Little Women

I come from a rather large extended family.  Our family reunions regularly pull in damn near a hundred relatives from all different ethnic backgrounds - Southern Italians, Northern Italians, Central Italians.  It's a little like the United Nations only instead of discussing world issues everyone complains about their Puerto Rican neighbors.  Just kidding - nobody from my family would live next to Puerto Ricans.  We feast on massive plates of pasta, meatballs and sausages, guzzle homemade wine and gesticulate wildly with our hands while we talk.  If we'd just take the time to rent a monkey and an Organ Grinder we'd be fulfilling all of the Italian Stereotypes at once. 



Uncle Giuseppe - Last known photo



I'd like to think that somewhere near the heart of these reunions is my Dad and his Six Sisters.  That's right, six younger sisters.  Obviously growing up together they have all inherited some very similar traits (they are all crazy) but each one is still very different from the other (varying kinds of crazy).  The Sisters came for a visit this week to see their Big Brother in the hospital.  I don't think the Doctors would have recommended a hospital room filled with people but that really wouldn't have mattered anyway.  Another common trait in my family is the innate ability to ignore the demands of people in authority.  We want what we want and we will damn well get it! 

So there everyone was, The Sisters, the Kids, Grandma, Friends Come to Visit, all stuffed into a tiny room.  In between naps my Dad held court.  They all told stories about the old neighborhood in New Jersey, playing at an abandonded factory as kids, scaring off Jehovah's Witnesses with sexual innuendo, the cops stopping by - I'm starting to get the feeling my Grandma and Grandpop weren't the strictest of parents.  If the cafeteria food hadn't been so awful it would have qualified for this years family reunion.