Babbo Bruno's and Baseball Cards

We went to our favorite Italian restaurant for dinner tonight..... delicious food, as always, and perfect service. Half of my dinner is in the fridge--- fresh-caught grouper (fish) cooked with apples, pine nuts and escarole. Our friends K and C were thrilled to hear the news that C and her parents won't be moving to Vegas at the end of the school term this summer. C wants her son to meet our young Miss C... they're both the same age, they both love the water, they both are still in the friends stage, not the dating stage. So we'll have to see if we can arrange that somehow. The two teenagers don't live in the same town, and go to different schools, so getting them to meet will take some thought.

After dinner, we went to Target...... my husband bought a shopping bag-full of baseball cards for C..... that girl loves baseball (especially Craig Biggio of the Astros) and has been collecting cards for years now. We called up C and her mom to see if they were at home, and we stopped by their house when we got into our subdivision. My husband told C to stay in her room till he hid half a dozen packs of the baseball cards around the house. When he called her to come out, they did their favorite "hot and cold" treasure hunt for the cards. C didn't know what she was hunting for, but she screeched when she found the first pack and was thrilled with the rest of the search.

When she was done, she opened the packs one by one, and she and my husband inspected all the cards.... she found a few of the Astros' players, but no Craig Biggio cards. There are still about twenty packs of cards left, but C doesn't know that...... we had left most of them in our car when we went into C's house, so my husband will be hiding them around our own house for her to find.

Some of the card-packs had bubble gum in them... pink slices of gum, not as big or as thick as I remember them, and they're wrapped in thin plastic now, rather than just sitting on top of the cards. When I was a kid, we could break the piece of gum into four quarters, to share with three friends. The bubble gum in those baseball cards would make great bubbles. C gave one of the gum slices to me, and I broke it in half and shared it with her mom. We each tried to blow bubbles--- didn't work out well with just half of the gum. I remember that pink gum having a richer taste. The tiny bubbles we were blowing didn't seem to be worth the effort.

Maybe C can do a baseball card hunt instead of an Easter egg hunt......... she and her parents are going to join us for Easter Sunday dinner, along with our friends K and B, and J and S. There will be nine of us in all. C's dad started driving home from Vegas on Thursday night, and right now he's in Amarillo. He's going to sleep there tonight, then continue driving home in the morning... he should be at his house by dinner-time tomorrow. C and L, needless to say, are thrilled.... they hated the fact that he had to be in Vegas all this time, and of course they're happy not to be moving there.

I was just thinking this week that getting the house ready for Easter Sunday wouldn't be too much work, being that no one who was allergic to cats would be here--- our friends C and R are going up north for Easter, and R is allergic to cat dander. Now that our guest list has grown, I have two more cat-allergic people coming-- both of C's parents have allergies.

Even though we have three cats in the house (not counting Rusty who stays on the backyard deck) we don't have a problem with the allergy-people as long as I keep the cats out on the screen-porch for three days before our company arrives. I do that for all of our parties, and I've been doing it for our smaller dinner parties as well. Once I put the cats on the porch, I vacuum every room every day, and I use a lint-brush twice on all of the furniture. A lot of extra work for me, but it works wonders for our friends who can't tolerate being in a house with cats. Since I've been doing that, no one has had a problem.

Our friends here must not be as highly allergic to cats as my NY-cousin R is..... I did the same thing last year when she came to visit... plus I kept the cats out on that porch the whole time she was here--- she still had problems with her eyes because of the cats. Next time she visits here, we plan to get her a room in one of the local hotels.

Much easier for her, not having to sleep in the same house where our cats are.......... and much easier for me-- I had a hard time with AngelBoy last year when she visited. My cousin kept making faces at AngelBoy through the windows between the breakfast room and the screen porch. She would scrunch-up her face at AngelBoy, and he would scrunch-up his little whiskered face right back at her. I told her that AngelBoy understands when people make fun of him, but she didn't believe me. (R absolutely loves dogs, but she really isn't a cat person.) AngelBoy was so upset with me while she was here last year.... every time I went out to the porch to feed the cats or just play with them for a while, AngelBoy would turn his head away and not even look at me. He got over that when R went home, but there was no softening him up while she was here.

Speaking of cats and dogs and puppies.... when we went to C's house this evening after dinner, she was in her room when we got to her house. My husband talked to her through the door and told her to stay in there for five minutes because he had a surprise for her. He barely got the word "surprise" out when C screamed through the door "You got a new puppy?!?!?!" That child.... she's constantly suggesting to us that we need a new puppy to keep Gracie company. (As if four cats aren't enough company for this poor dog...)

I told C about my cousin's new puppy and she said that R should bring Pinkie down here with her when she comes to visit again. Well now.... I wonder how my fluffy white AngelBoy-cat would take to a fluffy white Maltese puppy. I can see AngelBoy's whiskers scrunching-up at the thought of that.....