OPIM!

Oh phooey, it's Monday! OPIM! Just an acronym I'm trying out. It's become so commonplace to praise Friday, it seemed only appropriate to decry Monday with just as much enthusiasm. It's also a chance to promote minor exclamations like "phooey" and "drat".

Since this is Easter Monday, I should probably say something nice about the first day of the workweek. Let's see, at least the storm that lasted through the night seems to have subsided. Parts of the sky are clear and blue. Maybe the weather forecasts will be wrong and I won't need an umbrella this afternoon.

This weekend's weather was pleasant. On Saturday, the neighborhood children and their parents populated the park across the street for a massive Easter egg hunt and barbecue.

I'm sure the competition to collect the most eggs was fierce. Were I to participate, it would've taken only a second for a hundred little feet to trample over me, destroying my straw Easter basket and furry bunny ears. Little kids show no mercy. They're more dangerous than the bulls of Pamplona. And that's before the tykes have consumed any sugar from their Easter candy.

I'm also sure the interactions between neighbors were something akin to what I've seen on Desperate Housewives. Friendly smiles worn to mask jealousy and scorn. Okay, that's probably not the case, but my Inner Calvin likes to imagine I live on my very own Wisteria Lane, which comes complete with a Bree Van De Kamp and a Mrs. Huber (before she was brutally bludgeoned).

On Saturday evening, I joined the family for dinner at the usual Chinese restaurant. At the end of the meal, my sister requested fortune cookies. My fortune was of the typical ambiguous variety, "Good things are coming to you in due course of time." I'm waiting for the day when fortune cookie technology improves and I can read, "A check for $1,974.00 is coming to you on March 28, 2005."

Anyway, my sister's fortune was the most profound of the group and its message is one that everyone should remember. "An angry man opens his mouth and shuts up his eyes." More seriously and simply stated, "An angry man opens his mouth and squints."

On Easter Sunday, we attended an outdoor service. Approximately five hundred people, including the town's mayor and family, were present. For someone who doesn't regularly attend such events, I didn't know what to expect, so the pop music and the electric guitar solo came as a shock. For some reason, I don't find those modern touches very appealing. The message (a.k.a. sermon) was more traditional, but still informal.

A few hours later, we drove to Uvas Canyon County Park. Over a year has passed since my last visit. The park has only seven miles of trails, but more than six waterfalls. While not as impressive as other natural cathedrals, like Yosemite, Uvas Canyon provides those who enter it with a tranquil place for solitude and reflection. For the brief time we were there, it was the perfect sanctuary.