well, i DO enjoy a good bundt cake.. .

the thing about families is like, i get it, everyone's family is soooo special and quirky and (oH, teehee) your crazy old aunt says inappropriate things at thanksgiving dinner, but like, our family actually is. okay. the thing about our family is that we're the tiniest. there's only 7 of us so we're this bizarre little clan that knows way too much about each other and doesn't welcome outsiders. we also have (if i do say so myself) great senses of humor which provides hours of entertainment during our weekly jaunts at the casa di nana and hours of fierce scrabble competition. that is, of course, with the obvious exception of my mother who is notorious for having no funny bone in her body which just makes it all the more exciting when she attempts to be funny. one time she casually walked into the living room and said to our father, 'Vic guess what!' unenthusiastic father asks what and the mother says, 'i just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to geico.' this cracked her up for about three months, i kid you not. anyway, the deranged comedy gene was most likely inherited by sissy and i from our aunt dee-dee who, like us, goes into fits of hysterics (often prompted by creating stories in her head) and occasionally needs to leave the dinner table. we feel our aunt helped cultivate our creative imaginations by doing things with us when we were little such as signing our coloring books with pseudonyms (Candy, Danielle, Bambi... it's like we colored with pornstars) and inventing stories about seeing the little mermaid shopping on fifth avenue. now that we're older and she feels that she has securely molded our great minds into the kinds that will appreciate her antics, we have become her favorite conspirators/confessors.

the most recent bout of hysteria has been brought on by her return to her mother's house. after being the first to move out when she was 19 (we actually are in possession of her first blender, proof of how long ago that really was) she has also been the first to move back to keep things 'under control.'

the other day upon returning to nana's house, aunt dee-dee discovered that the garage door appeared to be stuck about 36 inches or so from the ground. not having brought her keys to the front door, said aunt pondered what to do, and,confusing emergency situation procedures, literally stopped. dropped. and rolled. (it's not that far fetched, our uncle is a fireman, he drills this into our heads) after standing up, now inside the garage, and finding herself covered in grease(lightning!) she decided she should probably share the story with her favorite nieces.

although our family is (unfortunately) all about sharing, our aunt should have realized that this would be one of those stories that she would probably never here the end of as it is only June and already the line of the summer seems to be.. did you roll under there too? this is quite similar to the time she thoughtfully remarked, 'i do enjoy a good burger' which we both now repeat anytime the word burger is mentioned.

all new levels of dementia seem to have swept the family this week, however. yesterday we discovered an email from our aunt detailing her new email, telephone number and address. this would have been really helpful if A. she sent it to anyone other than her sister and two nieces or B. we all did not grow up in the house she sent the address for. staring at us from the bottom of this non-sensical email was a smiley face flipping burgers!

a bbq-ing smiley! who knew! and when did they grow arms anyway? aren't they technically 'smiley-faces'? my face cannot flip burgers. if it could i wouldn't have to freelance.

back to the story.
sissy and i chalked the bizarro smiley up to annoying msn's inclusion of icons and figured they were being cutesy for the summer. c then proceeded to write our aunt back, detailing the exciting discovery (high seas adventures indeed, Bear) of the Super Stop & Shop near us. to anyone else this is not exciting, in fact you are probably wondering what is with all the grocery shopping, but our family is gaga over groceries. and in the world that is our family's grocery heaven, stop&shop is the messiah. so after sending this innocent bit of news sissy and i receive the world's most amusing email. transcript is as follows:

what did you think about my bbq smiley face?

as far as SS&S (ed. note: Super Stop & Shop, i told you they take this seriously) please bring a circular so nana will give you a shopping list (why should i have all the fun).

The pool is all cleaned & ready. We even cleaned the sliding pond and super waxed it. I'm going to have U.Sal (ed. note: Uncle Sal, giant younger brother of aunt and mother, acts like an overgrown eight-year old, fireman of monstrous proportions) try it and hopefully it will throw him into the porch screen.

Obviously, just one of the many highlights of this email is that we are possibly the only people still referring to a slide as a 'sliding pond.' this no doubt showcases our family's Kennedy-era glamour with our flashy sixties slang and pool dubbed the 'esther williams' (seriously, it says it around the edges).

sissy, clearly still delusional from all the familial internet interaction im'd me to see if our mother has a bundt pan because we will be staying there this weekend and she would like 'to bake a chocolate and pistachio bundt cake.' chrissy has actually only baked a cake once. this is not a knock on her skills, she literally has only done it one time.

for a boy.

who broke up with her the following weekend.

now, i'm not blaming the cake. i'm just saying, it's a bit suspicious. and now she's on this baking kick again. just the other day she was talking about making one for my mother's fifty-first birthday. i can't help but think, the woman's over fifty, she has enough stress, don't make her eat your cake, chrissy!