She had bought this black and white striped dress and she looked beautiful, as did Mom and my younger sister Roxanne, but Helene was really excited to be wearing this brand new creation. We all piled into the car, and off to church we went.
St. Gregory the Great Church is on Great Plain Road in Danbury Connecticut. It was a big old L shaped red barn with a silo and a huge aluminum cross on the silo. The silo is where the vestibule was. This was a beautiful church with hand hewed wood beans well over a hundred years old. Of course they torn it down as soon as they got enough money to built a new one. It probably cost a fortune to heat that place. There was no insulation.
We got to church and were walking in when Helcha, as we called her, spotted this other girl about her age who was wearing the same exact dress that she was wearing. If it was today I could see Joan Rivers on the Fashion Police saying, "Bitch stole my look." Helene was really pissed off.
All through the mass my sister and this other girl kept looking at each other, daggers flying from their eyes at one another. I was only seven or eight but I thought to myself, "This is supposed to be about Jesus rising from the tomb." I can hear the song right now in my head, "In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade."
I didn't hear any religion in that whole mass. It was all about my sister and the other girl wearing the same identical dress, and my obsession with this little pink rubber Easter bunny that Mom had bought me that I couldn't stop fidgeting with in the pew. My brain should have been on Jesus, but alas it was on the rubber bunny and the feud. My mother had scolded me a couple of times for playing with the pink rubber bunny, but that never stopped me from doing anything. I'd usually need a smack upside the head to really get my attention. As I was fiddling with my rubber Easter bunny I dropped in and it went bouncing underneath the pew. Then I started whining, and trying to crawl underneath the pew to retrieve the bunny when my mother grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and annoyingly whispered, "Stop it now, it's gone, and that's what you get for fiddling with it in church."
After mass my mother wouldn't let me search for the pink rubber bunny. That was my punishment for not listening to her. Since Mom only attended church on special holidays we always went to the New York bake shop on the other side of town. We would get a baker's dozen of mixed donuts, and three powdered jelly donuts just for me. There was always a line to get baked goods. I think it was the only bake shop in town at the time.
It was torture waiting to get home to eat those donuts, which I'd scarfed down with a big glass of chocolate milk. After that it was off to Uncle Whitey and Aunt May's for Easter dinner with the Polish relatives.
My sister Helene took that dress off as soon as she got home and never wore it again. I took off my scratchy wool suit and got into blue jeans and my Converse hightops.
Today it's off to Jack London Square to Bocanova for brunch. It's not the New York bake shop. but it's a pretty damn good alternative. I got a wool hat, but no wool suit.
That's my Easter tale for this year. I got another one where I poop in my wool suit pants before church, but I'll spare you the details on that one. You get the idea. You had to be there.
Don't miss the photos below. I found that pink bunny. Man, she sure grew up, and she's laying eggs all over the Oakland hills.
Peace,
Make Food/not War
What I ate today:
Breakfast: Cereal w/banana, soy and blueberries, black tea, 1 sugar
Brunch: Pork tamale, roasted potatoes, pare, goat cheese salad, bloody Mary, & coffee
No dinner....brunch was enough
Exercise: 4 miles walking
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