easter

Went for a walk down our street yesterday. It was a beautiful day. My husband is a garbage hound and is always snooping throught the free shit that lines the inner SE Portland streets.
"There's money in this one!" he exclaims.
"That's not real money," I said, looking over the edge of the trash can and into a cardboard box.
But it was.
"It is!" I shouted, master of the obvious. "That's the real deal."
He reached for it.
"Don't!!" I yelled. "It's wrapped around dog shit."
And it was. Dog poop wrapped in money. That's our neighborhood. Just three blocks from Obama-Central. White paradise. Where we have such abundance we clean up the shit from our 600.00 pure bred dogs with cash money.
I won't bore you with my reminiscence of all the times I searched for quarters deep in the sofa, risking life and limb and hypodermic needles, to do a load of laundry.

Ah... those were the days.

Then, we went for a drive up the Washougal River to Dougan Falls and Naked Falls. Wow. Great slabs of sandstone with rushing green water pouring over them. The sun was out for a rare weekend appearance, but I had a stomach ache and threw up on the way home. Stress. I'm looking for a new job.

Now, it is Easter Sunday.

We, after much debate, attended a baptism for one of the grandchildren at a Lutheran church in Cornelius. It was a small congregation in a small town in a newish church with bad stained glass. I love good stained glass and would convert to Catholicism were it not for the glass ceiling.

So there we were, in the front pews against my better judgment. The pastor called Jacob and his (duelling) parents and the custodial grandparents, up to the bapitsmal, and asked him point blank: Do you want to dedicate your life to Jesus?

"After I get the eggs," Jacob replied.

He has his priorities, that boy. Eventually, of course, they had their way with him and dumped water on his head and made the mark of the cross on his forehead with something holy. It was a bit primitive, really. The familiar rituals of my childhood conducted in the light of adulthood. It all seemed held together with tape and white glue -- faith a thing that evaporates with time.

I hadn't been in a church on Sunday in a long time, and never in a Lutheran church. It was alright. A bit lackluster, much like described ad nauseum on A Prairie Home Companion. You really can't picture them dancing much.