Easter, Curious

All weekend long we enjoyed our new kitchen counter tops.  They make everything look better on them.  Washing dishes is more enjoyable, food being prepared on them looks better, even stuff piled on top of them looks more organized.  Another by product of the dark varied pattern is they absolutely hide dirt from the naked eye.  You can’t really tell if they are dirty or not.  With the old white counters EVERYTHING was visible. 

Saturday we busted ass to get everything done before picking up mom after she finished work at 5.  I was a whirlwind of activity both inside and outside.  We piled both dogs and Ali into the party van to pick up mom.  About halfway on the trip back home the blower fan on the van mysteriously died.  It was rather warm outside so we put the windows down and relied on wind power to keep things comfortable.   I kept trying the fan multiple times hoping it would magically start working again.  Unless it is something as simple as a popped fuse it is going to probably require a mechanics intervention.  Trying to replace the blower motor is just a mess in a van since 2/3 of the engine compartment is tucked back under the console.

Mom thought the counters looked even better in person than they did in the pictures.  She thought the sink and faucet set up was extremely cool as well.  I agree.

I made steaks on the grill for dinner.  The weather was perfect so we ate out on the lanai.  Later mom agreed to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  We didn’t start watching until 8, the movie was 2:45 long so mom predicted from the get go that she would not be awake by the end, she was right.  The movie was good.  It was a bit long, the middle section seemed to drag on for awhile but I guess when you are trying to document a persons entire lifetime it is going to take awhile.  The premise of being born with an old body and dying with the body of an infant held a lot of interest for me, especially with my dark obsession with the aging process.  Brad Pitt did a great job in the film. Of course I can’t ever remember a film that he was in where I didn’t think he did a great job.  He is really a good actor IMO.  The movie had a lot of strong emotional moments in it, especially towards the end. Ali was in all out crying mode by the time it finished.  There were a couple things in there I didn’t quite connect the dots but it wasn’t bad enough to make me feel bad about the plot. I liked the movie, just make sure you allocate a three hour block to watch it, I’d give it an A-.    Mom went to bed a little over half way into it.

We had another fantastic day weather-wise on Easter.  I started off my morning in an enjoyable manner for me, I ran a couple miles on the treadmill.  After the run I was pretty overheated so I decided to go jump in the pool even though the air temp was not quite 70 degrees yet and the water was only 75 degrees.  Wow the first few moments after diving in were quite stimulating.  My entire body felt like it was zapped with electricity.  However I swam around a bit to get the blood moving.  It didn’t take long till the water felt refreshing instead of cold.  Sadie was thrilled I was in the water and instantly began running around the pool edge waiting for me to splash her.  I was happy to oblige.

Our Easter morning was nice and relaxing.  All three of us and the two dogs spent the majority of the morning just hanging out on the pool deck relaxing.  A lot of times when mom is over I get the feeling that she thinks she is burdening us with her presence, especially if I am off doing other things around the house while she is there.  I hoped that since we were all out there with her that she would feel less of a need to head out early.

I got my  family phone calls in during the morning as well, talking to my dad, brother and sister. I got to hear about my dad’s possible relocation from out west back to PA, my brother’s ongoing divorce drama and my sister’s crazy life as a mother of two.  I almost felt guilty as I relaxed out on the pool deck in 80 degree weather talking to them.

One of the things we talked about with mom was her attempt to stop smoking using a drug called Chantix.  Supposedly it makes you not desire a cigarette somehow.  Mom’s initial reason she gave for quitting was financial instead of for health reasons which I think is not a good basis for change.  She thought Chantix was cool because you are allowed to keep smoking while taking it.  The drug is supposed to wean you off cigarettes until you are the point where you are not smoking at all.  Well mom has been smoking less after a month but she is still smoking.  I don’t really see the point of such a program.  I expressed my feelings to mom about it.  I said that you can’t take the drug indefinitely, 12 weeks max, continuing to smoke while on it makes no sense to me.  It’s like saying a cocaine addict can take a quick snort once in a awhile.  I can only hope that mom sees the light and stops for good, for the right reasons.

For Easter “dinner” mom prepared a homemade eggplant parmigiana, instead of us doing a dual meal thing to account for Ali’s vegetarianism. (is that a word?)  Mom complained that the eggplant was too bitter.  Ali and I thought it tasted fine.  As a result mom didn’t take any of it home with her and instead left all the left overs for us.  Mom did agree however to take a few of our monstrous beets home, she loves beets. 

After lunch both mom and I went in the pool for a bit.  I assured mom that the water felt fine after 30 seconds.  Mom didn’t have the same experience I did, she bailed after a couple minutes in the water.  After drying off we packed up mom’s stuff and I took her home around 3pm.  It was a relaxing, enjoyable Easter experience although it hardly felt like an Easter from up north.  No Easter baskets were hidden and found, the only eggs to be seen were safely stored in a carton in the fridge and the only bunny ears around were from the shit factories hidden under our shed. Eh, times change.

Although we did most of the housework on Saturday we found the rest of our Easter rather busy.  Ali had to do her Nicki food production where she creates a months worth of food at a time.  It creates quite the mess as you can imagine.  I tried to help with the clean up process as much as I could.  I also was involved in folding laundry, making the bed and a few other chores that kept us busy until around 7.

Over the weekend I also spent a considerable amount of time messing around with the new timing system.  So far everything I have seen has been all positive.  The biggest “ohhh and ahh” came when I tested the read height of the new chips.  I was astonished when I was getting confirmation beeps with the chips between three and four feet high.  If I get a foot of read height with the DAG system I am lucky.  I also spent some time messing around with the included software.  It will take a lot of relearning how to do certain procedures but in the long run the new software could expedite the result creation process.  So far, so good.