Easter 2026 Roll Call!
1. Dad
2. Sherri
3. Angel
4. Brandi
5. Nick
6. Jaycee
7. Jaycee's boyfriend
8. Gianni
9. Enzo
10. Ricky
11. Reyna
12. Raiden
13. Ruby
14. Britni
15. Alex
16. Amira
17. Alaina
18. Matthew
19. Shobhit
As coincidence would have it, there were also 18 in attendance for Easter
last year, even though last year we had Gina, Beth, Brtini's husband Carlos, and Sherri's sister Wendy, none of whom were present this year—
but, last year Ricky's girlfriend Reyna, Alex, and Alex's daughters Amira and Alaina were
not present, and all of them were this year. There were just four people swapped for four other people.
EDIT: I realized later that I actually forgot someone: Jaycee's boyfriend! I wish I could remember his name. He seems to be sort of in a gray area in terms of whether he should be counted—there are 18 people in the group photo, after all, and that's because Jaycee's boyfriend was asked to take it. Does that mean he doesn't count, if he didn't need to be in the photo? (To be fair, having him take it meant Brandi could be in the photo, and Brandi clearly counts more than he does.) I mean, he came over, he had food, he was there for a while. I'm counting him, and that actually means there was one
more in attendance this year than last year.
Gina and Beth didn't make it this year because they went to Vancouver instead—Vancouver, Washington, that is, where Gina's son David lives, with his wife Jackie and their two little girls. Obviously it tracks that Gina and Beth might want to go spend the holiday with their grandchildren.
Speaking of Jackie, between her and David, she's the only one on Facebook, although she and I are not Facebook friends. Indeed, she and Alex were the only non-Facebook-friends I needed to invite to my birthday party on May 2, and thankfully Facebook allows you to invite people who are not on your friends list. Jackie has already marked the invite that she can't come, which is honestly fully what I expected. I kind of barely know her, and have never been close with David; I'd have been genuinely touched if they actually came but certainly don't begrudge them not coming, it's not something that would rank as a high priority for them. What
was a high priority for me was that there not be any family between Dad and Sherri and their descendants who was not invited. That would be, well, bad optics.
Speaking of which, I probably should have thought to invite Wendy, but Sherri, who I added as cohost on the Facebook event, did invite her. My brain was just stuck on making sure I did not miss any descendants of Dad and Sherri. But, I probably should have thought about it more in terms of any family who was invited to either Angel's 50th birthday party in 2019 or Gina's 50th birthday party in 2021 should also be invited.
Wendy hasn't RSVPed, but it is a holiday weekend, after all. I do have fully 12 RSVPs on the invite so far, and that accounts for at least 18 coming to the party. Gina and Beth still haven't responded either, and if I can assume they'll be coming that makes 20; Valerie already told me before that she would mark her calendar so that makes 21; if Ricky and Britni make it that makes potentially 27 if we count their partners and children, and that still leaves Alex and his kids up in the air. But I also know Gabriel, who is not on Facebook, will likely come if he does not have a work conflict, so if he and Lea make it that means potentially 29. If Alex comes, which honestly I kind of doubt but you ever know, that makes as many as 32. Sheesh!
I haven't even mentioned my brother. I was genuinely surprised to see Christopher RSVPed on the invite that he'd be coming. I texted him a couple of months ago to give him a heads up on the date and he said he'd try to make it; I put no real stock on it. To be honest, I'm taking a kind of "wait and see" attitude even now. It's probably worth noting, though, that the numbers above to
not include the boys; I have no idea if Tristen, Christian and Braeden would also come with him or not. But let's say they did: then we'd be at potentially 35. I've mentioned several people who remain up in the air, though, and the odds that
all of them would make it are slim at best.
I sure appreciate Christopher even intending to come, though. I wonder if he feels compelled at all because I went to Idaho for
his 50th birthday in 2022. Not that I ever felt he owed me anything for that.
I sure did pivot to making this Easter post about my 50th birthday party, didn't I? Oh well. It's my blog, I can do what I want with it!
Sherri did ask me today if I'd be satisfied with her just having Costco write
50 candles on my birthday cake. "You said you wanted 50 candles on your cake," she said. "I want real candles," I said. "I think you could get that from context clues."
Speaking of
cake, I had too much of it today. I had three mini cupcakes and one slice of the carrot cake Brandi had bought for the holiday, plus a couple bits of the slice Shobhit had. Something tells me my weight is not going to be down tomorrow.
Here's a fun tidbit: Dad spent a fair amount of time today totally talking shit about President Fuckwit. Dad has pretty reliably supported Republicans for about as long as I can remember, though to this day I have no idea whether he's ever voted for this one–I just know that he now quite openly can't stand the man. Completely unprompted, he actually said, "He sure is a lot like Hitler!" He talked about the comparison to his use of ICE agents who are free to act with impunity. Um . . .
yeah. It kind of feels a bit too little too late, to be honest, but it's still a relief to see him aligned with us on at least this.
In fact, this was the only time the entire day that there was any politics talk at all. I'm suddenly thinking about how those of us who saw President Fuckwit for the heinous excuse for a human being that he is from day one tried to warn everyone, and now all we can say is I told you so—to very little effect. Like, who cares if I told you so? This is where we are now.
There was briefly some local news on Brandi and Nick's mounted living room TV, and they were talking extensively about the rising gas prices, a direct result of President Fuckwit's hairbrained attack on Iran. I had a brief moment of looking around at everyone gathered there, going through the motions of a regular, normal holiday, most of us paying little attention to what should be pretty plainly visible writing on the wall. Sure, there's a long history of fearing one type of societal collapse or another and said collapse not happening. But you know, one of these days it actually will. My best hope is that I'll already have my best years behind my by the time that happens. And hey, I'm turning 50 in less than a month; so far so good!
This kind of got dark, didn't it?
Let's pivot to the weather. It was a truly beautiful day today, the first day of the year in which I did not need a jacket—I did wear a hoodie on the drive down to Olympia with Shobhit, but when we got there I took it off and never wore it again until we went home. Shobhit and Angel and I even went for a walk around the neighborhood. The thing is, it's practically impossible for me to appreciate a day like this on its own merits alone, without thinking about all the downsides it's connected to—we're at deceptively good levels of rainfall since the fall, but with very little snowpack on the mountains. This was
also mentioned on the news I happened to see on that TV. And you know what? We've gotten plenty of rain but may be headed for a season of drought anyway, and god knows what kind of wildfire season we may be headed for. This shit is only going to get worse, on average, as the years go on. But, hey—it was a beautiful day!
Even Dad mentioned at one point how little snow there is right now on the Olympic Mountains. Maybe we can construct a system of irrigation channels to pool all the rainwater that won't otherwise get stored in snowpack. Can we do that?
Anyway, it was a pleasant enough Easter. I did miss having Gina and Beth there, but totally understand why they would go to Vancouver instead. I'm wondering if Brandi and Nick will host Easter at their house every year for the foreseeable future, or at least as long as they're living in this 5-bedroom house. It has a lot of space, and is relatively easy to get to. This is the second year they've hosted it; my
photo album has 46 shots in it—
12 more than last year, in fact, though tied with 2023; 2022 and 2024 having many more than average made sense since they were also Sherri's 70th birthday party and the year we flew Barbara out for the holiday weekend, respectively. (And we're flying Barbara out again for my birthday party this year. Sherri, who was very excited to hear this when she found out a couple of weeks ago, said she keeps thinking it'll be the last time she gets to see her, only for her to see her again in a couple of years—but, again: one of these days, that feeling will actually be right.)
I feel like there's more I could tell you about the day, but I'm kind of running out of steam. I will say we made far better time driving down to Olympia than anticipated; the invite said noon but Shobhit and I got to Brandi's house at 11:35, by a fairly wide margin the first to arrive. Shobhit and Enzo quickly wound up playing catch with a toy stick of butter (yes, you read that right) which Shobhit totally thought at first was actual butter. Dad and Sherri arrived quite a bit later than most of us expected, and along with Shobhit and me were the last to leave. Shobhit was starting to talk about heading home around 3:00 as by that time everyone else had already left, and for once I was honestly okay with the idea.
I went to use the bathroom before we left, though, and when I came back Shobhit said the idea had come up that we go over to Dad and Sherri's house to visit for a while, and so we did indeed do that. I'm glad we did; I always value quality time I get with them. We got to the house around 3:20 and we must have hung out until roughly 5:00—because it was shortly after 6:00 when we got home. I had again made the smart decision to bring my laptop so I could process photos while in the car. I am nothing if not a paragon of efficient time management!
Shobhit and I polished off the macaroni and cheese he made this morning and then baked with breadcrumbs on top; not very many people had some at the party, and even I wasn't that partial to how close to room temperature it had gotten even inside the insulated bag we brought it in. Dad had some and seemed sincere when he said it was good, though. I was glad to be able to heat the leftovers in our microwave when we got home, and we ate while watching the rest of an episode of
Deadloch we watched before leaving this morning, and then this week's episode of
Rooster, and then I sat down to write this post, and here we are, another Easter in the bag.
[posted 9:29pm]
