bunnies and eggs

It is Easter Sunday and I am watching CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, which is easily one of my favorite shows on television. I love the short stories on a wide variety of subjects. It might just be this show that has inspired me to produce my variety blog entries here. I like the idea of dropping little tidbits of information about related - or unrelated - subjects based on a common theme. Today's theme is bunnies and eggs - a very Eastery subject!

I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons while my Mom and sister slept in a bit. Happily eating my bowl of Captain Crunch cereal - as much as I wanted, because nobody was there to stop me - I enjoyed the Fintstones, Top Cat, Hanna-Barbera (remember Pennelopi Pittstop?) and, of course, the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner duo. Bugs Bunny was (is) a wise-cracking smarty-pants who easily outsmarted any and all enemies. For a kid who was always picked last for basketball, I liked the idea of this independent character who casually handled any and all comers. Come to think of it, the Road Runner had a similar theme. I wonder if the creator of these cartoons was always last to be picked for basketball too?

I sent this image to quite a few of my work colleagues yesterday. Every time I look at it, I laugh again. Mom always looked for chocolate bunnies for our Easter baskets. She wanted white chocolate for herself. And she wanted solid chocolate - none of those hollow bunnies for our family! We had standards! When my son was little, I didn't have a lot of money, particularly during the years that I wasn't receiving child support. So, I bought a pretty basket and used it every year, adding new "grass" and lots of candy and small inedible treats like temporary tattoos and race cars. Sam was easy to please. As long as he could gorge on candy and Peeps, he was delighted. I still have his basket, even though he is almost 23.

Anne Geddes has a way of capturing the absolute sweetness of babies and young children. I love this baby in a bunny suit. The baby looks positively delighted. Wouldn't you like to have a bunny suit like this? Or is there some other costume you'd rather wear?


Because my family lived in Japan for ten years, our homes always contained multiple Japanese objets d'art. The image to the right really appeals to me because it is obviously Japanese, but also because there are dozens of bunnies hidden in it. In Japanese tradition, bunnies live on the Moon. The dark patches on the Moon are said to resemble a standing rabbit who is pounding on a mortar to produce mochi, a sticky rice snack. I like the idea of hiding things in conspicuous places. I always enjoyed Where's Waldo, for this reason. And I will confess that I frequently play hidden image computer games.

I love to read about artists or computer programmers who hide images or words in places. These are referred to as Easter eggs. (You were wondering when I would get to the eggs, weren't you!) Bruce Plante is a cartoonist who deliberately hid his mother Nina's name somewhere in almost every cartoon he drew. He later said that he regretted having done this because people seemed to look at his cartoons only to find the hidden Nina, rather than to absorb the message of the cartoon. Sometimes these Easter eggs are accidental. Can you spot the three actual Easter eggs that can be found in scenes in The Rocky Horror Picture Show? The crew had an egg hunt during the filming of the movie and a few eggs were missed! Then there are the hidden Mickey Mouse images that can be found on every Disney property. I took Sam on a Disney cruise when he was young and he and his friend spent the entire cruise looking for the hidden Mickeys on that ship. It was amazing how many of them were there! Can you spot the hidden Mickey in the picture on the left?

What bunny or egg thoughts popped (or should I say peeped) into your head while you were reading this? I hope your Easter is filled with the promise of rebirth and finding truths that have been hidden to you up until they are gloriously revealed to you today!