Oh sure, Lisa, some magical animal

I left work last night at an hour where I got to watch them changing the direction on the HOV lanes (between 12-1am) and I got blood on my favorite pair of underwear today. Yeah, it's been one of those days. But, I took a two hour nap after work, my undies are in the wash and I've spent the evening sorting Easter candy. So things are looking up. Easter Sunday went amazingly well. We had several house guests that were a blast to entertain (w00t to Susie and David and their stellar Easter basket skills). Since it was just us "kids" for dinner we made individual pizzas so that Rich's brother could create his own Meat Master special and the vegetarians could cover theirs in basil, olives and mushrooms. Special thanks to LauraSiobhan for helping in the cooking, clean up and general good vibe of the holiday.

Since the Matriarch, Patriarch and Uncle-arch didn't come, we received our Easter baskets in the mail yesterday. I would have been more excited about them had there not been such a stink over why they couldn't be delivered in person. But I'm not letting it get me down and I'm certainly not having any trouble wolfing down the marshmallow bunnies even if they're sprinkled with bitterness.

In other news, I've recently signed up to send packages to military members overseas. I got the address from Operation Military Pride and while I still have some cynicism about being called a "patriot" for sending candy to strangers, I figure it's a good idea to send packages to people who are in shittier situations than I have to deal with on a daily basis.

This first package is mostly full of Easter candy (hence the sorting tonight) but I also threw in some essentials and the mandatory book of Sudoku puzzles to help spread my addiction to others across the globe.

I was talking to my mother on the phone about what suggestions were given for items to send and what items we couldn't send. Mom and I were comparing what she used to mail to Dad back in 1968. She used to put Smithfield ham in wax paper and mail it to him in envelopes because it would keep and actually get to him in only a few days. But I told her my instructions said "no pork" so the days of Smithfield ham packages were over. She asked about the other restrictions and I started rattling them off.

Genie: "no pork, no porn, no explosives" Mom: "no porn?" Genie: "Yeah, no porn." Mom: "Well, that seems silly."

Uh, yeah, my mom is pretty awesome, but this is definitely not a conversation I need to have with her about what she used to send Dad in the 60's.

Genie: "All I know is what the form says." Mom: "I don't know why they would care." Genie: "I don't know, Mom, but there's a long list of other things I can send. So I'm not really worried about it."

So the next day I was at their house and was talking to Dad about these same restrictions. My father is a big fan of the pig as a menu item in pretty much all forms.

Genie: "There are some things they won't let you send. So no more ham like you used to get, Dad." Mom: "Yeah, and no corn!" Genie: "Hunh?" Mom: "Isn't that what you said? That you can't send corn?" Genie: "No, I said you can't send porn." Mom: "Oh! Well, that makes a lot more sense!"

I think Mom is getting hard of hearing in her old age.

T.G.I.F.

It's Good Friday and I was going to write a whole entry explaining all the aspects of Holy Week and how I find them so fascinating from a "history of religion" stand point. But, I'm in a bit of a sour mood again, so that may have to wait until Holy Saturday or even Easter Sunday. Easter is one of my favorite holidays. I may even like it better than Christmas, in that there isn't a bunch of shopping foo and wah where you have to make a list of all the people you're going to give gifts to and how you're going to get them all delivered. It's just me spending hours in the seasonal aisles of Target and alarming the cashiers as I stack dozens of baskets on the counter.

I like giving Easter baskets because usually the recipients aren't expecting them. I really surprised my parents last year. The Puddin' and I were heading to Richmond for our Easter lunch with his family but I snuck over to my parents house to leave a basket and Easter lily on their kitchen table around 5am. In a rare turn of events my father (the night owl of the family) actually got up before Mom and was hopping around waiting for her to come into the kitchen. He kept asking her if she had gone to the kitchen yet and finally she said "what, do you think the Easter Bunny came?" But as she told me on the phone later that day, "He really had come!"

This year, though, there are forces working to rain on my spring time parade. As mentioned in the previous paragraph there is an expectation that the Puddin' family have some meal together at every major or minor holiday. And this year it was decided we should all eat at our house. But apparently I didn't get the memo that Rich's brother Lee's new girlfriend was explicitly excluded from these festivities. Really I should have guessed that since she's smart, funny, pretty, and puts up with Lee's crap while simultaneously being sweet and kind to him, that she would be banned from all family functions by the Matriarch. Silly me.

There has been some line drawn in the sand that if the Banned Girlfriend comes then the Matriarch will not be coming. But if the Matriarch doesn't come, then apparently the Patriarch and the Uncle-arch (work with me) are not allowed to come either. So my dinner for seven became several painful phone calls and dinner for four.

On the bright side, my parents rock. I called Mom earlier today to ask if she had an egg cooker I could borrow (to hard boil eggs so that the yolks are in the middle for deviled eggs) and Dad started to make me one out of pipes. Thankfully, I found mine so Dad didn't have to go all Mr. Wizard in the back yard tonight and we'll all have beautiful deviled eggs this weekend. I just got off the phone with them again and it's cheered me up a great deal. And there are rumors that will be joining us for some festivities, which would be a most welcome addition to our house.

So while I'm still annoyed about the unnecessary drama for Sunday, I have 40 eggs in my fridge waiting to be boiled and dyed/deviled. Oh, and there are new pics over at Flickr of random stuff for your amusement.

Saving each other from ourselves

Two days of meticulously measuring my food and insulin and it's going .... okay. I've actually found myself eating less just because I don't feel like doing the math. I think I've tapped into the next diet craze by forcing people to complete a word problem to "earn" snacks. Next time you walk past the pretzels on top of the fridge, you have to decide if they're worth factoring in both African and European swallows into your answer. My blood sugar is 124 at the moment (recovering from low blood sugar about two hours ago) and I'm about to have a sugar free hot cocoa before bed.

The Puddin' and I have different ways of operating in the kitchen. His involves unplugging everything short of the fridge to prevent burning the house down and mine involves leaving everything plugged in (and occasionally left on) until I smell smoke. And for years now, he's been silently coming behind me and unplugging the toaster and the kettle, diligently saving me and the pets from certain doom. And everytime I have to plug something back in before I can use it, I smile wistfully. We have a system and it works.

The other night we almost had a fight in our sleep. It was 4:12am and Rich had gotten up for his middle of the night bathroom run. I'm a bit of a heavy sleeper (i.e. a plane could land on our house and I'm not sure I would wake up for it) so his forays don't usually disturb me. But this time, about 5 minutes after his return to the bed, I lurched out of bed absolutely convinced that I heard the toilet running. Somehow in my sleep the sound had dragged me out of DreamLand with the fear that we were wasting water and could be doing so for at least three more hours before I was scheduled to get out of bed.

As I sat bolt upright in bed, Rich grabbed my arm. Hard. He pulled at me as if I weren't sitting up, but instead being extracted from the bed by kidnappers or aliens. While still mostly asleep, I yanked my arm away, grousing, "Let go of me! God, it's just the fucking toilet." That seemed to sate him (or at least intimidate him enough that he was more concerned about his crazy girlfriend than any bad guys in the house). I sleepily stomped off to the bathroom to jiggle the handle only to find that I had apparently made up this plumbing mishap and the toilet was, in fact, just fine.

So while we do so well during waking hours, during the night my compulsiveness over wasting money and natural resources and his paranoia over boogeymen collide head-on. Should our bathroom fixtures ever become aggressive, though, we will totally be kicking ass!