2000-04-24

Background Music: Ben Harper, Burn to Shine, still. I’m liking the rest of the cd quite a bit. These guys are opening for the Dave Matthews Band in Chicago, which means I won’t be seeing them in concert, not enjoying concert venues that seat 2 or 3 million people.

Hmmm. Just reread my last entry, getting ready to write this one, and I’m thinking that if there is in fact a G-o-d out there and s/he happens to be of the Christian persuasion, then I am definitely going to hell. On the other hand, I really have too much on my plate, frankly, to worry about that right now.

Easter was, however, lovely.

Despite the fact that the true meaning of the Easter holiday is, for most of my family, much more closely tied to Paas Dye Kits and hard-boiled eggs than anything involving religion, there’s nothing like a good excuse to gather a bunch of people together for wine and a baked ham.

My brother and his girlfriend did the honors this year, which was very cool. Actually, it was a close call between them and my mother, who very nearly succeeded in an unintentional hostile takeover of the holiday dinner.

Apparently, last summer at a big family get-together on the East Coast, a bunch of people were raving about this particular Virginia smoked/honey/whatever ham. Ever since then, my mother has been dying to order one, but just didn’t think that she and her husband wanted to eat 20 lbs. of ham sandwiches.

So when CJ (brother’s girlfriend) called our mom up to invite her to the Easter dinner, and they started talking about what my mom could bring (which is usually wine, since that what she sells for a living), she thought of last summer, got all excited and blurted out, “Oooh! I know! I’ll bring the ham!”

And poor CJ, who’s been involved with my brother for the last year, but clearly doesn’t feel comfortable yet with telling our mom she’s out of her mind, just sort of stammered and said okay and got off the phone.

Well, of course she told my brother immediately, who laughed hysterically, called our mom back up, and said, “You know, mom, those who issue the invitations to the party usually get to be in charge of the entrée.” I believe some words to the effect of, “Hey ma, what do we get to do? Scrub the toilet?” might also have been uttered.

My poor mother. She was so mortified once she realized what she had done.

She called me up, wailing, “Oh my god! This is terrible. I am that evil, pushy mother-in-law that everybody hates and talks badly about behind her back. I was just so excited about trying this ham!”

At this point in the phone conversation, I am laughing so hard I can barely breathe. And not just because when I tell my most definitely not-yet-thinking-of-marriage brother that she thinks of herself as a mother-in law already, he’s going to want to shoot himself in the head. My mother is a total sweetie and would never deliberately offend anyone. But when her enthusiasm gets going, watch out. She’ll take charge like a five-star general.

She also really wanted things to go well for this meal. Matt and CJ have friends over for dinner all the time, but this was the first holiday meal that our entire family would be at, and I think my mom was concerned for them that everything go smoothly.

In any case, she ended up bringing a case of wine, a bushel (I mean that literally) of rolls and breads, an enormous salad, several dips with chips, and a tray of pastry thingies for dessert. So it’s not exactly like she sat back and relaxed at any point.

I brought a couple of Eli’s French Silk Cheesecakes (if you are from Chicago and don’t know how good Eli’s cheesecake is, consider yourself deprived—and I’m not even a big dessert person) and several boxes of Peeps.

Yes, Peeps. You know, those neon yellow and pink bunnies and chicks that are made out of a marshmallow-like substance. I highly doubt that any of the ingredients in Peeps are found in Nature, but I couldn’t resist.

It ain’t an Easter holiday without Peeps and pink and blue hard-boiled eggs.