Pokematic's Easter 2023 Fun

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, where we recognize the death and resurrection of Jesus. I'll start this little blog off with Palm Sunday, aka, my favorite mass; not Holiday, but my favorite mass of the year. It always has been, and for 1 reason, palms. Everyone gets a palm leaf, and we wave it singing hosanna; it's the one mass where we get something to interact with, and even as a 29 year old man it still gets me excited. When everyone else had set their palm down, I kept holding mine. I might as well fast forward to Thursday (since nothing of note happened in the week) where mskate and I got our feet washed for Holy Thursday's mass. This is the 2nd time I've had my feet washed, the first being when I was a confirmation student when I was in highschool. It is kind of interesting being a stand-in for one of the 12, and I'm glad I was able to share this experience with my wife.

Now it is time for Good Friday. Morning was pretty basic, just mskate and I getting ready for the day. I made pasta for lunch (no meat) and we ate it on our way up to our parents. I got my allergy shot when we got up there and after that we went to the Hallmark Store where we got IRA a green ranger plushy toy thing. After shopping we went to Good Friday service with my dad where we got the last 5 stations of the cross. It was good doing that with him, especially since we did it at his home perish and they have a good perish. After mass we went to mskate's parents to pick up IRA and some other things. Mskate had gotten an Easter gift from one of her coworkers which was angel wings (or "chrusciki" if you prefer the original Polish) and a bunny made out of a wash cloth with some chocolates in it. We decided to give the wash cloth bunny to IRA and share the angel wings with my family (because we're Polish). This was funny, when we got there Duke was sleeping in his bed put in front of the glass storm door just enjoying the sunlight, and when mskate pet him he just stretched and enjoyed the touch. Then when I pet him he got alert and excited because for some reason I'm his favorite human to play with and he always gets a ton of excitement when he sees me; and it's not like I'm even much of a dog person that gets excited to see him and insists on playing with him or just has a sense of "I'm a dog person, I want all dogs to play with me" or something, a lot of times I don't even try to play with him and just want to see the family, but he always is like "oh cool, the playful human is here, come on let's wrestle, now chase me" whenever I see him ever since I first met him. He definitely doesn't see me as an enemy since he's always clearly playing and I've been around long enough and have done enough with him where he definitely trusts me, so I'm not "misinterpreting his aggression as joy" or something like that, he just has some kind of attraction to me.

Now it was time for us to have fun with my parents. We got to their house and started the fun. First we prepped the egg dying kit. Every year I forget to bring my kit and every year we screw up something. This time it was we didn't dissolve the tablets in vinegar before adding the water, so the colors didn't turn out as good as they probably could have been, especially the red one (which for some reason the red/pink color always seems to have a problem, I don't know why but it does). We let them sit for half an hour or so as we did mskate's allergen free pretzels. That was pretty interesting since the dough didn't want to stick together as most allergen free dough is known to be, but we made it work and got the pretzels good for her. I tasted a piece and it tasted like a pretzel, which is good since gluten free bread can be weird. With the allergen free pretzels done, we dyed the eggs and did the cookie craft. IRA found these coloring cookies at a grocery store where it's a cookie with a line art drawing on the frosting, and there are markers with edible ink to color them. Grandma, IRA, and I all made one, and I think mskate made the last of the 4 after we finished ours. It was a pretty fun activity, especially since I only had 3 colors to chose from so I had to think "what kind of contrast can I use while also making it look good?" I think it turned out OK.

Since grandma has lost basically all fine motor capabilities due to arthritis we were concerned she wouldn't be able to do it, but since the arthritis has also hit her rough motor capabilities she had the small movements necessary to color by moving her whole arm, so that was great. Later she ate the whole cookie and rather quickly, which is not really like her (she used to not care much for sweets, and always ate very slowly). Mskate looked up the company and they do other holidays, so we're going to do this at Christmas too, and save the markers so we have more colors to choose from. While we did this the eggs were sitting in the dye building up color, and since we are adults now we had the patience of letting them sit and get a deep color. This brought back a lot of memories of how we would dye eggs at grandma's house, and joked that we should all climb on the dining room table like the old days. Oh fun times. At some point during this we watched a "how do they do it" clip on discovery plus about pretzel making, which was fun.

Now for the food fun. My parents made Easter baskets for everyone; I got Reece's peanut butter eggs, peeps, a Lowe's gift card, a lottery ticket (with a dollar coin), and a little Easter bunny "get the ball in the cup" toy, mskate got peeps, jelly beans, a Disney gift card, a lottery ticket, and a little Easter bunny "get the ball in the cup toy," IRA got Reece's peanut butter eggs, jelly beans, a Target gift card, a lottery ticket, and a little Easter bunny "get the ball in the cup toy," and vikingpolak got a 6 pack of beer, cash, a lottery ticket, and a little Easter bunny "get the ball in the cup toy." IRA and I really enjoyed the toy, and I got good enough where I would win. Vikingpolak and I won on our lottery tickets while mskate and IRA didn't win, even on the "loser's 2nd try" tickets my mom got as a back-up since grandpa Pop would do that when us grandkids would get lottery tickets as gifts. Now time for dinner. The family was going to have French toast and omelets cooked with butter, but since that is the 3 things mskate can't eat vikingpolak got a salmon fillet for mskate and whoever else wanted it. Mom took care of the French toast and enlisted me to take care of the hash browns. I made 2 pans of about half the potatoes that they prepaired and that was enough for half the family, then the other half were cooked and the rest of the family got enough. It was a good good Friday family dinner. This was also the time when everyone that wanted one got an angel wing, and we had enough left to share with my grandpa and aunt when my dad and vikingpolak see them on Easter.

With dinner over it was time to make the pretzels. This has been something we've done since I was really little, and very fun. IRA struggled a little bit but I showed him how to do it (he was doing the crossing too low down by the middle giving the pretzels long arms, and I demonstrated he had to do it pretty close to the top). For 3 or 4 pretzels I did the Mennonite method of "flick twisting" and I was successful after some "and then they came undone" failures. I also burnt my thumb taking one of the trays out, but oh well. We visited for a little while after the pretzels just to let them cool, and then we said our goodbyes, took IRA back to his parent's house, and went home.

Saturday was a simple relaxation day. I worked on writing the blog and mskate and I went on a walk in the park by us. I thawed the freezer so I could clean it and get the ice maker working again (I think the line completely froze or something, and I want to see if I can get it working again). Unfortunately that didn't work, but since I emptied the freezer I took the opportunity to clean out all the crumbs that have happened over the years. I also found that Tubi had The Passion of Christ streaming on it, and since our decan said it was a good movie to watch to really get a sense of what a Roman crucifixion was like since the 4 Evangelists didn't deem it important to go into detail of what a crucifixion was like, and it was quite good, though I have to say, it is a VERY difficult movie to watch. Like, I watch R-rated movies every so often so it's not like I haven't seen violence before, but this was super intense. I think I will have to do a review of it, but I will just say that it really helped me understand what our Lord and Savior went through, and I was happy I watched it on Tubi with ad breaks because I needed them to catch my breath. That night we went to the Easter Vigil, and there was just 1 very interesting thing that happened. Typically with the Easter Vigil the church is dark and everyone receives a candle to light when it's time, and those candles have wax shields because wax is going to drip, and our church uses paper wax shields. One lady's wax shield caught on fire when she lit her candle and fell to the ground, and mskate and I sitting on the end were ready to jump over and help, but she was able to step on it before anything happened. This left her without a wax shield though, so mskate went out and got one for her. So yeah, that was a little exciting.

OK, it's Easter Sunday, Jesus is risen. I had one of the pretzels we made on Friday for a breakfast snack before heading over to my in-laws for their festivities. Before I get to the fun, we were greeted by the dogs. Since around this time last year their dog Duke had a seizure and is getting very old mskate and I try to go in through the side door to not excite him (because for some reason he thinks I am the most entertaining person in the world and gets super excited whenever he sees me, but we can minimize the excitement by just "appearing in the house" by using the side door instead of going in through the front door), but this time he already saw us and was barking so we just went in the front. He tried jumping but wasn't able to, so we were able to bring our things in before getting to the big presents. My father-in-law goes all out for holidays, and he had this elaborate spread on the dining room table for everyone. He said "the Easter Bunny came" and I said "no, the Easter Bunny just leaves a basket of candy, this was Easter Santa," and he agreed that it was "Easter Santa." The thing I enjoy the most they get me every year since we got married are these milk chocolate eggs with white chocolate chicks in them. There's nothing super special about them, but the fact that it's a hollow egg with 2 halves joined together (and not some chocolate egg with a peanut butter or caramel filling), and that hollow egg has something in it and not just air, I'm just kind of fascinated by them. I got some other chocolates and gift cards, but the chocolate eggs with a chocolate chick inside are my favorite (maybe I'll do a food review one day). Mskate got a lot of peeps and gummy candy, and a Lego Disney parade train (not for use on a track). We ended up making it while we were at her parents house and now it sits proudly on the stair landing shelf with the rest of our Lego displays.

After the fun we picked up a close friend of the family that they call "Aunt" (we'll call her "aunt C" in the blog). As we were driving up mskate said "we could pick up aunt C on our way to my parents," and since we were driving the pickup truck that's pretty high up I asked "could we though," which made her realize we would need to wait until we got to her parents and could borrow a car. We picked her up no problem and she enjoyed spending time with the family and visiting with the dogs. Delilah jumped up next to her multiple times and just let her pet her, and Duke managed to jump onto the couch to see her. Mskate initially put him on the other couch with me because she thought he wanted to see me, but he very quickly made it known he wanted to get down, and once he was down he ran over to the other couch and jumped up on it (something he doesn't do anymore, because he's old, but regularly forgets he's old). We had eggs, bacon, fruit, hash brown patties, and chocolate croissants. I'm going to have some breakfast for a few days. Mskate also paid for her old skating club to set-up an egg hunt in the front yard, and IRA and I were told to do it. We completed it in probably 1 minute, and I won by 2 eggs. In the eggs were bouncy balls, stickers, yoyos, finger puppets, and sticky hands. It was fun not having a parent say "now you need to give some eggs to your brother so it's even" for once, considering we're both adults and can handle winners and losers.

It's now about the time we went to my parents for their festivities. My dad and brother were at my aunt and grandpa's, and pepperBC's family was doing something else, so the group was a little smaller this time. We gave grandma her Easter basket and she was really happy with it. We got her a fuzzy bunny card, magic water coloring book, and some chocolates. She really enjoyed it. We visited with everyone for a while, then it was dinner time. We had ham, chicken, potatoes, rolls, carrots, corn, and asparagus. Given that everyone from the asparagus story was there (J and P, and Grandma), we reminded everyone of the asparagus story. It was a fun time. After dinner the in-laws came over for desert and accordion time. They also brought over aunt C, and she and grandma really hit it off. We sang some songs like Peter Cottontail and A Tisket a Tasket, and some others. For desert I had some chocolate pie and ice cream, and then spilled some on my pants so I had to wash them and then spend 10 minutes in front of a space heater drying them. No stains though, so I'm good. It was quite a fun day, and at about 7PM we packed up our stuff and went home.

Monday was pretty simple. I did a bunch of grocery shopping and sorted all our food from the festivities, filled up the gas tank, and shipped a package for ebay. I also started out the day wearing long pants but then changed into short pants after lunch time and getting hot unloading the car, so I guess it's officially spring. I wanted to do more work on running inventory on the ebay inventory and shipping material, but I just did that and watched some comedy specials on my free trial of showtime. This was a great mini-vacation, and I'm quite happy with it. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Mother's Day 2022, Another Restaurant Experience

 Hey everyone. It's Mother's Day again, and I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't have another fun restraut story. Many years ago we had "the asparagus story." Now it is time for "the prime rib story." Once again, I love my family, but they can be a little crazy, and this time I'm kind of to blame. Here's the thing, we used to go out to a nice restaurant every year for Mother's Day, but recently celebrations have been "go to my parent's house spend time with the people that aren't my parents while they go crazy hosting. Part of this is because of covid, part of this is because it has gotten hard to move my grandma. 2 or so weeks ago my mom proposed "go to their house and have a pot roast for Mother's Day," and I said "I would rather go to the restaurant we normally went to on Mother's Day." Mom called them and was able to get us a reservation, and this is where the fun began.

First off, my grandma doesn't travel very easily anymore. She has REALLY bad arthritis, and has trouble with balance, making it very hard to get her in and out of cars. She also has no real turn radius with her walker, so areas need to be open and flat. The funny thing though is this makes restaurants and other public places better for her than my parent's house (parents have steps going up to their house, restaurants either don't have that or have ramps for ADA compliance). I know that's why my mom and everyone else always gets take out or delivery when taking care of her instead of going out to the restaurant, but this was special, and honestly if she was going to leave her house it might as well have been to a place that is completely level without any steps.

We had my parents, grandma, brother, the accordion friends, mskate, and I all at the restaurant. Since it was a holiday the menu was limited, and we had to find something grandma would like. Back in the day this wouldn't be very difficult; she would read the menu, pick one of the most expensive things on the menu, tell me to not worry about the price and I should get what I want (because I always happen to get one of the cheaper things on the menu, but that's honestly just because that's what I like), and that would be it. Maybe some crazy order changes when she missed something on the menu, but that would be it. However, she has become a lot more picky and confused with age, so whenever we go out someone has to order for her, and it's never guaranteed that she will like what she gets so our meals have to be tradable. Many years ago she liked prime rib, and as one of the more expensive things on the menu, the price was right. She also liked her steaks cooked medium (because she and grandpa would always be worried that my steaks were over cooked when I ordered it well done), so I assumed she would like her prime rib medium. I got the pork chops because I like restaurant pork chops (and of course they happened to be one of the cheapest things on the menu), and my mom got fried shrimp.

Before we get to the craziness, here are the gifts. We decided to do gift exchange before the meal because we only had the table for an hour and a half (they told us this much), and that ended up working out for the best. The day before mskate and I got gourmet cookies from a cookie shop that was close to where we were dog sitting that weekend (oh yeah, we were dog sitting Mother's Day weekend, nothing special though, just watching a friend's old dog while they were away). The cookies were $4 each, but if we bought 4 it was $13. For the extra dollar I got myself a gourmet cookie, but mskate wanted to get the individual boxes for everyone. We asked the cashier if we could get the the cookies individually boxed but at the 4 pack price. She said it would be a 25 cent upcharge, but it was loud and crowded, and she spoke softly and it ended up being a 25 percent upcharge (basically meaning it was full price for individual cookies). I noticed it shortly after seeing the price on the register and the price on the menu, but it was really crowded and mskate really wanted the individual boxes, so I didn't argue, but mskate agreed that next year we just get the 4 pack box, because it was silly to pay $1 for a box. We got cookies that would match everyone's personality; grandma got the basic chocolate chip (she's picky but likes classic chocolate chip), mom got a nutela cookie (she's a little adventurous and sometimes likes "young people fads," and I remember when nutela was a bit of a "young people fad"), accordion friend got pink velvet (a fancier fancier flavor for one who likes to cook and bake on an almost professional level), and I got lemon (because my unironic enjoyment of lemons and lemon flavor has become a running joke in my family). Mskate wrote nice messages on the boxes for everyone and they all enjoyed it. She also got my grandma a card that folds into a pot of flowers and my mom a card that has a pop-up bee hive. Mom was really happy and said "nice Hallmark cards, these are the kind of cards we get now that we have a girl in the family," and without missing a beat my brother said "no mom, you taught us to get dollar store cards."

OK, it's dinner time, the moment of truth. Grandma is skeptical because the prime rib is a little pink (that's what medium is), and it was quite big. Since my brother was sitting next to her he cut a piece and gave it to her. Unfortunately this was one of those "I used to like it but now I don't" things, saying "it was inedible." She traded with mom but felt bad because she didn't want mom to eat something so bad (it wasn't, it was actually really good). She ate some of the shrimp, but she wasn't really enjoying it. This is where my pork chops came into play. I ate one of my pork chops, but left the other to the side in case it was needed and ate my potato in the mean time. When it became obvious she didn't necessarily want the shrimp, I started cutting pieces of my other pork chop and mskate started giving it to her. We had to do this somewhat stealthy because she would have a fit if she saw it coming off her grandson's plate (because pretty much all my life she and grandpa would unsolicited take food off their plate and give it to me), but she never caught onto where the pork chop was coming from. Since she wasn't eating the shrimp mom took back the shrimp and gave me some of the prime rib. At one point the waitress came out and saw us trading food and got a little confused. Mom said "we'll help you with the checks later." At the end of the meal there was about 2/3rd of a pork chop left and maybe an ounce or 2 of prime rib with a good amount being stuck on the fat line, and 1 dinner role. I boxed the pork chop and gave it to my mom to give to grandma the following day for dinner, and I took the remainder of the prime rib after trimming off the meat from the fat and the dinner role for myself. We were able to sort out who got what (pork chop, prime rip, and mskate's salmon was on our bill, shrimp and dad's meal was on their bill). Mskate and I got grandma's meal as a mother's day gift, and at first she wasn't having any of that ("oh no, you can't do that, that's too much, I need to do something for you in return"), and that's when I reversed her logic on her ("no this is me returning the favor for all those Friday nights we spent with you"), and that ended up working.

So this wasn't AS crazy as asparagus, but it definitely reminded us of it (I leaned over to my parents and said "asparagus" a couple of times). I guess before I go I might as well mention that Dad and I saw my brother bartend the night before. He knows a guy that has a micro-brewery that sells their beer at the brewery, and he bar tends for them every now and then. It was fun having a drink with my dad while brother helped recommend stuff for us. I had a pint of one of their sour beers and alcoholic slushies, and dad had a pecan beer and something else, and we watched the Kentucky Derby (80-1 odds, that was quite a race). Brother asked if I wanted another but it was getting a little late and I was starting to feel it/ I said "no, I'm starting to feel it Mr. Krabs." Anyway, that was Mother's Day weekend. Grandma enjoyed her left over pork chop and half of the cookie, which is good to hear. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.