Hoppy Easter Weekend

Last Friday, I went with Vivian and a bunch of her co-workers to have some Indian food down at Tanduri Fusion. I got some weird cultural vertigo when people started ordered "cheese and chicken naan," which looked suspiciously like a quesadilla (but tasted just as good). I got some chicken goa, which is about as awesome as creamy coconut, curry, and chicken can possibly get over rice, and Vivian had some lamb steaks that I stole from her occasionally. It's always fun hanging out with Vivian and her co-workers, and I think we all got a kick out of Pablo's cute son trying to eat with a knife.

We headed out afterward to check the world premier of Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, a fairly mediocre movie based on a very awesome book. I'm still hoping they did well enough to make parts two and three.

The next day, after sufficiently puttering around the house, we attended Mark's birthday dinner down at the Nebraska Brewing Company to chow down on burgers and fries along with Lisa, Keith, and Micah. Mark's B-Day. There seem to be about a thousand "beer and burgers" type restaurants between Gretna and Council Bluffs, but I found this one had the fluffiest, tastiest buns of them all. 'nuff said. We crashed at Mark's place afterward to play a few hilarious rounds of YooStar 2, a sort of "movie karaoke" game for the XBox.

I had Good Friday off the next week, so I was able to enjoy a three-day weekend. I spent my time catching up on some housework and mowing the lawn for the first time this season (in-between some obligatory loafing).

That evening, we enjoyed some Latin dancing and Mexican food at Andrea's house with some people from GAMe in anticipation of their Cinco de Mayo party in a couple weeks. I'd wanted to learn more basic Salsa and Meringue for some time now, but it's always been hard to find a venue where you weren't expect to know what you were doing already.

On the Saturday before Easter, Vivian and I had some fun with Marshall "Mascot Rabbit," who Vivian managed to steal from work. He took him down to such fun places as the public library in Bellevue, where he was able to read some his favorite books before hitting up the Playboy Club.

That evening, we dropped by Dennis and Kara's place in Blair to help celebrate his 35th birthday. A bunch of our mutual friends dropped in to binge on barbecue sandwiches and wine before calling it a night.

On Easter Sunday, Vivian and I attended Twin Valley Church, where we finally have an overhead projector up and running again. Before we left, we found the Easter Bunny had left us a basket of chocolates, potted flowers, and other fun things for the garden. That afternoon, we had Jack and Donna over for Easter dinner, which consisted of our usual assembly of glazed, pistachio marshmallow fluff, poppy seed biscuits, party potatoes, and some giant, fruity, custardy dessert called "trifle." It looks like Spent season couldn't have come too soon, as I think Vivian and I will have to spend the rest of the year working all this off.

Passover and Spent

On Tuesday, we had a representatives from Jews for Jesus drop by to show us what a Passover Seder ceremony looks like. I was quite surprised that it involved onions and horseradish (in addition to hiding the matzo). It was yet another cross-cultural culinary experience that seems to come around this time of year.

On Friday, Vivian and I went with some of our friends to another Catholic-style carb binge, this time in the form of a Lenten pasta feed at St. Pius church up on Blondo. We had spaghetti and mostacolli with beer cheese and spicy red sauce, as well as some homemade pizza and the obligatory baked goods table. I somehow thought I would have energy to go dancing afterward with all the pasta we ate, but I instead wound up quite tranquilized once I got back home.

Vivian and I noticed how much we wind up eating during Lent that we decided to create our own post-Easter season called "Spent," where we'd try to eat normally for a change and try working off everything we've gained since Mardis Gras.

The next day, Vivian and her mom worked a bit on cleaning up the yard and I patched some dead spots in the lawn. On Saturday night, Jenny carried on what seems to be an annual tradition now by hosting another Taco Party at her house. Vivian made her delicious guacamole and we had burritos and tacos with chicken and beef while playing some silly games downstairs. Jenny introduced us to "Telestrations," which is a pictorial take on the old telephone game and quickly became quite hilarious. We would start off with simple objects like manhole covers, nachos, and mouthwash, which would quickly deteriorate into "crazy guy eating pita chips" or "hit the curb and not the pedestrian." In other cases, we could just give up and draw people throwing up. Coincidentally, Kaleb and company played the exact same game at his house, so it must be very popular. I'll have to get my own copy of the game when we next meet up with our friends from Comic Genesis.