My Easter involved Mass with my mother, egg hunt and much candy for my 3-year old daughter, and a lovely family gathering with the more right-wing elements of my family.
Plus we are trying to come up with a name for our baby girl.
Follow me after the flip for an Easter buffet (appetizer-sized bites only) touching on current economic conditions viewed through the movie poster market, shocking behavior from my Christian Conservative right-wing brother-in-law and to give us your two bits on cute girl names.
The only family at the gathering on the left half of the spectrum (center to left) were Mom, my husband and me, and my 20-year old niece. But the entire right contingent was there.
My older niece's husband is a fiscal republican with a few Catholic overtones on "moral" issues. He collects old movie posters and was telling me that historically movie posters have been quite a good hedge against inflation. He says at the last two big auctions (LA and London) posters have gone for all-time highs. Something like $25k for a Casa Blanca.
Even though he's the stocks and bonds type, he hasn't thought about why the poster market is up right now. I wondered if it's because some of the buyers are buying in currencies other than dollars, and therefore the prices don't seem so high to them. Or if they are people lousy with dollars and need something to do with them. He said one of these big buyers was from Asia and the other was unknown to the poster market. Or if it's such a small market that one new afficianado with money can move the whole market up. But hs says the market has been flat for the past 3 years, until now. Wonder what bonddad or Jerome a Paris think about that.
And to stick with the current Kos "All Schiavo, all the time" format: my pro-Iraq anti-dissent anti-liberals-with-an-agenda fundamentalist Christian brother-in-law wrote a letter to the editor taking the Republicans to task for their behavior in the Schiavo matter. I didn't witness this discussion (he never raises political issues around me since the one time we were in the same room on Iraq it wasn't pretty. But he did raise it around my 20-year old niece, with whom he had a major blow-up over Iraq on Thanksgiving.) but it was reported to me by my incredulous mom. This is completely shocking to me and heartening.
Finally but most importantly, we have a new little girl in need of a name. She awaits us in China where we will expect to travel in May (just waiting for the red tape to clear). We've honed our name list from infinity to the top 20 to the Elite 8. What do you think is a great girl's name that "goes with" Frances/Franny. I don't mean it has to start with F or anyting, but just kind of sounds like the same type of name, era, or whatever. I like having a good nick name for them when they are so little.