we can finally laugh about it

After a late night (or early morning, depending on whether you classify yourself pessimist or optimist -- and then there's the argument of which is which), I skipped out on the Baptist service and slept until it was time to drag myself to noon Mass.

At my parents' house afterward, I was frying up a couple of eggs when Dad came into the kitchen.

"Hiya, heathen!" he greeted me.

I flipped the eggs and said, "Oh, I went to church."

"Burn you at the stake," he told me, grinning.

I reached for a plate. "Ummmm....that would be you," I said.

And then we laughed. Which means that the rift begun a year ago has begun to close.

It's good.