Dad Swallowed a Smurf

Isn’t that the best picture ever? Hehe. After I took it, Greg said, “Ohhh no, Aleta has something to blog about!” Dad remarked, “Don’t you DARE put that picture up.” But he knew better. He’ll probably even share my blog with family, because, I mean, hey, it’s priceless! It looks like Dad swallowed a Smurf. Usually Dad is so serious in pictures, I love it when I can capture these moments, because this is my Dad – smurf tongue and all!

So, what caused the color? Purple Yam Ice Cream. Remember the Purple Yam bread from the Philippines, I mentioned as a topic, I’ll write more about that another day. It seems they make it for ice cream as well. It isn’t overly sweet like most ice creams. It is smooth and yes, it tasted, well ~ good. I don’t know how to describe it. Roda is educating us about her culture as much as she’s learning about ours!

The picture was from tonight, when my family came over to enjoy some leftover food from Easter. Roda made egg rolls, which she knows I love, as well as the ice cream. Mom and Dad made beans. We had plenty of ham left over and so much more now that I think we actually have more in leftovers today than we did after Easter!

Let me backtrack ~ Easter day was lovely. Greg and I decorated the house with the various eggs and Easter decor I’ve gathered over the years. I love to decorate for the holidays, but what’s better is when it can be shared with family and friends. Greg’s family came over for Easter lunch. He prepared the meat and his sisters and parents brought over side dishes and desert.

I love the Easter Lilly from Greg’s parents. It’s in our garden, but I have to plant it. I’d like to see it come back year after year. What a treat that would be! After dinner, everyone had fun with the Wii games. Madelyn was using my character and after I saw her bowling scores, I said, “You can be me any time you want!” Casey also did really well on the snowboarding.

Greg F (Greg’s brother-in-law) told us a story about how his father made yard art; how he would cut the boards and paint them. He said, “One year, my father made an Easter Bunny, but he accidentally cut one of the ears off! When he fixed it, both ears were going in the same direction!” We laughed and I replied, “You could take off the broken ear, cut some teeth marks into it and paint it chocolate!”

All in all it was a great visit, a lot of fun, good food and good people.

My parents and Rob and Roda came over about 5ish that same day, just to stop in and wish us a Happy Easter. They looked so tired after driving in from Zachary, where my grandmother hosted her Easter gathering.

I’m not exactly sure how it started, but somehow the conversation went to the beading meeting, which was the Saturday before Easter. Roda and I sat next to Beverly and Sally. Bev and Sally are great. They love to laugh and there’s a sense of friendship between them that’s almost tangible. Sally asked Roda some questions about her getting certified as a nurse, as this is Sally’s field. At the end of the meeting, when most of the members left, Sally mentioned to Bev how Sally’s husband has three surgeries he has to go in for, his tennis elbow, carpal tunnel and surgery on his hand.

Oh, wait! I remember how this conversation came up with my family. Mom asked about the beading meeting, Roda said how much she liked Sally and how funny she was, the giggles demanded a story telling.

Sorry, back to the story. Anyway, Sally said that both of her husband’s arms needed the surgery, to which Bev responded, “I’m not coming over to your house that day! Hey, he should get one arm done at a time, otherwise, how’s he going to wipe his butt.” At this point, we all busted out laughing. Roda laughs when she repeats Sally’s retort, “I’m a nurse, I wipe everyone else’s butt, why not my own husband’s?” Hehe They are a trip; they keep it real and have a fantastic sense of humor!

The conversation with my family went from wiping someone’s butt to games of Canasta and Mom repeatedly questioned, “What I want to know is WHY Rob doesn’t mind losing now!” Rob, the man who is very competitive and can get a tad upset when he loses, now has a laissez-faire attitude. Come to find out that Rob made this decision after one game where the girls (Mom and Roda) “sconked” (my parents word for saying the winners won by a landslide) the guys (Dad and Rob) ~ after that game, Rob told Roda, “The winner has to CONSOLE the loser.” To which, after much questioning by my family ~ how the consolation goes, Roda turned bright pink and said, “He’s a nasty man!” Rob was laughing so hard that he was crying and had to walk away from the table.

When we told my parents about Greg F’s bunny art, Dad turned to Greg, “You want to hear, Dirty! What Gay (my Mom’s name) did to me one Easter, now THAT was dirty!”

And so the story goes…. Mom is a teacher. Before the holidays, it’s typical that children will give her gifts for the season. Sometimes it’s candy or candles or various things of that nature. Right before the schools let out a couple of years ago for Easter, Mom received a chocolate bunny. She described it as “a pretty bunny, decorated with tiny candy flowers. It was chocolate and was inside of a box and I thought, “This would be nice to give to Lester.”” So, Mom brought the chocolate bunny home and gave it to Dad.

Dad is like me, he likes chocolate. He said, “The bunny looked good and I wanted to save it, so I put the chocolate bunny (still left in the box) in the freezer to save it for a time when I had a hankering for something sweet. About a week after Easter, I wanted chocolate and remembered the bunny and really wanted to bite the ear off. I took the bunny out of the freezer, out of the box and bit it.”

Mom continued the story, “You know how chocolate gets really hard in the freezer? Your Dad tried to bite that bunny’s ear again, but it wasn’t going to budge. He was determined though!” Mom thumped her two fingers in the table hard, repeatedly. “Your Dad took that bunny and said, “This bunny isn’t going to get the best of me!” He took that bunny and whacked it again and again against the table until the bunny’s ear came off!”

Dad said, “When your Mom came home that day from school, I told her, “That was a DIRTY trick you played on me with the bunny!” She asked what I meant and I showed her the bunny.”

The bunny....

was ceramic, not chocolate!

(At this point, I think Rob fell off his chair, he was laughing so hard.)

I want to thank you for the comments on my previous post. I’m going to gather my thoughts and get those topics out to you. I hope you’ll enjoy them! Oh and Vivek Patwardhan, you mentioned the pictures of Alaska. I’ll have to see if I can find my journal notes about the trip. I don’t know if any vacation can every top the beauty of those sites.

Oh and if you want to see some additional pictures of Easter, I added some more to the Easter2009 on my Picasa site, including some pictures of the decorations and our families coming over. Click Here.