Easter Outage

Okay, thanks to my cable company you were all spared a day of my (at times) suspect rantings.  Frail Deeds was off the net yesterday even though I had the day off to bask in the reflected glory of Patriots’ Day commemorating the legendary stand on Concord Bridge and the shot heard round the world on Lexington Green.  My internet connection apparently believed it was due a day off as well which was frustrating but you were all the winners, avoiding a full day free of nonsense from this sector.  I suspect a certain sorcerous personage in Rhode Island contracted to have the connection taken down to avoid all the embarrassing pictures I have of her to be published.

Easter was a hell of a lot of fun (is that sacrilegious?).  My son and the MEF showed up Sunday morning and for a few hours we had all four of what we now consider “our kids” with us.  I cooked a turkey to take down to my sister’s house in Rhode Island and all was going well until I spilled nearly a quart of turkey grease all over the hardwood floor in the kitchen.  Buddy immediately volunteered for the cleanup crew and had to be dragged physically from the scene to prevent future technicolor yawns.

Wife and I on Easter

Bowed but not broken we tardily departed for Rhode Island for a fun Easter dinner that’s becoming something of a tradition.  Heretofore we’d always gone to my sister’s mother in law’s (the fabulous Miss Louise) home.  Since Miss Louise was watching her first Easter from heaven with Mr. Pete the dinner was moved to my sister’s house.  My sister insisted Buddy accompany us which allowed my daughter the full “Buddy’s hot breath over her shoulder” experience for the drive down.

Buddy spent a couple weeks at my sister’s house in January and got into the habit of walking on top of her frozen swimming pool to voice his displeasure with the neighborhood squirrels.  Buddy, never to be confused with a brain surgeon, thought this was still possible and was shortly fully immersed in the winter’s worth of debris filled water on top of my sister’s pool.  My nephew dragged him out and he missed most to the meal due to his fetid state.

Easter Dinner - My Sister and Bro in Law at Head of Table
The Sorceress Hiding from View to my Sister's Right

It was a great afternoon of the usual shared camaraderie with these superb people.  The sorcerous sister in law immediately campaigned to have photography forbidden leading me to suspect her involvement in yesterday’s outage.  It's a common belief photography will rob a sorceress of her mystical powers (I might have just made that up).  I think a future post will devote entirely to the exhaustive historical footage I have of her.

Most of the crowd snuck in viewings on the Bruins playoff game which was worth checking into as the Bruins rediscovered their mojo.  My playoff beard in support of the Bruins is now one week old and survives with wifely approval so far (the same could not be said of my sister).  I haven’t revealed to my spousal unit that if the Bruins are successful the beard may last until June.  That’s a conversation for another day.

Bruins Playoff Beard Week 1

One of the cool things about visiting my sister’s house are the memories associated with it.  Throughout the years of our vagabond military life we would always come there to visit.  On one of those visits my very young son planted a sprig of pine he’d gotten at school.  The idea was to plant it and watch it grow over the years.  Since we didn’t have a home we’d be in for any length of time he planted it in my sister’s front yard.  It was still winter at the time so we didn’t expect it to survive but somehow it did.  From the attached photo you can see both have grown exponentially.

My Son and Daughter When they Planted the Tree
(The Small Green Sprig Next to My Son's Foot)

Both are a Little Bigger Now

Easter unfortunately had to end as the son- MEF team departed for New Hampshire while we put our son in law on a train for New York City from Providence.  We did glean another full day with the daughter which allowed some shared Game of Thrones viewing and critique.  She was a great sport about yesterday’s cable outages but the inevitable drive through Connecticut to her train loomed large throughout the day.  It was very tough to say good-bye (as always).

At that Damned Train Station Again - So Tough

The house seemed so much emptier last night as even Buddy seemed lethargic.  I think that was due more to the Sunday swim and excessive snacks from my sister more than anything else.  When even the cable TV abandoned us last night I did have a fallback position of over a thousand movies to watch which helped blunt the depressing lack of children in the house.