9:04 a.m. - 2008-02-04
Extra punctuation
Busy, busy, busy weekend. Friday I got my stitches out, went back to work and had an hour-long meeting to go over the dvd presentation we are doing for the board. Came home to spouse-made pizza, did some work on the dining room table, prepped some of the food for Saturday's dinner and crashed. Saturday was all about the cooking and cleaning. Marinated the pork in garlic, lime juice, orange juice, a bit of cumin and some oregano; simmered the black beans, made the tres leches cake, prepped the tomato avocado salad (Cuban dinners don't feature many veggies so I kind of forced the salad) and finished cleaning. Andy helped with vacuuming, though there was a faint rumble of complaint. Spouse was incredibly helpful and we got everything done without a hitch. Dinner was delicious! Not too many leftovers, especially considering that two of the guests were teenaged boys. I also made my own version of mojitos - I made a sugar syrup and steeped mint leaves; for the actual drinks I used limeade in addition to fresh limes, fresh mint, seltzer and white rum. For the boys, we made "faux-hitos" without the rum. They were quite popular. Our company didn't leave until 11:30 - we had a nice visit which covered politics, high school (our mutual experiences), music, work, dealing with parents and raising children. Put away the food, loaded the dishwasher and then got sucked into watching the last hour and a half of FARGO. Oh. Ya.
Sunday we had to be up early for the annual "Scout Mass" at our church, and Andy was doing a reading. It was very emotional for me - seeing all those cutie pie little scouts (cubs and brownies). The rest of the congregation was decked out in its best "patriots" gear. I wish I had had the concession on those shirts.
One of Andy's favorite friends and his sister were altar servers at the Mass, so we invited them and their parents to come for breakfast with us after church.
Have I written about "Possum" before? (Today, I am all about the quotation marks apparently.) (Also, parentheses.)
Anyway, Possum nicknamed Andy Possum as well, and they have been friends since Andy was in first grade, and Possum was in kindergarten. He is one of the funniest, most clever kids I have ever met. The Possums are very creative when they play and make up al kinds of games. They are also affectionate with each other - hugging, walking arm in arm - something I expected to diminish, but it hasn't. We went to my favorite breakfast place - "Cracker Barrel" (note the quotation marks.) Anyway, Possum's parents arrived before we did and put our name in - the wait was about 20 minutes. While we were waiting, she found two stuffed possums and bought them for the boys. They were ecstatic! We had ginormous breakfasts, and Possum came over to play with Andy until his parents picked him up at 5 to go to a superbowl party. It was a nice day.
It was a Norman Rockwell kind of day, or as Andy would say a Normal Rockman kind of day.
Sunday night - I made meatballs and pasta for dinner (and an extra batch for today's escarole soup which is simmering on the crockpot); and Andy's other good friend came over for a few hours and they made more videos. We watched the football game even though none of us is that into football, and our allegiances were torn because we wanted one team to win because of where we live, but I grew up cheering for the other team because of my father and brothers. Oh. Well.
This week - board meetings, projects, and tension everywhere. It is also a big week of cub scouts - finishing projects, getting the boys done with their final achievements, and not so much help from most of the families. But next month at this time, I'm sure I will be crying because it is over, and that chapter of our lives is done.
And for now, except for a big pot of soup - that's all I got.
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