Valentine’s Day: You can be in love and still sorta hate it

I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, and yet I collect vintage valentines. It’s a weird dichotomy, I know. A few years ago, I inherited a bunch of old scrapbooks from my great aunt. She had amassed some beautiful cards, letters, and valentines throughout her long life and had the foresight to keep them neatly organized in a scrapbook. She didn’t set out to collect vintage things, but she was born in 1898 and it just so happens that the stuff you collect in the early part of your 89 years  eventually becomes “vintage” shortly after you die. Funny how that works. But I love everything about those old valentines. I love their designs and colors, their fonts, even their inscriptions.

So, why do I have this “bad blood” with Valentine’s Day? I mean, I have been married for 13 years, I love my husband, I always get something nice from him every Valentine’s Day. What’s my problem?

1. The holiday is exclusive. One might say, well, Valentine’s Day isn’t just a day to express romantic love. Bullshit. People are throwing it in your face all day long, usually young couples or old ones who feel the need to validate their crumbling relationships through your uncomfortable discussion with them over top of the four dozen roses teetering on the edge of their desk. Yes, I see them. I can barely see YOU, but I see the flowers.

2. It makes your dating (or general relationship) life a living hell. Did you get (or give) wayyy to much stuff…or too little. Is it too early in our relationship to celebrate? What does it mean if we don’t celebrate? I mean, it’s just a mess.

3. I don’t like that there is a day to do what you should be doing all year, every day. Tell people that you love them or like them any day. With or without a conversation heart to help you out.

4. The onslaught of social media photos and broadcasts of gifts and sentiments is unbearable. For the record, I am really happy when people are in solid relationships, I am. In fact, I wish more people were in healthy, stable relationships. I probably even like the fact that you received special things today because I love you and you are my friend! I just feel that posting about all the things you got or how much you love someone is inconsiderate to so many others today. You should enjoy it. You really should. Bask in it, bask the shit out of it. But you should also enjoy it privately. It’s yours. Think of all the people you know that don’t have anyone, or are going through a difficult divorce, or recently lost their husband or wife. Celebrate your love, but think of others who don’t have anyone. You wouldn’t go tap dancing around a wheelchair convention, would you?

My son Paul’s favorite part of the holiday is eviscerating a shoe box with a knife to accommodate classmates’ cards and treats.

Now there are things about Valentine’s Day I like. I enjoy buying my family little gifts. I like helping my kids prepare treat bags and seeing all the valentines they bring home. I like funny and super awesome Valentine’s Day cards. I even–yes–like to get gifts (gasp). But really, I just like collecting old valentines.

This one just sounds like a threat circa 2013.

Some of the valentines I’ve collected are funny, others just beautiful. The following valentine always intrigued me, since it totally alluded to gettin’ it on–olden days style. However, I could never quite figure out what “sterilize” might mean in this context. Who was the “speaker” in this situation? Is the woman or the man initiating the request to “get busy”? What were “sterilization” methods for each gender around this time? Did this “procedure” take place in Salem, Ohio? So weird.

Be My Sterile Valentine

I’m hoping any reproductive rights specialists or just some crazy polymath can shed some light on this little card.

Oh, and Happy February 14th!!! I love you!

A new twist on an old classic: mini banana split cones

I stumbled upon the cutest little idea the other day and set out to make these awesome Banana Split Bites. I figured it would be a great way to provide a little “bite size” banana split (sometimes a whole banana split is a bit much) and I was certain the kids would love them. Here is the sweet picture from the original post from blogs.babble.com. (adapted from Bakers Royale.)

So, I decided to make them late last night. I mean late. I was tired. Exhausted, really. Midway through the process, I looked over on my counter and there were mini cake cones that I had bought earlier that day. EUREKA! I could cut out a couple steps (mainly just some freezing time) and just shove the ingredients into a tiny little ice cream cone. When I have more time, I’d like to make the original recipe, but this is a little tweak that worked out in a pinch.

I took some cake cones and I dipped the rims into the melted chocolate. Then, I sprinkled with the jimmies. I put a cut banana piece right into the cone.

Then I scooped a little ice cream on top and finished off with some whipped cream and a cherry.

The kids loved them and they tasted great.

Saturday Night Fever: Grape Jelly

With the “help” of five neighborhood boys (including three of my own) I gleaned my neighbor’s Concord grape vines today. By “help,” I mean that I looked over while teetering (one-footed sometimes) on a crappy old stepstool trying to reach the bunches that had grown into a pine tree—and noticed them all lounging in lawn chairs around the pool, looking at the alpacas in the back property. Thanks guys!

I kept things as simple as possible for my first foray into grape jelly making. I simmered the grapes in a big pot and tried my best to crush them as they were cooking. I was surprised at how much liquid was available after the initial heating step.

After straining all the liquid off, I was left with 5 cups of juice. Miraculously, the exact amount needed per the Sure-Gel recipe I was using. Sweet! This is the setup I needed to do the whole process. In the end, I only got around 8 cups of jelly, but it’s all I’ll be able to use in a year.

Late in the evening, one of the kids was chomping at the bit to use this homemade jelly for a PB&J sandwich. Although not totally set up, I let him have at it. He told me that it was delicious and tasted *exactly* like “real” grape jelly. Success!

Marrying into an Italian family: baptism by sauce

Jars of sauce, ready to boil.

I married a first-generation Italian boy. In my youth–usually enamored by the loud, showy, unreliable, ebullient jackass-type–I found solace in his quiet reserve. His complete and unabashed loyalty. His work ethic. His handsomeness. His amazing family.

Although I am half Italian, I am not Italian Italian like my husband’s family. My in-laws came here in 1968, shortly before my husband was born. They did not know the language. They did not know any other “Americans.” They did not have anything but what they could carry over. But they had each other. Many people from the same part of Italy settled in a particular part of Pittsburgh called Bloomfield. I was lucky enough to start out my married life in this neighborhood, and many of my husband’s relatives still live here. I felt like I had become a member of a magical and cloistered society. Where Italian was still spoken around the table, prosciutto (made by my father-in-law) was hanging from garage rafters, where homemade wine was placed on the table for every meal, and every supper had a pasta course, then a meat and vegetable, followed by a salad–and of course an espresso to finish it all off.

Unidentified relatives of mine from Calabria.

My mother is Italian and I grew up learning how to cook from her and her mother, my Grandma Rizzo–also a first generation Italian born in 1918. I learned how to bake bread for Easter, always rolling out two small dough strips before covering the bread to rise, using the strips to make a cross over the dough to bless it and, according to my gram, help it to raise. My grandma would make bread each year on the feast day of Saint Anthony and get it blessed at the church in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania. Sometimes when I was looking in one of her buffet drawers for something, I would find little stale frizenes (a crunchy anise-flavored type of bread, typically eaten buttered and then dipped in coffee) from previous years, tucked neatly away into socks. Kept safe since they were blessed, not to be eaten.

Saint Anthony

An interesting thing happens in many immigrant families. Oftentimes, the people from the origin country culturally progress and give up “the old ways,” but those that emigrate to another country hold onto the traditions of their home. So, even though the customs and lifestyle of the mother country have changed, the immigrants hold on to the ways that they left. It is what ties them to home. It is how they remember.

On my in-law’s most recent trip to Italy, my mother-in-law lamented that many of her friends and family still living there had given up on many of the labor-intensive traditions. The fine lace work to embellish tablecloths, the pasta from scratch–even the canning of fresh tomato sauce. I am so blessed that my husband’s family, my family, has held on to the old ways.

So every year in August, we travel to a local farm to pick tomatoes. This year we brought home 11 bushels.

It’s a family job and everyone pitches in. What makes things particularly effective, is that we process everything outside. My father-in-law has acquired steel drums and large burners that run from propane tanks. Pots and utensils travel between homes when it’s a family’s particular day to do their canning (sisters-in-law, parents, etc.). The tomatoes are usually left to ripen for a few days before processing. Calls are exchanged between family to discuss the ripeness. The final decision is always made by my husband’s parents on what day we should finally jar everything.

The process, although time- and labor-intensive, is quite simple. The tomatoes are washed, cored, squeezed (of water and seeds), boiled, machine processed, canned, and boiled.

Tatone, Paulie, and Uncle Ronnie processing the tomatoes.

We don’t add anything but some fresh basil to the top of the jars before canning. We flavor the sauce when we use it.

Making the final sauce is pretty subjective, and is all about what you like. Your sauce will end up being great if you just try your best and add what you like. Personally, I shred up a carrot and onion and fry in olive oil. Then brown some lamb and add the tomatoes to that. I flavor with salt, basil, oregeno, and parsley, but like to go very easy on the garlic.

Believe me when I tell you, there is nothing like the taste of sauce on the day the tomatoes are crushed. Nothing. Of course, after a day of canning, a big dinner is prepared where you taste the fruits of your labor.

Happiness is when you finally sit down after canning and cooking all day, look over to your youngest son, and watch him doing this:

Anthony enjoying his pasta.

All life is suffering

One morning I woke up to find one of my kids heading out of the house with a fishing net. He briefly noted that he was going outside to catch butterflies. I thought this was really sweet–and then this exchange happened:

Me: “Oh cool, you’re catching butterflies.”

Paul: “Yeah, we’re gonna kill them later with bb guns.”

Raising boys is __________.

They don’t dial 911. Home protected by Red Ryder BB Guns.

Random memory: Mixtape for a fearful ex-boyfriend

I once had a boyfriend who was horrified by my father. I mean, horrified. I can’t say that his fear was unwarranted–my father was just awful to this guy and totally intimidating. I was 23. In hindsight, this particular boyfriend wasn’t all that terrible, but he wasn’t for me. However, my father felt some primal need to protect me (and my two sisters) from harm, perceived or otherwise.

This boyfriend, however, would not be deterred. In order to deal with his fear, he created a mixtape. This mixtape was *specifically* designed to be listened to on the way to my house to pick me up. It was his “psych up” music to face my father.

Every time I hear the song “Machinehead,” (first song on the mixtape) I think of this person and thank god that my father was one crazy son of a bitch.

Dad, an iron worker in Local #3, taking photos pre-demolition of the Brady Street Bridge. Pittsburgh, PA. May, 1978.

Parenting: Pet fish by the pound

“Good morning, Gil. I said, good morning, Gil.”

Ahh, summer carnival season. It’s almost over, but if you’re lucky enough, you have one keepsake or two from that special night you spent with your family. Close your eyes and you can almost smell it. That warm June night where you dropped $85 on nine (9) rides (of dubious construction and unknown operator sobriety), one (1) funnel cake, five (5) chances on the balloon dart game (Beyonce poster, yes!), two (2) orders of cheese fries, a few spins of the wheel at the chuck-a-luck table, and five (5) chances to get a ping pong ball into a vase for a goldfish.

Carnival goldfish. It’s exciting to win “stuff” at a carnival, but winning a LIVING thing is just the apex of prize winning. You win a soul. I mean, a soul that will probably only live between 6 and 18 hours, that doesn’t feel empathy, that you can’t pet, and that cost the carnival ~$.015–but a soul nonetheless. If the good people who run these carnivals really thought about it, they would sell little “goldfish starter kits” for $20 right next to the game. (Small tank, canister of food, bag of rocks. Boom.) But, alas, the carnival cooperatives haven’t decided to do this quite yet. You cross your fingers that your goldfish makes it home alive (or not, perhaps) and then you scrounge around in your garage at 11:00 PM trying to find your old tank. Or worse, you grab the big ricotta cheese container you’ve been saving with the rest of your Tupperware (clean, preferably), fill it with water and tell yourself, “just for tonight.”

Carnival goldfish inevitably enable us to teach our kids about the circle of life. In a way, the carnival people might be providing one of the greatest services to us parents. We get the opportunity to discuss life and death with our kids. Understand care and feeding. Feel love for something that relies on you. Create burial practices, understand loss. Conversely, this “prize” allows parents to lie and deceive our children by any means possible (another great skill to hone to deflect discussing one of life’s difficult issues) to replace the dead fish with a similar looking one before the kid finds “the floater.”

When my kids won a goldfish this year at the fair, ONE goldfish, they decided to spend $100 of their birthday money on a 10 gallon tank setup the next day (complete with kitschy “No Fishing” sign, faux plants, “deep sea” backsplash, rocks, and the all important filter.) I have to admit, it was kind of cool to have a nice tank after all these years. I thought this new guy had a fighting chance.

If you can keep the fish–or a series of lookalikes–great. You’ve succeeded. However, if you’re like most people, even with a fancy schmancy new fish tank, the fish die and you are left with an empty tank. You can perform an unceremonious flush of the deceased, or have an all out funeral (with eulogy and burial.) I’ve had both and everything in between.

At a certain point, the death of your fish is no longer a sad event for everyone, it’s just annoying. Trip after trip to the pet store to pick up the next round of goldfish becomes onerous. There had to be an easier way.

The last time we went fishing, we caught a lot of bluegill and sunfish. A lot. I usually just let the kids catch them and then release them back into the lake. But I just kept thinking of that empty tank. That sad empty tank. Fast forward two hours to our 10 gallon tank full of 4 inch pan fish. I had just been to LL Bean store and they seemed to be *thriving* in their tanks at the retail location. Well, I never thought I’d say this out loud, but the next day I muttered, “I really hope that bluegill doesn’t get stuck in the toilet.”

So, what I’ve decided to do now, is to go down to the local bait shop and buy minnows. Yes, minnows. They are pretty hearty, they are active in the tank, and the best part, they are sold…by the pound. I’ve resorted to buying my pets based on weight. It’s come to this.

Thank God I didn’t have to buy my beagle this way.

“Gunner. ‘Big boned’ like his mom.”