Cousins Day, March 2010

We were just finishing round #9 of the morning game of 65 when the text message came from Walt.

"A squirrel just peed on our roof," he wrote. (This is the beauty of cell phones and instant technology--you don't miss a single moment in the life of your loved ones.) I responded "Did it hit you on the head? Everybody wants to know how you knew."

We never got an answer, but it sparked the discussion about squirrel elimination. Do mail squirrels lift their legs when they pee, or do they squat?

It is the meaty stuff of such topics as these which make up conversation at Cousins day.

Yes, we've come through another Cousins Day. Peach and Kathy picked me up yesterday morning, earlier than usual, and we were at my mother's in time to have a cup of coffee or two before lunch.

After lunch, of course, the cards came out. Three games before Kathy went to take a nap. My mother, Peach and I played 2 games of canasta while Kathy was asleep. I crushed them in the first game and the second game was pretty even until...I think it was my mother who won the 2nd game, but we were all within 500 points of each other, which was pretty good.

Then it was time to break out the drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Peach made something called an "Olympic Martini," which had really pretty liquors.

The bottle on the left is something called a 'Cranberry Twist Mix." The stuff in the middle is "X Rated," which is "a sensuous fusion of ultra premium French Vodka and Sicilian Blood Orange mingling with Mango and Passion Fruit." Quite yummy, I mist admit. And then the blue bottle is just plain Skyy vodka, equal parts of each over maraschino cherries and it was delicious.

Kathy made hors d'oeuvres, which was a mixture of chicken, sesame seeds, sesame oil, soy sauce, and mayonnaise all stuffed in pre-made filo dough shells, and also delicious.

We continued to play cards until time for dinner. This month was going to be our crab feed. My mother had gone to some sort of boat shop, where the crabs are brought in fresh every day and they were delicious.

(Yes, I do realize that this blog is starting to become a litany of crabs I have eaten!)

While we were eating dinner, I got a text/photo message from Bri, via Tom about the Jacquie Lawson card I had sent her for St. Patrick's Day.

"Thanks, Grandma!"

I made a small mistake when I responded "Night, Night, Bri." I should have taken my picture to go along with the message...but we'll get this thing worked out. I'm very encouraged!

We were asleep by 10:30 and in the morning I made breakfast. It had the promise of being really good, a recipe I got from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook and it looked delicious.

The recipe called for putting ham in the bottom of individual ramekins, then topping with either sliced tomatoes or some sort of salsa, top with an egg and sprinkle with cheese. Broil for about 4 minutes to set the yolk on the egg. Well, it LOOKED good, but I made two mistakes. I put the egg UNDER the salsa, so the yolk cooked, but the white was raw...and the salsa was just barely warm and quite watery. I should have drained the salsa and put the egg on TOP of it. But what we could eat was tasty anyway.

My mother kicked us out of the house after Peach won all the morning's games and we drove home.

We never did get our squirrel questions answered, but when I got home, Walt said it had been too complicated to answer by text message. Seems he'd been lying on the bed and he saw water dripping down off the roof. He didn't know what happened until the water drops stopped and he saw a squirrel look over the edge of the roof. Which also brings up the question--what was the squirrel looking for?