March 2010
5 posts
“My mom thinks I’m an alcoholic. I don’t disagree with her.”
– Mario’s Palm Sunday toast
3 tags
Looks like Palm Sunday again
There are three holidays that are obligatory visiting days in my husband’s family: Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday.
I don’t know about other Italian American families, but in ours, that last day is the biggest, and the frenzy starts the night before, at Saturday mass when Italian Catholics go in search of the most valuable commodity since the Three Wisemen came bearing gold, incense and myrrh.
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1 tag
The quiet Italian
My son had a play date the other day. His best friend’s mother dropped him off afterward, and came up to the house to say hello.
“I think I scared your son,” she told me.
The boys had been playing video games in the living room when she came in to tell them to get ready. Three rounds of WWE wrestling later and they still hadn’t moved … so she did what any self-respecting mother would do. She...
1 tag
The phone message
After dinner tonight I noticed a voice mail on my phone. I listened to it eight times before I passed the phone to my husband.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with your dad,” I said. “I think he’s been drinking. I can’t make out a word he’s saying.” My husband took the phone and listened. After hearing the message one time he shut the phone and...
2 tags
“Clogged vein systems, in veteran oaks and left-fielders both, unstop themselves,...”
– Donald Hall, Fathers Playing Catch With Sons