many things all strung together

This weekend, M and I had our first "date" since the last Harry Potter movie came out in July. Well, once, we went to Arby's by ourself when my mom was here but we were gone half an hour. We realized that we could get some time alone on our visiting family weekends, and since my parents were down to visit us on Friday before we went up to spend the night on Saturday.. it was exceptionally good timing because we had already spent some quality time together. So, they took Evie with them to the Mexican restaurant while M and I went to another place, which we will loosely refer to as "Italian" although it grates on M's nerves when we call it Italian because it isn't. Yay! Although our enjoyment of the experience was diminished greatly by the large table of very drunk people next to us. I think I was standing up to leave as I was still chewing my last bite. Okay, that was a lie for effect. After our meal, we went out to the NEW! Walmart that I wanted to go to when it opened. It is big! Really big. Apparently it is the second-largest Walmart in the state, and it looks really nice inside. Much nicer than say, Target. I use Target as an example because it seems like everyone online is freaking obsessed with the Target experience, whereas I can sort of take it or leave it. Many of the aisles are big enough for half a dozen carts. They were, however, out of plastic eggs, which was a problem because we forgot to bring the eggs we bought to color for the Easter egg hunt on Sunday. They had pre-filled eggs. Who BUYS a dozen eggs for $5? Where do they get their money? So we failed to bring eggs to the egg hunt, cause I am too cheap to buy crap like that. That also meant that we had 34 eggs sitting in the fridge at home, and we tend to not use up eggs very fast at the best of times. I promised M that if he would refrain from eating any of the Easter eggs after the hunt, I would make him a dozen deviled eggs. I hate them but he thinks they are divine, especially when I make them for I add a SECRET INGREDIENT which I will now share with all of you: a squirt of Kalle's cavier. Doesn't that sound disgusting? He thinks that it's fantastic. He really came out ahead on this deal because they didn't end up using the eggs that my cousin brought outside at all and we left before they would have started peeling them anyway. Last year, I realized that I have a huge problem with the food safety issue on eggs. Traditionally, after the egg hunt, everyone sits around and peels and eats the eggs. That's when I started thinking about how long these eggs have been out of the fridge and more than that, how long they've been roasting in the sun. So I put the smackdown on the rotten-egg-eating, which my family made fun of me for because how many years have we been eating these eggs and it's never hurt anyone yet? Meanwhile, my niece has developed a true phobia about eggs. She is terrified that she's going to catch salmonella from raw eggs, or worse yet, cross-contaminate something that will give someone else salmonella. We are trying to explain to her that with some basic common sense about food handling, it is extremely unlikely to happen, and it's not really probable even without it, but she remains afraid of eggs. We've tried to tell her that it isn't a fatal illness for most people. I stuck my foot in my mouth because I cracked a joke about her pet iguana, and how she would handle a lizard but she won't touch a raw eggshell. "Why, you can catch salmonella from lizards??!!" she asked, and I (knowing that she makes a point of washing her hands immediately after touching it anyway) hesitated for not a moment before blithely assuring her that no, of course you can't. I might get caught in that lie because her mother has assigned her a five page report on the subject, though whether or not she will ultimately have to do it is in question. It was meant to be done over her spring break but I don't think she did it. And then, back on the topic of going out without the baby girl, I went grocery shopping alone tonight, which accidentally took me nearly two hours. I'm sure it wasn't because my darling daughter has been screaming at me all afternoon for two days. Of course not. I am guessing it's her teeth? Or maybe her belly? Whatever it is, it has not been fun. I hope tomorrow is better. Also, she woke up at four AM calling for her DA DA. It was so cute. He is always the one that goes to pick her up in the middle of the night so I guess she was just trying to expedite matters. She also pulled up on the wall under the window this afternoon and banged at the window and called for him. Apparently she is Daddy's girl. I think he should probably stay home tomorrow to test that theory.

I seem to recall something about paragraphs being useful in prose but I think it's a myth.