Italy is still in the back of my mind, despite a lack of posts about it. My aunt Rosemary passed away two weeks ago, and it was her dream to plan a family trip to Italy, and I had encouraged her and my cousin Laraine to go to Tuscany, to stay in Firenze, and to travel from there. I offered my experiences and to go as well, to help them plan a trip.
I don't know what will happen to that trip now, but I do plan on going back. Laraine keeps talking about it, reminding me of the books that I said I would loan her. She'll be up in a few weeks for some skiing, and I'll be sure to give her those tomes of knowledge. I would love to be in a position where I can afford to go back every year, to make a pilgrimage. Sam wished to go to Greece and Turkey, and I would love to do that as well. But my heart belongs to Italy.
My next visit to Italy will likely be in the south, around Napoli and Salerno. It's location makes trips to Rome easier, and also to the wine country of the south. I have family there, and future friends.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Even more family
Christmas has come and gone, and I am prepping for a number of changes. Not children, no puppies, certainly a job change or two (and I still have resumes to get out), but that's not what I'm talking about.
Last summer, when I got married, my cousin Jimmy in Cincinnati got married on the same day. My aunt and uncle split their familial duties that day, with my uncle Jimmy coming to my wedding and my aunt Rosemary going to cousin Jimmy's (yes, we refer to each other by that moniker. I'm cousin Andy, he's cousing Jimmy, that's cousin Mindy, etc.). This fall, Uncle Joe in Cincinnati passed away, and Uncle Skip and Cousin Skippy drove out for the funeral.
Why Cincinnati? That's my grandfather's (may he rest in peace) hometown. His two brothers, Joe and Ralph, lived there their whole lives, and that side of the family grew up around them. Grandpa was in the Navy and lived all over the world. We've never really known about that part of our family. It's always been about the Nassa side.
Until now. All (and I mean ALL) of the cousins from Cincinnati are supposed to be coming to Uncle Skip's birthday party on the 4th of July this year (2008) to meet their cousins from Rhode Island. This should be quite the bash.
Sam's going to kill me if she hears one more person ask "Are you my cousin?"
Last summer, when I got married, my cousin Jimmy in Cincinnati got married on the same day. My aunt and uncle split their familial duties that day, with my uncle Jimmy coming to my wedding and my aunt Rosemary going to cousin Jimmy's (yes, we refer to each other by that moniker. I'm cousin Andy, he's cousing Jimmy, that's cousin Mindy, etc.). This fall, Uncle Joe in Cincinnati passed away, and Uncle Skip and Cousin Skippy drove out for the funeral.
Why Cincinnati? That's my grandfather's (may he rest in peace) hometown. His two brothers, Joe and Ralph, lived there their whole lives, and that side of the family grew up around them. Grandpa was in the Navy and lived all over the world. We've never really known about that part of our family. It's always been about the Nassa side.
Until now. All (and I mean ALL) of the cousins from Cincinnati are supposed to be coming to Uncle Skip's birthday party on the 4th of July this year (2008) to meet their cousins from Rhode Island. This should be quite the bash.
Sam's going to kill me if she hears one more person ask "Are you my cousin?"
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Meet the family
My own wedding is coming in a few short months, and as a warm up, I decided to go to my sister's wedding this weekend to see how it's done. It's a long trip in the driving rain, a little scary, too, but well worth it when you know that there's a hot tub waiting for you at the end of the trip.
(Ok, so there was really no decision to make in going to this wedding. I love my sister like a, well, a sister, and I was part of the wedding party. There really was no chance that I was going to miss this if it was in my control)
My sister's wedding was the first happy occasion that Sam has "experienced" my family. You don't meet my family, you aren't introduced to them, you are thrust into a world that you've never seen the like of. Other people with large families will understand this.
Let's start with why it was a largish wedding and my desire for a smallish one being swallowed up by the desire for my family to be there. My grandmother had six children: Skip, my mom, Anthony, Jimmy, Richard, and Jonette. I don't remember a summer growing up when all of us weren't at my grandparents house at least once ever other week. When I say all of us, I mean all of us: my mom and dad and my two sisters, Skip's wife and three kids, Anthony's wife and two kids, Jonette's daughter. Two of my grandmother's sisters lived just a couple of streets over, Anna and Marie. Marie only had one son, but the three of them were always visiting on those occasions. Anna and her husband had six sons and one daughter. All of them are married. All of them have children.
All of them came to the house.
Did I mention that my grandmother had one more sister and two brothers? Auntie Jenny only had three children, Uncle Ralph had two, and Uncle Jimmy had none.
By my count, I'm up to 50 people, not including the kids that my grandmother's nieces and nephews had. Or family friends that are close enough to be considered family. This was a typical headcount for Christmas Eve. Thanksgiving the immediate families of my grandmother and her brothers and sisters fended for themselves.
And it's not like we aren't a close knit family. We really are. I look at Sam's family who gets together almost every weekend in the summer, and they're close in a similar way, but the size of the get togethers doesn't go beyond her grandparents immediate family. No great aunts or great uncles. The buck stops somewhere.
When there's a wedding or a funeral, we all show up. Every last one. The last time someone didn't show up for a funeral and then came to a family reunion, there was major, major fallout. I wasn't there to see it, but my sisters were. One of my cousins and her husband didn't show up for my mom's (their aunt's) funeral. I suspect that my sisters weren't the only ones to say something to them.
Christmas Eve still pulls us all together. So do yearly reunions. If we vacation somewhere near where a family member lives, we stop in. We don't go out of our way to avoid each other; if anything, we go out of our way to find each other.
My sister's wedding was no different. We both tried to keep it small, but that's next to impossible we discovered. If you want Auntie Anna there, you need to invite Billy and Pat, because they drive her anywhere. But if you invite Billy, you have to at least invite Jimmy, because he is mom's godson. And if you invite two Drumms, you need to invite Tommy, Johnnie, Paulie, Anne, and Mikey, otherwise you get fallout. And if you invite all of Auntie Anna's kids, you should invite Bernie, Auntie Mary's son. And since you're inviting those two Aunt's kids, you need to invite Auntie Jenny's kids, since they're the ones that host the family reunions.
But the fact is, you want to invite them anyway. There's no real feeling of obligation. You want them there.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
I don't see them nearly enough.
(Ok, so there was really no decision to make in going to this wedding. I love my sister like a, well, a sister, and I was part of the wedding party. There really was no chance that I was going to miss this if it was in my control)
My sister's wedding was the first happy occasion that Sam has "experienced" my family. You don't meet my family, you aren't introduced to them, you are thrust into a world that you've never seen the like of. Other people with large families will understand this.
Let's start with why it was a largish wedding and my desire for a smallish one being swallowed up by the desire for my family to be there. My grandmother had six children: Skip, my mom, Anthony, Jimmy, Richard, and Jonette. I don't remember a summer growing up when all of us weren't at my grandparents house at least once ever other week. When I say all of us, I mean all of us: my mom and dad and my two sisters, Skip's wife and three kids, Anthony's wife and two kids, Jonette's daughter. Two of my grandmother's sisters lived just a couple of streets over, Anna and Marie. Marie only had one son, but the three of them were always visiting on those occasions. Anna and her husband had six sons and one daughter. All of them are married. All of them have children.
All of them came to the house.
Did I mention that my grandmother had one more sister and two brothers? Auntie Jenny only had three children, Uncle Ralph had two, and Uncle Jimmy had none.
By my count, I'm up to 50 people, not including the kids that my grandmother's nieces and nephews had. Or family friends that are close enough to be considered family. This was a typical headcount for Christmas Eve. Thanksgiving the immediate families of my grandmother and her brothers and sisters fended for themselves.
And it's not like we aren't a close knit family. We really are. I look at Sam's family who gets together almost every weekend in the summer, and they're close in a similar way, but the size of the get togethers doesn't go beyond her grandparents immediate family. No great aunts or great uncles. The buck stops somewhere.
When there's a wedding or a funeral, we all show up. Every last one. The last time someone didn't show up for a funeral and then came to a family reunion, there was major, major fallout. I wasn't there to see it, but my sisters were. One of my cousins and her husband didn't show up for my mom's (their aunt's) funeral. I suspect that my sisters weren't the only ones to say something to them.
Christmas Eve still pulls us all together. So do yearly reunions. If we vacation somewhere near where a family member lives, we stop in. We don't go out of our way to avoid each other; if anything, we go out of our way to find each other.
My sister's wedding was no different. We both tried to keep it small, but that's next to impossible we discovered. If you want Auntie Anna there, you need to invite Billy and Pat, because they drive her anywhere. But if you invite Billy, you have to at least invite Jimmy, because he is mom's godson. And if you invite two Drumms, you need to invite Tommy, Johnnie, Paulie, Anne, and Mikey, otherwise you get fallout. And if you invite all of Auntie Anna's kids, you should invite Bernie, Auntie Mary's son. And since you're inviting those two Aunt's kids, you need to invite Auntie Jenny's kids, since they're the ones that host the family reunions.
But the fact is, you want to invite them anyway. There's no real feeling of obligation. You want them there.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
I don't see them nearly enough.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Kids need as many chances as you can give them
I'm late again. But at least it's a blog and not something that will threaten life as we know it.
And today I'm irked.
There's a woman at work who is eight months pregnant. Actually, she's more of a girl, 19. The job she does for us is critical, but relatively easy, and it's a good job for someone with a high school education.
As far as I know, they still teach health in high school.
I'm not irked by her getting pregnant at such a young age. It happens, she's married, she could have had an abortion but she chose not to. It's her choice.
Why is she choosing to smoke through her entire pregnancy?!
And today I'm irked.
There's a woman at work who is eight months pregnant. Actually, she's more of a girl, 19. The job she does for us is critical, but relatively easy, and it's a good job for someone with a high school education.
As far as I know, they still teach health in high school.
I'm not irked by her getting pregnant at such a young age. It happens, she's married, she could have had an abortion but she chose not to. It's her choice.
Why is she choosing to smoke through her entire pregnancy?!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
"You're such a good little foreigner"
That's what a souvenir seller outside of the Paris Opera House told Sam. She speaks excellent French (and according to her, she's better when she's drunk) and she had been in France for four months at that point.
I'm sure he meant it in the nicest way possible, but I still took affront to it. I couldn't (and still can't) speak French. I know just few enough phrases to get me from the airport via bus to the train station and then check into a hotel. I can order food, ask for simple directions, and find my way back to my hotel without Sam to guide me.
But I am such an English speaker that when someone asks me "Do you speak English?", I answer with "No, I'm sorry I don't" when I don't want to talk to them.
That was at the end of March, 1999. I flew to Paris for the weekend to visit Sam.
(I LOVE saying that. "I flew to Paris for the weekend.")
I had a great time on that trip, and it really impressed on me how important language is. When I went over to Paris, I had been studying Italian for three months, on and off (I tried to study French, but do you know how hard it is to try to learn two languages at once? I threw my hands up) When I got back, I redoubled my efforts. I didn't want to stick out. I wanted to be able to blend in a bit.
The first week in Tuscany, when we spoke Italian, we were answered in Italian. People were patient if we couldn't remember the word we were looking for. The less exposure I had to English speakers, the better. In Firenze, I walked out of a pasticceria after having had a short conversation about the North End in Boston with the owner.
The second week, the patience was gone. We were speaking Italian well enough, but not as quickly as native speakers and our sentence structure was on the simple side. But we were answered in English. Perfect English.
As it turned out, the first week that we were in Tuscany, we were in the off season. The second and third week? Tourist season.
I don't want to go through that again. I want to be able to walk into the mask shop in Firenze (or any other mask shop hidden around the next corner) and converse with the owner about the theater, compliment him on his work, and barter for a commedia del'arte disguise and then go back to blending in and finding the real local culture. Okay, so I probably won't be able to blend as well as I'd like, but at least I won't be shunned.
The last time I studied, I used a set of CDs. This time, I'm thinking software. It's time to embrace technology.
It sounds good to me.
- A.M.
I'm sure he meant it in the nicest way possible, but I still took affront to it. I couldn't (and still can't) speak French. I know just few enough phrases to get me from the airport via bus to the train station and then check into a hotel. I can order food, ask for simple directions, and find my way back to my hotel without Sam to guide me.
But I am such an English speaker that when someone asks me "Do you speak English?", I answer with "No, I'm sorry I don't" when I don't want to talk to them.
That was at the end of March, 1999. I flew to Paris for the weekend to visit Sam.
(I LOVE saying that. "I flew to Paris for the weekend.")
I had a great time on that trip, and it really impressed on me how important language is. When I went over to Paris, I had been studying Italian for three months, on and off (I tried to study French, but do you know how hard it is to try to learn two languages at once? I threw my hands up) When I got back, I redoubled my efforts. I didn't want to stick out. I wanted to be able to blend in a bit.
The first week in Tuscany, when we spoke Italian, we were answered in Italian. People were patient if we couldn't remember the word we were looking for. The less exposure I had to English speakers, the better. In Firenze, I walked out of a pasticceria after having had a short conversation about the North End in Boston with the owner.
The second week, the patience was gone. We were speaking Italian well enough, but not as quickly as native speakers and our sentence structure was on the simple side. But we were answered in English. Perfect English.
As it turned out, the first week that we were in Tuscany, we were in the off season. The second and third week? Tourist season.
I don't want to go through that again. I want to be able to walk into the mask shop in Firenze (or any other mask shop hidden around the next corner) and converse with the owner about the theater, compliment him on his work, and barter for a commedia del'arte disguise and then go back to blending in and finding the real local culture. Okay, so I probably won't be able to blend as well as I'd like, but at least I won't be shunned.
The last time I studied, I used a set of CDs. This time, I'm thinking software. It's time to embrace technology.
It sounds good to me.
- A.M.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
A little wining
Ooof. I fail.
I had every good intention of posting Wednesday, also known as yesterday. After all, this is supposed to be a Monday and Wednesday update. I blame it on... no one but me.
After all, I could have gone to the gym after work, but I didn't know how difficult travel was going to be in the snow. And when I was called into work, I could have politely said "no, I bought cheap tires for my car and they're allergic to snow." While I was at work, where there was nothing for me to do, I could have posted instead of accepting the pizza offered as a consolation prize for driving in the snow. And when we left early (only two hours after I arrived at the office), I could have gone straight home.
But Sam (that's my soon-to-be wife) came and picked me up and we headed over to Brian and Jess's house for wine, food, and games. This update was buried along with the car in the snow.
The wine was excellent, starting with a nice port that they had picked up in California and moving to a Shiraz that they picked up somewhere. When wine is offered, I generally don't turn it down. I'm not a connoisseur by any means, but I know what I like. But I generally don't buy too many wines. Sam is very picky about what she likes, we have opposing work schedules, and I don't like to drink alone.
Which is why going to Tuscany was such a hoot. I have never been anywhere where so many good wines could be had and I always had someone around to share. Two places to go on any trip to Italy: (1) the local grocery store and (2) almost any wine shop that's hidden away from everything. The table wines are fabulous and inexpensive, the superb wines are reasonably priced. And the variety is incredible.
Given a choice, go see the little guy. If he likes you, he'll do shots with you. And try to grope the women you're traveling with.
I'm off. I need to think about the guest list for this little adventure. I also need to start relearning the Italian I forgot.
Why? Because it sounds good to me.
- A.M.
I had every good intention of posting Wednesday, also known as yesterday. After all, this is supposed to be a Monday and Wednesday update. I blame it on... no one but me.
After all, I could have gone to the gym after work, but I didn't know how difficult travel was going to be in the snow. And when I was called into work, I could have politely said "no, I bought cheap tires for my car and they're allergic to snow." While I was at work, where there was nothing for me to do, I could have posted instead of accepting the pizza offered as a consolation prize for driving in the snow. And when we left early (only two hours after I arrived at the office), I could have gone straight home.
But Sam (that's my soon-to-be wife) came and picked me up and we headed over to Brian and Jess's house for wine, food, and games. This update was buried along with the car in the snow.
The wine was excellent, starting with a nice port that they had picked up in California and moving to a Shiraz that they picked up somewhere. When wine is offered, I generally don't turn it down. I'm not a connoisseur by any means, but I know what I like. But I generally don't buy too many wines. Sam is very picky about what she likes, we have opposing work schedules, and I don't like to drink alone.
Which is why going to Tuscany was such a hoot. I have never been anywhere where so many good wines could be had and I always had someone around to share. Two places to go on any trip to Italy: (1) the local grocery store and (2) almost any wine shop that's hidden away from everything. The table wines are fabulous and inexpensive, the superb wines are reasonably priced. And the variety is incredible.
Given a choice, go see the little guy. If he likes you, he'll do shots with you. And try to grope the women you're traveling with.
I'm off. I need to think about the guest list for this little adventure. I also need to start relearning the Italian I forgot.
Why? Because it sounds good to me.
- A.M.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Dreaming of Italian sunshine
Here I am again.
It seems I was here back in 1999, but on the other side of the lira. A friend of mine started planning a large group trip to Italy, and I started getting excited about it. It was everything that I wanted it to be. That was in 2002.
Now, it's 2007 and I'm dreaming of going back. I want to visit the family that I didn't get to meet last time, see the southern side of the country, bask in the warm sunshine with the old friends who are still around and new friends who didn't get to go last time. The model for the last trip worked extremely well, I've been on a few trips with other friends since then, and I've learned a lot.
I'm going to start planning this now. The goal will be a trip sometime in three or four years time. It should give me (and everyone else) enough time to figure out what it entails and how to do it.
This time, though, I want to speak Italian better than I did last time. And I don't want to repeat my mistakes from the last trip or any other trip in between.
Why?
It sounds good to me.
- A.M.
It seems I was here back in 1999, but on the other side of the lira. A friend of mine started planning a large group trip to Italy, and I started getting excited about it. It was everything that I wanted it to be. That was in 2002.
Now, it's 2007 and I'm dreaming of going back. I want to visit the family that I didn't get to meet last time, see the southern side of the country, bask in the warm sunshine with the old friends who are still around and new friends who didn't get to go last time. The model for the last trip worked extremely well, I've been on a few trips with other friends since then, and I've learned a lot.
I'm going to start planning this now. The goal will be a trip sometime in three or four years time. It should give me (and everyone else) enough time to figure out what it entails and how to do it.
This time, though, I want to speak Italian better than I did last time. And I don't want to repeat my mistakes from the last trip or any other trip in between.
Why?
It sounds good to me.
- A.M.
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