Tattoo

One day almost 20 years ago, I drove myself to a tattoo parlor with a torn off corner from a yellow legal pad in my fist.  On it, in smudged blue ball point pen, was a drawing of three concentric circles. I got a tattoo on the back of my right shoulder. Months later back at college, I showed it for the first time to my best friend. She said, "It's like your orbits."

L'Amore di un Figlio

My husband was trying to get his father to come with him to take the kids to the park yesterday. My father-in-law was happily lounging on the couch watching Juventus play Bologna.  My husband turned off the TV. My father-in-law said, "You are annoying." My husband walked away to find the keys to the car. My father-in-law got up off the couch to turn the TV back on. As my husband walked by the TV to get a diaper and wipes for our two-year-old, he hit the power button on the TV again.  As my father-in-law yelled at him, my husband said loudly, "You need to get out of the house and get some exercise." My father-in-law said, "I don't feel good.  I have a cold." My husband said, "You don't feel good because you need to get off the couch." Then my husband said, "I'm going to go start the car. If you don't come outside, I'm going to come back inside here and give you the worst charlie horse you've ever had in your whole life."  

The Hot Nurse

I asked my youngest sister-in-law for a short description of herself. She sent this back to me a couple of days ago:


"I'm named after my Nonna (grandmother in Italian) on my Mom's side. She was perverted and so am I. 


I'm the first health professional in the family, which means I now know more information about various family members than I'd like to. 


I consider myself a healer, weather that be via ass wiping or laying my hands on your body and transferring Reiki energy, either one is a good time. 


I am studying to become a nurse practitioner. 


I am an apprentice to become an Inca medicine woman. It sounds cool because it is. 


My family thinks I am a freak because I am. I am a product of them. 


I secretly love Asians, especially Koreans. 


I am a firm believer that everyone has the ability to heal themselves as long as they are open to the possibility. If you study quantum physics you would agree. 


If you are an elder in my family, you will go to the same old male Italian doctor and listen to him like he's Jesus Christ. A second opinion is not necessary. 


I try not to interfere with other people's experience here on Earth. For example, when I first started nursing school I tried to change my father's diet and control his stress. I now know that eating meatballs and sausage while watching soccer is heaven on earth for my Father and it's not my place to get in the way of that. 


I enjoy looking in the mirror and telling myself that I love myself, sometimes I say it with an Italian accent to feel at home.


Coconut water is better than gatorade unless you are striving for red teeth and diabetes.


Much love"

The Best Man's Speech

My husband was so nervous during his Best Man Speech at his little brother's wedding that I had to hold the paper steady for him. He said, 


"Good Evening Everyone

I want to thank the bride's parents for hosting a beautiful day today. I want to thank them for accepting my brother into their family. Good Luck. The bride, maybe the groom, and their families have done a great job working together to make this evening special.

So let’s be honest. Most people have come to this wedding a little confused. Questions you probably asked yourself in the ride over. Is this guy really getting married? Does she know what she’s doing? Is my Mom still going to do his laundry? And is it true that his childhood friend is going on the honeymoon with them?   

But the real confusion for me came from the name on the invitation. Most everyone here knows my little brother by his childhood nickname, not the grownup name he likes to go by now. We’re all not sure when the child died and the grownup was born but most people point to the first year after he graduated from college. And that was a good thing because everyone knows that he would never have been able to draw such an amazing woman during college. I’ll give you some examples of his alter ego.

My brother the lawyer is now friends with other successful lawyers and their conversation topics include politics, law review and what it’s like to still be a virgin. My brother's childhood friends have taken a different path in life. One is a toll booth worker, a cheese man with a gambling problem, a successful financier who quit his job so he had a reason to move back in with his parents, and last but not least a fireman who has been suspended multiple times. I asked the fireman last night why he keeps getting suspended and his response to me was “for being too brave.” My brother's lawyer friends are going to be very busy keeping his childhood friends out of jail.  

On a more serious note, he stopped being my little brother at some point and started becoming my best friend. I started to look up to him even though he was younger. 


We welcome his wife into our big Italian family. She fits right in. She loves food, she loves laughter and she loves making fun of my brother. I’m excited to call you my sister and I’m very happy that my three kids are going to be able to call you Zia.

So with that I ask everyone to raise their glass. To the bride and groom. May they never go to bed mad, but always stay up and fight!

I love you both."   

Manicomio

The first time I felt comfortable enough to answer the phone at my in-laws house, the uncle on the other end of the line said, "Ciao, é questo il manicomio?" which I later found out means, "Hey, is this the insane asylum?"  

Stimulation

Toward the end of my third pregnancy, the contractions started. I clutched my belly as I was pulling out of our driveway to pick up my daughter from school. I backed our truck right into the ornery old neighbor's car with his three cronies sitting inside. They got out in unison each from a different door and each in a trench coat and rain hat. My neighbor came out of his house and saw what had happened. I yelled at him for parking in front of his house and then I drove away.  

The next day after the contractions had subsided and I realized it had been another false alarm, I googled "How to naturally induce labor" and I commenced trying everything on the list. 


I tried nipple stimulation and was reminded of a time during my first pregnancy when my Mother made a cryptic comment to my husband about how he could "help" me get the baby out. Or maybe she was referring to the next thing on the list, happy endings, which didn't work either but facilitated an unforgettable conversation with a friend who suggested I try lesbian porn. Then there was castor oil which was a total waste of time, money and effort and resulted in nasty diarrhea and no baby. And finally came all of the logistical difficulties for a hugely pregnant woman trying to give herself an enema lying down on the bathroom floor.

"D" Happy

Until very recently, I abhorred public speaking of any kind to the low point of lying to get out of an oral presentation in a five person class in college at Harvard. The professor called me personally and said he was going to have to give me a D in the class. A D is better than an F. I was happy.

15 years later however, I was able to stand up pretty easily and say the following few very tongue in cheek words to introduce an appropriately embarrassing movie about my brother-in-law at his rehearsal dinner.


"Hi Everyone, I'm the girl formerly known as the favorite daughter-in-law. I shouldn't complain though since I've held the title of favorite daughter-in-law uncontested for years, since before we were even engaged. I have to admit that I didn't expect she was going to be much competition for me, but now that I know her... well, I've basically just totally conceded. She is amazing, even if she can't play soccer. We love her and welcome her to the family."   

The next morning as we were getting into the car to drive to the wedding, my mother-in-law told me that everyone was talking about me after my speech. When she says "everyone" she's referring to one of her five sisters-in-law. She went on that they said, "Non sapevamo che era così divertente," which means that they didn't know that I could be so much fun.  

Mini Bridal Party

Here are nine of the twelve groomsmen that attended to my brother-in-law on Saturday at his wedding.  

My Brother-in-Law

My brother-in-law's Godmother pulled some old videos out of her attic so that we could embarrass him as much as possible during his rehearsal dinner.

Des Bishop

Des Bishop is a friend of the family from growing up in the neighborhood. He moved to Ireland when he was a teenager and has made a name for himself in comedy. He has almost 50,000 fans on his Facebook fan page. A couple of our Irish friends have called to let us know that he pokes fun at my husband's family as part of one of his stand up acts. I met him recently, sadly at his father's funeral where he and his brother's said, hands down, the best eulogies that I have ever heard. I never had the honor of meeting his father, but it's obvious that he was an amazing person.  

My Cousin Vinnie

My father-in-law and his brothers and sister run a family business. They came over from Italy as award winning hair stylists and then branched out into salons, salon furniture, beauty products and styling tools. They often used their children as the models in their marketing materials and posters. My husband is the one holding the blow dryer pointed at his little brother, the little gangster with the shiny suit and the crooked smile. My two sisters-in-law are on the right. The four kids on the left half of the picture are the same ages as my husband and his siblings, but are first cousins once removed. The boy on the left of my husband is his cousin Vinny.  

Burn the Scab

My mother-in-law and her sister, Zia, believe that you must burn the scab from an infant's umbilical cord when it falls off.  Zia actually stole my nephew's scab and burned it because my sister-in-law said she wasn't going to do it.  

Wedding Lore

A few days after we got engaged, I told my mother-in-law that she could invite 100 people to the wedding.  She said, "100 invitations." I said, "No, 100 people."  She said, “Sweetheart, we have more than 100 first cousins.” In the end, we had 750 people on our guest list. The wedding was in California where I grew up. About 350 people actually made it to the wedding.  There were twice as many people at the wedding from his family than mine.  

Weisenheimer

The latest quip from the wise-ass minister at the little Lutheran church down the block.  

Pregnant Pissers

My mother-in-law is one of my best friends, but that doesn't stop her from trying to get me to eat goat's knee stew. Each time I was pregnant, she and her sister, Zia, made a big pot of goat's knee stew and tried to serve it to me. I understand that they believe that it's good for the baby in some essential way, and I do love the attention, but I refused. Realizing that they weren't afraid to try to sneak it into me, I started to keep an ear out for the Italian word for "knee".

The women in my husband's family believe that if a pregnant woman has a craving for a food and denies that craving, the baby will be born with a birthmark on it's face that resembles the food that was ignored.  I blatantly mocked them and my son was born with a bright red V-shaped birthmark smack dab in the middle of his forehead.  

Zia unintentionally pisses off pregnant women, and there are a lot of them at any one time in the family.  She calls them big.  "Ah, you so BIG! SO BIG!", she giggles, absolutely beaming and clapping maniacally. Then comes a long string of heavily accented God bless yous.  

Prius Driver Cousin

My husband's cousin bought a Toyota Prius last summer.  His commute to work at the family business just on the Queens side of the Whitestone bridge was lengthened substantially when he and his wife bought a house out in Long Island.  The Prius allows him to not only save money on gas, but also drive in the HOV lane.  He says that he gets all kinds of happy smiley looks from other Prius drivers. He's says it's like a club.  He says he gives them the finger.  

Bambini

Zia has never been wrong when she has made a prediction about the sex of an unborn baby. It's eerie. When someone she knows comes clean that they are preggers, she patiently bides her time waiting for one of her special dreams. She won't predict unless she's absolutely sure. She consoles the mother if it's going to be a girl.  

Lights Out

I adore my father-in-law. He can do no wrong in my eyes, but he is not what anyone would call "handy" around the house. If a light bulb goes out, it stays out. When all the lights are finally dark in the house and no one can see anymore, someone who doesn't live there but can't take it anymore changes all the bulbs.  


My father-in-law had a guy he paid to do work around the house once in a while. Whatever work this guy did he did with one hand, cigarette in the other, even when he was up on a ladder.  

Last summer before we moved into their house, the fifty-year-old oil furnace in the basement exploded, leaving a dark smelly sooty paste on every surface of the house. Forced to move out of their house, they moved into Zia's house next door. With my sister-in-law and her family already living there, they set up camp in the family room on the pull out. 


My younger brother-in-law made an admittedly strange decision to spend one night there with the whole crew.  He slept on the love seat in the family room next to the pull out. He said his father wasn't afraid to sleep in his regular pajamas, which are tight and white, and you know what?  Sometimes, I fart all night long too.

The Compound

My husband and I and our three kids live with my Italian immigrant in-laws in Flushing, Queens. The house has three bedrooms all on the second floor. My in-laws have their bedroom at the back of the house. My husband and I have his sisters' old room at the front of the house, and our three kids are in the middle room that he used to share with his brother. The house is bursting its seams and I am happier now than I was when we were living in our custom built four bedroom house a few miles east. 


Right next door to my in-law's house is Zia's house. Zia, which means Aunt in Italian, is my mother-in-law's elder sister. She defines old school. Tragically widowed shortly after her wedding day, Zia has no children of her own and not once in all the years since did it occur to her to remarry. And one interesting tidbit that you'll just have to take my word for, is that Zia has dreams that foretell the sex of babies. Really.  


The elder of my husband's two sisters and her family live next door with Zia. They have been there for a couple of years saving money to buy a house of their own. Their stay, like ours, has been prolonged because of the current economy. 


Right after we moved in, my father-in-law did something very out of character. He made a home improvement. He found someone to come and replace the old chain link fence that went partially around his property with a professionally built shiny black aluminum fence. He insisted that the new fence be totally child-proof so his five young grandchildren would be safe running and playing between the two houses. Nonno gets the credit for creating the Compound on 189th Street.