally got the wound on my leg to heal, came through a sinus infection, eased the pain of chigger bites all over my body....only to be laid low with a toothache. If it isn't one damn thing, it's another. The toothache is a particularly nasty bugger. The other ailments just involved pain; the toothache is pain on a whole different level.

Go to the dentist, you say?

Well...yeah....I will...I suppose.

Gawd, I hate the dentist though. It probably goes back to when I was a kid and had cavities filled by kindly Dr. Cherry. He really was nice but he had a bad habit of being very honest and let you know "this is going to hurt" right before he bore down on a tooth with his Black & Decker industrial sized drill.

But that was a long time ago and dentistry has come a long way. The last time I went, they gave me nitrous oxide. Great stuff. It wasn't so much that I couldn't feel any pain...I just didn't care. The dentist could have ripped out my tongue and I wouldn't have minded. The dentist that I'm going to gives some type of sedative that gets you so high you not only don't feel pain, you don't even remember going to the dentist in the first place after it wears off.

Still....old memories. Fear. Anxiety. Wait....my tooth actually feels better.