As Pizza Joe pointed out, we were two Joes short of a complete reunion. Joey Head was missing as was Berea Joe. It was a blast visiting Peppe's. I recommend the lasagna and the Italian hoagie. It was also a blast delivering a pizza to Rosina and Lenny on Sunday and two pies to Ohio yesterday. One pie remains for Don Vito, Merle and Ree to sample later today. Perhaps they will blog their reviews. Pizza Joe welcomes all to visit. I don't have a camera so there are no pictures. However, that is a built-in excuse to visit again.

I showed Pizza Joe several recent photos and videos from this blog and e-mailed the links to his brother Vito. I couldn't help but show Pizza Joe the infamous meatpipe post so it is now a legend in another state.

On Saturday night I called Spumoni to say, "Hi," then passed the phone to Pizza Joe to stun Marie. On Monday night Pizza Joe called the Kahuna to settle a question posed by yet another former resident of 1522. It turns out that this other former resident of 1522 vivdly remembers grandpa playing the accordian and - get this - also relocated to northeast PA to open his own pizza place. In short, it was the Kahuna's turn to be stunned by phone.

Yesterday I did help a little with the oven and counter, serving three slices to a guy named Leon who stated that he was from the Bronx. Did I miss an unwriten rule? Was I supposed to move to PA?

Joey is right about the rotary dial phone at the castle. Pizza Joe has everything you could want to hear on the juke box at Peppe's Pizza: rock, pop, country, Neil Diamond, Sinatra and Dean Martin. And Pepino, that crazy mouse. Someone will have to show the brothers how to load their ipods. Then, watch out!

Once they are filling their own ipods, can SKYPE and blogging be far behind?

Thanks, Spumoni Joey! I haven''t had a pain pill all day (although I will have to cave in soon and take one.)

I hope to encourage all of you to get SKYPE and a microphone & speakers or a headset microphone . . .I think it has potential for conference calling although we haven't checked it out yet. . .it would be chaotic for all of us to chat at once. . .but fun, too. We might be able to get Vinny, Marie and Vito to use the computer if all they have to do is click a button and then chat for free. . .

I have been chatting with JoeMaha on SKYPE and he sounds like the trip is enjoyable for the most part so far.

I also got to chat briefly with Aunt Rosina and Uncle Lenny on his cell phone. What a blast! I dearly love this whole family but they hold a special place in my heart. We shared gardening stories this past summer and I have some cherished seeds stored from their garden: baseball bat squash and broccoli rabe.

I will probably call Berea Rose and Spumoni South on Thanksgiving. I am regretting my agreement to cook for the family reunion as they have changed the menu three times plus keep adding dishes they want me to prepare. I think I know why chefs have a higher suicide rate.

Good thing I am doing this once and only once.

Wow Ellie. That is an amazing occurence. I am happy for your new found facial freedom. In our family not being able to smile and laugh is a disability. And Joe wasn't there to appreciate it. He was out with Pizza Joe saucing the town. I haven't seen Pizza Joe in a while. Now there is a funny guy, i wonder if he let Joe Maha work the counter or the ovens? Now there had better be pictures of all this. Joe and Joe probably should not be allowed to work in the same kitchen. Wish I was there. I'd be the missing Joe.

So my dad has talked the Uncle V into buying an ipod. I do not know how to respond to this. I do not recall there being a touchtone phone at castle 1526 and we know how the direct deposit thing went over. Is there not some fundamental law of physics that prevents you from jumping across evolutionary milestones. What i find most interesting is the fact that neither brother owns or uses a personal computer. I am fascinated. Its a great thing. I am greatly moved by the amount of ambition and emotion my uncle V expresses regularly at Spumoni and I am sure it has everything to do with Big Vin. It is an ideal relationship when 1 brother is mild and impressionable and the other is eccentric and relentless. It is not always so ideal for the mother but hey she has new job so she can get away once in a while.

Test your knowledge about the big T-day bird.

I'm under the impression that there's a big football game about to happen around here. One way I know this: when I took Da Chimpz to the barber shop just now to get their heads shorn they offered to add red Ohio State coloring free of charge. Go for it, I said. Now they're walking around looking like a couple of lit cigars.

After the haircut we went to the Giant Beagle supermarket next door. I got some things for this week's festivities. In the bread aisle I spotted something I haven't seen in years: Hostess Sno-Balls. I got a package of two. Once I got home and put everything away I decided to try one. It was perfectly awful. As I broke it apart the white, coconut-dusted marshmallow coating stretched implausible. "Like chicken skin," Alane commented. That rubberized coating, the dirt-brown cake it concealed, and the white paste of filling inside that -- each was bad in its own right, contributing to an even worse whole. Blech-o.

Maybe one of Da Chimpz will eat the one that I left on the table. Or maybe they'll take it into their room and make a robot out of it.

This morning's snack went much better: I made a big cup of coffee for myself and opened up a tiny box of pannetone -- a 3oz jobbie that looked more like wooden cupcake than anything else. I peeled away the ornate brown wrapper and got myself into holiday gear. How can dry bread-like cake make a person so happy? Some mysteries are better left unresolved.

You people in Florida are way ahead. Yeah, when most people have parties they bring in caterers, clowns, or hot dog wagons. But a real live fire truck? That's almost bachelor party material!

I never make a long story short, so call me "Tolstoy." However I want to provide some backstory and then tell you about how life can change in a moment when least expected. (IRONY)

Backstory: In 1992 I was injured in a mishap. It was life-changing and I will finally admit that I had no clue who Joe and Jennifer (my youngest) were when I woke up from the head injury. It's been a long road back complete with a quack for a doctor that prevented me from getting the real help I needed. Lessons learned and all that.

Several surgeries and lots of PT later I was told that what I had back was all I was getting back physically. I usually say that I am numb from the cheek bones to my toes, but that isn't accurate. I am leaden from my cheekbones to my toes except for neuropathy pain and all that fun stuff.

After the last surgery I was left with a grimace on my face that makes me look angry and hateful enough to bite nails and unable to smile as I once did. The timbre of my voice changed, too, and peanuts and carrots became deadly foods (swallowing disorder.) You all know about the light-cycling fun where even strong sunlight can sometimes cause a migraine and cookie-tossing. What I missed most, even when I was thrilled to be learning to walk again, was the ability to smile.

I had a smile that would cause people to come up to me and ask if I really was that happy all the time. (The answer was 'yes.')

Enough backstory. (and NO pity please.)

Yesterday I was sick. Really sick. I wanted toast but I couldn't go to the store to buy bread. I baked bread. I bent over at an odd angle to get a loaf pan out of the bottom cabinet and it was like an electrical storm from the base of my skull to my toes. (If I were closer-kin to you all I might tell you why I bent over at an odd angle but that involves bodily functions you all enjoy chatting about far more than I do. Suffice it to say I didn't want to change clothes yet again.)

The result of the electrical storm is that I have feeling back in my face and feel like my body has been released from a vice. I feel a hundred pounds lighter. I can smile with my whole face again. So many mornings I have woken up with my mouth full of enamel crumbs where my clenched jaws scraped the enamel off my teeth. Feeling my face is weird, but it's a weird that I can enjoy. YIPPEE! Whether this lasts or not, I have cause to celebrate. I hope this makes you all smile, too!

PS If this doesn't last and you all see me looking mad as the Queen of Hearts, don't assume I am angry, please. It's out of my control and distresses me a bit, too.

From the relative discomfort of our elliptical trainer I watched The Simpsons tonight. In the opening credits Bart was seen through the schoolhouse window writing something like:

We're not all naked under our clothes.

It's not just that the statement is incorrect -- I thought I was the first to posit that we indeed are naked under our clothes.

It happened at college graduation, 1988, and I made the comment as a quick defensive move. Even at the time I suspected it wasn't a completely original thought -- still I thought it was pretty clever.

The context was a very hot day in May. I decided to forego the suit and tie and attend the commencement ceremony au naturel beneath my cap and gown. It wasn't really a stunt -- I didn' tell anyone. People would see the mortaboard cap up top, motorcycle boots down below, and a dark gown in the middle. Who would know?

Well, we lined up and waited. Regina, being next in alphabetical order, stood alongside me and we chatted. At some point she put her arm around my waist and, well, noticed a lack of waistband. She lauged uproariously, even as I urged her to keep it quiet -- I knew the school was still on edge from the previous year's graduation prank featuring Ed Merhige (yeah, that Ed Merhige) tearing off his gown and rushing the stage while wearing a giant strap-on phallus. Sure enough, as word spread about my, er, choice of foundations, a concerned-looking student life director came over to interrogate me:

"Uh, are you wearing anything under that gown?" he asked.

And that's when it just sort of fell out of my mouth:

"Are you wearing anything uder your clothes?"

Original insight or not, it defused the situation. I got my degree, put on clothes, and was treated to a lovely sushi dinner in Hawthorne.

Pointless story? You bet. But I gotta have something to think about as I'm working out on the elliptical. After about 30 minutes of that (I don't have an attention span to go longer) I sat down with the boys to watch the last minutes of The Simpsons. That's when Mojo's loose tooth finally came out. His first! (A little late, if you ask me -- not only had Cookie lost several by this time last year, but Mojo's permanent teeth are already filling in... behind the baby teeth... in a second row... kind-a like a shark).

No meatballs today: roast pork instead. It came out very nice. I made some broccoli rabe on the side, along with sauted mushrooms and polenta slices (the fancy-schmancy supermarket had a big tube of polenta, so I bought it).

It was nasty rainy today, so we stayed in most of the day: Mass at 7:30, breakfast with Joe and Jean afterward, and then a trip to Home Depot for odds and ends. After that we did some Erector Set construction before Alane got the pig-slab into the oven.

Da Chimpz are still digging the night-in-shining-armor stuff -- they covered it yesterday at Cookie's Cub Scout meeting, and I took the opportunity to get Excalibur from the library. That's a great movie (though I couldn't get the boys to sit through the whole thing -- wouldn't want them to anyway). Tonight I read them the (abbreviated) story of Saint George. I recall those terrible commercials from WLIR:

"Does the dragon have fire in his lungs and does he breathe it?"

Yeah baby! I used to drive around in my Beetle with a cassette tape playing in the glovebox-mounted deck: Golden Shower of Hits recorded on one side and We're the Meatmen and You Suck recorded on the other.

Those were the days of real music... I only recently found the Butthole Surfers' Rembrandt Pussyhorse on mp3 (what am I gonna do with vinyl these days?).

Marlo, you bringin' back the memories...