Opinion

He is Risen!! Hallelujah!

Sometimes I contemplate big questions. What is existence really? What does Aristotle mean by a good life? And how can I start my second drink without finishing my first? Other times I contemplate something humbler – and what’s humbler than the humble egg?

We had another week of weather extremes. 70 degrees is a little warm for early April, at least in my thinking. And then there was Friday.

Instead of the title under my name on this column, it should say, “written by someone who has ruined more cookies than you’ve eaten”. There’s something soothing about baking. It’s because it’s complicated, because it requires focus and proper measurements and methods, it pulls your focus onto the task at hand, while allowing you to set aside other worries. At least that’s what I tell myself every time I set my oven to 350 degrees in preparation of destroying yet another batch of cookies.

ROB PEREZ enters a patch of milkweed and finds CARTER THE CATERPILLAR on a half-eaten leaf. Carter is a medium-sized monarch caterpillar with black, white, and yellow stripes. Carter continuously eats milkweed.

The gardening saga continues as I wait patiently for the seeds planted indoors to start. For a few days, the only things that had sprouted were the mustard greens, and watching all the rest of the trays remain solidly dirt, I started to feel a little discouraged. Perhaps I had not done enough research. Alas, a few more sprouted, and then I went away for the weekend.

I went to the Met recently to see Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and hang out with 3,800 very well-dressed patrons to see a passionate story about political tyranny but mainly to see the soprano Lise Davidsen who is worth the price of admission and more, especially when surrounded by the Met chorus, mostly men, imprisoned for political crimes but nonetheless in gorgeous voice. As for Lise, architects have designed enormous opera houses and finally they’ve designed a singer whose voice fills it so you feel it even in the cheaper seats.

I’m a very lucky guy. My family’s healthy. They pay me to do things I love. And my six-year-old daughter consistently ranks me as strongest man in the house. Also, once a year, I take a bit of time off and we spend time on this island. The island is tropical and lush and volcanic. People refer to the island in all sorts of ways but perhaps the phrase I hear most often is: almost paradise.