My cousin and I spoke last week about getting together for Easter. Both of our houses are in states of renovation and reconstruction (his in preparation for a baby and ours as a result of the epic toilet-from-Satan flood of a few weeks ago), and it was clear neither of us wanted to clean a sufficient path through the debris to host dinner. Instead, we made reservations at an Italian place we all enjoy. It would give the four of us a chance to catch up and hear every bit of news about the impending birth (C-section or not (not), epidural or not (epidural), two middle names or one (one for now, though that still seems up in the air)).

Surprisingly, when I mentioned the dinner to Becca, she wanted to come and bring her best friend Grace. I called the restaurant to increase the number of diners to six.

As it happened, Grace's mom was not going to join her family for dinner and so decided to come with us. Call back and explain far more than the person answering the phone wanted to know about why we had been four, then were six, and now would be seven.

Somewhere along the way I had forgotten that my sister had invited us to her house for dinner. On the phone with her yesterday, I claimed a gingko-biloba moment and asked her to join us, fully expecting her to say no. Instead she and her husband and son wanted to make the almost-2-hour drive. She must have heard the panic in my voice about having to call the restaurant again, because this time she did the reservation changing.

Despite a distinct lack of other patrons, we were jammed in a tiny raised area of the restaurant and could only enter and leave our seats in single file. My brother-in-law noted that this would undoubtedly be the place the Pope would be seated along with the Swiss guards and associated cardinals should he suddenly have a craving for Italian food while visiting Paoli.

The meal itself was superb and surpassed even Thanksgiving in the numbers of courses and volume of food. This caused me to reflect upon the number of deadly sins that were committed this day and realized it was a respectable 1 (gluttony), although there is a possible second if you count the sloth of not preparing the meal myself. No lust, anger, pride, envy or greed was displayed. We'll have to work at that for the next holiday.