A Chocolate Pardon...

Dear Mr.Bunny.
I suppose you suck ass a lot less than I had thought. Because this Easter you finally came through for me. Mind you I do not know yet if I can completely turn a blind eye to your mysterious absence all these years, after all I know it wasn't some horribly crippling illness that kept you away. Too bad. Didn't all the youngins in my family strut their never ending parade of eggs, toys, chocolate and Easter Bunny related goodies past my face time and time again, year after fricking year? Further rubbing salt into the deep and festering wound that was your absence in my life? I can answer that, yes, they DID!
But this year, something changed. What was that?
Seriously, was it the pink sneakers cause I'll wear them every day if that's what made the difference. Was it my constant whining for the entire month of March about the lack of YOU shaped chocolate in my life any more? Wait, it wasn't the fact that I'm finally learning how to drive is it...did that scare you Mr.Bunny? Did you see how challenging it is to apply the brakes at night time when one of your fluffy little kin crosses the road....was it the fear of me possibly having my driver's license by this time next year that finally broke your silence? A little road rage goes a long way huh?
Well what ever it was I suppose I should thank-you, grudgingly of course. Upon waking on Easter morning......o.k. it was Easter afternoon, I pried open my sleep crusted eyes and looked blearily into my husband's and rasped with out much hope, "Did the Easter Bunny come?"
Blue eyes widened, darted wildly about for a moment like crazed blueberries trapped in a bowl of white milk until finally settling back in to place. My sweetie looked straight in to my eyes and finally, the answer I've been waiting 10 years to hear, 10 long torturously Easter chocolate deprived years...he says..."Yes."
I bolt upright in bed looking wildly around, the Rabbit wouldn't just visit and not leave a treat, not after 10 years of candy-less Easters, 10 years of accumulated anger and frustration and dark mysterious plans to exact my revenge upon him.....
"Where's the chocolate?" I demand.
Alan haltingly, strangely stutteringly explains "Well you see, um, I heard the Easter Bunny calling for me to come outside to get the chocolate from him but I was sooo tired. I told him I couldn't come down and he could leave it. But the Easter Bunny didn't want to leave chocolate out in the hot sun so he said he'd leave it inside the coolness of a local store. We just had to go pick it up and pay a small handling fee to the employees for holding it for us."
I stare deep in to my husband's eyes, completely awake now.
He seems to be holding his breath.
I tilt my head absorbing this...this strange twist of events. This non standard Easter Bunny practice....
For 10 years I've been harboring ill will and confused emotions towards this rabbit, for 10 years I've waited and wondered how I'd react if I ever saw or heard tell from him again.
I smile.
Alan expels an oddly long breath of what almost sounds like relief. I suppose he was as worried about the Easter Bunny as I was.
Turns out, a little chocolate goes a long way towards repairing a damaged relationship. Come to think of it I know a few people who could use a pound or two to sweeten their complicated interactions.
And what lovely little goodie did the Easter Bunny leave for me at the local store? Imagine my surprise when my sweetie tells me it's Godiva chocolates!
SCORE!
Looks like some one is trying to suck up, looks like you-know-who has quite the brown nose this year. Sorry to all you kiddies who got .99 cent chocolate that feels, tastes and smells like wax. SURE maybe the Easter Bunny ignored some of us to the point of risking some of us having a small mental break down but when he made a come back he did it with style. And with fancy pants chocolates that some of us had only read about in Nora Robert's novels and seen on trashy female sitcoms.
Ya know, revenge is pretty sweet....but I gotta admit a box of high falutin Godiva chocolates is a hell of a lot sweeter. (and legal)
Love from me
p.s. I only sign off with love in a completely normal amount of affection a woman should have for a giant rabbit, plus I'm married so don't go getting any ideas, my husband has seen enough karate movies to lay a good whooping down on your furry behind should you ever bring me anything more than chocolate.

The rabbit shaped hole in my heart.......

(This rabbit is hollow and empty, just like me on Easter Morning)

We were heathen hillbillies. So forgive me but when I think of Easter my first and only thought is "Why the hell did the Easter bunny stop bringing me chocolate?"
Seriously?
What's up with that? Did I do something to piss the E.B. off? It's not like I was enjoying rabbit stew or pie every other day, its not like I ate his kin or something.
For many a year this freakishly large but painfully shy rabbit hopped his way through our neighborhood leaving treats for all the kids. I never saw him but I'm no idiot, I saw the evidence of his visit. Chocolate rabbits, chocolate eggs and jelly beans don't just manifest themselves you know.
I mean there's a lot of things in this world we're expected to believe based on heresay and faith but the rabbit...he left some evidence. A little "I wuz here" in an edible form, occasionally he'd even display a sense of humour and leave a few non-edible treats. Pink rubber boots one year, a stuffed bunny toy (perhaps in his own likeness???), another year he left me a Star Trek:The Next Generation Collector's plate with Data's face on the front...my God, it's like he was looking right in to my soul. Chocolate AND Star Trek??
Maybe the Easter Bunny was in kahoots with Santa. Maybe he was paying the old guy off with pastel coloured candies in return for the dirt on all us kids. But unlike Santa who's all judgey judgey about whether we've been good or bad the Easter Bunny just wants to know what kind of candy you'd like, what size boots you wear and which Star Trek: The Next Generation character was your favorite.
Until he stops coming.
Parents are pretty sadistic if you think about it. When you're a kid it's all Easter Bunny this, the Tooth Fairy that, Santa Clause every Christmas and then....they wait...until your eyes have reached the soft doe eyed expression of a true believer, your world is full of magic and make-believe and sweet candy and Star Trek: The Next Generation collector plates....they wait until they have you just where they want you. Expecting the Easter Bunny to make his yearly deposit of sugary goodness in a pretty little basket and hop away to the next place and then.......
He doesn't come.
The parents stay in their room snickering at the bewildered howls of the 20 year old in the kitchen who is sweeping her busted illusions off the linoleum floor. There's no taste of cheap rabbit shaped chocolate for her any more, just the salty bitter tears of reality.
Oh yeah.
No one ever explains AWAY the Easter Bunny.
The adults take great pride in their skill of weaving the reality of old dudes in red coats who have magic powers that let him fit down any chimney. They craft incredibly detailed accounts of what the tooth fairy shall do with the tooth she collected under your pillow, and they lure you with sweet promises of a giant rabbit who for no apparent reason at all in the dull tail end of winter, when spring is still a distant promise of green away, will sneak in to the house at night and bring you.......CANDY.
Just like that, free candy and you don't even need to slather an inch of makeup on your face and go begging at the neighbors for it all night like on Halloween. FREE candy from a GIANT Rabbit.
Until......it stops.
There's no funeral to go to, no graduation ceremony, no party wishing a giant, grizzled old hare a happy retirement. Nothing, zip, nada, zilch...no more......the end.
I never give up hope though, perhaps the Easter Bunny lost my address. Maybe he and Santa were using the same database and it crashed, these things happen you know, and would conveniently explain away old Saint Nick's lack of appearance these last few years. And of course I have a moved a few times.....that could have muddied the waters.....
I'm not quite ready to set any snares in my yard just yet. I'd give the hairy old hare a chance to explain he and his lack of chocolate away for a least a full minute before I had me one hell of a pet rabbit chained up in my garage.
So I sit, and I wait, one on eye on the clock and one eye on my growling, barely restrained craving for bunny shaped chocolate, trying to hold my stomach and emotions in check.
Sure I can buy it in a day or two for 90% less than it's price right now but it's not the same.
I don't want store bought chocolate, I want it from HIM...
Every year I wait........fingers drumming on my desk....until sleep knocks me unconscious for refusing to go to bed. And every year I awake to bright morning sunshine, a new day and a decidedly depressing lack of any rabbit deposited chocolate.
Do I cry?
Maybe a little, till I tuck those tears away in to a hard little ball of revenge that resides under my heart. Where I will harbor and nurture and grow my anger like a dark and lovely plant that's riddled with thorns and poisonous berries and one of these years....one of these years...... I won't be waiting by the door for a damn rabbit and his crappy chocolate.
I'll be out there.....he won't need to come find me cause I'll be looking for him.
And in the immortal words of our beloved Elmer Fudd..
"It's Wabbit season, and I'm hunting wabbits, so be vewy, vewy quiet!"

A Recipe for Confessing....

Confession is good for the soul....
So they say, though I doubt it's as good for the soul as chocolate or coffee....or...(hang on to yer britches people) Coffee AND Chocolate...hummina hummina
So anyways believe it or not I wasn't a rebellious teenager. *gasp* are you shocked? Or perhaps not so much. The only two times I've been grounded in my life were for wearing mascara when I was 13 and for lighting a match in my bedroom. Ohhhhhhh what a rebel eh? Anyways my point being I didn't do any horrendous teenage acts of rebellion that had my parents chasing me round the country side, that involved authority figures (except for getting kicked out of school, one time for a fight I barely participated in) never went cow tipping, parking or soaped any windows. I never smoked, except when I was 4 and I took a drag off my father's girlfriend's cigarette and it was NASTY. I never stole (cookies, ice cream and chocolate and chocolate related paraphernalia do not count.) And the only deliberately malicious thing I ever did was start a rumor that 2 guys in my class who I detested in grade 9 were having a secret love affair with each other. That was pretty satisfying, though now I feel a little bad because what if they really were secretly gay and I destroyed them emotionally by starting the rumor, and also I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay so I've felt a little guilt over that one for a long time. Anyways the rumor didn't really take off but I felt satisfied that I'd done something to express in a creative way my dislike of these two, macho idiotic jerks. I can't remember why I thought they were jerks but I must have had a good reason. Like maybe they were breathing the same air as me, when you're a teenage girl in the 9th grade that's reason enough. Oh shoot, while I'm confessing I used to kick this one other guy in high school, I'm a tad passive aggressive I am now realizing. Him and his buddies all sat in a hall way and stuck their legs straight out as if they owned the place, as if they had the bloody right to be quietly rude to every one who walked by making them have to step over their legs. Funny thing is, I always *tripped* on his legs....*snicker* oh my how clumsy of me to always accidentally kick him. I quit doing that though when one day he *accidentally* raised his leg higher and *accidentally* tripped me as I was *accidentally* kicking him, wouldn't want an accident to happen would I? So I found a new hobby, er route through the school.
My point?
There is no point, I'm confessing, it's supposed to be good right?
I thought I'd start off with the heavy duty stuff like bruising some poor guy's legs every day at lunch time with my sneakered feet and end with stealing 97% of the delicious, mind blowing squares that were too damn good to share with people at the baby shower I brought them to.
It's my cousin's fault. (hee hee)
She lusted after those squares as much as I did, one little nudge in the direction of greed and gluttony was all it took. Actually I don't remember who suggested it. All I have is a faintly chocolate and coffee infused memory of arriving at a baby shower, hosted at my cousin's house.
People frown upon bringing tequila or twister to a baby shower where I come from so my Mom and I settled on a classic. Super, uber rich Arrowroot squares. (a family favorite recipe)
I had to hold that plate full of sinful goodness on my lap all the way to shower during the car ride...if I accidentally stuck my fingers under the plastic wrap and a bump in the road jostled my arm into hastily flinging a chunk of square into my greedy little mouth, can I be blamed? Hell no.
One taste was all it took to fill my dazzled mind with thoughts of sweet thick coffee frosting layered over chocolatey heaven. Do you really want to know how bad I had it? Do you reallllllllllly? I haven't a fricking clue who's baby shower it was I was going to, not a clue. I was all like "Baby? What Baby?"
I carried that plate of loveliness into my cousin's house with more care then I've ever held a kid, if some kindly relative smiled hello and asked "What ya got there dearie?" I growled, maybe drooled a little.
Thank goodness my cousin was there, she saved me from having to wrestle Auntie so-and-so or other cousin whats-her-face to the kitchen floor. My cousin in all her genius saw the potential of that plate of arrowroot squares to be OURS. And only ours, as arrowroot squares were so obviously meant to be.
With a little diversionary tactic that consisted of loudly saying "I'LL JUST PUT THIS PLATE OF SQUARES ON THE COUNTER OVER HERE!" Then we oh so cleverly slid off one or maybe two of the teensy tiniest squares from the whole batch onto another plate. See how clever that is????? All the relatives would each think the other relatives had gotten to the squares before them! Brilliant! While off we made with the loot, down to my cousin's bedroom, where we shut the door and proceeded to scarf down sickeningly vast amounts of Arrowroot squares. Hummina Hummmina Hummina. Oh man, if one of something is good then you KNOW a dozen of it is heaven.
The baby shower...it's a sugar induced high like blurry memory. I don't even remember going home, I remember when we shut the bedroom door and started in on that plate of stolen sweets and then....nothing.
Hmmm, I feel a sort of tickling sensation on my right foot....is that my soul? Feeling better after all this confessing?
It's not as satisfying a sensation as I expected...damn.
If you have the urge to make your own Arrowroot Squares let me tell you this.....if you can find a way to some how steal them from yourself or deprive others from enjoying them they'll taste ever the more sweeter. I'll have to ask my Mom where we even got the recipe. The original called for Arrowroot cookies to be crumbled up in the base but me dear Ma and I always used chocolate chip cookies. The name Arrowroot Squares has stuck for us though.

Arrowroot Squares


Lightly grease an 8"x8" pan and prepare your self mentally for a sweet mind altering experience.

In a bowl:
30 small crunchy chocolate chip cookies (or the cookie of your choice)
crumble these up leaving some dime size pieces and chunks. you don't want them too fine.

In a pot combine the following and cook on medium heat, constantly stirring for 8 minutes:
8 tbs. of white sugar
2 eggs well beaten
1 tsp of vanilla
4 tbs. of cocoa
1/3 cup of butter
1/2 tsp of salt

After 8 minutes dump the mixture over the broken cookies and stir up, then dump it in to the 8" pan and press down firmly.

Icing:
In a bowl combine:
1/3 cup of soft butter
1 1/2 cup of icing sugar
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tbs. of cocoa
Some super strong coffee


Mix this together and add the very strong coffee till you get the right frosting consistency. For the coffee I usually use a couple teaspoons of instant coffee in a bowl with a little bit of water, so its super dark strong. It doesn't take much of this strong coffee liquid to get the frosting smooth and creamy.
Then you frost the squares and enjoy. They get firmer when they cool, yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmers!

The only other thing I can add to this ramble down memory lane and recipe sharing is that it's seriously a damn yummy square and also I hate calories. (actually make that I F$#%ing hate calories)