The Italian Side

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It's been a trying week. The leg sort of crapped out on me again last Sunday. The dead feeling went from hip to toe and I ended up in the emergency room, worried about blood clots. All good there, but the swelling remains and there's a possibility that the nerve was nicked during the original surgery. I asked the doc if I did too much and he shrugged.

"I can't change you anyway," he said. "Obviously you're gonna' do whatever you want to do."

And while watching the Sopranos last night and seeing Tony go off on someone, I turned to my beautiful wife.

"What's wrong with Italians? Impatient and angry and so passionate."

"It's pretty accurate," my wife said.

And it is. I sat across from Jake at dinner last night. We went to Chef's Restaurant in Buffalo. It's supposed to be one of the best Italian Restaurants in the city. I don't really concur.

Anyway, Jake was fired up about school. He was funny, mean and irritating all in the same sentence. And he's watered down by generations.

I know the feeling.

My stuffed peppers were served. They would have come in tenth place in the recent pepper contest our family had.

The eggplant and veal dish I ordered was served. Hard to screw those two things up, but it was buried in a red sauce that would have brought forth apologies from my Dad had he served it. Too sweet, too bland, too much freaking cheese.

"It's really good," my beautiful wife said.

Ahh, the common folk, without Italian heritage are so easily fooled.

We went back to another episode of the Sopranos - season 1 - if it's up to me we will watch it season-to-season right to the fade to black.

There was a scene where Paulie went off because the local coffee house was serving espresso. He screamed about how it was all about the Italian-American, and that everyone wanted to be like them.

"If you mow the lawn tomorrow, I swear to God I'll kill you," Kathy said. "Just rest the leg and give it a chance to calm down."

Some people will never understand the Italian-American side.

At the end of the episode, Tony bashed in the forehead of the bartender that couldn't dial the phone.

I laughed.

I know the feeling.

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