The Easter that Wasn't (Sunday Salon)

Is it Sunday? I'm pretty sure it's Sunday. Yes, I've checked the calendar, and it is definitely--oh, look. It's Easter!

Three out of four of my family has been sick since Wednesday, so all of the days have blended together. Yesterday Ben went to the store to replenish our food supply, and came home with a rotisserie chicken. After I'd plunked the chicken, some raw mini-peppers, and a jar of applesauce onto the table, Evan (the only one of us who didn't catch this bug) saw everything in place and gleefully said, "We're having a real dinner!"

The poor boy has been dining on nothing but cold cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, bean burritos, and fruit for the past 3 days. On the bright side, nobody has been telling him to go to bed. Friday night, according to him, he was up reading until 2:30 a.m.

Luckily, our Easter dinner with Chris's parents was already postponed to Monday because Ben's girlfriend's birthday falls on Easter this year. It will be a very low key holiday. Evan is beyond expecting the Easter Bunny and will be spending the afternoon with a friend.

So, what are we reading to get us through these endless days of germ?

Well, Chris has just about finished The Song of Achilles, by reading it all night when he couldn't sleep for coughing. He was a little worried about starting the book I'd recommended when he was feeling so rotten, but it has proved to be a terrific companion through the long nights.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia for book club and for the Once Upon a Time challenge. Chris mentioned that this might be a nice one to compare with The Song of Achilles, since both are inspired by ancient texts. Alas. Lavinia is just making me miss The Song of Achilles all the more.

It's not that it's not good--I think it is good. It just may not be the best book to read with a fever. Lavinia is a minor character from Virgil's the Aeneid, which I knew nothing about. In the novel, she has these mystical experiences where she talks to Virgil's dying spirit (he wasn't born for centuries after her story takes place) and it was all very confusing to me. Also, Le Guin did this thing that irritates me, where the book starts in the middle of the chronology, then spends 85 pages getting from the beginning of the story back to the middle. I'm sure some people love this but it drives me nuts. I'm on page 90 and finally feel like the story has started. So, I have high hopes for things looking up from here.

Evan and I finished Carl Hiassen's Flush--which we enjoyed, but not as much as Scat--and because I was sick and needed something sweet to read aloud, we moved on to The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. This is a much younger book than Evan and I would normally read together these days, but it's perfect for where my head is right now. We even had Ben listening in last night. (The biggest secret of motherhood--don't tell!--is that when our big kids get sick we secretly love the occasional five minutes when they'll let us be their Mommy again).  Oh, and I didn't even think about the tie-in with Easter! At one point when Ben was tiny, I planned to give him a new book every Easter with a rabbit theme. I imagined working our way up to Watership Down, but the tradition fizzled somewhere around The Velveteen Rabbit.

::::Ali sits quietly, mired in parental guilt, and is now contemplating running to the store to buy chocolate eggs and a stuffed bunny to hide while Evan is in the shower....:::::

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