Easter, the Bunny Holiday

City friends Suzanne and Tom, invited for lunch, brought an Easter basket they custom-made and wrapped for me. They even curled the ribbon. I almost cried from their thoughtfulness. No malt-ball eggs or nougat stuff here. Pure chocolate bunnies and Bissinger peanut-butter-chocolate eggs -- and a three-pack of microfiber quarter socks in bright pink, blue and teal green! They are great! These are the kind of friends to have over on a holiday -- or anytime -- even if they do think a woman living alone on 100 acres is eccentric and in a bit of danger. Au contraire! A woman alone is not looking for trouble. She is looking for transcendence.

In return they got ham au gratin and banana cream pudding made from scratch, a Florida recipe, sort of Southern and not often served here. Missourians aren't pudding people. But it blew away every dessert expectation anyone could have. The whole thing serves 12 and it contains exactly two tablespoons of sugar and no more. Next time I make one, I'll be sure to take its picture before anyone gets at it, and also post the amazingly simple recipe.

This happens to be post #500 in Divinebunbun's Rugged Rural Missouri blog, begun in June 2007. Celebrate by eating marshmallow chickens and chocolate carrots and putting on bright socks.

Daily Delights and Ecstasies

Started this blog in June 2007 because my housemate moved to the city in '06, and what I missed most, and still miss, was someone to call to, or to grab, and say, "Look! Isn't it amazing!" "Listen, a whippoorwill!" "OMG, the first hummer of the year!" "The blacksnake!" "'Jack Frost' was here!" "Oh, come see this!" "Stop the car; I want a picture!" "Let's look this up!" "Oh no, I think they ran over it!"

As a city dweller I feared the night, rode bad public transportation, and if I saw a bird it was because it hadn't been suffocated by fumes from the coal-fired power plant, and if I saw a live fish it was in a tank in a therapist's office. Kept my eyes mostly on the sidewalk because some folks got mighty riled if you looked at 'em. Life here, although harder, colder, buggier, lots of work, and sometimes isolated, is better. Daily something delightful appears or happens. It is said that a friend doubles every joy and halves every sorrow. You are my doubler and my halver.