the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters

I spent a very nice Easter Sunday at my aunt's house. She cooked a shitload of food, including a ham, potato casserole, a fruit pizza, and two batches of Green Glop, one with no pineapple just for me! I only cooked one batch of my stuffing. I had wanted to make two at least, but I wasn't able to cook any on Saturday night becase I had a really bad asthma attack. The worst I've had in a long time. I don't know why, but over the past few days, my asthma has suddenly gotten worse. So now I'm trying to take it easy, and I haven't had any more problems since that night.

It rained all day Sunday, so Eva and I had to have our Easter egg hunt in the living room. She found more than I did. That girl is a hoot. At one point during lunch, everybody started talking about family resemblances and who looked like who, and Eva said to me: "Well, I don't which one of your parents you look like because I can't remember either of them." I laughed so hard.

I finally remembered to ask to borrow their copy of Pan's Labyrinth and watched it last night. Damn. Some scenes had me sitting rigid and wide-eyed in my chair, while others made me cover my eyes and wince. I was actually happy when the DVD started skipping and I was forced to take a break from it all for a minute.

I just bought six heavenly hash eggs, my favorite Easter candy, for $1.50!

We kept the pilot light in our heater on all winter (my uncle had to show me how to light it three times before I finally got the hang of it), and a few days ago, I blew it out, thinking the cold weather was over for good. Of course that very night, the temperature suddenly dropped, and the next morning our apartment was chilly and I had to turn the pilot light back on. Anyway...

Shit That Went Well Today:

I was the employee of the month for February, which means I got a bonus of $75 in my paycheck today! I'm working on a list of things to spend it on, so I won't end up blowing it on boring stuff like bills. I've also gotten very good at getting reward card sign-ups. On Tuesday I set a new personal best with eleven, and today I got seven -- both are a lot, since the overall store is supposed to make a daily total of ten. It only slightly bust my bubble when my manager told me that yesterday I'd made a big (but honest) mistake that cost the store a lot of time and money. She was nice about it, and nobody made a big deal over it, but it still made me feel pretty crappy.

Grandma made spaghetti today, so I went to her house on my lunch break and stuffed my face. She also had a devil's food cake hot out of the oven, but it wasn't until I got home from work tonight that I found out why she had made it (Sara asked her later). Grandma: "It's your dad's birthday today." I still don't know whether to find that funny or crazy or sad. It's certainly a very Grandma thing to do. She's the only one who would bake a birthday cake for a man who's been dead +4 years. And then just for overkill, she gave me a candy bar, just like she's done every year on Dad's birthday and death day (or, as the people at Find-a-Grave ridiculously call it, "angel day"). Which is nice, I guess, but how long is she going to keep that up? Until she dies? Until old-age senility sinks in and she forgets who Dad was? We'll see.

A big Mardi Gras parade rolled right by our store this evening. It was noisy, but at least we didn't get any drunk people wandering into our store and acting crazy, which is what my manager said happened last year. It was a geeky, comforting feeling to be inside, straightening all my office supplies, while the revelry carried on right outside. It's weird that when I was a kid, I looked forward to Mardi Gras, but now, it's lost most of its appeal to me. They don't throw as much candy at parades now, and after years of having a basketful of Mardi Gras beads in my closet, I realize what pointless, worthless things they really are.

And HOORAY for me being OFF all this weekend! Tomorrow I'm attending a program at the geneology library that I've been looking forward to, and Sunday is the Oscars!

Sara and I have both managed to get eye infections.

It was sunny and cool today, so I went on a long bike ride. First I rode downtown and saw part of the MLK parade and the other MLK Day festivities at the Civic Center. The parade was nice, but for some reason, there were a lot of horses in it, so it didn't smell very good. The other downside is that I was the only white person I saw there, and don't think I didn't look. I tried not to let it make me uncomfortable, but it did. The longer I was there, the more I didn't get it. And I didn't get it when my sister looked at me like I was nuts and said "Why?" when I told her where I'd been.

It reminded me of the first day back to school after MLK Day, when the Key Club would include a quote from him in the morning prayer. And every year, it was said by the same student, the only black member of the Key Club (there weren't many black students at my private high school). And I wondered then if there was some rule that he was the only one who could quote MLK.

It's like white people don't seem to feel entitled to celebrate MLK Day. Maybe because of the whole "white guilt" thing, or maybe because I live in the South, but either way, I don't get it. It's sad if black people are the only ones who celebrate MLK Day, because it's not as if he believed in special rights for blacks. He was about equality for all, and that's a message that everyone should be able to celebrate. On the same note, I don't feel that Obama's win is a victory for black America. That reminds me of high school too, when my theology told me that JKF's win was a victory for Catholics (because he was the first Catholic president). JFK's win was a victory for everyone, because it proved that America was wiser, more tolerant, and knew not to judge a man by his religion alone. The same goes for Obama. His win is proof of how far we've come.

Anyway... when I took Sable on a walk today, we were followed by a stray dog I'd never seen before (and I know a lot of the dogs in the neighborhood). It was odd, because he was a little puppy, very energetic and frisky, and black all over -- all things that Sable used to be. It was almost like young Sable had sprung out of 1996 and was following us along. I don't think 2009 Sable liked him. He spent the rest of the afternoon being depressed.

Sara and I went shopping yesterday and right inside the entrance, there was a display right with packages of a dozen cupcakes. They had red, white, and blue frosting, and half of them had tiny rice-paper pictures of MLK, and other half, Obama. I loved that; we should've gotten some, but we didn't. MLK cupcakes are more delicious than regular cupcakes because they taste like justice and equality!