April 5 Still Alive....Day 36 of Challenge

Day 36, Ran 0/ Total so far 66.4/ Miles to go 933.6



Blog has been silent a few days...power outage caused in part by Hurricane Easter Holiday with a mild case of "not ready for prime time allergies/cold"! Today I plan to run again for the first time in about a week after work...Wish me luck and give me encouragement!



Thursday last week began a marathon of a different kind.....holiday fun. Picked up son Haydon at Love Field at 10 and Taka and daughter Leigh at 11 at DFW. Wonderful that everyone could be together for the Holiday. Haydon and Leigh promptly went out with some of Leigh's college buddies. When reminded that she was not arriving until 11 Leigh reminded me that the bars close at 2!. In Spanish they say "La noche esta en penales" (the night is still in diapers) when they don't want to end the party....so I guess the penales were in style Thursday (and most other nights of the trip...but you will have to go to Leigh's blog to find out about those times...see the link on my home page of this blog).



Good Friday was a holiday from work. I was reminded after cooking bacon for breakfast that observant Catholics are not supposed to eat meat on Good Friday....I observed my clan did not have a problem eating the bacon, however. My gracious and forgiving God will forgive me and them I am sure for our transgression. It reminded me of the time that my time my daughter-in-law's mother, Janie, as the Roberts and the Camps were trying to decide where to eat one other Good Friday a few years ago, reminded Eric that they could not go eat ribs because Good Friday was a Holy Day of Obligation....no meat. After which she promptly crunched down on a pork skin....(if you are not from the south, you will not understand but a port skin is like a potato chip kinda, but is actually fried port skin which sounds horrible but tastes great to those privileged to grow up in the the land of cotton). Eric looked at Janie and asked "Isn't a pork skin meat?" The look on Janie's face......Priceless as the skin was spit out.....



So Friday lunch found Taka and I at a favorite Vietnamese Restaurant for Pho (beef noodle soup) and Friday night Taka and Haydon and I at a Korean Barbecue Restaurant near our house for wonderful barbecue cooked at the table on a hibachi ....thin slices of meat, wrapped in lettuce instead of a tortilla (much healthier....) We toasted each other and the good life with a Korean vodka like drink....Life lived to the fullest.

Saturday was the big day...about 16 people, all the kids, Kay and the kid's grandparent...Big Mommy and Big Daddy (how southern is that?) Karla and Eric and Karla's parents, Mike and Janey and Uncle Nick. Good friends Nickie and Bob... and friend, Pat Parise. Dear Mrs. Savage was sorely missed but remembered as we ate the wonderful coffee cake she had sent and toasted to her health (She was away at a grandson's graduation). I baked a large ham and succeeded in not burning the yeast rolls which were heavenly. Janie brought peas flavored with wild boar sausage. Karla made a yummy squash casserole all the while bemoaning the act as indicative of her new family status....time passes and we grow up. Nickie brought carrot cake and Big Mommy a lemon pound cake in which she used lemons from a tree in her back yard.

Taka was his amazing self. I wish I had half his energy. One look at my spotty crystal and he was washing the wine and campaign glasses in soapy water. He cleans as he cooks and took over the duties normally handled by Mrs. Savage. He cooked a wonderful three color pasta salad with three colors of peppers, another salad with baby mozzarella cheese and cherry tomatoes and some broiled asparagus and when he finished you would not have known someone had been in the kitchen whereas when I cook the place looks like a band of wild banshee's ransacked the place.

Many, many mimosas and bloody Mary's mellowed out the crowd. At one time I realized that the women had gathered in the living room and the men in the den and I felt I was back in the 1950's, but most of the time everyone just circulated from group to group and inside and outside of the house as the weather was perfect and the back yard was usually full.

In the afternoon we played monopoly with 100 dollars of weekly grand tickets distributed in order of success and also placed in the Free Parking space for those lucky enough to land there. I won the game but the winning from the weekly grand were slim, only about a 25 dollar return on our 100 dollar investment.

Sunday saw Dim Sum with good friends Jonathan and Alfredo and with nephews Gary and Matt and their wives Aurdrey and Naomi. Gary and Audrey drove all the way from Oklahoma City to see us...such a wonderful family and such a blessed time.

Today, Monday, found me sad as I took Taka and Leigh to the airport......But Life Is Good!