Monday, April 5, 2010

Happy Easter and Don’t Catch Leprosy

I went a little overboard with Easter this year, but I blame it entirely on homeless children.

Because of homeless children, I will never get the smell of boiled eggs and vinegar out of my apartment, nor will I be able to remove all the shreds of butcher paper from my Berber carpet.

It’s such a travesty.

But really, you can’t blame anything on homeless kids, because for fuck’s sake, they’re homeless! So instead I’m just going to share with you how truly awesome I am, because I SAVED EASTER for a bunch of adorable street babies.

And just so I don’t sound conceded, I’m going to admit that Culture and Blonde Beyoncé also rescued Easter. Because we are the trifecta of mind-blowing holiday redemption efforts. So here it goes.

Our homeless shelter Easter party was to take place on Saturday – which meant we had to work on a Saturday (blarg) and also that we had been procrastinating like you can’t believe. It was Friday and we realized that somehow we were supposed to produce signage, a dump truck load of hard-boiled eggs, and some fun Easter-y type shizit for the next day.

So we dragged ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY raw eggs to the second floor of the shelter and took over one of the vacant units. Which only had two working burners. And then we were kicked out about two seconds later because the carpet cleaners were coming to make the unit stop smelling like ass (and boiled eggs).

And then we were like, Where the fuck are we suppose to boil all these eggs?!

So we carried them all back downstairs, put them in the fridge, and went to appeal to our boss.

Easter-Saving Trifecta: “Hey boss, can we go home for the afternoon so we can boil these eggs, since they are necessary to the awesomeness of this Easter shindig?”

Boss: “Can’t you just boil them after work?”

Easter-Saving Trifecta: “...”

Well, NO. NO WE CAN’T SPEND OUR ENTIRE FRIDAY EVENING BOILING EGGS. Especially since we have NOTHING ELSE TO DO. So, essentially, you are asking us to STARE AT OUR COMPUTERS FOR SIX MORE HOURS and then go home and BOIL EGGS FOR SIX MORE HOURS.

This is not going to work.

Luckily, our blank stares made The Boss realize very quickly that our original plan was best. So she sent us on our merry Easter-saving way.

And then there came the problem of transporting one hundred and twenty raw eggs from work to our apartment.

Cancer Dad, if you had seen us, you would have cried tears of blood over my ridiculous plan to put a hundred and twenty eggs in my Mercedes Benz. Because you respect cars much more than I do. But I was doing it for the homeless children. So stop yammering.

Photobucket
[My apartment parking garage has speed DAGGERS, not speed bumps. Every time I drove over one, I held my breath and literally prayed. “Please, God, I don’t want my car to smell like rotten chicken fetuses for the rest our time together. Which may be forever, because I could potentially NEVER get a decent paying job!]

I made it up four levels with not one broken egg. Holymolyjesuschristonaskillet.

So, once we lugged all the eggs and other supplies up the elevator to our apartment, we pulled out as many pots as our stovetop could handle, and got to boiling.

Photobucket
[At this rate, our egg project was going to take all year.]

But the three of us were not going to just sit around and stare at the pots until the eggs were done, so we moved onto part deux of our Save Easter for Homeless Kids project. Which was the creation of handmade paper bunny ears.

SIXTY PAIRS of handmade paper bunny ears.

We started with some prototypes.

Photobucket
[I fucking made mine wrong. I look like the kid from Where the Wild Things Are, not an Easter bunny. DAMMIT BRITTANY. Plus Blonde Beyoncé is going to murder me over this photograph.]

And then we started cutting.

Until the entire fucking apartment was covered in ears.

Photobucket
Photobucket

Meanwhile, we had a few egg fatalities. Which we ate. Except for the really funky looking ones (see below).

Photobucket
Photobucket
[I’m not sure how this is even physically possible. This egg is trying to grow a Mohawk. Or a castle. I’m not sure which. But nobody dared to eat it.]

Now, if you thought it was bad enough that we had to boil one hundred and twenty eggs, I’m sorry to tell you that we also had to dye them.

See, the thing about large-scale Easter parties is that you cannot get forty homeless kids to properly dye eggs and wait for them to dry. It would be a total disaster. I – and everyone else involved – did not want to wrangle forty kids covered in vinegar and food coloring. Yes, DISASTER, I tell you! These underprivileged children were just going to have to deal with a less-than-full-blown egg decorating party. Because I didn’t want to get fired over the asphalt being tie-dyed. And markers and stickers are decently fun. Problem solved.

Sort of.

Because we still had to dye a hundred and twenty eggs. By ourselves.

Blonde Beyoncé turned our cooking pots into egg dye vats – and if you know anything about dying eggs, you know there is a lot of vinegar involved. A. Lot. Now, not only did our apartment smell like boiled eggs; it reeked of vinegar.

Photobucket
Photobucket

In the end, it looked like we had tied up the Easter bunny and held him at gunpoint until he handed over the goods. Because DAAAAMN, that’s a lot of sexy Easter goodness!

Photobucket

We then completed our ears (by then, it was 8:30 p.m. We had started this Easter debacle before noon. What. The. Hell.)

Photobucket

But, in the end, it was well worth the effort! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING CUTER?!! Even my stone cold, black heart melted when a mob of homeless kids put on our bunny ears.

Photobucket
[Yeah, I was even the event photographer. Don’t you think I should get paid for this crap? Those are some mighty fine photos, if I do say so myself.]

And then came Easter Sunday.

My grandparents came over for Easter brunch, and to celebrate, my grandfather decided to give me lots and lots of completely illogical travel advice.

See, back in 1954, my grandfather was stationed in Munsan-ni, Korea, up by the DMZ. And, as old people are wont to do, he thinks that everything that happened to him then is relevant to my upcoming travels with The Boyfriend to South Korea.

I’ve already been to Korea. I loved it. And I did not die. But in honor of Easter, I’m going to share some of my grandfather’s insights into international travel in Korea:

1. Don’t eat raw vegetables. Because, apparently, Koreans use human waste as fertilizer and I’m totally going to die.

2. Avoid lepers. My grandfather will be very disappointed if I contract leprosy. I tried to convince him that this was not a horribly rampant problem, and he told me to shut up and be careful. Okay gramps. I’ll try not to become a leper.

3. Don’t get that internal bleeding disease. This was not very specific because Grandpa couldn’t remember what it was or how people got it.

4. Try yak juice. So, the man is telling me not to get diseases, but he wants me to try some Korean moonshine that the soldiers back in the Korean War nicknamed “yak juice.” Firstly, I might have a problem tracking it down – especially if I can’t find a settlement of 80-year-old GIs that know what the fuck I’m talking about. Also, this sounds much more dangerous than eating raw vegetables.

5. Tell everyone the random Korean phrase he taught me when I get off the plane. I promptly put this phrase out of my head, because it was the equivalent to a Korean “yo’ mama” joke, and I didn’t think it would be the most appropriate way to greet the customs officers at Incheon International Airport. But what do I know?
Anywho, wish me luck at not becoming a leper when I’m in Korea next month. Oh, and I hope your Easter was as informative as mine!

Cheers!

7 comments:

  1. hahahaha, these adventures only happen to you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. you'd be surprised... i've seen tons of lepers here. it's an epidemic. i have to dodge them on my way to work every morning. and sometimes they leap at me when i'm trying to buy bananas from the corner markets.

    and yes, those are some incredibly adorable Easter photos.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I LOVE the bunny ears and the eggs are so pretty! You saved Easter!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Holy shit, I have comments! This is fantastic! YAY!

    Umm, Halley, what? The lepers are jumping at you?? I'm horrified. I'll have to apologize to my grandfather for not taking him seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  5. :P

    they're very tricky, those lepers. when you least expect them... expect them. you know that we still ride yaks to work here too, right?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, yaks! So there must be yak juice near by!

    Lepers ARE tricky little buggers. The ones in China rode around on dollies and tried to trip you before you got on the bus.

    That's actually true.

    Except those might not have been lepers. Maybe quadriplegics with bad acne?

    Okay, this is going nowhere good very fast.

    ReplyDelete