Here’s how Easter went for me.

I jolted awake early this morning with the numbers 7777 racing before my eyes like a ticker tape. This seemed like a good string of numbers under any circumstances, but on Easter Sunday, the day of renewal, it had to be even better.

I do not ever jolt awake early. I go to bed very late because sleep doesn’t come easily to me. The only way I can coax myself to bed at night is to think of that first cup of coffee in the morning. I do not practice good sleep hygiene. On most Sundays I manage to slouch downstairs barely in time for the 9 a.m. TV yak shows.

But this morning those four bold 7s popped me out of bed and upright in an eye-blink. Nothing to do but go downstairs and start the day, this glorious sun-filled bud-swelling new day. By the time the yak shows started at 9 I’d already read two Sunday newspapers, and started a little numerological research on Google. You won't believe this!

My yak show habit is to jump between Stephanopolous on Channel 5 (#5 “Versatile and resourceful.”) and what’s-his-name who took over for Tim Russert on Channel 11. (#11 “Idealistic and self-righteous.”) Since Tim departed this world, I tend to stick with George, even though this subjects me to listening to George Will, who can just barely tolerate the idiocy of any of the other panelists, or of his audience, or of our president, for that matter. People, we just do not get it. Barack Obama is a spendthrift, we need tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, and the erudite Mr. Will is very tired of having to tell us this every Sunday.

This morning, Easter no less, I was also exposed to the spewing of smarty-pants Newt Gingrich -- new convert to Catholicism, by the way, at the urging of wife number three. (#3 “Symbol for male genitalia. Shows off and loves to be admired.”)

And of course both yak shows were about the economy, the lost jobs, the budget, the bailouts– in other words, all about numbers!! Can you believe it? Whoa, this was getting intense.

Then came the In Memoriam part and there were four (#4 “Steady and reliable.”) soldiers killed this week in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they were from places like Holland Patent, NY, and Hesperia, CA, which got me to thinking how the kids who are dying sure do live a long way from places like Harvard, where 58% (#58 “Bad juju; the 58 original sins.”) of the male graduates in 2007 went into the finance industry, and a long way from Wall Street, where in 2008, the best and the brightest magically made $11.1 trillion dollars disappear.

That’s 11 (#11 “Provides universal remedies without appreciating human needs.”) with so many zeros that it’s off the (numerology) charts. But real magicians can always make the vanishing bunny reappear. Then again, real magicians start their act with a real bunny, and these other guys tricked us into thinking there was real money there in the first place.

It was 10 a.m. (#10 “Depressed if caught up in the small details of life.”) and I was already getting seriously bummed. I went back to numerology a la Google to check out those promising four bold 7’s.

What?? #7777 “It is done. The absolute limit, or the end.”

That is so not the message of Easter I bounded out of bed to be part of, which is, as I said earlier, about renewal and rebirth. But I suppose if one “it is done” then another “it” can start anew, whatever either "it" is.

So maybe “it” is the recession. Maybe “it” is the chummy Harvard/Wall Street culture of creating nothing but greed. Maybe “it” is the death of those four soldiers.

Maybe the other "it"is the change that will really come now, like a wave of willow-green grass after a spring burn.

But I have reached my absolute limit. The end. I just have to get some sleep. 7777 over 'n' out.