We invited a family over. Just a casual gathering for beer, chili, and football. Then we invited another family. And then another. So, I guess I just have to admit we’re having a Super Bowl Party.

I’m hoping for one of those fishes and loaves miracles, especially since that can of what I thought was refried beans was actually enchilada sauce, so no bean dip. I just can’t do yet another “quick trip” to the grocery store.

I think it’s fitting that this weekend falls so close to Lent this year. We’ll have two days to get rid of all that carne (and chocolate and soda and chips) before the fasting begins.

Stina, Carol, Cmerie, Barb and Amy Caroline have all kindly listed me as a recipient of this award:

I would like to pass on the love to Suzanne, Sarah, Margaret, Jennie, Denise, Barb, Virginia, Matilda, Nutmeg, and Bill. I would link to everybody on my sidebar, but I don’t have the time. I hate these things just because I don’t like to play favorites, so if you aren’t listed, you are forbidden from being offended. Or at least, if you are offended, have the decency to curse me out in the com box, and I’ll be sure to list you next time, ‘kay?

After dinner, I took the girls to get haircuts and to shop for shoes. I’m about girled out.

With the lack of estrogen in the house, what were a bunch of males to do? Fence, of course. As in fencing…with swords. The boys have been wanting lessons for quite a while now, so Bill has started giving them some. In our basement. Because there’s so much room down there.

It was a sad, sad night here. The fact that the Packers did better this entire season than anyone expected was small comfort to little boys weeping themselves to sleep. My solace is that the Super Bowl will be, as it always is, much more enjoyable when nobody in the family really cares who wins.

I took Peter up to bed in the 4th quarter when the game was tied. When I came down, there were less than 2 minutes left, and I warned my boys that it wasn’t looking good. The Giants did a great job marching down the field, running out the clock and getting everything set up for a last second field goal. My boys watched in shock and horror. It had never occurred to them that the Pack might lose.

And then the kicker missed! Oh, the joy. And even better, Green Bay won the coin toss. At that point, I had to go back upstairs to tell Peter to go to sleep. I returned only a few minutes later to wailing. “What happened?” I asked, incredulous that the game was over already. Somehow they choked out that Favre had thrown an interception.

Today, a new day, they seem to be a bit more composed. I’m glad the Super Bowl is in two weeks. We should be emotionally capable of watching football by then.

Bill tells me he would like to buy a $5 part for his fountain pen so he can use bottled ink instead of disposable cartridges.

“It’s more ecologically-friendly,” he says.

“Ecologically friendly?” I ask. “Bill that’s…that’s…liberal thinking!”

“Crunchy con, dear, crunchy con,” he asserts.

“Oh, I see, if you care about the environment you’re a crunchy con…if I care about the environment, I’m a left-wing nut?”

“Yup.”

I am babysitting a one hundred and seventy pound English massive mastiff who is whimpering for his owners. He’d be really cute if he weren’t so drooly.

Updated: the dog I babysat wasn’t this big, but he certainly made our German Shepherd look tiny. He really is a “gentle giant” as the breed is called – very laid back. He and his “brother” (a much smaller dog) went back to their owners before I thought to get a picture. The owners are friends from Virginia just now moving out here.

Yesterday I had a dental cleaning. I never used to have a problem going to the dentist, but in the last year, the procedure has become very unpleasant. I’d rather get a Pap smear.

The older kids went to a neighbor’s house, and Mary and I headed to the dentist’s office. Mary wanted to nap…while nestled at my breast. This is a bit tricky, because the dentist’s chair has you lying back almost all the way which is not exactly a good nursing position. My arms were fatigued from holding her up for an hour without any support.

Like many dentist’s offices, they have semi-private chairs. At my feet was a solid wall, and on my other three sides were partition walls with generous openings instead of doors. I had forgotten to bring a blanket to aid in discreet nursing, but I was wearing one of my nursing shirts. The hygienist is a woman, so I wasn’t overly self-conscious about the bit of exposed breast.

The dentist is a woman, a mother of four, and a former breastfeeder herself. She thinks the sight of a nursing baby is sweet. I agree, but…

As I lay there, vulnerable, exposed and with my mouth gaping open, I could hear the dentist behind me. She had sighted Mary and was cooing over the beautiful sight of a mother – me – nursing her child. And then it seemed a crowd gathered, all looking at the beautiful baby at her mother’s breast. It was a bit awkward. Amusing, but awkward.

If you are moving and are looking for a company to assist you, DO NOT use Pack & Ride. My sister and her husband recently moved from Alabama to Alaska and used this company with expensive and disastrous results. The bottom line is that they were charged an additional $3500, even though both civilian and military lawyers told them the company had no legal basis to charge it. Bad communication, bad customer service, hefty extra charges. Use somebody else.

A few nights ago I had a dream. I was with my kids at some gathering with other Catholic families. I didn’t know anybody and was engaged in that get-to-know-you small talk. Even though I was carrying Mary, now three months old (for real, but in my dream too), several women asked me how far along I was. “Sheesh,” I thought, “don’t they see the baby? Surely I look more postpartum than pregnant?”

Then I looked at one woman, and I realized, in that way that you can read minds in dreams, that she had seen the baby. The question was really their catty way of telling me that I should have more children, that I was a bad Catholic for not being pregnant again already. “I haven’t even started my cycles yet,” I thought in my own defense. But it didn’t matter. I was judged and condemned.

But it was just a dream. In real life, we try hard not to judge each other. In real life, we’re not catty. In real life, we don’t read minds.

And in real life, I don’t look three months pregnant. Right?

Way back in September, I signed up for my turn at bringing snacks to the Little Flowers and Blue Knights meetings held at the same time same place. My turn was last Thursday. Normally this would entail loading the grocery cart with an appropriate number of juice boxes and pre-packaged snacks from a section of the store I rarely visit. However, since December’s family potluck banquet was canceled on account of snow, the leader decided to do an abbreviated celebration at this, our first meeting since then. She was going to buy cupcakes, but since I had volunteered for snack, I said that I would take care of it.

How many kids were there? I asked.

Thirty, she groaned, plus siblings.

It’s okay, I said. I’ll bring fifty cupcakes. Now what kind of a lunatic thinks she can mange to transport her own four Flowers and Knights, her neighbor’s three Flowers and Knights, a toddler, an infant in a carrier, AND fifty cupcakes? And, naturally, the difficulty of moving fifty cupcakes occurred to me the day after the recycle truck came and took away the last of the cardboard boxes from Christmas presents.

Thank goodness I forgot to buy cupcake papers when I bought the four boxes of cake mix and four containers of icing. Cupcakes were out, 9 x 13 cakes were in. I made two, and realized it wouldn’t be enough. I made a third cake using a bundt pan. Deciding I still needed another one, just in case, I removed one of the 9 x 13 cakes from its pan and made a fourth cake.

Cakes baked, I now needed to frost them. I could have just put the store-bought icing on them and been done, but I wanted the cakes to be pretty. I have not had much practice in making cakes look pretty. “Decorating” a cake around here means adding sprinkles. But I figured, armed with this fancy pastry bag, I would give it a shot.

I learned a lot.

First of all, using a template is a good idea. If you can’t draw a straight line, it’s likely that frosting in a straight line will not come naturally either.

Next, that pastry bag is great, most especially because it cleans up much more easily than a plastic pastry bag. But it is essential that you thoroughly dry the thing in between color changes. Failure to do so will result in unsightly drips.

Next, simple is good. If you have unused frosting, do not feel obliged to use it all up on your cakes. Just eat it. Or give it to the kids. Trying to make decorative squiggles just might ruin the whole look.

{I call this the Cockroach Cake.}

And finally, when all your work is done, keep your dog out of the kitchen. And if you forget to do this, and she gets a big lick on one big corner of one cake, do not think that chastising her will keep her from doing it again and ruining a second cake.

In the end, my neighbor drove the kids over because my car battery was dead. After a AAA jump, I took Pete and Mary, two whole cakes, 3/4 of a 9 x 13 cake, and 1/2 of a bundt cake to an appreciative group. I think three cakes would have been enough for 50 to 60 kids and adults. And one dog.