Had a most wonderful weekend. It started out hellish enough. Put in a 50 hour work week which really spaced me out. I tell you true that I laid awake in bed one night last week and saw stars. From my bed. Without benefit of a telescope or even a window. When you can gaze upon the universe while looking up at your ceiling, you know you’re losing it. Came home late on Friday exhausted. Missus wonders why I didn’t call because we’re supposed to go see her grandmother (freshly discharged from the hospital after hernia surgery). I thought she was going without me. Anyhow, walk into the house, hit the can, walk back to car and we’re on the road again. Turned a normally chatty 1.5 hour car ride into a near silent hour long road race. I wasn’t angry, nah, not me.

My grandmother-in-law tends to get pretty spacey after surgery (side effect of anesthesia) and usually goes on a tear about everyone and everything. Tonight she was ranting herself stupid. Complaining about how no one believed she was sick, how everything she eats makes her want to vomit, how much her new pills cost, on and on. We got her to calm down long enough to explain what happened to her, what day it was, when she should take her pills and managed to get some food into her. She has me do some odd jobs around her apartment (rig a new clothesline, for one) and nearly bites my head off in the process of helping her. I’m not in the mood, but she’s not herself, so I let everything slide. Then we go over to the in-laws. Drink some hot tea to revive while the Missus and Co. discusses everything about Grandmom in minute detail. Then rehashes the minutia. Missus says we should go soon and goes back to talking about Grandmom from the start. The kitchen counter is one of the few things keeping me upright by this time and I rather unceremoniously put on my coat and wish them all well. The Missus follows my cue and heads to the car. I manage to drive home by meditating on the lines of the roadway for most of the trip. I was not a happy camper.

Wake up early on Saturday (don't ask me why my body hates me) and spent it in a flurry of cleaning activity for International Food Sunday. One of our friends from college, Ange (a Greek-American), and her husband came down. The deal was this: Ange would make Greek cookies for her family and we would make Polish cookies for ours. We would swap out some of each other’s cookies along with the recipe. She made some Greek cookie (to say the name of them would require removing my tongue with pliers) that looked like little puffy wads of dough with powdered sugar on them. We made chrushchiki (pronounced "croosh-CHICKY") which is little more than an eggy dough rolled paper thin and fried in oil. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, eat and repeat as necessary. A staple of the Missus’ family holiday, I only learned about them after marrying her (I am Polish in name, but we don’t have many long standing ethnic traditions). She makes the dough, rolls, cuts and folds them (they have a strange shape, like a diamond rolled into a bow) and I get to work the fry line and clean up afterwards. Fair trade if you get the chance to eat them afterwards.

Suffice it to say it was a resounding success. We got to visit with friends and get some holiday busy work out of the way at the same time. All of us briefly channeled the Great Spirit of Julia Childs and provided those Important Tips and Tricks no recipe ever seems to include. The Missus demonstrated the rolling and folding technique for chrushchiki and let Ange try making a few. I showed Ange’s husband how quick they fry up and let him have a go at it. He burned a few (a very easy thing to do) but then he took over for me for much of the rest of the time. We sampled the other’s sugared delicacies and marveled at the other’s creation. Ange's cookies had a ultrafine texture and a taste not unlike marzipan. Ours turned out to be an exceptional batch (the taste lies a lot in the details). Ethereally light and just about melted on the tongue. The result: come Easter time, we show Ange how to make perogies and she will help us to create spanakopita.