Crab and artichokes for Easter

I went to my mom's for Easter. We had no plans to meet. I called that afternoon and, after we'd agreed that she would not need to clean the house specially for the visit -- she said yes.

On the way, I stopped to buy crab, artichokes, butter lettuce, sweet tomatoes, fresh-baked french bread, mayonnaise, salsa brava, three cheeses -- swiss, brie, and flaky sharp white cheddar -- and dark chocolates. Plus grapefruits, tangerines, & strawberries for breakfast. I'd bring dinner, as I wrote my niece, and my mom would bring the swift waters of Puget Sound, and the mountain.

It was one of the easiest, most laid-back holidays I have ever spent.

I threw the older strawberries off the deck into the frothing water, and was delighted to see nine brilliant fat rednesses riding the green waters like an armada of rubies -- brilliantly red, impossibly red.

The Tritons, who used to live on land part of the year, before retreating to live in the sea, remembered being partial to summer fruits, so the children brought them strawberries.

-- children's book, originally in French, about the 12 forces of the wind