Wednesday, July 20, 2011

wo-MAN

Sometimes I feel like we're hillbillies.
See, while where I live there's a ton of culture, art history, traditions, etc....if your Aunt's a dyke in a small Italian town, nobody really talks about it.
In my family, we are black and white about our lives. We are what we are. We live how we live and we love.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, teaching Jordan about abstract concepts was extremely difficult. It took time for him to understand the concrete, forget about the abstract.
I've blogged about his Bar Mitzvah, and how we tried to teach him about religion despite the language difficulties. I've blogged about many things, including the fact that my sister is a dyke.

Now, here's the latest.
We are currently in the USA spending time with family. Niki came to visit us, while we were with my mom.
At a certain point of a conversation, Sofia looks at my sister and says, "Aunt Niki you are a wo-MAN."
Aunt Niki laughed. Jordan laughed.
Sofia as we know is extremely manipulative. She knows how to get what she wants from every single person she knows except for Aunt Niki. Apparently she was studying Niki, to figure out the best approach. She still hadn't figured it out when Niki left.

We were in the car with my Dad and my Dad asked how Aunt Niki was -Sofia said, "Aunt Niki doesn't brush under her armpits." My dad said, "I know."
Sofia said, "Aunt Niki has girlfriends."
Jordan said, "I know."

Niki took Jordan to see Harry Potter and they had an amazing time.
We all went to the nursing home to visit my Gram. There we were playing the "Gram, what's my name" game. My grandmother's dementia has gotten worse, so we lighten the situation by asking her to guess our names and we give clues.

Jordan took control of the situation and tried encouraging Gram to remember us. When he told Gram to look in Niki's direction, he said, "Gram, look at her, who's that? Look at her eyes."

Look at her eyes.
Not only do I have the most amazing sister, who lives her life her way and educates others...but I have kids who get it...hillbillies my ass.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Lightning Bugs and Buttercream Icing

I remember running around in cutoff jeans shorts with my sister under the Weeping Willow tree on Nemo Road, catching lightning bugs. We used to grab a glass jar, poke holes in the lid and fill that jar with those crawling bugs.

Now, Sofia runs through the yard, collecting as many as she can hold in her little hand and I have to fight with her not to bring them in the house to give to my mom.

I'm sitting in my air-conditioned bedroom typing on my mom's laptop as Jordan fights some Playstation battle next to me. I wear a scarf to bed, and my mom looks at me in horror, but I just can't get used to the air-conditioning, there is no ac in my house in Italy.

I'm catching up on things like Snap Boogie and Anna Graceman, amber alerts and the outrageous prices of everything since the last time we were here.

As I stood in line waiting for my chocolate snowball, I heard the Michael Buble song "Home" for the first time while "at home". Strange sensation.

In any case, we're relaxing. For the first time, in a very, very long time, I feel relaxed. And I feel like the only people who need me are in this house with me.
Home sweet home...