Nieces

Since I was in NJ, I got to spend some time with my nieces, A (10) and E (12). Let's see...
- E is a ballet nut and built to dance. She showed me what it's like to be en pointe - in the kitchen (put on her shoes). I didn't know it was so 'clop clop'-y. It looks hard! But it certainly makes the legs look great. A has a completely different body type - more like mine. She's great at sports, but it's funny to see her try and dance. SO not for her.
- A showed me the earring she has, and was fooling around with them. It's magnetic, so she put it in her nose, and on her cheek. Didn't work so well on the tongue. In fact, I'm a bad aunt for suggesting she try it. Very well could have swallowed. But o well if she did - it would come out later.
- We played some version of charades with props - not for points, but just to do it. E did a great job with the 60's. She makes a great hippie. Neither one of them knew any of the ones from the 80's!
- Speaking of which, kind of, neither one likes the muppets. A thinks they are freaky. OH NO!
- One thing I was amazed at - we were sitting at the dinner table eating our souffle (!! my sister is a cook) and A and my sister were across from E and me. They started laughing and we didn't know why. Finally A said that I had something hanging from my nose. I was amazed that they would just laugh and not tell me. A even noted that she hates when people do that to her. Oh well. I let it slide, but obviously it still bothers me a little.
- The day before they were to leave, E apparently wanted to sleep in her own bed (which I had been using). My sister asked me earlier in the evening about where I wanted to be but worded it in a way that it was clear that E wanted to sleep there, but it wasn't a direct statement. I kind of ignored that, and later when the kids went upstairs, I told my sister that I wanted to sleep in the bed, and if E wanted to, she could ask me herself. I heard murmerings upstairs, and then E comes down to ask. It was fine, though a little rude to a guest. Again, not a big deal though.

It was wonderful seeing them. I for sure will see them in the spring as my friend is having a wedding party. So I look forward to that.

Something I never knew about my brother

A Dirty but Lasting Lesson

My least favorite summer job was in a meat-processing plant in East Providence, R.I., hosing down the slicing and grinding equipment with high-pressure hot water at the end of the day. We had to spray every nook and cranny, or we'd find maggots dangling from the crevices. The sight made us think twice about buying the ground hamburger, even with the employee discount. I saw the value of a good education after I had hosed off the last maggot that summer.

Funerals are family reunions

Yeah, I know, everyone knows that. But it's especially true for my family. I have about 9 first cousins and never see them. So, going through the receiving line at the wake, 'how are you' to me was replied with 'I'm getting divorced and just bought a house' and then waited to see which one they'd respond to more and how they'd respond. One cousin looks at me, say, well, how many marriages that have lasted a long time do you know are happy?. Then she proceeds to tell me she's been married for 24 years this year. Wonder if she noted the connection?

The best part was seeing a couple of the old old relatives. My dad's uncle Peter is a year older than he was, and he and his wife (married for 58 years, and looking happy btw) told some stories about growing up with my dad and my uncle. So that was nice. I remembered the story of my dad randomly meeting him on a street in Germany during the war and noted that to Uncle Peter - and he says 'that's about the closest I ever got to combat during the war' (my dad had surprised him). Another Uncle Peter I haven't seen in a long time was there. I remember giving him shit and him giving me shit - he always has a grumpy face but he's a great guy and does joke around, so I was trying to make him smile. When he and his wife were leaving my brother tried to give him his wife's cane to make him use it, so he shook my brother's hand and almost had him to his knees with his grip - in a friendly 'I still got the goods so don't mess with me' sort of way. Which I"m sure was great for his ego.

Oh, after the wake the 9 of us (my immediate family) got pizza at Crusty's across from the funeral home and brought it to the hotel. I was in charge of getting it. We asked a random guy going in if it was good pizza, and he said the best in RI. Went in and saw it's run by two older Italian men. Ordering the pizza the bald one brought a pizza to a teenage girl who he obviously knew - she asked for plates and he joked with her and handed her one at a time. So, when I came back 20 minutes later to pick up the pizzas, and asked for plates, he looked at me wondering if I was serious. I said I really needed them, so he pulls out the stack and wants to start the routine of one at a time. So I grabbed the whole stack out of his hand, and he immediately picked up the pizza boxes and walked to the back of the kitchen. So then there was a truce and I got plates and my pizza. Hard to explain the interaction, but it was fun and reminded me of my dad. And it was very good pizza - Crusty's in Warwick, RI. A bit salty, but good.

BTW, I cannot say Warwick with the 'r'. I say it like Waw - wick. Same with Warsaw. That's how you know I'm from RI.

There's drama and sadness also, but I don't feel like writing about it. Hope all are well.

Rest in Peace

My uncle died yesterday. I think he was ready to go for a while, but it's still sad. You can see he's related to my dad - interesting he died on my dad's birthday. I'll be flying up to RI tomorrow for the wake. I'll get back to blogging perhaps Thursday, unless I find something short for Twittering Tuesday.

Postcards from the past

And the cleaning out of crap out of my house continues. And I keep finding interesting things. The below were saved because I used to collect stamps, so the postcards were in my possession.



Jul. 7, 1952
Hi Kid,
Waiting for a ride to the base - so I thought I'd drop you a short line of hello. It's about all you can fit on these cards - will write tomorrow.
Regards to your mother.
Best,
F



airmail - June 6 (not sure of year)
Hi K.
Here is the card I promised you - just finished the Hungarian Restaurants now working on the German ones - after 6 (or is it 7) drinks - we are still sober at 1 AM Friday.
Will see you.
Best,
F




Oct 4., 1953
Hi!
I got here finally if only for one day. We're enjoying ourselves, that is Evelyn and myself. We saw quite a bit of the Pulaski Day Parade. Will write in morning.
Love, K

Little glimpses of the courtship of my parents. Wasn't my dad such an emotionally expressive man? :-) It was wonderful finding these. I scanned them and sent to my siblings and mom...

Drinking at a young age

Eslocura's comments contained a thread about drinking - what to drink, when, etc. And my comment leads to this post.

I started drinking when I was around 6. My dad would drink highballs (bourbon and ginger ale) and I always wanted a sip. It got so that he would give me my own drink - obviously 99% ginger ale and 1% bourbon or something like that. And over time it was no problem to try beer or wine. I really feel that relaxed attitude helped me growing up. Alcohol wasn't this forbidden substance that I had to get at all costs.

Now, that is not to say I didn't do some things wrong. I still to this day cannot drink peppermint schnapps - I won't go into detail on that one except to say that puking out a car window is no fun. And Alabama Slammers can really get you majorly drunk fast. And once I remember coming home from being at a friend's house where we had some vodka, and sitting across from my mother at the kitchen table pretending I had done nothing, thinking that I was set because vodka is a clear alcohol. My parents aren't very confrontational so I didn't get in trouble.

But overall, if I had kids, I'd like to raise them the same way. Trouble is, likely one day the cops would appear at my door and I'd be in jail for enabling underage drinking. Which would be crap, but again, could happen. When did you start drinking?

Aunt Stinky and the Car Creatures

[written earlier but saved for a busy day like today]

This was the first year in a long time that my entire family has been together in one place. I think there were 15 of us at dinnertime, which is just the immediate family but includes my cousin/godmother. Luckily my sister has a house that can accommodate that many for dinner.

The first night we all had dinner I had a lot of energy. And, though I forget what we had for dinner, a lot of gas. I've noted before that I am very much a gassy girl, but there are some days when I surprise even myself. This was one of those days. And I was being silly with the nieces and nephew, and pitting myself against my nieces' fart machine (which is their favorite fun thing, much to the chagrin of my brother in law), and winning. :-) Thus, I was given the name Aunt Stinky.

Well, Aunt Stinky can also be pretty messy. My car tends to have, lets say, a number of items in it. And I tend to not use a garbage bag, but rather just put things under my legs in the driver's side. Yeah, perhaps that's moving beyond messy - but I do throw it out eventually! Anyway, my husband has always joked with me about my car - that you can do a treasure hunt in it and always find something. On the way up to my sister's we were snacking and both he and I dropped something, and it seemingly disappeared. His comment was that the rat living in the car got the morsel.

So, one morning we took one of my nieces with us on an errand. Their parents are rather neat freaks, sort of, and so I warned her not to make comments about my messy car. But then my husband starts with the story of the rat living in the car, and the rat has a pet cockroach, and the cockroach has a pet flea. And he got my niece to name all of them (Lenny, Fred, and Joe respectively.) I dropped them off with my mom while I did one errand on my own, and then sat with my mom for a while to visit. As I sat, I knew something sneaky was happening, though I wasn't sure what. I found out when we went into the car. My niece had drawn a rat, cockroach, and a flea and taped them to various parts of the inside of my car. It was quite cute, and they are still living there today.

Dial up hell

I am currently in dial up hell. And while salvation is coming in the form of DSL sometime in the next 10 days, not sure if I'll be around to experience it. May forever be stuck in hell. At least until I leave here. So, if I do not post, read, comment, you know why.

Until Jan 1. Be safe on New Year's eve.

Aunt Stinky (my new designation by my nieces and nephew)

Photoless

Sorry so many posts without photos, but I'm writing in snatches between events. Too lazy to put in photos.

My present to myself this year was to throw my back out. What fun! I went for a run Christmas eve morning and came back, no prolem. But then something happened and I started feeling achy at the bottom of my spine. By afternoon I was spasming mucho - you know when you move a little bit the wrong way and a gasp of pain comes out of your mouth? And you lay on the floor not quite the right way and can't get yourself out of position because you're already in too much pain so you're saying 'fuck fuck fuck' though your nieces are around? Thankfully it's much better tonight. It did get me out of a few chores!

We were/are anything but photoless in this family. Everyone is a camera bug, and everyone has a camera and takes photos. It's funny the different styles. 2nd oldest brother HAS to pose everyone. Youngest brother has a twisty lens thingie so can do sneak attack photos and videos. Sister does mostly family shots. Other brother manages to take bad photos and bother everyone. 2nd youngest brother doesn't take too many these days. Cousin/godmother does 'professional' shots with her professional grade camera. Mother just poses these days.

One thing we did this year that we haven't done in a while is do a slide show. My dad was a big photo taker in his day, and there's tons of slides. Not as many as before since there was a fire in my house when we were young and many got ruined (I just learned tonight my dad was getting paint off the house using a blowtorch - that's what started it... stupid man!). But there are enough photos of my parents pre-kids, and with each set of kids (first 2 boys, then 4, then 4 and a girl, then 4 and two girls) to make a brief slide show fun. We wanted to show the young kids too where everyone came from.

My brother downloaded all the videos and photos onto his computer - I think 2.5 GB. :-)

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL! Unless you are jewish, atheist, muslim, etc. etc.

So Far

I have had an octopus painted on my face that had one tentacle going in one nostril and out the other.
I have brought my nieces, nephew, and sister in law climbing.
I have had my first alcohol in weeks and weeks (from being sick) and it's goooood.
I have given away the quilt and it has been appreciated. My brother who collects art even said offhandedly that he didn't know he had a sister who was an artist... He didn't think I heard him, but I did... That was the best.
More good times to come. Hope you are enjoying!

My Christmas tradition

Although I put up my Christmas card, I did want to write about my holiday tradition. As I mentioned somewhere, my background is Polish. 100% as a matter of fact.

Our Christmas tradition focuses on Christmas eve. This is the night the special meal is made and people wish each other well for the holiday. In my family, the tradition was always to have fish and pierogi on Christmas eve night. And the pierogi is homemade.

Let me tell you there is nothing like home made pierogi. It's not just the taste, it's the process. It's a time when almost everyone in the family comes together to help out to make the meal. My mom traditionally makes the filling (both cabbage and potato, and if she's feeling good to herself either prune or cherry too). The cabbage filling has to be made 'just so' since my sister doesn't like the big 'boolies' inside (thick part of the cabbage). And the pierogi has to be made the day of, and in batches. A glob of dough is made, and rolled out to the proper thickness (pretty damn thin), and then rounds cut out of it. Extra dough is thrown into a bowl to be rolled out again and made into 'straighties' (like spaghetti, but with pierogi dough). And people sit at the table and take a circle of dough, throw a spoonful of stuffing in it, fold it over, and pinch the edges. Chatting all the way. And of course my oldest brother HAS to make a couple with weird shapes and/or a circleof dough filled with dough, just to be different.

All get stored under a towel so they don't dry out, and about half hour before the time to eat, the boiling starts. Potato ones just get boiled, but cabbage one, at least some of them, get fried also in a pan. AT the same time the fish is being cooked.

Once everything is on the table, before anyone can sit down to eat, the oplatek (sp?) comes out. It's kind of like the texture of communion wafers, but pressed into 4x6 rectangles with holiday scenes on them, and blessed by a priest. Every person starts with a piece. And you go up to a person, wish them a merry christmas, and each person takes a piece of the other's wafer and eats it. It's actually a really nice tradition. Of course, in my family, the goal is always to get other people to take as much as possible so you have almost nothing at the end left to eat yourself, since it's so nasty. :-)

Then, you sit and eat all the cold food. But it's still great.

Worry wart

So, my mom is 78 years old. At what point does simple memory problems from being old and tired switch to Alzheimers or some other bad disease? I just worry, because sometimes in the same phone conversation she'll repeat the same things, and not remember she said them. Which isn't horrible, since I do that occasionally too. But last night was the first night she asked me the same exact questions, and responded like she hadn't heard the answers before. I know she was tired because she was helping my sister with my nieces during the day. I'm hoping to chalk it up to that and not have it be something worse. And just track if she starts doing that during the day. It's just scary though.

Anyone need a decorated cake?

My sister just took a class and wants to practice. Here's a photo of her final exam... 'course, she lives in northern NJ, so you'd have to be within driving distance. I don't think she knows how to ship. I'm so proud.

Happy Birthday Dad!

So, today, the 28th, is my dad's birthday (and the only reason I remember that is because I called to ask my mom). He would have been 78. The photo is from my sister's wedding. She was wearing my mom's dress, which I tried on when I was getting married but had too big bones. I did not inherit my dad's ears, thankfully. My poor niece did.

So, speaking of Johnny Clegg and Savuka, his album was playing when I got the call that my dad died. One song reminds me of that time:

Inside him a boy looks up to his father
for a sign or an approving eye
oh, it's funny how those once so close but now gone
can still so affect our lives

And that's certainly true of my dad. One of the more major things I got from him was my attitude towards 'important' people. I won't bow and scrape to anyone just because they are in an important position. (Of course I'm not stupid either.) People need to respect others no matter what position they are in. Hmm... I'm not saying this right. I'll see if I can remember it later...

Email from Mom

I am going to see if Farmers Market is open tomorrow. I hope so, have been waiting for it to start. Saw an article on cooking sweet corn. I will try it when I get some. The trick is to cook the ears for two minutes. Heat the water to a rolling boil, then add the ears slowly enough that the boiling doesn't stop. And don't add salt to the water--that makes the corn tough and diminishes flavor. I've always done it for three minutes. Going to try this way next time I get some corn. (The ears will be sweet and juicy) We shall see if one minute makes a difference. Don't know if you have corn out there yet but try this way when you do.
More later, Love and hugs, Mom

Sometimes it's hard to believe I am the daughter of this woman. And sometimes I am way too much like her. The curse of every child.