Father's Day at the Bro's

Are you tawkin ta me? Are YOU tawkin ta ME? Heeheeheee! Isn't that what it looks like Dad is saying? It wouldn't be a stretch for this Bronx Man!

My family is forever cracking me up and it's usually not from a joke, or from anyone purposely trying to be funny. When we're all together, "funny" just happens naturally. I guess we're a fairly typical Italian-American family from New York. We've actually lost most of the "Italian" but won't admit it to anyone. We like to eat, we like to talk, and we're fairly often completely crude and rude. Cursing is commonplace and none of us look at it as being declasse if we're just among ourselves. It seems that no topic is too personal or sensitive to touch on, and I do believe we have run the gamut of "Too Much Information!" conversations. Let me put it this way. When my father had his prostate exam and biopsy? Well, I was given a blow by blow of the entire doctor visit and it wasn't pretty!

Yesterday was a typical day at my brother's house. My sister-in-law, Pat, in the kitchen preparing dinner, Mom cutting a watermelon,
Justin, Mikayla, Alexa and Madison in the pool and the rest of us hanging out on the screened-in porch.
Of course Jill was there, with Poopy Pants glued to her the entire day. And all the kid did was eat and eat and eat. I honestly don't know where she puts it in that tiny body of hers!

Now, I've got three nephews, but the older two are elusive little buggers and not often seen by the human eye. The oldest, Jeffrey (20), had to go to work, so I didn't get to take a picture of his oh-so-handsome self, but I did manage to snap one of 16-year-old Jonny, when he was in a contemplative state. Probably wondering how he is surviving among these crazy family members. 10-year-old Justin is a whole 'nother story. He's a ham and was easily captured by my camera. He's looking a bit worse for wear here, as he'd just gotten out of the pool.

I can't even tell you what caused one of the many fits of laughter yesterday. I know there was talk of sesame seeds and sex drive, and then a bit about my father's complete obsession with burning DVDs and making the covers look "Better than what you buy at the store!" Now this isn't just any old hobby to my dad. It's an ART FORM. He's got copy paper in every color of the rainbow, he's got ink refills coming out the ying yang, just in case he runs out, he's got stacks upon stacks of blank DVDs, and he even installed a special program for movie labels. He's literally got thousands of movies now, all packaged beautifully, each one sporting an outside label telling what year the film was made, if it won an award, etc. The following pictures depict what happened after my brother acted out an automated DVD burner that my father should create in his bedroom.





























I'm telling ya, this family thinks they are normal, but they are so NOT. Everyone always points their fingers at me as being the cuckoo of the nest, but when we're all together it's anyone's game! We CAN be normal.









And we can be serious.




But mostly we're goofy...






... and borderline crude...








As crazy as we are, there's nothing I like better than spending time with my family. We may not be the classiest bunch, but we do have fun together. And the most important thing is that there's plenty of love between us. So the next time you point your camera at someone and they flip you the bird, don't jump to the conclusion that it's a bad thing. Sometimes, at least in this family, getting flipped the bird is sign language for "I love you!"

Until next time, Justine :o )