Of Socrates and Cadbury....

Here’s how I go about this blogging business:  All week long I keep my eyes and ears open for things that provide fodder for my brain.  I listen to people, read stories and devotions, and pay close attention to the week.  I’m pretty happy with the process because it’s not only giving me a weekly writing assignment that has a deadline (you’ve probably already noticed that I post on Friday evenings each week), but it is forcing me to be alert to my life and my thoughts.  And that’s pretty cool.  Plus, it’s helping me develop my natural writing voice (separate from writing for, say, a college class, where I have to be all stuffy and formal).  So this week I’ve been watching and thinking and waiting for just the right thing.

Despite my best efforts, nothing this week has broken through the clouds in a chorus of angel-song.  Sigh.

Oh don’t get me wrong; I have PLENTY on my mind this week.  Some of it is not too pleasant.  But I’m still trying to process my thoughts and understand them before I use them for blog fodder.

Today I drove home after having spent a lovely 6^th period with my Honors Ancient Literature students participating in “Socrates Café,” a wonderful invention by my fellow colleague.  We meandered around listening to our 14 and 15 year old students discuss all the unanswerable questions:  “What is the difference between fear and respect?” and “Should we follow our hearts or our minds?” and “What is justice?”  Some pretty mind-blowing questions.  On the drive home, as I wound along Cougar Bay I saw what my heart longs to see:  A pair of Tundra Swan drifting on the water.  Hurray!  Spring is coming!  And because my brain was all juiced up from Socrates Café, I began pondering why I love spring with all my heart.  I decided it’s the same reason I love the first snowfall, or the first daffodil pushing up through the snow, or the first autumn leaf turning on our maple tree:  I love new beginnings.  I love the way the first ANYTHING feels.  There’s a kind of anticipation to all that is going to follow after that first snowflake, leaf-fall, or flower-sprout.  It’s why my favorite holiday is actually the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  All that anticipation which promises new and good things.  Doesn’t it just get your heart fluttering a bit? 

When I hear the first Redwing blackbirds chattering in our trees my heart swells.  When the spring frogs thaw out in the bay and start croaking, there is so much promise and hope and joy in those croaking calls of awakening.  When I see the first Cadbury Crème Eggs on the shelves at Super 1 Foods, I have to refrain from doing a dance in the aisle. 

And this train of thought, as I drove my adorable Subaru Outback (which just turned over 200,000 miles recently), lead me to my official blog post for this week.  Are you ready?  Can you handle the mind-blowing, philosophical, higher-order thinking that is about to come?

Prepare yourselves.

What I offer you is this:  The world’s best thing to do with Cadbury Mini Eggs!  I forgot to mention that I stopped by the grocery store on the way home, made a bee-line for the Easter candy aisle, refrained from buying an adorable stuffed lamb and pig, and grabbed the largest bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs I could find (oh, and I also stocked up on a handful of Cadbury Crème Eggs.  Oh yes, the season of spring is upon us!).   Okay, here you go.  This, my friends, is my gift for you this week:  A secret trick I mastered at the tender age of 8, when my Saturdays consisted of lying on the couch in the living room, reading Ramona Quimby books, and eating a pounder bag of M n M’s.  This trick translates beautifully to Cadbury Mini Eggs.  Now, to be clear, I am talking about the egg-shaped, candy-coated chocolates that are a cousin to M n M’s, not a mini version of the Crème Egg (which is also lovely).  Here’s what you do:  Place a nice quantity of Mini Eggs in a bowl.  Find your hairdryer (just roll with me on this), and, using the higher heat setting, blow-dry the heck out of your Mini Eggs.  (Be sure to move the hairdryer away from your bowl every now and then or your hairdryer will overheat and shut off – speaking from experience here).  Do this until the luscious candy shell cracks.  Put away the hairdryer, grab a good book and your bowl of heated eggs, find a cozy blanket, and settle in.  You will find that the candy shell holds the now melty chocolate sufficiently enough for you to transport the candy from the bowl to your mouth.  There you will find a melty, chocolaty heaven.  For those of you thinking that just using the microwave will garnish the same results…well, would Auguste Rodin use a crowbar to carve his most famous sculpture?  (The answer, of course, is no!).  Nor would a Cadbury lover use a microwave.  How Barbarian! 

Please, dear friends, have a wonderful weekend.  Watch the world change bit by bit, ponder your own thoughts and feelings, and find a way to enjoy simple pleasures when the world seems only to be comprised of complicated afflictions.  Meanwhile, I will continue to ponder the greater questions in life and get back to you next week (all while eating far too many hairdryer-heated Mini Eggs).