Spring

Last night, regardless of slushy snow and freezing rain, I was renewed with the promise of spring. First off, I had my 2007 inaugural Zoomer. It tastes like summer. One sip and the floor beneath your feet is a deck and the paste on your face starts to glow bronze. I may be overstating this, but when there's a two day blizzard in April, sometimes a tall glass of liquid wheat topped off with a lemon is the only hope you have of blue skies.

We left the brewery to join in the annual Hogan Family Easter Egg Hunt. It's nothing like a Johnson Easter shin dig. Dad opens the door, sweating, and shoo's us upstairs before we "see" all the candy. We all pile on the bed in the guest room - mom, Aunt Hallie, Keith, Sara, Troy, Faith, and Kristen my coworker (because everybody's a Hogan on a Holiday). Dad finishes the placement and comes upstairs to remind us of the rules. "No biting, hitting, fighting, tearing of bags - and don't break anything!" Then we're scientifically lined up for the count down, in order by how close our guess came to dad's pick between 1 & 10. Ready... set... go!

Phase 1: All hell breaks loose. There's screaming, tripping - fur flies everywhere as all five pets scatter from the herd. I always head for the kitchen - the littlest room with the most hiding spots, and away from the others. There's chocolate in the toaster, dog dish, sugar bowl, above the door frame, wedged into the cupboard handles, and sometimes just peacefully resting on a chair. After the entire house is completely combed, we gather around the table to compare the loot. The kitchen strategy worked and I won! The glory is short-lived, however, as everyone dumps their bags and starts to sort.

Phase 2: All varieties of candy are sorted into piles and distributed evenly amongst the crowd. Everything's fair, organized, even kind of quiet as everyone concentrates on the fairest distribution possible. Everyone places their equal sized loot back into their original bags.

Phase 3: Cut throat bartering begins. "What'll you give me for my turds?" ("turds" being the chocolate malt eggs - unwrapped candy is always the least desirable) In this family, everyone's after the Doves or the Special Darks. One might think that after 36 years of this tradition, they might start buying extra of the coveted dark chocolate... but then again, where would we be without phase 3? In the end, everyone goes home happy - unless you got duped into an unfair trade. If so, there's always next year.

All in all, pretending it's spring, even when it's not, worked. The sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky, and I think our heat wave might actually bring us up to the mid-40's today. It must be the Zoomer.