But let’s start at the beginning. After the wild night at my dad’s house the night before, I didn’t wake up until about 10:30 on the 27th! That’s unheard of for me — in my non-vacation life in NY, I wake up at 5am every morning (ack!) to go to the gym before work. I started the day with a big glass of water and my usual mug of tea with skim.

I set about preparing breakfast for my mom, John, and me with leftovers from the night before: more pie! We each got 2 slices’ worth, topped with toasted walnuts and accompanied by a greek yogurt/part-skim ricotta/banana/cinnamon sauce:

I was planning to head to my cousin’s house (and a mystery food schedule) for the night, so I had a quick and light lunch (leftovers rescued from my fridge in NY as I was running out the door last week) to tide me over:

steamed cabbage topped with 2T of Wholly Guacamole

At my cousin Rachel’s house, we spent a couple hours playing with her kids — Rachel’s 4-year-old Lilly helped me make a triple batch of these for my mom’s potluck Hannukah party the next day — and snacking on pistachios (unpictured) and chicken legs (unpictured again, but I had 3!) before we got to work on the main attraction. Rachel recently took up tattooing, and I just happened to have a little quarter-sized cupcake on my right front hip that needed some help. I’ve had the frosting filled in pink twice, and it has faded to almost nothing both times. Rachel promised she could remedy the situation with a “pinkalicious” color concoction. Here’s the masterpiece in progress:

While I was under the needle, Rachel’s husband Rich set to work on a post-surgery feast:

verrrrrrrrry strong strawberry martini (to dull the pain)

giant chocolate chip pancake (after I had already eaten 2/3 of it). I cleaned the plate, of course!

Shortly after inhaling both of the above, my cousin Josh and I stumbled down to our respective couches. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow!