Guest Blog from Uncle John-- "The Magic of the Mashed"

What is it about Christine’s cheesy mashed potatoes that make everybody nuts? It’s just some potatoes, cheese, and sour cream mixed together. But it’s something more. To understand let’s take a walk down memory lane.

Back in the day, when I was a youngster, I used to get up early on a Sunday morning to go to the 8 o’clock mass with my beloved Grandmother. We would sit at the end of the last pew every week. We sat there every week because it was an easy out before the end of the mass. We would leave mass through the side door during communion before the “official” end of the mass. It counted. We stayed for 98% of the mass. Our obligation was fulfilled. Besides we couldn’t take one more prayer out of Sue Colisimo’s mouth in the pew in front of us because she was ALWAYS a sentence and a half ahead of the rest of the congregation. It used to get on both our nerves.

We would head back down the street to 7012 where I would watch my Grandmother prepare her weekly dose of her infamous meatballs. I was like an appendage of hers. By her side during the entire processes. Mix the meat, heat up the pan with the grease from last week’s meatballs, roll the meatballs, and then fry them up. The Sunday meatballs weren’t round like her macaroni meatballs. The Sunday meatballs were shaped like little footballs. The usual amount of meatballs on a normal Sunday was about 3 to 4 dozen. She would place them in a pasta dish lined with napkins.

I would take about a dozen steaming hot meatballs wrapped in some napkins and return to 7006 to share with the family who slept in on a Sunday and went to what my Grandmother referred to as “the lazy peoples mass” at 11 o’clock.

After the 11 o’clock mass people would file into Grandmom’s house to shoot the shit and chow down on some meatballs…similar to what happens on Sundays at 7006 today. It was a ritual. Mostly family, sometimes a neighbor or two.

To those who know and remember… if you close your eyes and think about it… you can smell and taste those meatballs.

Everybody and their sister can make meatballs. I’ve tasted many meatball recipes over the years. Some good ones, some bad ones, but none like my Grandmother used to make. Annette’s meatballs have come the closest to tasting like Grandom Gatti’s meatballs. So what was it about Grandmom Gatti’s meatballs that made people make the pilgrimage to 7012 every Sunday for decades?

Food recipes are just scientific combinations of food. Plain and simple…usually. I’m sure anyone can combine the same ingredients my Grandmother used to make her meatballs with and not have them come out the same as hers did. So what was it about those meatballs? What is it about those cheesy mashed potatoes?

It’s called heart and soul kids. Something you can’t buy at any supermarket.

My Grandmother knew how much joy her meatballs brought to her family. They were like little hugs with every bite. She put her heart and soul into every single meatball she ever made….which over the years totaled in the thousands I’m sure. Probably in the hundreds of thousands.

So the next time you take a forkful of those cheesy mashed potatoes be mindful of the fact that you’ve just been hugged by our Christine.

I've discovered an aphrodisiac for dogs

Greetings readers!!  I am committed to blogging on a regular basis, so here is another one.  As usual, I have no business blogging because I have a million other things to do.  But I am too excited right now about what I just discovered.  It must be shared with the world.  Now I am no scientist, ok maybe I am but that's besides the point.  This is not my area of expertise so I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I am pretty sure that I have stumbled upon an aphrodisiac for dogs.  Here is what happened.

I came home from the library today, let the dogs out, blah blah blah.  Fast forward.  I'm in the basement about to do work and I notice that it is very quiet, too quiet.  On the other side of the basement, the dogs are eating putty out of a window frame that my dad and I just installed last week.  Apparently the putty wasn't dry yet because the dogs ate a significant amount.  Here is what the window looks like in the areas where the dogs didn't get to:

 Here is what the window looks like in the areas that the dogs decided to consume:

 A few minutes passed and I noticed that both of the dogs appeared to have gotten "the fever."  You know, the kind of feeling that makes your hips want to gyrate back and forth.  Some people may refer to this as humping.  I have never witnessed Lucy humping anything until today.  Unfortunately by the time I found my phone, I was unable to capture Lucy humping the couch, but I was able to capture Juliet humping Lucy.  Although Juliet humping Lucy is not a rare occurrence, I don't think the footage has ever gone viral.  So here it is.    There are no sounds, your computer isn't broken.  I thought I called Juliet a rapist at the end of the video but I can't hear it.

In conclusion, here is the magic elixir which will make dogs (at least Lucy and Juliet) hump the shit out of things.  I just noticed that the brand of this putty is called Red Devil.  Coincidence??  I think not.

I QUIT!!!

I started a blog a few days ago and didn't get to finish.  Here is what the blog said:




"Works sucks.  I don't know why I thought that I was going to get an awesome job that I would look forward to going to every day.  A place where I could be challenged, contribute to society and work only 37.5 hours per week.  No no.  Instead I am working at a place where I don't need to think about anything.  I travel around to different job sites, sample concrete, take it back to the lab and start over the next day.  I was up to 40 hours by the end of Wednesday last week.  It's literally back breaking work."


UPDATE:

I FUCKING QUIT!!!!!!!!!

I hated that job with a burning passion since Day 2.  I wasn't going to quit though because I really needed the money.  But a series of events occurred and I told my boss fuck you and that was the end of it.  

There were several items that were agreed on when i was first hired: 

1. Salary

2. My work would consist of lab, field and office

3. I would be given the liberty to work as much as I wanted until I was done my thesis. 

All 3 of those items have been violated.  My salary was $12 per hour.  WHAT?!!?  \Are you kidding me???

I was in the field all day every day at full time hours.  Also not what was agreed upon.  I was not happy about these things, told my boss about it, he said you have to work tomorrow, I said fuck you and quit.  

This has been one hell of a year for me and the days are over when I allow people to take advantage of me.  I refuse for that to happen anymore.  My masters degree has been an absolute nightmare for me and everyone around me.  I've put up with too much shit this year and I wasn't about to let some employer try to walk all over me.  

Now I know that I probably shouldn't have quit because jobs are hard to find and I am poor and have to pay for a wedding and save up for a house.  But the bottom line is that I either had to choose this job or a masters degree.  They weren't going to give me any time off to finish.  I've delayed this master's even more because of these people.    Enough is enough.  

Originally I said that my start date would be the end of October when I would be done my thesis.  They asked me if I could work a little bit while I was working on it because they were really busy.  I said that I could and we agreed to one day per week.  Well I worked almost 15 days in October.  I pushed my thesis back even more because these assholes tried to screw me.  FUUUUCKKKKK!!!    

So now I'm back on track to graduating this semester and will not let anything stand in my way.  

BRING IT ON.  

Side note:  I just re-read this blog and have come to the conclusion that it is very poorly written.  It makes no sense.  It doesn't have the same ebb and flow that can be found in the rest of my posts.  I thought about re-writing it, but then it wouldn't have the same raw effect.  Blame it on the hometown lager.