(un)Happy Easter
Decorating eggs was always one of my favorite things when I was a kid. It was fun to get those little tablets and drop them in vinegar-water and watch them fizz, but for really good color you had to use the Ukrainian dye that came in paper envelopes. And you'd get out the wax-melting things, which have a name I've forgotten, but basically they're a small cone made of copper foil stuck to the end of a stick. And you'd disentangle the dozens of wire egg-dipping things from each other, and the house would smell like beeswax and sulfur and vinegar, and your fingers would be all multi-colored on the ends from holding onto the eggs.
Two years ago, I stupidly tried to share that with the wrong person, and ruined it for myself in the process. Two years ago, I also went hiking and ate sandwiches by a waterfall, on a gloriously sunny spring day, with someone I loved very much. It was one of the worst days of my life.
Last year it was still too raw and painful, and I was also trying to deal with the aftermath of yet another failed relationship, and I didn't acknowledge the holiday at all, either in writing or in real life.
This year, Aunty Deluvian sent me a dozen key limes, nestled in cheerful green eastroturf in an egg carton, and I made key lime curd with them. I've sung the praises of key lime curd in the past, and I will again, because it's still just as startlingly wonderful as I remembered. Key lime curd exists in the precise intersection between delicious and delirious.
Also, I amused myself by decorating a single egg, and trying to balance it on end. It works, but it's best if your washer doesn't decide to go into spin cycle at a critical moment.