"One Time Too Many"

Have you ever met Murphy?  You know, the guy with all the laws?  Well, Murphy was an uninvited and unwelcome guest at our Easter celebration this year.  And his law about one thing going wrong making everything go wrong was clearly in evidence!

It started out as a cloudy, rainy, grey, coolish, ugly day....never a good thing!  And we all had moods to match!  Mikey and I snapped and snarled at each other from the time we got up until the last guest finally gave up the ghost and went home!

We didn't have a large crowd, just family.  Of course, as we all know, family is the most volatile group of people you can ever gather in one room!  Just six of us, Mikey and me, T.A., Ratchlet, M-t-G, and the dog, plus T.A.'s mom and her current boyfriend, the obnox....overbear....uhhh, loudmo.....socially-challenged Mr. J.  Still, we have had many occasions together before without bloodshed!  I think maybe we tried to have a family gathering "One Time Too Many!!"

To be fair, there was no actual blood shed yesterday either (at least not human blood), but it was a close thing!

The first thing that went wrong was the Easter Egg Hunt.  I guess M-t-G is getting a little too old for such things.  She had very little patience for cute little bunnies and climbing on, over, and under furniture looking for eggs!  She muttered and grumbled throughout the whole thing.

When the Other Mom and Mr. J arrived (nearly one hour LATE), she practically caused a war by bringing several dishes, including their own bottle of wine!   (She was only supposed to be bringing one dish!)  Then she wanted bowls, spoons, serving dishes for her things and she started rummaging through our cabinets to find things.  Of course this was right in the middle of the final prep of the planned meal and it created havoc in our smallish kitchen.  There was no room at the table for the additional dishes and so she moved things off the table to accommodate her things!  Things like the main dish!!  This was not only annoying it was inconvenient!

We had planned a new vegetable dish to try.  It was kind of like a fritatta without the egg.  Onion, zucchini, potato, tomato, and spices....a LOT of spices!  Strange spices like coriander and tumeric.  It looked great.  And that's all I'll say about that!   Scratch that card from the recipe file!

The sum total of mini-disasters during the prep time included:

*  One broken dish
*  One burned hand
*  One out-dated condiment
*  Two spilled pots
*  One forgotten side-dish
*  One container of milk that had gone sour
*  A way-underdone pork roast

When I was growing up pork was cooked one way, well-done!  No pink, none at all!   Now they say that isn't necessary.  Well, the timing on this little piggie must have been way off because it was practically squealing on the platter!!  I could barely bear to look at it. I was so embarassed!   Some folks ate it anyway, just to be polite.  But Mr. Charm....uh, Mr. J, kept up a running commentary about the dangers of trichinosis and under-cooked pork, punctuated by the occasional snort!  What a guy!

The dishes brought by the Other Mother were less than successful.  Her fruit salad was too tart, almost bitter, and just looked like it could have been the result of a clean-up in the produce aisle!  She also brought quinoa.   I don't even know what that is, but it was brown, lumpy, and had other unrecognizable....uhhh....
"things", in it.  M-t-G, flat-out refused to try it and those who did try it, took less than a teaspoonful and made comments like, "Interesting" and "Different."  Of course, the annoying Mr. J. loved it and told three different stories of the benefits of fruits and nuts!

Before dinner someone.....((guess who, Mr. J.)....was sneaking bites of cheese to the dog even though he knows better! While we were eating, said cheese made a reappearance when the dog got sick all over T.A.'s jacket.  Oh lordy, what a day!!

After dinner was finished, conversation pretty much centered around the loquacious Mr. J who told story after story about His grandchild, HIS son, HIS career, HIS opinions, and HIS dopey jokes!  After a hour of this, we served dessert.  Two different pies from Marie Callenders.....one that no one (except Mikey) liked and one that was soooo sweet that everyone's teeth hurt!!

After a little clean-up during which there was very little conversation and a lot of banging things around, the Other Mother and Mr. J, gathered their things and were out the door.  Bye!  T.A., Ratchlet, and M-t-G and the dog were gone about three minutes after that.  And by 7:30 p.m. the house was quiet, and Easter was over!

Murphy left the building and I went to bed!   "One Time Too Many" indeed!

April Fool!!
(tee hee)
Not one word of the above is true!
 I swear!