I was really looking forward to dyeing eggs on Saturday night. Alisha came over and even though she’ll deny this, she was super stoked to get all up in the Paas.

Unfortunately, my party was crashed and I was quickly reminded of how teenage girls take the douche crown. One of them even had the audacity to ask if Chooch can understand words. I don’t know, can YOU?

But that is a rant for another day.

Chooch seemed to enjoy himself at least, and that made me happy (even though I did a lot of internal cringing as I watched his sleeve get stained with dye).

Also, the Penguins won and that was a very good consolation as well.

Easter morning started out decent enough. Chooch tore through his basket, which was filled with really annoying toys, like a potato gun, squirt guns, and one of those Let’s Go Fishin’! games which make incessant plastic gear-grinding music and he doesn’t even play it right which makes me nervous because god forbid he should lose any of the fish, then the game will be RUINED. I HATE missing pieces. HATE!!

He also got one of those pooping pig keychains, and also a Dracula keychain, so I guess now he’ll have to get some keys. Perhaps when I finally get my wish of building him his own house 50 miles away* from mine, he’ll have a need for the keychains. (* A joke! Really, I’m thinking of five states away. Though, as he’s upstairs right now throwing tantrums, Alaska is looking very sexy.)

Shortly after basket-ravaging, my aunt called and stressed me all out (re: my mother) and my heart was palpitating so hard that if there were any vampires in the vicinity, they’d have been salivating on my doorstep. Apparently my mother is telling people that I’m not speaking to her because sometime back in October, I wanted to go to a haunted house but she wouldn’t babysit for me. Yes, that’s it exactly,  mother. Because I’m fifteen years old and that is where my priorities lie.

And then after that, my ex-best friend and I had a fight too and I was like, “Happy fucking Easter, where’s my shotgun?!” She is so lucky she lives five hours away and I don’t care enough about her to waste my time by driving there and kicking her in her gap-toothed lying mouth. I hate a fucking liar.

(Clearly I don’t respond well to being fucked over.)

Happily though, Dyanna and Alisha came over that night for a casual We Have No Family In Pittsburgh Easter Dinner. Henry made spaghetti and some digusting soil-crusted meat-product that snaked malignantly across the plate and taunted me with its fleshy petulance.

I could have done without that, meating-up my lovely dinner party. I was also disturbed that Henry bought Cool Whip for the pie, and not ice cream. Who puts Cool Whip on apple pie? NOT ME. A la mode does not mean WITH COOL WHIP, it means SUFFOCATED UNDER A SOPPING WET BALL OF FUCKING DELICIOUS ICE CREAM. And don’t even get me started on the pineapple upside down pie. With pecans. It’s meant to be CAKE. NOT PIE. It was very upsetting to a pineapple upside down CAKE afficionado (i.e. myself) to not get to have that satisfying sensation of the fork splooging down into the moist and springy mound of CAKE. You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t front. The way the pineapple syrup bullshit coagulates into a sticky glaze? Has ever there been a dessert so demanding to be fucked by your mouth?

Fuck you, Aunt Martha, whoever the piss you are, making a mockery of the entire institution of pie.

Most of the night, Chooch rode sinisterly back and forth through the house on his tricycle, like that midget thing from “Saw,” blurting out lovely sentiments like, “Shut up, I hate you, bitch.” Then he went to bed and I made Alisha and Dyanna watch the Eternal Word Television Network with me, because it’s my favorite thing to do when I have company. Seeing Alisha squirm and hide under her hoodie during a riveting show that consisting of nothing else but a bunch of nuns reciting the rosary in unison completely made up for the stress I endured earlier in the day. And then Dyanna got the hiccups and I couldn’t stop laughing and eventually I had to bury my head in a pillow.

It was a really good evening.

I never did get over the pie perturbance, though.

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Many moons ago, when I was a spry sixteen year old, I went to my neighbor Jessy’s house to color Easter eggs. Not knowing Jessy very well, I had to censor the ideas I had for my eggs. It’s never wise to draw pictures on the eggs with wax crayon depicting Jesus molesting young boys when you haven’t officially tested the waters surrounding your company. She may have been a Bible jockey – what did I know? So our eggs were your standard fare – brightly colored, some boasting our names and superlatives expressing the magnitude of our undeniable coolness.

As we marveled over our freshly colored eggs, Jessy shared with me a tradition from her childhood. She encouraged me to select my favorite egg from the batch and then told me to take it home, place it somewhere dark and dry, and eventually it would shrivel and become hard as a rock. I would be left with an unbreakable souvenir of that year’s Easter. She said her grandma did it every year, so I had a lot of confidence in her.

I went home and chose a porcelain container situated in the hutch in our dining room. Carefully nestling the egg inside the dark compartment, I gave it one last loving stroke for good measure and replaced the lid.

After an uncertain amount of time, my mom decided that she was going to clean. Typically, when my mom said she was going to clean, it entailed clutter being kicked and shoved under furniture and into drawers that already were resisting closure [note: this is where I learned my housekeeping ethics]. But on that day, something had possessed her to go all out and dust the dining room.

All was calm and quiet in the house; the muted din of cartoons mingled with a cacophony of chirping birds from outside. Suddenly, my mother’s piercing shriek could be heard ’round the neighborhood. I ran into the dining room just in time to witness my former pre-birth vessel, frozen in terror, holding the lid to the porcelain jar while an army of maggots swarmed around it, undulating and looking generally disgusting.

I was in trouble.

Since then, I’ve learned that there’s an entire process that needs to be followed in order to preserve Easter eggs. And it’s too much work for me.

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Four years ago, in an effort to really immerse ourselves in the Easter spirit, Henry and I invited Alisha over to indulge in some adult egg coloring. And by adult, I mean to say none of this wholesome “I Love God” egg-dyeing bullshit. My eggs were billboards for unsavory epithets like Fucknoodle and Dickshitter. This was the way eggs were meant to be. This was art.

I had huge dreams of making a Porno Series, in which we would enhance each egg with paint so that they would depict naked nymphos, ready to get it on. I had this highly ambitious endeavor of creating an entire storyboard from it which would propel me into stardom.

I could sense the fear that Henry was emanating. It smelt of nachos and the Service, circa 1984.

“Um, so what exactly is this going to entail, this porno egg thing?” Henry questioned as he nervously rubbed his arms. I’m afraid that he was picturing some grandiose scene of us shoving freshly-colored eggs into his ass while paying spectators watched from behind a red-velvet rope. So paranoid. But that would make for some classy performance art.

Everything was progressing normally until Alisha plopped an egg into a mug of dye and ogled over the unusual sludgy color. Henry, always needing to stick his nose into everything, came over to inspect it as well.

I haven’t dyed eggs probably since the previous story unfolded, so I assumed that maybe Paas was trying to be all hip by not discriminating against colors and they were maybe slowly introducing ethnic shades into their color line. Personally, I thought it was a huge leap forward for the future of egg-coloring.

Alisha swished and swirled her egg around in the brown dye a few more times before announcing that nothing was happening. That was when we realized it was my coffee. It took three of us to come to this conclusion. College has made a huge impact on me so far!

The eggs turned out splendidly, especially my blue and yellow variation, but unfortunately the eggs in my Porno Series did not come out as expected. The … male genitalia that I drew with tongue-protruding concentration and accuracy dried to resemble a smiley. I remembered that we had glitter egg paint, so I demanded that Henry drop trou and model for me as I attempted to paint over the failed weener. He refused and opted instead to Google images for me. Because I’m Amish.

The result was still terrible and looked more like an elephant. Much respect for Michelangelo. However, the boobs I painted on the female egg came out perky and voluptuous, rivaling any silicone-enhanced pair crafted by the hands of a Beverly Hills surgeon. Well, almost.

And I made a very special, Henrydandy egg that will surely be cherished by a certain someone for years to come.

[Henry used to wear a bandanna and have long hair, FYI. (Not FTW.)]

There was no hiding of eggs in dark, dry places yesterday after Alisha and I painstakingly turned the ordinary stark shells into glorious masterpieces. So this Easter, while some people were in church learning about the Resurrection of Christ, I was learning that coffee does not adhere to eggs and that I shouldn’t go into business painting weeners.

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I’m hoping that tomorrow night, when I try my hand at egg-dyeing once again with Alisha, it will be so much fun that Jesus will rise a day early to dunk his junk in some green Paas. I mean, egg. To dunk his EGG. Oh, and Blake will be here too, so maybe, if all goes well, the night will veer into  STD Cookies: Ovum Edition.

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While Choocch ravaged the pile of gifts (I didn’t get one single thing and still, my bottom lip did not protrude), all the cats hid safely in the basement. Except for Nicotina (see also: Speck, Breakfast Nook) who was right up in it, playing with wrapping paper scraps and twist ties.

Because we’re stupid parents, nearly everything we bought required assembly. I attemped to master the instructions that came with an airport playset, but quickly found that drool was pooling in the corner of my mouth and my hands were beginning to curl inward. Henry took over and had it erected in a matter of minutes, but he left the sheet of stickers intact for my enjoyment.

And here is where Christmas quickly spiraled into a clusterfuck on par with being fucked by barbed wired dildos: I think I might have a mild form of OCD, I don’t know, but I found that the tiniest slight in sticker application was bringing my blood to a rolling boil. Henry kept saying completely insensitive things like, “What are you retarded? You can’t put a fucking sticker on properly?” and, as I was twisting my arm around Chooch’s fat head, trying to slap a sticker on the airport tower, “Here’s a thought: Why not wait until Chooch is done playing before putting the stickers on?” I couldn’t stop. In fact, I was about to get out a fucking level to ensure precision.

Then, to Chooch, he says, “Ignore her Chooch. She doesn’t understand that you just want to play. She’s a GIRL.”

And then this exchange happened: “Shut the fuck up! I’m more of a boy than you’ll ever be! Get back in the fucking kitchen you bitch!” And he did. Henry went right the fuck back in that kitchen and continued coddling the eggs he was was hardboiling for our picnic. He’s such a bitch I’m surprised he didn’t try to breast feed them, too.

And here is where I regressed to the emotionally undeveloped age of five: I noticed that while I was undergoing the diligent, steady-handed task of toy embellishing, Chooch was in the process of peeling off every sticker I had painstakingly smoothed on. And I lost it. Absolutely flipped my shit and shrieked, “OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT JUST FORGET IT TODAY IS FUCKING RUUUUUIIIIINNNNEDDD!!!!” No exaggeration. I said that. In high-pitched, calling-all-dogs mode. And then I stormed off to my bedroom, where I slammed the door behind me and layed in bed, staring at the ceiling for fifteen minutes until the electrical currents stopped zapping my nerves.

And then the rest of the day was great! Really fucking good. No fighting, no tears.

I got Chooch an Edgar Allen Poe doll. Judging by his confusing expression in this photo, you can tell he just loves it.

“Great, Mommy’s projecting her interests on me again. I wish I could just get a shittin’ Elmo like normal kids my age.”

Then it was off to the Uniondale Cemetery (going to the cem on Christmas is kind of our accidental tradition, I guess), where we had a very fast and frigid picnic consisting of egg salad sandwiches, pretzels, cheese cubes, and frozen strawberries (per Chooch’s request). Yes, it was a feast for kings, to be sure. For the record, the shopping list I gave Henry the day before demanded things like “a delicious array of rich cheeses” and “hearty artisan bread for which to sandwich the delicious array of rich cheeses,” among other fine products you might find in a palace’s pantry. All Henry got was eggs to hardboil, bland wheat rolls that were so dry they sucked the mayo from the egg salad, and two packages of Helluva Good.But I didn’t complain. I guess I’m complaining now, but the point is that I didn’t complain THEN. As in, on CHRISTMAS. I kept my maw packed with picnic fixin’s and distracted myself with the camera.

The coldness kept us from enjoying a lingering tour of the cemetery, and Henry and I were desperate to leave after twenty minutes. Chooch had other plans and took off, slaloming through tombstones and whacking trees with sticks while chomping on a pretzel; probably I’m sure this is some nefarious sequence used to raise Samhain. Chasing him down, I panted, “Come on, we have to go home! The zombies are coming!” and he replied, “Aw, cute. Zombies!” None of my lies work on this kid.

Later, we stopped over my dad’s, where Henry presented him with a case of Faygo rootbeer in bottles. Apparently, this was a good gift because my dad got that nostalgic glaze over his eyes and began regaling us of the good old days when soda was a luxury and if your parents gave you a glass bottle of Cola, you damn well drank it to the last drop. Henry I’m sure remembers those days too.

Now, my dad and Henry haven’t spent much time together, and my brother told me that when Henry and I first got together my dad didn’t approve because of the age difference. But that case of old fashioned root beer just may have brought them together, as evidenced by the jolly way my dad was patting Henry on the back, offering him kielbasi and referring to him as “buddy.”

My other, less-mentioned brother Ryan was there too, but only emerged from the basement long enough to hit up the bathroom. “Did Ryan say hello to you?” my dad asked. And I said, “If a head-nod counts as a hello, then yes. Yes, he said hello to me.”

My dad’s house is always so warm and cozy. I should spend more time there. But instead, I only opt for the requisite holiday face-showing. I’m a horrible daughter. (Somewhere, my mom is cackling and rejoicing, “She admits it!”)

Back at home, we spent the rest of the night eating nut rolls and chocolate, and watching Chooch play with his Thomas train tracks. And I got drunk.

So maybe my family (Mom’s side) is a bunch of pathological nut jobs and so maybe we didn’t have a Christmas tree  and so maybe we didn’t even set out cookies for the fat man on Christmas Eve, but by golly I wasn’t going to let my Christmas go down the shitter. All that really mattered anyway was the Chooch was happy, and I’d be willing to bet that, based on the deliriously goofy smile that was plastered on his grubby face all day, he was pretty fucking delighted.

And oh, look who likes Poe after all!

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I hope everyone had a lovely holiday/day off. Ours was mellow (meaning I only threw one tantrum) and overall ended up being a nice day. More later; I have a Thomas playset to project my OCD on for now.

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 15:38 all i want for xmas is for armsbendback to reunite. get on that, fat man. #
• 18:37 a big heart is filling the April 5 block of my calendar.. #
• 21:53 It is weird seeing Henry in his natural habitat. #
• 23:51 Elmer Klump took a dump in his grandmother’s wig. #

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• 11:23 Had a spaz attack trying to follow “sticker placement” instructions for a toy airport playset only to have Chooch peel them all off. #
• 11:52 The Thomas Carnival Adventure set comes with stickers adhered. I’m sending a thank you card. Maybe even a fruit cake. #
• 12:52 twitpic.com/wefe – FUCK YOU. Get terrorized, you piece of shit. #
• 14:35 Got Chooch an Edgar Allen Poe doll. His response was “Um. Oookay,” after which he dropped it in favor of, u know, age appropriate toys. #
• 17:08 Chooch is on this odd church-going kick. Whose kid is this? #
• 19:59 Well, if Henry really did marinate my tofu in urine, I’m only alarmed because I liked it. #
• 20:03 The trick to not overeating on holidays is to not have family who invite you over for dinner. #

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The night before Thanksgiving, Henry stayed up until 2:00am, rifling through his grandma’s recipes like a normal man rifles through porn. I don’t know what he was looking for, considering that I procured an entire feast worth of gourmet recipes from this little thing I just heard about recently called the Internet. Of course Henry found something wrong with every selection: Too-expensive-ingredients (“That will cost more than the turkey!”). Lack of industrial kitchen. Not enough education completed to comprehend recipe wording.

In the end, he settled on:

• Smashed rutabaga with gingered pears
• Turnips gratin (hello new edible husband)
• Scalloped corn
• Meatless stuffing
• Mustard mashed potatoes (“OMG Tyler from the Food Network made them!”)
• Sweet potato pie

 

Oh, and that over-hyped turkey bullshit that everyone is always buzzing about.

 

 

My contribution to the day was taking Chooch to my dad’s house so that Henry could cook in the highest, most divine level of tranquility. Now, I only see my dad on holidays. Shame on me, sure, I know. But it’s awkward because our relationship was once more strained than the ab muscles of a man attempting to suck his own dick. Technically my step-dad, he legally adopted me when I was in the fourth grade. We engaged in non-stop battles of wits and psychological warfare for the entire duration of my teenaged years. Then he and my mom divorced and ironically, we now get along famously; and in an incredible twist, he was the only family member who talked to me while I was pregnant.

 

 

Corey, who was staying there while home from college, failed to tell him that Chooch and I were coming over, so my dad was genuinely shocked when he saw us on his doorstep. It was probably 75% of an act, but he seemed happy to see us and proceeded to dole out peanuts, JuJu Bees and cans of pop. He even gave me some Bagelfuls to take home, complete with single-serving packets of cream cheese. A trip to his house is always like a mini-grocery trip.

 

 

While he cooked, I made sure Chooch didn’t fall down the basement steps, eat paint chips, or break any of my dad’s classic car memorabilia, while Corey acted disinterested in our presence and my other brother Ryan napped on the couch. I got roped into sitting down for dinner with them, wherein my dad immediately picked a fight with Ryan, who evidently didn’t load his plate with enough food. “I told you not to eat all day!” my dad steamed, to which Ryan grunted, “Jesus Christ, Dad, I only ate some cashews!” My dad countered with a surly, “I saw the cheese you opened up in the fridge!” at which point Ryan hunkered down lower over his plate which seemed plenty decorated to me.

 

 

In an effort to break the ice, I chirped, “These mashed potatoes are really good, daddy!” He muttered that they were too runny, but really, anything tastes delicious when the butter ratio is 50/50.

 

 

Corey and Ryan didn’t speak at all throughout the painful meal, and I’m sure they were just thrilled at how kind our dad was being to me. He even noticed my hair and enthused about its aesthetic merits for just a note longer than natural.

 

I love my dad, but I was glad that I had a legitimate reason to shirk my way out the front door. Tension, it just doesn’t sit well with me.

 

 

Dinner at my house was supposed to be at 7, so that those who had other dinners to attend (Janna, Corey and Blake) would be newly starved by the time they came over for seconds. However, Henry’s tardy ass didn’t serve shit up until EIGHT O’CLOCK and everyone was bored, angry, hungry. Look at those mugs on Janna and Corey. You’d think they were watching a slide presentation of Henry’s mom dusting her ceramic kitten collection, that’s how glazed with ennui they are.

 

 

Sensing that a revolt was on the rise, Henry served up deviled eggs for us to stuff our mouths with while he frantically finished cooking.

 

 

For some reason, Henry was really impressed with himself. He kept boasting that the eggs were deviled with STONE GROUND MUSTARD. I’m not even sure what that means. They tasted regular to me, like he could have squirted in a quick fart of French’s for all I know. Something weird clearly went on in my house while Chooch and I were at my dad’s, because no one gets THAT excited over deviled eggs.

 

 

Finally, the moment for feasting was upon us, and we all loaded our fancy paper plates with mounds of seasonal slop. Blake pretty much questioned everything aside from the turkey, which was easily recognizable (good job, Henry). I explained to him that I wanted to eschew the expected and serve new twists on tradition. “You mean, you wanted my dad to make things that even YOU can eat,” Blake corrected. And oh how we laughed. (As I silently wished for Blake to choke on a turkey bone.) (Just kidding, Blake.) (No really.)

 

 

As I tore into my plate, I realized Corey didn’t have a fork. “It’s OK,” he promised. “I don’t mind waiting. I’ll just have a roll.” He paused, considering that statement, before holding up his broken hand and adding with the slight hint of chagrin, “Though, even THAT is a challenge.” He should have been giving less lip and more thanks for the fact that he has a hand AT ALL.

 

Later, he momentarily lost his appetite when he mistook the really expensive paper napkins to say “Joyous Fetus” instead of the much less interesting “Joyous Fetes.” We all laughed, but I don’t think Henry understood what was going on because he probably doesn’t even know what “fetes” means.

 

 

We’re so classy that we used our best plastic serving bowls. Not even TUPPERWEAR. Just generic, microwave-ravaged plastic. And there’s the gravy that burnt Henry’s hand and thank God it did because I really enjoyed hearing him cry about it all night long. I thought his mom was going to rush him to the Veteran’s hospital. I could almost see Henry’s mind churning: “Remember what they taught you in the SERVICE, big guy. You will pull through this! YOU WERE IN THE AIR FORCE, GODDAMMIT.”

 

And then Henry’s mom called Janna a myriad of other J-names (Janet, Janice, Joanne) but never Janna, and swore she hated sweet potato pie before admitting that she had never had it. Now she’s had it and likes it, though I maintain that Henry’s version (apparently it was EMERIL’S RECIPE, what a fucking carving knife to my heart) tasted unlike any sweet potato pie I’ve ever had. Ever. Like, no semblance at all.

 

 

Overall, I thought it was pretty good for our first time hosting a holiday in my ridiculously small dining room. I know I had fun, and Blake and Henry’s mom seemed content. Janna basically looked like she had just finished watching a double feature of “Benji” and “Old Yeller,” and Corey just looked bored as usual. The shit Henry made was good, and even the gravy was vegetarian. I learned later that my mother translated Corey’s spot at my table into meaning that — oh my god — he’s on MY SIDE. And this is exactly why I was happy to do my own thing this Thanksgiving.

 

 

Last night, I yelled, “I can’t wait to have Christmas here too!” but Henry remained curiously silent.

 

EDIT: I WILL NEVER COPY AND PASTE AN ENTRY FROM WORD EVER AGAIN. FUCK.

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