Bunny Ears & New Carpeting...

Been cooking and baking for a few days. It's taking longer than usual because it's absolutely glorious outside and when I glance out the wide kitchen windows I see blue skies, green grass, birds at the feeders and the dogs laying on their backs airing out their undies. I have to watch and right in the middle of kneading some dough or mixing a batter, I stop what I'm doing and enjoy the scene.

Sometimes - if His Holiness isn't in sight - I leave everything on the countertops and go out onto the deck.

"SAR!"

Sometimes he catches me.

It's still a bit cool out in the morning and I have difficulty sniffling quietly. I'm certain it's allergies and nothing else.

I'm making a honey baked ham for Easter dinner with all the trimmings. I've already made enough peach cobbler to feed an army (if you'll excuse the expression) and just in case the giant squid refuses to share the cobbler, I baked a cheesecake and two pineapple upsidedown cakes and they're in the fridge and only need to be warmed up if we need them. When I make cobbler, I really make cobbler. None of this wimpy baking dishes with dough on the bottom, filling in the middle and strips of dough on top. I make individual cobblers that look like small pumpkins and when you put your spoon into the crust, oooo delicious peach stuff inside. I make sure Cowboy has eaten about half of one before I subtly mention the Visa bill or the new carpeting I ordered for our bedroom.

(When you get an up-close-and-personal look at it as often as I do... it's gets old fast.)

Passover comes first and I've already got a few things ready for that dinner. We're having 20 guests and I don't want to have to rush. The traditional Passover dinner includes FOUR glasses of wine! I'm pretty sure I'll be lucky to get away with 4 sips. I'm not much of a drinker and there's so many special dishes to enjoy I don't want to pass out before I eat everything. There's a special matzoh (unleavened bread) that gets hidden at the beginning of the meal. Whoever finds it gets a reward and it has to be found for the meal to end.

I find it every year and the reason for this is that I'm the one who hides it.

Allegedly the person sitting at the head of the table pays the reward. Ha! I make EVERYONE pay. Cowboy says that's not the way it's supposed to be. Excuse me! My house, my table, my food, my cooking, my rules. Pay up! I accept all kinds of chocolate and if you're foolish enough not to bring me a bribe before you arrive, please remember I will hunt you down to get you to make good on the I.O.U. When it comes to chocolate, I take no prisoners and I prefer imported...

"SAR!"

Tsk.

So... back to Easter.

It's chocolate bunny and jellybean time.

~sigh~

Does it get any better than this?

One year, Cowboy brought this HUGE Easter basket home before Easter. It had a humonguous chocolate bunny in it and naturally, I assumed it was for me. So I ate the ears and I didn't want the animals to nose it so I put the cellophane back around the entire basket.

"SAR!"

Jeez. I bet they heard him all the way to Peoria.

"You ate the ears off the chocolate bunny?" This bit of rhetoric was asked in the form of a roar.

"Gosh, honey. Ya think?"

SWAT!

Tsk.

His Holiness, indignantly: "I bought that for the children's Easter party at the base."

Me, matter-of-factly: "Looks like you'll have to buy another one."

SWAT!

Tsk.

He brought a chocolate bunny into MY house and expected me to ignore it? Folks... everyone has occasional bouts of stupid-itis, even Admirals.

So... since the basket was now all mine - possession is 9/10ths of the law, etc., I decided to stash the rest of the bunny away and eat it at my leisure when the giant squid's glare was aimed elsewhere.

I'm on my hands and knees in the upstairs hall closet rearranging things so I can put the basket behind stuff and the basket tips over and... VOILA! There are jellybeans under the basket grass!

Oh joy!

Black jellybeans are my favorite and I needed to eat all those, so I did. My next favorite are the sweet white ones, ate those, too. The rest can wait for a while. Orange and yellow and purple and dark green and pink. All good but then I discovered light green ones - apple green... swoon Was really enjoying my sugar high when I happened to glance up and would you believe it! The giant squid is leaning against the closet door and watching me!

His Holiness is 6 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs 235 lbs. I don't know how many stone that is but I bet it's a HUGE boulder. When I'm standing next to him, he's tall. When I'm sitting on the floor and he's standing, he's Paul Bunyan! When I'm sitting on the floor and eating something he doesn't want me to eat... and he's standing... he's a giant paddle!

Oy.

Doomed.

SWAT!

Tsk.

Years later, I still eat the ears off of any chocolate bunny that makes it to my house. I still eat all the black and white jellybeans and ever since that children's Easter party at the navy base... where a lot of the children's chocolate bunnies were missing ears... I haven't been invited back.

Tsk.

"I don't want you eating all that chocolate this year," he told me the other day.

"Uh huh."

"I mean it, Sar."

"I hear you."

So... I only ate the ears and was it my fault the basket he brought home had six bunnies in it?

It's a good thing I ordered that new carpet. I have a feeling I'm going to get a really close look at it any day now.

Tsk.

~Sar~