How Was Your Week?

When I finally saw Andrew again yesterday after he was away working on an especially time-consuming episode, I was excited to hear what he'd been up to and share some interesting news with him about a new marketing campaign I might be doing for my business.

Andrew said he had interesting news as well. Andrew never says he has news, let alone interesting news. All of a sudden my brain was filled with a series of horrible thoughts. Did someone die? Are they canceling the show? What could it possibly be? I knew from the look on his face, whatever it was, it wasn't good. I told him to go first.

He started by saying he would have told me earlier but he didn't want me to worry. Well, that me even more anxious... and scared! He then preceded to tell me a Muslim group issued a message stating the producers of the show would probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh (gruesome pictures included) for insulting their prophet. What? The show censored all images of Muhammad. Isn't that the rule? Showing the likeness of a costume bear is against the rules now, too?

I want to be the type of person who stands up to this kind of bullying, but I don't want to see people I care about hurt by people who mean nothing to me. The fanatic is a paradox to me. If it's worth dying or killing over, it's got to be pretty good. If it's that good, why can't it stand on its own merits? Why does it need someone dying or killing over it?

My news was pretty mundane compared to Andrew's stories of death threats and armed guards, but he listened anyway. We moved to the couch and chatted a little more until he took an impromptu nap.

Imogen missed Andrew, too!

As you can see, Andrew fell asleep in a very uncomfortable looking position. He stayed that way for several minutes. It's strange the picture tuned out so fuzzy. Maybe it just reflects how Andrew's brain was feeling at the time.

When we watched the controversial episode last night, it was filled with a whole bunch of bleeping and big black boxes with the word CENSORED on them. I was, however, glad the creators were still able to get their message across without outwardly violating the arbitrary rules set up by a bunch of extremists. Actually, the additional censorship might have added to the message.

The Lamb of Easter

The First Easter Pizza

We had our Easter dinner on Holy Saturday at my parent's place. My mom says that when Armenians have dinner. We don't hide eggs, but we do play the egg tapping game. I introduced my nieces to the egg game and warned them not to play with Dede Vartan (my grandfather, their great-grandfather) because he cheats by using a fake egg. The nieces giggled excitedly as they hit the eggs against each other until they were all broken.

My parents and my sister's family were invited to come to my place on Sunday for lunch which included Easter pizza (a tradition since the First Easter Pizza in 2003) and leftovers from Mom's dinner. I spent all morning preparing the dough and making the pizzas completely from scratch. In addition to two large ones (a tomato with basil and a spicy pepper with mushroom) I made two small cheese pizzas for the nieces. I also made some brown rice to supplement the white rice, fish, and curried peas my parents supplied.

My mother made sure not to forget the lamb cake my grandfather brought with him on Saturday evening. I don't know where he gets them from, but he seems to have one of these freaky things every year. Sevana had asked her grandmother to give her the head on Saturday, but she was told she had to wait until Easter for that. After lunch, my mother decapitated the lamb and proudly presented the head to Sevana. The headless lamb was so morbid I almost cried... right before I sliced off a piece of the neck to taste it for myself.

Sevana finally gets her hands on
the head of the Lamb of Easter.

By the time Alique got to it, it was missing
an ear but she didn't seem to mind.

After everyone was done eating, the adults went back to my parent's house for chai. The girls hung out and played for a while. Once Alique started getting sleepy, she could no longer suppress her fear of the cats and dog. That's when Linda came to pick up the nieces and I started cleaning up.