Week 15: The 2019 Voting with My Dollar Project
“Are we getting together for Easter?” I asked my Uncle Jon.
He laughed. “Do we celebrate that?”
While my ancestors date back very Protestant, like in a Pilgrim way, no one in the last few generations is what you would call religious. Nevertheless, Easter is a timeworn secular Yankee holiday, in my opinion. I cherish childhood memories of extended-family Easter dinners at my Gramma’s, overindulgent Easter basket cornucopias, and, once, an actual bicycle from the easter bunny.
That ’70s boho easter bunny used to fill our baskets with things like sugared violet “candy” and carob whatnots. As a kid, I was no fan of the hippie faux-candy treats. Now, I am exactly the kind of boho mom who would foist that nonsense on my own kids. Which is why filling their Easter baskets is so much more than a quick trip to the candy store.
Every year so far, I have grappled with the conundrum of whether to do the whole easter basket thing at all. It seems somewhat overindulgent. But really, Easter is just a nice excuse to give your kids the stuff you’ve been wanting to get them anyway, at an awkward time of year bereft of other gifting opportunities.
But like with most projects in my life, I turn it into a whole thing where I am making lists, doing internet research, and ultimately, driving all over southern Vermont and Western Mass to avoid shopping on Amazon Prime. I somewhat question whether the Good Samaritan efforts I am making not to use Amazon are negated by the carbon points I’m wasting on gas, never mind the brain cells I’m wasting on indecision spirals.
At any rate, the basket and its accoutrements do not matter, because in the end, it’s really all about the memories. And by memories, of course, I mean pictures.
From years past:
!+ years — fancy Easter brunch
2+ years — egg hunt in couture
3+ years — Starting to get it
What I’m eating:
I have a spring-cleaning goal of eating through our bulk inventory to clean out the cabinets. Made this Smitten Kitchen barley risotto this week, swapping in fresh peas for the greens.
What I’m watching:
Just started the first season of the brilliantly comedic Veep.
What I’m reading:
Also this wonderful Mother Jones article about an ex-anti-vaccer who learned to apply critical (logical) thinking to what she’d been taught about vaccines:
What I’m listening to:
The Hidden Brain podcast episode Radically Normal, about “How Gay Rights Activists Changed The Minds Of Their Opponents.”
What I’m working on:
My client Jane VC just published this guest post I helped edit for Forbes: The Biggest Bias in Tech That No One Talks About.
