I have been dreading this weekend. No children at home means no little Easter rituals, and though both boys have been out in the world for a few years now, I found myself, during this season of Lent, missing them so intensely. Somehow Easter, in my mind, would inevitably be the pinnacle of that loneliness. I did not want to plan for the day, though I knew I needed to do something to foil my expectations.

But as is so often the case, things aren't turning out the way I feared they would. Yesterday Tom and I went for a long walk down to Capisic Pond and listened to the birds sing and sat on a bench labeled "Harvey" and "Polly." Then we went out and bought a grill and some charcoal and some flank steak and some vegetables, and we planned an Easter cookout.

For twenty years in Harmony, Tom cooked over hardwood in his self-designed fire pit. Then, for a year in the apartment, we did no outdoor cooking. So even though buying a grill may seem like a boring suburban activity (and it is), it also felt like relinking ourselves to our history of cooking together. I don't suppose the city of Portland will ever condone a giant wood fire in our backyard, but now we can still make flame-roasted peppers any time we feel like it.

Once, a long time ago, during a particularly late and obnoxious winter, Tom built a fire in the snow, cut flowers out of paper, stuck hotdogs on sticks, and all four of us went outside in our winter boots and pretended it was summer. This Easter is not the same story, but it might belong in the same album. Despair, you've been foiled again.

In other wonderful Easter news, I have just discovered that there will be a sea of sky-blue scylla billowing alongside our driveway. My cup runneth over.

By the way, according to the Bingo Bugle (a free paper all about the bingo lifestyle, which Tom snapped up at Pat's Meat Market), this is my horoscope for the week: "Your love of harmony keeps you leaning towards the sweet side of life." No kidding.