What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four little hours. And no, i don’t care what you say, this is Dinah Washington’s song.

And today there was a difference.

Last week, i caught the announcement Temecula Creek Inn, among other golf courses in Riverside County, was open for play. i told my buddy Pete Toennies, thinking the two of us might drive up (an hour’s drive northeast of here) and check it out. i didn’t think our wives would want to drive up and back in a day with 18 holes sandwiched in between.

Well, i don’t know whether they are golf fanatics, love being with their husbands on a day long trip ( i really don’t think so), or just wanted to go SOMEWHERE, but they not only glomped onto the idea, Nancy Toennies made the tee time.

We went. Weather was nice but hot. Temecula is desert but has become a mecca for ultra commuters and grown from horse ranches, sod farms, and  hot dirt, into this mega wanna be a big city with all of the strip malls and franchise stores you can cram into a country town with lots of heat added. Still, they built several nice golf courses and it is on the way to Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta, Indian Wells, Indio, etc., so i’m okay with that.

And we played. A polite description of our games would be sporadic. i’m used to that.

But we were out. Safe, distant, following the rules — Do you how incredibly hot those masks are in dry eighty degree weather? But it felt free.

Funny thing is i really haven’t minded this hunkering down at all, but just driving seventy miles and back felt like freedom, release.

This lovely reprieve from the dungeon was preceded  by some pretty dark thoughts last night. Well, maybe not dark. Just sort of wake up in the middle of the night and think that’s what i want to say kind of thoughts.

Actually, they weren’t dark at all because i was accepting having so many diverse friends. i thank you all:

there is, in my old age,
a curse upon me
and
i spit in its face
in spite of
involuntarily allowing the curse
to invade me occasionally;
yet
i spit in its face
even while
i see dumb shit
all over the place,
large scale, small scale
dumb shit
folks refusing to think beyond
their noses
believing they are the supreme knowledge
of the world
because
someone told them to think that way
to make them better
and
make the ones that told them
rich and powerful and loved
and
full of bullshit;
and so
they go on believing
their form of politics,
their form of religion
their form of living
is the right and only way
so
we should eradicate all the others,
which, of course, is
bullshit,
and
for god’s sake
(and i mean that universally),
they believe they are pure
and
do not see
the manipulation
of the power brokers
who call it good and pure and right
but
when the layers are peeled back
good and pure and right
are only a disguise for
hate and then fear,
and
they really aren’t for something at all;
they are against whatever they believe is against them,
but
i spit in the face
of my curse
and
refuse to don the layers of hate and fear
covered by against
as i am only against the against,
not the againsters
because they are good folks
who don’t look below the layers
and
they are my friends
for whom i’m not against.;
wipe that spit from your face,
my curse.

Just before supper, i did wander out into our backyard. The drear was…well, less drear.

i stopped to admire our wonder. Last year, we had one. This time around, they have multiplied. Irises dropped by a bird most likely and protected by the fronds of the day lilies not yet in bloom have prospered and give us a moment of joy when we look out the kitchen window each morning.

No tulips. But we have irises for our Easter.

And hope.

This has been quite a different Easter. There are a number of things we didn’t do that we have done on past Easters. It’s from the state of our world of pestilence and time. Time always brings change.

i did not walk to the top of our hill this morning. The drear plaguing the Southwest corner almost parallel to that other plague meant there would be no orb burning through the mist to the east. There was no egg hunt. We are too old for that, but in the late afternoon, Sarah gave me a mini-Three Musketeers bar, which in some ways was more appreciated. Maureen did not go to yoga. And today, she skipped the virtual version with her yoga master on Zoom. Last night, we had  our virtual dinner with our friends, and i did not grill steaks outside. Our wine was good enough i did not care if it was pretentious or not.

We did watch and listen to Andrea Bocelli and his beautiful Easter tribute on You Tube. i was moved and almost cried. i won’t  provide the link here as many other friends have made it accessible on Facebook and you can find it on You Tube.

Yet in some ways, this Easter wasn’t that different. i have included an old post from four years ago about this day. It seems to be other than the exceptions i noted above, the memories abound on this special day.

Regardless of your religious leanings, you should get a feeling of reverence and hope today.

i hope you did.

i have written of Easter before. Several times. It is a hallowed, sacred day.

In the span of my life, it has been much celebrated in many ways.

Today, it has been quiet.

No sunrise service. i did walk to the top of my hill around that time of the morning and watched the white heat orb burning through the mist of the marine layer hanging over Mount Miguel. i had my moment, prayer i guess you could call it. Thankful, sober prayer.

i came down to another Maureen egg special with toast, fruit, and Tennessee Pride country sausage. We sat at our usual places at my great aunt’s oak table, looking out the window at the green lawn as the sun burned through. We read the newspaper with several cups of coffee.

i remembered previous Easters. A not too big Easter egg hunt at home upon awakening and scurrying down the stairs. Those egg hunts remain dim memories except i know i never fared well at the community ones. Perhaps i was too impatient. Sunrise service outside of MacFadden Auditorium in the cool but sunny mornings. Dressing up in our finest, newly purchased spring ensembles to spend most of the day at church. Big, big ham dinner (that’s the midday meal where i come from) in the dining room reserved for only the big family celebrations. For some reasons, the dinner rolls stick out in my mind.

i don’t remember Easter at sea except for my last ship. The chaplain made it a big deal, or at least as big a deal as he could with sailors who preferred to sleep in on the one day of the week they could do so. i do remember a number of Easters at sea when we raised the church pennant above the U.S. Ensign on Easter. It was the only pennant or flag we ever flew above the ensign.

Most of all, i remember Easter Egg hunts with my two daughters. The ones with Blythe were sadly few in the first years of her life. It was such a beautiful sight to see her dressed up in a pinafore dress with her beautiful blonde hair and carrying a real basket. She would laugh excitedly every time she spied another real colored egg hidden somewhere by her clever mother.

The hunts with Sarah were outside at first, usually confined to the courtyard. She behaved just like her sister when finding an egg. i guess that is pretty much a universal response for children on Easter egg hunts. The hunts here in the Southwest corner quickly moved indoors. Sarah’s mother delighted in her own cleverness in hiding the foil covered chocolate eggs. The Easter Bunny, or as he signed his nickname “E.B.,” began to leave a note each year, usually extolling Sarah’s behavior and telling her of how the others who left her notes on big days, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, shared his fondness for her.

Maureen is off to yoga. i have cleaned the grill. We had steak last night with a superb California Red wine from Shebang “without too much pretension” as the label describes it. I like pretty much any wine without too much pretension. Unlike my old grill, i am taking good care of this relatively new “egg” knockoff.

We are going to friends for dinner tonight.

That’s it.

i sit in my office with many tasks and other writing projects piled around me. The sun slinking low to the south is now in its glory. The mist and the clouds have burned off. The bougainvillea outside my office window is the healthiest it has been in years after the rain of previous months and somehow reminds me it’s Easter.

Sitting in my desk chair, i meditate, something i have found greatly calming, refreshing, and empowering in just the last six months or so. Again i had my moment we might call prayer. i think of my two daughters, son-in-law, and grandson. i know Sam had yet another successful Easter egg hunt in Austin. i suspect Sarah either participated with Blythe and her family or with one or other of the children she tends. i am happy for them.

The Easter Bunny didn’t leave any eggs for us here in the Southwest corner. He didn’t leave a note either. i checked.

He did leave something better.

Hope.

i am breaking a number of my vows here.

But the below link to an opinion piece struck me hard in an area where i devoted a good chunk of my life.

And i don’t care which side of the aisle you are on, what else is important to you. i may agree or disagree with you because, in my opinion, all blocs of the political spectrum have lost common sense. If somehow beyond my imagination at this time, the Republicans were to put someone else on the presidential ballot beside the present one, then i would have a difficult decision about how to cast my vote. i see positive and negative on the positions of both parties.

But this NBC piece pretty well sums up my opinion of our current “Commander In Chief.” He is is disgrace in this role. Jeff McClausen perfectly describes the situation.

Now i’m not trying to convince anyone as to how they should vote based on Trump’s behavior with the military. But if you are voting for someone who understands an effective relationship between the military and the country as  prescribed for our founding fathers, you have lost your mind if you vote for this president, who is clueless about the crucial relationship between our military and the civilian government of our great country.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-navy-secretary-debacle-about-more-modly-s-mistakes-ncna1180806

This is just an idea to share.

We tried it out. Maureen claims it was her idea. i claim it was mine. But it really doesn’t matter. Tonight, we pulled it off, with the help of our friends, Pete and Nancy Toennies, their daughter Kim, her fiance Jamie, and especially Sarah who performed magic tricks in the setup and kept the old Jewell folks safely physically distant during the pickups.

In these trying times, we are trying to support our favorite local eateries. This led to a take out from one of the coolest dining experiences in the world, the Wine Vault & Bistro for Maureen’s in shelter  birthday dinner two weeks ago. That precipitated (this is where the argument begins) one of us suggesting we could do a virtual dining experience with friends while sequestered.

We set it up: Facetime to airplay on the computer. Picking up the orders from our magic place.

And for two hours plus, we dined with our friends virtually. No, it wasn’t like being there, but it was damn close.

We shared the asparagus soup, “bisque is made with asparagus, zucchini, onion, garlic and a small amount of potato), the unbelievable “rustic quiche with spinach,” the incredible beef osso buco with saffron couscous and pine nut gremolata, a dessert of  their dark chocolate mousse with raspberries. All with a bottle of their suggested wines.

We turned the TV on airtime, connected via Facetime, and it was pretty close to the real thing. We had a great evening.

And i am hoping we take Maureen’s original idea (according to her) and expand it to others.

More importantly, if you are feeling a bit lonely, a bit blue, you might want to try it with some of your friends.

We will be happy to figure it out if you would like to do it with us.

And i hope you are safe and sane.