I have no clue as to where the year went but it went and here we are.
As you embark on many new journeys and adventures,
I wish all of you peace and much love in the coming year.
2010 holds many things, some expected and some not so much.
What the year holds for me is anyone’s guess.
I see good and I see some bad.
That’s life I guess.
For all that have visited and commented here over the past year,
I thank you from the bottom of my sock.
Somehow ‘my heart’ doesn’t seem quite deep enough. 
Happy New Year!

ps.
and yes, this post is up at 9AM E.S.T  
Why, you ask?
It’s New Years Day in Australia right now!
Goodonya!

Back in November I posted THIS.
Many replied and many said they wanted in.
Interest lacked and we are now heading into a new year.
Not much time left if you want to garner a prize (if that’s what you want to call it) 
Anonymum, Lolly & Lynn are the top three contenders.
(I am close to Lynn but would never give myself a prize for my own lame comments)
Comment folks!
Comment!
Troll my archives and comment!
Just a bit of kick ass inspiration is all.
Come back tomorrow morning for some fireworks!

Malarky Monday will be back next week.
Moe and Mark have been in Sydney since last weekend making it tough for
a Monday post.
Hopefully, this video will suffice until then.
Happy Malarky Monday, folks!

ps. got some fireworks going off here on Thursday night.
Be sure to check it out!

23 years ago today, a very special little girl came into our lives.
I’ve always loved this song and dedicate it to my Sarah.
Love you always, kiddo.
And yeah, Thad Jones rocks.

Dad

*not blogging but a repost like this should suffice.

I thought this was hysterical.
If you know someone that’s Italian send them this link.
Believe me, they will relate.
After a recent comment, from the author, (3.3.08) I’ve found out who the man behind the story is and have given him full credit.
Wonderful story, Bill.
It almost made me take the chino’s to Browntown . . .

An Italian Christmas

by Bill Ervolino

I thought it would be a nice idea to bring a date to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.
I thought it would be interesting for a non-Italian girl to see how an Italian family spends the holidays. I thought my mother and my date would hit it off like partridges and pear trees.
So, I was wrong. Sue me.

I had only known Karen for three weeks when I extended the invitation.
“I know these family things can be a little weird,” I told her, “but my folks
are great, and we always have a lot of fun on Christmas Eve.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Karen said.

I had only known my mother for 31 years when I told her I’d be bringing Karen with me.
“She’s a very nice girl and she’s really looking forward to meeting all of you.”

“Sounds fine to me,” my mother said.

And that was that.
Two telephone calls.
Two sounds-fine-to-me.
What more could I want?

I should point out, I suppose, that in Italian households, Christmas Eve is the social event of the season — an Italian woman’s reason d’etre.
She cleans. She cooks. She bakes. She orchestrates every minute of the entire evening.
Christmas Eve is what Italian women live for.
I should also point out, I suppose, that when it comes to the kind of women that make Italian men go nuts, Karen is it.

She doesn’t clean.
She doesn’t cook.
She doesn’t bake.

And she has the largest breasts I have ever seen on a human being.

I brought her anyway.

7p.m. –

We arrive.
Karen and I walk in and putter around for half an hour waiting for the other guests to show up. During that half hour, my mother grills Karen like a cheeseburger and cannily determines that Karen does not clean, cook, or bake. My father is equally observant. He pulls me into the living room and notes, “She has the largest breasts I have ever seen on a human being.”

7:30 p.m. –

Others arrive. Uncle Ziti walks in with my Aunt Mafalde, assorted kids, assorted gifts.
We sit around the dining room table for antipasto, a symmetrically composed platter of lettuce, roasted peppers, black olives, salami, prosciutto, provolone, and anchovies.
When I offer to make Karen’s plate she says, “Thank you. But none of those things, okay?”
She points to the anchovies. “You don’t like anchovies?” I ask. “I don’t like fish,” Karen announces to one and all, as 67 other varieties of foods-that-swim are baking, broiling and simmering in the next room.

My mother makes the sign of the cross and things are getting uncomfortable.
Aunt Mafalde asks Karen what her family eats on Christmas Eve.
Karen says, “Knockwurst.”
My father, who is still staring in a daze, at Karen’s chest,
temporarily snaps out of it to murmur, “Knockers?”

My mother kicks him so hard he gets a blood clot.
None of this is turning out the way I’d hoped.

8:00 p.m. –

Second course.

The spaghetti and crab sauce is on the way to the table. Karen declines the crab sauce and says she’ll make her own with butter and ketchup. My mother asks me to join her in the kitchen. I take
My “Merry Christmas” napkin from my lap, place it on the “Merry Christmas” tablecloth and walk into the kitchen. “I don’t want to start any trouble,” my mother says calmly, clutching a bottle of ketchup in her hands. “But if she pours this on my pasta, I’m going to throw acid in her face.” “Come on,” I tell her. “It’s Christmas. Let her eat what she wants.”
My mother considers the situation, and then nods.
As I turn to walk back into the dining room, she grabs my shoulder. “Tell me the truth,” she says, “are you serious with this tramp?”
“She’s not a tramp,” I reply. “And I’ve only known her for three weeks.”
“Well, it’s your life”, she tells me, “but if you marry her, she’ll poison you.”

8:30 p.m. –

More fish.
My stomach is knotted like one of those macramé plant hangers that are always three times larger than the plants they hold. All the women get up to clear away the spaghetti dishes, except for Karen, who, instead, lights a cigarette.
“Why don’t you give them a little hand?” I politely suggest.
Karen makes a face and walks into the kitchen carrying three forks.
“Dear, you don’t have to do that,” my mother tells her, smiling painfully.
“Oh, okay,” Karen says, putting the forks on the sink.
As she reenters the dining room, a wine glass flies over her head, and smashes against the wall. From the kitchen, my mother says, “Whoops.”
I vaguely remember that line from Torch Song Trilogy. “Whoops?”
No. “Whoops is when you fall down an elevator shaft.”

More fish comes out.
After some goading, Karen tries a piece of scungilli, which she describes as “slimy, like worms.” My mother winces, bites her hand and pounds her chest like one of those old women you always see in the sixth row of a funeral home.
Aunt Mafalde does the same.
Karen, believing that this is something that all Italian women do on Christmas Eve, bites her hand and pounds her chest. My Uncle Ziti doesn’t know what to make of it.
My father’s dentures fall out and chew a six-inch gash in the tablecloth.

10:00 p.m. –
Coffee, dessert. Espresso all around. A little anisette. A curl of lemon peel.
When Karen asks for milk, my mother finally slaps her in the face with cannoli.
I guess it had to happen sooner or later.
Karen, believing that this is something that all Italian women do on Christmas Eve, picks up cannoli and slaps my mother with it.

“This is fun,” Karen says.

Fun? No. Fun is when you fall down an elevator shaft.
But, amazingly, everyone is laughing and smiling and filled with good cheer — even my mother, who grabs me by the shoulder, laughs and
says,
“Get this bitch out of my house.”

Sounds fine to me.

After I hit the ‘publish’ button on this post I will be away
from the blog I so love for a little bit.
I have so many wonderful things to cook for the holidays over the next few days
that I will have no time to sit down and visit here.
I want to wish each and every person that visits a wonderful Christmas filled with
all the things you’ve come to know and love over the years.
I pray that broken hearts can be somehow mended, shattered spirits can be lifted,
a little grace can be restored and that
at least one person finally finds the true meaning of the holiday.
May God bless all of you.
Thanks for reading here.
I leave you with one of my favorite renditions of a Christmas classic.
And have yourself a Merry Little Christmas . . .

It is that time once again to put on your laughbag.
It’s Monday!
Short post for me today as I’m a bit sore from shoveling and snowblowing.
We had a snowstorm last night that dropped 8″ of the white stuff.
Yes, it will be a white Christmas here in Boston.
Without further ado.
Please watch and laugh and visit the other Malarkers where there’s always
something good!

Does anyone really like fruitcake?
As Jim Gaffigan says, “Fruit, good, cake, great . . .  fruitcake? Nasty crap.”

Off you go now!

Moe
Morky
Dilligaf

To my wife . . .
(and in a small way to a  very dear friend from Cape Cod ’09.  Do you remember?)

Poverty.
In two words, it sucks.
I was quite moved by this picture.

Maybe it’s a sign of survival, of anguish,
of the frightening realization that mortality does exist in the deepest recesses of the mind.
Maybe it’s a sign that everything is still changing,
still in that near frozen state of flux . . .
For him, for me, for the four walls that still imprison him,
for a world that looks to him as confusing today as it did several hundred yesterdays ago.

Maybe it’s not a sign at all but a palpable gesture that while he sleeps,
this ravenous disease does not; it always wants more.
It replaces what it takes with something barely recognizable, something dark and foggy,
something you never want to talk about around the coffee table but remains forever.
Sometimes this thing just takes.
And takes . . .

Maybe it’s a sign that he is tired, fed up with playing the host,
sick of food that looks like pureed shit put through a strainer that he has to try and swallow.
Banana Crème Pie should never look like soup.
But it does.
And that’s a crying goddamn shame.
His mother was a pastry chef, Christ in a sidecar.

Maybe someday I will look back at this point in time and have a moment of revelation
but I’m not betting on it.
If this disease has taught me anything it’s not to get caught up in any kind of emotional gambit.
It’s a losing proposition at best.
So maybe it is a sign.

For my father maybe it’s a sign that simply says ‘stop’ . . .