All nature is but art unknown to thee.

~ Alexander Pope

And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today, Noodle excitedly told me she made something for me. It was the first thing she told me when I picked her up. And this is what it was.

Then, she decided to wake up Nae Yujah with luring Boshi upstairs into the bedroom.

Then, we sat around and had our coffee and did some FBing and talking and reading for a few minutes while Snow Girl went off and created her own stencil to paint a lilac heart for Nae Yujah and a cut-out heart for me.

Then, and only then, did she finally ask if she could do Easter Egg Hunt!

So we gathered our chocolate and she went off to find the eggs from last year (she has a near photographic memory of where all things are).

We filled them and I hid them.

Mr. Froggy Egg took her a little while to find because she looks at the ground or at eye-level.  Maybe this is a good way to hide eggs from your kids today.  Hide them just above eye-level so they’ll keep looking longer.

After she found all the eggs, she asked to for us to hide them again.  I think Nae Yujah is currently on her second time and I have also done two.  This does not include the one time Snow Girl hid them for me to find.

Last night, the girls made Easter eggs while I made this:

Homemade grilled burgers and ceviche

I sipped beer, cut and marinated the ceviche, and made the small burgers.

Ingredients for ceviche:

dozen limes squeezed without pulp

sliced red onions

lots of garlic

lots of cilantro

habanero

fresh tilapia

cooked shrimp

Directions: marinate then eat

While I made all that, I also prepped the lamb for tonight.  That will be with couscous.  But, I completely forgot to get the vegetables I wanted to roast.  Eh, no big deal.  Trust me.  If Nae Yujah had only grilled lamb to eat, she’d be completely happy in life.  Well, that and some goat curry.

Anyway, while all that gustatory delight was being created, the girls had the chance to make a mess and color eggs with a new “painting” kit instead of the regular dye kits that you usually find.    The colorful arrangements were wonderful and messy.

It’s always fun to create Easter eggs with kids.  But, I can’t help but wonder what Snow Girl’s perfectionist attitude would do if she had the opportunity to use this gadget next year.

That’s right.  The Egg-Bot will turn your drab eggs into masterpieces.  A precision tuned $200 tool that can be used to decorate eggs and Christmas ornaments!  How ridiculously cool is that?

Boshi has started to jump in from the ledge.

This is a doggy milestone.  She normally only goes in from the sandy sloping part.  The same goes for the dog beach.  She didn’t like the waves.

However, the last time we went to the dog beach she jumped over the waves and swam out as far as she needed to get the ball.

So, I thought I’d see if she’d jump into the lake from the ledge.

The first time she sort of scooted down into the water and pushed off the ledge with her front paws already in.   Her hind legs looked like frogs leaping into the watery safety, yet she merely plopped down into the water.

The second time she jumped from higher up the ledge.  The third time she took off and just leaped into the water, realizing that if she didn’t go fast, the other dogs would take off after the ball first.

That’s right, there were other dogs and their owners.

Once, last summer, there were a gaggle of girls who had little dogs who refused to enter the water.  So, they got into the water, nearly waist deep, and carried the dogs into the lake and then let the dogs go and squealed with joy when the dogs frantically swam to shore.

“Ooooooh, did you see that?  Oh my god, they are sooooo cute.”

Then, they’d coax their dogs back into the water.  The dogs would simply refuse, staring at them with sideways-cocked heads wondering who these strange mammals were in the water despite the sign warning that the water is not suitable for humans to enter.

The girls would go back and pick up their dogs and carry them back into the water and release the dogs and the dogs would once again frantically paddle their way to shore.

This is pretty typical behavior with people here and their dogs.  Most of these people have romantic notions of what owning a dog is like.  They’ve seen the movies, they’ve read the books, and they’ve dreamed the dream.  They think that these dogs will somehow be as annoyingly sweet as Marley or Beethoven.  They dream about the dog swimming and fetching and doing cool tricks.  They dream about everything the movies say a dog can be.

But, in reality, a lot of dogs just don’t do those things.  But, people refuse to understand that some dogs just enjoy different things.

This causes the dreaded “competition de pooch” at the dog parks and dog beaches.

Our day off was no exception.

Snow Girl and I went to the regular dog park area first so Boshi could run the obstacle course and heat up before she cooled off at the lake.

Boshi ran the course and jumped the obstacles and we were going back to start a second round when this 50/20 (looks 50/dresses 20) lady steps right in front of me and encourages her dog to jump the obstacle before Boshi starts again.  As soon as her dog jumps the obstacle she turns and makes a smug look at me to make sure I am watching.

The problem is that her dog is much more interested in sniffing Boshi’s butt instead of doing the obstacle course.  So, her dog eventually stops and that’s when I just pass her and notice 50/20 is all annoyed that Boshi is flying through the course while her dog is merely running alongside me and looking at Boshi’s butt.

I decide to leave because she’s giving me bad vibes with her 50/20 attitude and so Snow Girl and I head to the lake to let Boshi do her thing.

We play at the lake for a while and Boshi is loving it.  Then, it starts to get crowded and guess who shows up.  50/20 brings her dog and tries to get it to swim.  The dog doesn’t want to swim and instead just chases other dogs into and out of the water.

Boshi brings her ball back from a long retrieval and drops it in the water by 50/20.  She has been watching Boshi retrieve the ball several times now.  However, instead of throwing the ball for Boshi, or giving it back to her, she picks up the ball and starts to try to get her dog to play with it.  She’s getting her dog fired up and Boshi is sitting there staring at the ball in the lady’s hand wondering what the hell she’s doing with it.  The lady’s dog doesn’t seem to have much interest in it, and she finally throws it out in the water about a whopping 20 feet and Boshi darts after it and her dog ignores her and turns around to chase another dog out of the water.

Boshi brings the ball back and drops it in the water again.  The lady picks up the ball and teases Boshi with it.  She’s dangling it in front of Boshi and as Boshi opens her mouth for it, brilliant 50/20 pulls it away.  She does this several times before she tosses it another dazzling 20 feet and Boshi takes off after it.

The lady then does the same exact thing to another dog who has now brought his toy to the water edge.  This little dog doesn’t seem to like it and actually nips towards the lady and pulls the toy away.

Bite her.  Bite her.  Bite her.

I guess it was just wishful thinking.

50/20 looks all flustered and starts talking to another dog owner about how her dog just doesn’t like water because he’s really picky.

I call Boshi to bring her “orange ball” just to make sure for the fifth time that the lady knows (and she does know) that it is Boshi’s ball that she has commandeered for her own use.

I finally get Boshi to bring the ball back to me and she looks all proud.

Did you see the lady throw me the ball?  Did you?  I did good?  She bad thower.  You throw me ball?

Squirrel.

Sometimes, you have to wonder what dogs would do without humans.  Would they revert back to wolves, or would they sit around on porches wondering when the humans were coming back?

I don’t know about you, but all those survival movies where dogs have outlived the humans must really be stretching the truth about dogs.  I don’t see Boshi wandering to the edges of the world looking for the remaining survivors with me.

Nope, she’d probably wander off into the dark woods chasing an invisible mutant squirrel up a tree that turns around and drops acorns on her head.

That’s not a very romantic notion.