“Load up the cannons, me mateys!” I shouted to my crew, Calico Jax and Madman Moose.

It was pirate night, the first Friday of the month, and the little Beans and I were in our PJs and pirate hats on the couch eating popcorn by candlelight.

The smoke detector in the hallway beeped at annoyingly close intervals because the batteries were low.  And Daffy, the dog from hell, lazed on her pillow at my feet chewing on a rawhide.

Suddenly a black water balloon came hurling through the window and landed with a splat spraying water all over the dog from hell. The canine sprang into action barking her head off, and I followed behind her, looking none too formidable in my nightgown and bare feet.

“Billy!” I shouted at the window that was slightly ajar.

Billy is my boyfriend of 10 months. He’s a 42-year-old juvenile delinquent with shaggy salt and pepper hair and a slow, sexy grin. In the street light he stood wearing faded Levis and his old ratty Fish Naked t-shirt. He’d tied a navy bandana kerchief style around his head, presumably in honor of pirate night.

“Billy!” The little Beans hollered right behind me, delighted that he was crashing pirate night. I flipped on the overhead light.

Billy had been expressly told to stay away from pirate night this month.  Billy is a ne’er-do-well, and he’d stood me up the week before to drink beer and play poker with his buddies. I was still hacked off, which is why he’d been banned.

The problem with Billy, though, is that he wears those Levis so fine, and I’m a sucker for a stud muffin.

Jenny in love lust.

When he was sure that the only weapons present were the plastic sword I was holding and the dog from hell, Billy hoisted the window up further, tossed a rather large bag of M&Ms at the little Beans and then effortlessly slid in. He handed me a bottle of Mer Soleil and gave me a scratchy kiss on the cheek.

“Dude,” I said, pushing him away, “you’re still on my shit list…  But this is a good start.”

In the kitchen I uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into stemless glasses and turned on Van Morrison.  I handed Billy a glass.  A fracas in the living room over the M&Ms escalated, and I sighed.

Jax had dumped the M&Ms into the bowl of popcorn, and Moose, who has a strict code of order, was none too pleased.  He was pelting his brother with chocolate and popcorn missiles.

“DESIST!” I bellowed in my mean mommy voice.

In the brief silence that always follows the mean mommy voice—as if they are shocked that I have it in me to make that much noise—the sound of Bernie’s old Ford Pinto could be heard rumbling into the drive of Maison Bean.

Bernie is the night manager at the Ladies Club, and if he was driving Papa home, it was a slow night and Papa was soused up on martinis.

When I opened the front door, I saw Papa in his kilt stumbling up the walk with Bernie ambling behind him.  Bernie, who is amazingly spry for someone who is old as dirt, was in his usual Hawaiian shirt, clashing madras shorts and flip flops.

“Billy,” Papa said through the gin fumes.  “What are you doing here?”

Moose threw an M&M.

“I invited him, Papa.”

“I can take you,” Papa said, ignoring me.

Geez Louise.

Papa and Billy looked at each other and nodded and sat down facing each other at the coffee table.  Papa flexed his fingers and then put his elbow on the table.

Unimpressed, Jax and Moose, who’d seen Papa and Billy arm wrestle more times than they could count in the last 10 months, resumed their missile war.  The dog from hell, who has an iron stomach and an unending appetite, was busy trying to clean up the mess.

Gloria began to play on the stereo and almost immediately Bernie’s cell phone sounded You Give Love a Bad Name, which meant that Mrs. Bernie was calling.  Mrs. Bernie is perpetually on the warpath with her spouse, and since Bernie refuses to wear his hearing aid, the rest of the world knows EVERY LAST DETAIL.

A siren rang from outside in the distance and the tempo of the smoke detector beep increased.

Bernie was shouting into his phone, and M&Ms and popcorn flew.

And suddenly in the midst of the uproar, everything went into a silent slow motion, and we all watched in horror as a blue M&M flew towards Papa’s head, going right into one of his big ol’ Grandma Bean ears.

Papa’s eyes got wide, and then he fell to the floor.

We all ran to him.  Daffy was licking his face.  Bernie had dropped his phone, and we could hear Mrs. Bernie shouting.  The little Beans were shaking him, and Billy had dropped down to check his pulse.

And then almost as quickly as he had fallen, Papa sat bolt upright and announced, “April Fools!”

Notes

No, I did not fall off the earth. I’ve just been busy. Hyacinth is in doggy heaven with Rooster. Evidently, she calls Moose on his toy cell phone. He says he’s going to build a rocket and go get them. That’s about all I can say about that. The bitch’s ashes are still on top of the refrigerator because I can’t bear to part with her yet. Daffy the Dog, aka Princess Daffodil Bean, is a 5-month-old mini Goldendoodle. She was a gag gift from Santa Claus. Her mother was a 60-lb golden retriever and her father, Romeo, was an 8 ½ pound toy poodle. And to answer your question, no, I do not know how that works.  Everyone is well—it’s just that life is careening forward insanely fast, and I can’t ever seem to catch my breath.  I miss blogging.

P.S.  Bernie is a figment of my imagination, and, unfortunately, so too is Billy.

“She was a good Christian woman and a pillar of the community,” he said.

The Methodist preacher was a small man sporting a bow tie and a bad dye job and an even worse eyebrow job.  He looked like Moose had taken a Sharpie to his face.  The saint to whom he was referring was Grandma Bean.

I nudged Sissy and whispered.  “Is he talking about our Grandma Bean? Are we at the right church?”

Sissy giggled. 

My Aunt Lilly shot us a look.

It was 5:30 in the evening.  We were in Montgomery at a sprawling modern Methodist church for Grandma’s memorial service.  I was certain Grandma had never stepped foot in the place.  And it was probably a first time for the dozen or so of her poker-playing cronies who’d come to pay their respects.

It was Dewey, Grandma’s 96-year-old boyfriend, who was the Methodist.

The morning started out at 6:00 when Sissy and I left Charleston in the Honda in blinding rain that was so loud that we couldn’t hear to make hotel reservations.  We’d had to text Papa to find us a hotel in Columbus, Georgia, so that we could get ready for the funeral.

The Shady Grove Inn sounded quaint. 

It turned out to be the Shady Grove Family Motel and Trailer Park, and by the time Gertie (we were bored; we named our GPS) got us there, we were 15 miles off the interstate and the beaten path.  Ma and Pa Kettle ran the place.  There was a console TV and a jury-rigged Betamax with free bootleg movies.  There were two sagging beds with old faded chenille bedspreads.

The place was a dump, and Papa, the cheap SOB, who couldn’t even make it to the memorial service because of his sorry gimped up hip, really had some nerve. 

We changed clothes so fast that I ripped the only pair of tights I’d brought. 

“What are you gonna do?”  Sissy asked, looking at my scary-white legs.

“Gertie can find us a Walgreens, and while she’s at it, she can find us a bar.  I need a drink, and Papa’s credit card needs a lot more damage than the Shady Kettles can do.”

“Bar first.” 

Sissy has her priorities in order.

We drove to Montgomery, found a bar and got happy.  By the time we were happy, we were running late, but we’d spied a department store without Gertie’s help and we ran in and grabbed a pair of tights.  Sissy took Papa’s credit card to pay and I took the tights to the dressing room.

They ripped.  In the nether regions.  It was not a good day.

“Come on,” I hissed to Sissy who was still standing in line.  “Let’s go.”

“But I haven’t paid yet,” she said.

“The tights are defective, and we don’t have time to deal with this.”

Later in the Methodist ladies room, I discovered that the tights we’d absconded with weren’t actually defective.  They were simply crotchless, and I was a thief and a skank sitting in church with ho undergarments, slightly drunk.

“MJ Bean was a virtuous example for us all,” the bow tie preacher droned.

I nudged my cousin Star on my left and Sissy on my right.  Star nudged Cousin Adele on her left.  We giggled. 

Aunt Lilly glared.

“When her beloved husband JR passed away in 1974, MJ married Glen.”

“That’s not true.” 

Oops.  I’d spoken out loud.  (Note to self:  don’t drink and do funerals, or, for that matter, crotchless tights.)

“I beg your pardon?” the bow tie preacher said.

“Grandpa and Grandma got a divorce in 1974.  Grandpa didn’t die until 1985.”

Aunt Lilly looked like she was going to have a coronary. 

“You are mistaken, Miss Bean.  I have my notes from my conversation with Mr. Cromswell [Dewey] right here in front of me, and it clearly says that your grandfather died in 1974.”

“You know, I think you’re right, Jenny,” Ida, one of the cronies, chimed from her wheelchair.  “Reagan was president when JR died.  And ol’ JR never got over the whole Watergate deal.”

The bow tie preacher was turning red.  Star and Sissy were giggling.  “Out of respect for the deceased,” he started before he was interrupted by a loud clap of thunder.

The lights went out.  Somebody screamed.  And then a bright flash of lightning lit up the sanctuary.

Then Grandma’s voice boomed, sending us all into shock.   “You know this is an April Fool’s joke, don’t you?!”

Addenda 

1.  Sissy and I got a room at a Hilton.  We don’t trust Papa to make overnight accommodations.
2. It really did rain like hell, and the part about the crotchless tights, is, regrettably, true.
3. We only had two beers each.
4. I do have a tendency to giggle in church.
5. Aunt Lilly does not glare, but she would just tell you without preamble that you need to shut the hell up.
6. In some ways, Grandma was actually a pillar.  As far as I know, she wasn’t a Methodist.  But she was an avid volunteer in the community for many years, and I’m sure that earned her a place in heaven.

The year I was 19, I rode in a car that Grandma Bean was driving for the first time in my life. We were going out for Chinese and I’d just driven for an hour in a blinding sunset, so when Grandma asked me if I wanted to drive, I told her I would rather not.

She drove horribly, just like you’d expect of any little old grandmother except that Grandma wasn’t any ol’ grandmother. She drank beer like it was water, vodka when it was available; she argued politics like a Fox News pundit, and she played a mean game of Scrabble. There was even a whisper that she’d tried wacky weed.

“What did you expect?” Papa asked when I told him what a lousy driver she was. “She didn’t learn to drive until she was 40.”

If Papa had imparted that little piece of knowledge to me before I left, I never would have let her drive. As it was, it was the last time. On the way home from the restaurant, I drove, and I drove us all the way from Hope Hull, Ala., to New Orleans and back for Christmas.

Grandma was born July 1, 1924, in Madison, Wisconsin. She was the second of five children. Her father was a farmer, and she grew up during the Great Depression.

On February 14, 1943, Grandma married Grandpa Bean, a Southerner, who was stationed in the Air Force in Madison. I’m sure Grandpa was bowled over by her great beauty…. Lauren Bacall had nothing on Grandma.

According to Grandma’s records, Papa was born 11 months later. According to Papa, Grandma had been drinking when she compiled the family tree, but I think Papa lies about his age, and he’s been known to discredit anyone who suggests anything he deems unflattering.

While Grandpa was in the service, Grandma and Papa, and nine years later, my Aunt Lilly, traveled all over the place. They lived in Mobile, Japan, Pueblo, Monterey, Anchorage, Tacoma and Taiwan. They finally settled in Jackson, Ala., where Papa went to high school.

In 1973, Grandma and Grandpa divorced, but I didn’t learn about that until a few years later after Grandma married Glen. But even though Grandma married Glen, she and Grandpa were still on friendly terms. Grandpa retired and bought a motorhome. In the summer, he lived in North Carolina. In the winter, he parked in Grandma and Glen’s yard.

We were a modern family before it became vogue.

Glen died in 1988 and Grandma took up with a Dewie next, and through the years we usually saw her on our annual visit to the beach.

If Grandma needed to think something out, she always did it verbally. As far as we could tell there was no internal mulling over of things, Grandma just talked… and talked… and talked.

Once when we were at the beach, Papa, who can be a little touchy, just exploded, “MOTHER, WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP?!”

(Actually Papa used a word that rhymes with “duck,” but this is a family-friendly blog.)

Everyone was quiet for about two whole minutes, and then to break the silence, Grandma just started talking again like nothing had happened.

Grandma was thrifty. She recycled everything. She sent us used Christmas cards that she slapped a label on that read, “Love and peace, Grandma.”

She also recycled her stories. The talking got worse when Grandma drank, so everybody kept the booze away from Grandma. One time Grandma got a bee in her bonnet about her Scrabble dictionary. She couldn’t find it, and she was going to make us all nuts if someone didn’t find it, so I went looking. When I peeked in her suitcase, I didn’t find the dictionary, but I did find an almost-empty bottle of vodka.

The funny thing was that we were all pretending not to drink. Papa was drinking vodka in a coffee mug, Grandma had her own stash, and Sissy and I escaped down to the bar on the beach for beer.

That’s how it was with our dysfunctional modern family.

Dementia set in about two years ago and Grandma went to a nursing home. God finally took pity on Grandma Monday.  She was 90 years old.  Now she’s up in heaven trying to convince St. Peter that Scrabble and vodka belong in the hereafter. If anybody can wear St. Peter down, it’s Grandma.

Love and peace, Grandma. We’ll miss you.

They’re getting sticks and coal for Christmas….

Merry Christmas,  my bloggy friends!!!  Love you all.  I resolve to be a better bloggy pal in 2014.  Coming next:  My career as a toe model ended in 2013.

xoxo, Jenny

Moose love

Moose:                Mommee!

Why do they always have to yell across the house?

Moose:                MOMMEE!!!

Oh, Lord, doesn’t he know that I’m not going to come running?

Moose:                MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, shit, I better go see what he wants.

Me:                       WHAT???!!!

Homophones

Sissy was making butterscotch oatmeal cookies.  She’d creamed the butter and sugar.

Moose:                Is it done yet?

Sissy:                   No, darling, we’ve got to add the eggs and the oatmeal and the flour.

A sight to behold

So somehow the door to the bunny hutch was left ajar.  Flip, the escape artist probably picked the lock.  Whatever the case, the little lagomorph was MIA.  And he remained MIA all day long.  I called Papa several times and every time he said the same thing, “Nope.  Still not back.”

By noon I had put out an all-points email.  I got a lot of sympathy, but no sitings.

At home, Jax and I were both depressed.  I started slugging wine and Jax perched himself on top of the swingset slide so that he could look around the neighborhood.  Papa came out to console me.

And then what to my wondering eyes should appear?  First, it was Moose leading two people down the drive to the back patio where we were, and he was NAKED.  (Fifteen minutes earlier that kid had been fully clad!)  Moose was followed by our neighbor Gladys with her dog Folly.  Gladys and Folly live alone in a big house on a street perpendicular to us, and because all that she has for company is Folly, Gladys has a yard art habit that is unchecked.

Behind Gladys and Folly was a man I’d never met.  He was fiftyish and had shocking red hair out of a bottle.  He was wearing cobalt blue Elton John glasses and he wore skinny jeans and a chambray shirt with a turquoise cross around his neck.  On his feet were Italian loafers . . . and in his hand was Flip.

Me

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.  Life is busy.  There’s soccer, school, field trips, WORK, and spur-of-the-moment shopping trips, like for a new hairbrush after I caught Moose brushing Hyacinth with mine.  There’s also laundry and TV with Papa, and then, of course, I did a stupid thing and enrolled in a course on horticulture, which I’m really enjoying, but which I really don’t have time for.

Endless cycles

Convalescing friends
Portia broke her ankle in three places, and she wasn’t even drinking wine when she fell down the steps in the dark.  Since the unfortunate occurrence, there have been doctors, a surgery with pins, and now a scary blue cast and boredom.

Portia:  Are you ever going to blog again.

Me:   Yes.  I started a post while we were at the beach.

Portia:  It has to be a Part II.  Your last post was a Part I.

Me:  I am well aware of that.

Portia:  Well?!

Me: I’m working on it.  It’s just that I spend every minute at home trying to keep clothes on Moose.  I have this morbid fear that the Google satellite is going to take a picture of our house when he is in flagrante delicto and that Moose’s picture will end up in the hands of a bunch of perverts.

Portia:  Girlfriend, I hate to break it to you, but you’re fighting a losing battle.  The last time I was there that kid was riding his tricycle down the street in his birthday suit.

Brotherly love
Turns out that Flip and Flop are Brokeback Bunnies.  Flip chases Flop, and Flop chases Flip.  They start out clockwise and one gets on top and the one underneath gets out and hops counter clockwise.  They both want to be on top.

The rain has really ruined my new sod, so when I’m drinking chardonnay and watching my grass not grow, and I want to cry, my gay bunnies make me laugh.

Indian names
Buzz decided that we should all have Indian names.

Jenny:  Dances with Bunnies

Papa:  Grumpy Bear

Jax, who has a very large, producing new front tooth:  Big Tooth

Moose: Naked Tornado

Buzz, who is allergic to tomatoes:  Itchy Tongue

Stay tuned for Mimi, Sissy and Belle.

Buzz Kill
Sissy, Buzz, and I let our hair down and kicked up the music one night when the whole Bean clan was at the beach.  We also kicked up our heels.  We were on the porch. Papa, who was inside watching TV, came out in a moment reminiscent of when we were teenagers and hollered at us to turn off the music.

“When this song is over,” I yelled.

Papa didn’t like my answer, so he popped the iPod out of the docking station and all went quiet.

Vicarious sex
“Jenny, what ARE you reading?”

It was a bodice ripper, and I wasn’t confessing to anything.

“Leave me alone, Mimi.”

“You’re at the seduction scene.”

“If you must know the duke has promised Clarissa’s uncle that he will not seduce her.”

“So why are you grinning?”

“The duke made the promise, not Clarissa.  She’s trying to seduce him…. Now will you please leave me alone.  I can’t concentrate with all of these questions. Geez.”

Maison Bean under attack
Papa has this obsessive compulsive need to finish all of the leftovers in the refrigerator… even if they are really old and have turned green and furry, so I wasn’t surprised on Monday night when he got food poisoning, although I did feel a little sorry for him, especially since he’s been good about buying my wine lately.

When Jax started throwing up Wednesday night, we realized that Papa’s food poisoning was, in fact, the mutant super virus.

Jax was pitiful, and he wanted to call everyone and tell them, including Aunt Sissy.

“Aunt Sissy is sick,” I told him.

“Aunt Sissy caught my cold?”

“Actually, I think you got it at the same time.”

“She got it at 8:24 too?”

It’s Friday afternoon, and as sure as it’s going to rain, Moose will get the nasty mutant super virus too.  It’s his turn, and, besides, even as careful as I was to bleach everything in the house,  I found Moose drinking out Jax’s cup of ginger ale.

Things are gonna get ugly.

And rained and rained and rained.

The floods have come.  My new grass is at the bottom of a pond.  Flip and Flop are wearing life preservers. At Maison Bean, the schedule changes every day.  One day it’s camp soccer; the next day it’s camp rec center.  And a trip to the good doctor to treat swimmer’s ear on a kid I didn’t know could swim.

At Kell’s house

Before I could get out of the car, Jax and Moose were in the pool.

Me:  I didn’t know Jax could swim.

The British Husband:  YOU DIDN’T KNOW HE COULD SWIM? [His eyebrows disappeared into his forehead.]

Me:  He must’ve learned at camp.

In Kell’s kitchen

Me:  I like that plate hanging over your sink.  Is it Italian?

Kell:  You’re kidding me.  Right?

Me:  No, I really like it.  It’s exquisite.

There was a pause while it dawned on her that it’s been a lot of years and a lot of chardonnay since then.

Kell:  You gave it to me.

Me:  I did?

Kell:  Yeah.

Me:  Can I have it back?

After some wine, I took the plate down.  It was Italian.  Hand painted.

Me:  I really have good taste.

Kell snorted.

One of these days I’m gonna nail down the respect thing.  Right now, Mother Nature has waged war and I expect to be stuck in the house with Moose for the next week.

Things could get ugly…. Really ugly.

Dear PETA,

My name is Flop Bean.  It was originally Flip Bean until the woman who adopted me—Crazy Jenny—decided that my coloring was unsuitable for the name “Flip,” so she changed it to “Flop,” and my brother, who was “Flop,” became “Flip”—Flip Wilson Bean to be exact.

Color discrimination was just the beginning of the indignities I have had to endure as a member of the Bean family.

Crazy Jenny, hereinafter called “CJ,” is the mother to two boys—a 6-year-old yammering soccer player and a 4-year-old demon child who likes to run around au naturel.  My chief complaint is with the demon child, hereinafter called “DC.”  Imagine my horror when he carried me up the ladder of the swingset and sent me flying down the slide.

I was so traumatized that I hid under the Club House for two hours.

Then just last weekend despite being CJ’s admonitions and despite the fact that he’d spent a lengthy interlude in time-out, the DC carried me up another ladder.  This ladder was to the loft of the Club House where I almost hopped out of a window to an untimely demise.

Fortunately, CJ sensed something was amiss and came charging in before I fell to my death.  I went into hiding again for another two hours.

The 6-year-old with the soccer balls that fly out of nowhere is also a danger to my existence.  I have just narrowly hopped out of the path of one of those missiles.

Other than that, life is pretty grand.  There’s an old blind dog who ignores us—I don’t even think she know we’re here.  She suffers from senility and often barks to herself.  CJ’s father lives with us too.  The Old Man, hereinafter called “OM,” is always slipping us treats like strawberry tops.  We lounge and graze in the backyard every afternoon unless it’s raining.  Our hutch is kept very tidy.  CJ has a poop fetish.  “Bunny poop,” she says, “is uber manure.”

CJ strikes me as one of those whack jobs who believes everything she reads because she runs around manically sprinkling poop on her tomatoes and flowers.  Other than that she’s pretty chilled out and didn’t even have fit when she caught Flop—I mean Flip—sitting in a pot of verbena pretty as you please munching on her flowers.

And every night, we go upstairs into the old man’s room with CJ and the OM.  CJ and the OM sit in easy chairs in front of the TV, each holding a folded beach towel and one of us.  The beach towel is because Flop—I mean Flip—and I have been known to demonstrate passive aggressive tendencies after encounters with the DC.  The OM is usually the recipient.  It’s quite a spectacle when it happens and sometimes we do it now just for kicks.  The OM is very theatrical, jumping up and down, like a big rabbit himself, while simultaneously yelling obscenities.  And CJ gets so tickled that she snorts wine and laughs hysterically.

Most of the time, things are chilled out and the OM rubs our ears.  He likes us so much that he read Dummies for Bunnies in an afternoon.  (I think he skipped all of the parts about why you shouldn’t get a rabbit.)

It’s not a dog’s life, but it’s not a bad life either.  My reason for writing is this:  Can you tell me if there’s some law that declares it inhumane to put chicken wire around the foundation of a Club House to prevent a poor, defenseless bunny from taking a nap—I mean hiding.   That’s what CJ is planning to do tomorrow.

Most respectfully,

Flip—I mean Flop—Bean

“When the universe tells you to do something that Bethany thinks is a bad idea, follow the universe.”

So said my witty colleague Miller.  Bethany is also a colleague, and bless her heart, she’s a glass-is-half-empty colleague.  I decided to take Miller’s advice.

It all started in January when I was innocently buying another blueberry bush to complement my new orchard and discovered the cutest bunny rabbits.  For sale.  And then my brain went into overdrive, and I had a vision of Jax and Moose hunting Easter eggs in the back yard and discovering bunnies.

But then I polled everyone and got especially vehement feedback from Papa who must have Googled “why you should never get pet rabbits,” because every day for almost two weeks he spammed me with articles that made it seem like an inhumane idea.

So life got busy and with no one in my court, the idea fell to the wayside.  But then the universe stepped in and sent an e-newsletter from the nursery with news of spring arrivals, including more bunnies.  Dwarf Holland Lops they were called.  And there were unbelievably cute pictures, which is what led me to poll my colleagues and make the bunny decision.

And this is why the universe had it in for me:

1) After I put a deposit on the bunnies and bought the fancy two-story hutch from Overstock.com, I ordered Dummies for Bunnies.

The first rule of Dummies for Bunnies is that you should never, ever under any circumstances buy bunnies because you think it’s a great Easter idea for small children.

Great.  The dummy book was starting to make believe that I actually was a dummy.

2)  The hutch arrived UNASSEMBLED, which meant I had to confess to Papa that the bunnies were coming.  I waited until he was in his cups before I told him, and I must have done a very good job because he agreed, and then he got all melodramatic on me started talking about COMMITMENTS TO THE BUNNIES.

I think he was in cahoots with Dummies for Bunnies.

3)  It rained the whole week before Easter, so Papa and Buzz had to assemble the hutch in Papa’s garret.  For the first time in his entire life, Papa sought out directions.

The directions were in GERMAN.

Neither Papa nor Buzz read German, so they broke open a bottle of rum and proceeded to jury-rig the fancy hutch.

Duct tape and bubble gum were involved.

4)  When Papa and I commenced to taking the hutch downstairs, Papa, slipped on an errant sock, grabbed onto the railing, let go of his end, and down tumbled the hutch into a heap on the floor  A leg was broken, a door was off its hinge and the roof was askew.

More jury-rigging ensued.

5)  Larry and Ernie—the bunnies—arrived on Good Friday afternoon.  They were staying on my neighbor’s porch, and within 24 hours, Larry managed to go AWOL, and Ernie, obviously short for “Ernestine,” became a mother to a litter of baby bunnies.

6)  By Saturday evening, my nerves were frayed, and I decided to end Lent a few hours early.  (Yes, I, Jenny Bean, had given up wine.)  After the wine was polished off, Papa fixed me a stiff Brandy Alexander, and we opened up the boys’ Easter candy.

7)  When Jax and Moose awakened Sunday morning, the only indication that the Easter Bunny had visited was a beat-up looking cabinet in the backyard and a bunch of empty candy wrappers in front of the television.

“The Easter Bunny’s stars were not aligned last night,” I told them as I began dishing out ice cream for breakfast.  “He’s taken the day off.  He’s coming tomorrow instead.”

And that, my friends, is the Poisson d’Avril (April Fools) version of Easter this year.

The real version is much happier.  First of all, I did not give up wine for Lent.  I did that a long time ago, and it will never happen again.   Papa and I put the hutch together, and it was Sissy, not Papa, who helped me take it down the stairs.  The bunnies stayed in Belle’s apartment for one night.  Their names are Flip and Flop.  Jax and Moose are over the moon, and all’s well that ends well.

Rooster Bean entered into eternal rest this morning.  It was his time, and Papa couldn’t take him, and I volunteered.  Before we left for the vet, I gave Rooster half a valium and I took a Xanax.  The vet was really compassionate, and despite the fact that I was wearing my old plaid pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, he only looked at me funny when I asked if we should administer last rites.

“Is Rooster Catholic?” he asked.

“Nah.  I think he’s a heathen.  It just seems like something we should do.”

So then I asked Rooster if he had anything to confess, and Rooster looked at me pitifully and admitted that he used to take Hyacinth’s bone just to yank her chain, and that when I wasn’t home, he used to sit on my newly upholstered couch where the sun shone in the picture window.

I told him he was forgiven and then said a little prayer, and the kindly vet gave him a sedative, and when the sedative had taken effect, I left to get a cup of coffee, and when I returned Rooster was sealed up in makeshift cardboard coffin with his squeaky ball and his John Deere blanket.  Then I took him home and buried him in the hole that Papa had dug on Tuesday.  He’s out in the backyard behind the old oak tree and the garage, and I put a pot of pansies on his grave.

Rooster was born in a chicken coop with a passel of other puppies, and as the story goes, Papa looked at Rooster and thought that there was something about him that needed taking care of, so Papa picked him up and took him home and told him that he would always take care of him.

Rooster was born with only one brain cell, which we named Ping. Ping helped to keep Rooster very focused. Rooster’s first priority was always the ball. It was Rooster’s duty to see that the ball got its exercise, and your arm might be about to fall off and Rooster might be one step away from utter exhaustion, but that ball was gonna get its exercise. When we finally had enough, we would try to hide the ball somewhere like the top of the refrigerator and then Rooster would go bark at the refrigerator for hours.

Sometimes we wondered if Ping didn’t just wonder off somewhere for happy hour and leave Rooster on autopilot. In the early years when Papa first moved to Maison Bean, we used to make margaritas and invent stories about Ping’s secret life…. In 2006, when Bode Miller bombed in the Olympics, it was because Ping jumped on Bode and went on a bender.

Rooster’s second order of duty was to keep the neighborhood safe from elephants, and to that end, he was always willing to get in a car and go on patrol. As a puppy that even meant with people he didn’t know very well… the mailman, the UPS man, Jehovah’s witnesses…. At the time, Papa lived in the country—we’re talking the sticks… in a dry county in rural Alabama—and Rooster would just hop in the car and they wouldn’t even notice that he was in the car until they’d got halfway down that long country road and then they’d have to turn around and take Rooster back to Papa’s house.

And then Papa got a divorce and moved to Maison Bean with Rooster and a mutt called Little Man (who was later reunited with his mother), so it was Hyacinth and me with Papa and his two dogs, and you know, I never did see an elephant in the neighborhood after they moved in.

Rooster was very sensitive. Most people thought he was nervous, but he was actually busy sensing things. He sensed fire, hurricanes, seismic activity, and on one occasion, a refrigerator motor that was overheating because some little miscreant had left the door ajar. We have a gas oven, and you couldn’t turn it on without that dog having an attack of nerves. One year there was a hurricane out in the Atlantic and then an earthquake in the Southeast, and Rooster was such a wreck that Papa had to put him on valium.

Rooster was a very particular little dog. He liked to be in the sunshine, and if he wasn’t in the sunshine, he was wearing a sweater (he had an extensive wardrobe) or burrowed deep in a pile of blankets. He was like a cat, kind of finicky, about what he ate—Papa said he just had excellent table manners. He loved chasing squirrels, but it was all just for show—the squirrels just ran up the trees and laughed and kept reproducing. And Rooster liked to chase Moose because Moose never let go of the ball so it was the next best thing.

Rooster lived a very good life. He was happy and he was loved and he will be missed. And we know that while our hearts our heavy, he is in a very special place where the sun shines all the time and butterflies dance about and birds sing and Rooster’s very own guardian angel sits throwing a ball.