More happiness ...

because that, of course, is my favorite stuff to post. There's more than enough misery in the world without my whining, thank you very much.

- congratulations to e. on finishing her very first triathlon this morning. This is spectacular. You rock!

- congratulations to Cynthia on her fabulous Greek Easter feast. Yum-o. 

- congratulations to NOM for making us all giggle at just how ignorant they are ... Seriously? This is your big plan to convince us that same-sex marriage is scary? There's a lot of scary stuff out there, folks, and this just ain't it. (Okay, this isn't really happiness, per se, as it's really about groups who don't respect the rights of others, but I have to give a nod to anyone who gives Rachel such entertaining material. I'm not above saying it -- the teabaggers are awesome ... awesomely hilarious.)

- a big thank-you to Deb at smittenkitchen for her Chocolate-Caramel Crack(ers) recipe; my friends & co-workers thank you in advance, as do future patrons of The Box. 

- love and kisses to Josh & Roger, for taking time out of their crazy pre-finals schedule to spend a fun evening eating great Greek Easter food & putting up with my ridiculous barking dog.

and last, but not least, some general happiness for great weather for walking, an afternoon to relax and get ready for the week ahead, and excellent dinner plans this evening, including seared ahi tuna, zucchini ribbons, a little saffron orzo and some more terrific company. 

Training walk #1

I went on my first "official" training walk with my team today -- yay! The weather was AMAZING, and we walked around Battery Park in Old New Castle, which is on the Delaware River, and it was just spectacular.

Fun times.

It was about 3.2 miles, which is low for me on a Saturday at this point, but it was very, very nice. 

That's gonna leave a mark ...

Just wanted to share that I somehow managed to whack myself in the face with a three-pronged plug today -- quite hard, I must say -- and it's left a lovely red mark (and likely a bruise) on the bridge of my nose.

It hurts.

(And I feel stupid.)

Gah.

Otherwise, a pretty good day, all in all.

The cat ... and some general happiness ...

There's no particular point to this, except to say that I think the cat has a drinking problem. 

Well, maybe not ... but Mousse has discovered the top of the refrigerator. In fact, he's sitting there now, staring up at the ceiling (which is one one giant fluorescent light panel), looking for *something.*

Yay for the sunshine that's coming our way (it's supposed to be 73 this weekend).

Yay for Greek Easter.

Yay for friends that know that holidays are important, even if they're not holidays that you've ever heard of before.

Yay for my fabulous staff, rocking the DYFS licensing review yesterday. Love you guys!

Yay for the first official training walk of the season with my 3-Day team.

And a last, final yay for sushi, documentaries and surprises. Hmm. Unexpectedly great.

How strawberry-rhubarb became lemon meringue

The world's best zucchini bread is baking in my oven, right now. Now, I was supposed to be bringing lemon bread to Easter at Grandma's tomorrow, but let me tell you what happened ... 

In an effort to a) make Easter easier for my grandma, b) make the dining selections slightly more palatable, and c) win some kind of "best granddaughter" award, I called my grandma on Tuesday, to gently suggest that my dad & I bring some of the Easter luncheon. I offered lemon bread, like I'd brought last Easter, and she happily accepted. And then I offered a sweet potato casserole, but No, no -- she said, she already had the ham, canned sweet potatoes, frozen broccoli-in-cheeze (yes that was supposed to be a Z), and she was planning on pie for dessert.

I remembered the Thanksgiving pie debacle of 1994 (or was it 1995?), and reminded her of how much I love to bake. Especially pie. Now, this is not a lie -- I really do love to bake. And I really do love to bake pie. So, when she said, oh -- well, strawberry-rhubarb pie would be nice, what could I say but "wow, Grandma, great idea."

So, I set out today in search of rhubarb, despite my fairly certain knowledge that rhubarb is not out ahead of kale & chard and other green leafy things that are just starting to make their way into the local markets. Perhaps you can get strawberries from anywhere, but rhubarb seems to be one of those you-can-only-get-it-in-its-growing-season kind of things (usually mid-spring through summer), and I wasn't super-optimistic.

I drove up to the Lancaster Farmers' Market in Wayne, PA, but the nice Amish folks didn't have any rhubarb yet. I checked out the Whole Foods in Devon, but the yuppies didn't have any rhubarb either (and man, that store was *nuts* today). 

Feeling somewhat disappointed, I popped in to Trader Joe's with one last small hope, and found no rhubarb, but was inspired by the tower of organic lemons. Aha, I thought -- lemon meringue pie. Seems spring-y, and like it would be a nice finish for Easter, and it would be pretty, too. But ... could we have lemon bread AND lemon pie? I thought not.

Hence the world's best zucchini bread (which is so much easier than the lemon bread, anyway), the second loaf of which I'm quite looking forward to for breakfast this week. Here's hoping the pie's not half bad, either. It's my first lemon meringue (or cooked-filling-and-meringue of any sort, really), but aside from being a heck of a lot more work than a fruit pie, it seemed to come together well. The blind-baked crust didn't shrink, the filling didn't curdle, the meringue didn't separate -- so far, so good. 

A few good things ...

First -- and more importantly than anything I have to ramble about -- please check out Stacy's Helping Hands, and consider supporting low/no-cost accommodation for families of individuals receiving cancer treatments at Western Pennsylvania Hospital. You can read more about Stacy, her life, and her impact on others on the site, or on Cynthia's blog ... 

Here are a few good things about today, as always -- in no particular order:

- team meeting with my 3-Day team tonight. Fun and productive.

- I might have a date tomorrow night. Don't hold your breath or anything, though.

- I picked out new flooring for one of my oldest buildings today, which was very fun (even though I didn't entirely get exactly what I wanted, I'm really happy with it ... ) 

- yay, sunshine!

- new Netflix movies in the mail -- yay!

- baking cake for a birthday celebration at work tomorrow: Creme de Menthe Cake. Recipe to follow later ...

- funny email exchange with E. during which I was told that I should probably cut my hair, get some tattoos and consider ditching the sweater sets and pearls ... at least, if I don't want to have to marry for money (though I'm not ruling that out just yet). 

Fabulous

Things (and people) that (who) are fabulous, in no particular order:

- My hips and shins are only *slightly* agitated after yesterday's apparently super-fast 6.5 mile hike. Go me.

- Artichoke-Olive Crostini. Will someone please make these and bring them over? I've got wine ... or beer ... or cocktails. Also, Deb's notion of packing is generally quite similar to mine ... until I get tired of the "oh, what a sweet cheese knife set ... remember when ..." and then it's put-it-in-the-box city.

- Dogfish Head Aprihop beer. Available for a limited time only.

- Cynthia, despite her crappy life.

- When I clicked on the Storypeople page today, and chose "pick one for me" (as I do often), it said "I don't believe in love, she said & I nodded and said I'd heard that argument before & it always ends badly & she couldn't think of another thing to say." That seemed about right.

- This T-Mobile commercial. I want more dancing in my life. And more artichoke-olive crostini.

- The fact that when the police come to my office tomorrow, they won't be interviewing *me*

- Not having to fire anyone today.

- My co-director's sexy new glasses.

- Jodi Picoult

- and last, but certainly not least, Rachel Maddow. Seriously -- have her call me. I'm totally available.