I'm Here Sometimes

I’ve been home for a week. Well, come tomorrow it will be a week. 

I feel like it has gone so fast and I’m becoming very anxious about how I’m going to schedule my remaining two weeks before I need to go back to school for three weeks of fencing. Yes. Three weeks consisting only of fencing. No classes. No clubs. No assignments. Just fencing; five days a week, six hours a day. 

Anyway, this week has been filled with work. As soon as my mother could put an apron on me, I was in the bakery filling cannolis and carrying trays and doing anything and everything my mom barked at me. The holidays are always very busy for the bakery, as I’d imagine every store is busy. The preparation for the bombardment of customers that will arrive on Christmas Eve and stragglers of Christmas Day is tedious and long. We stand for a majority of the day, only bending our knees to sit for lunch, squat down for something, use the stairs, or take a bathroom break. Constantly being on your feet can take a toll on your feet and legs. My feet are pretty sore and my shins have inconsistently been giving me problems for the last few months. I’ve resorted to wearing these clunky clogs in an effort to sustain the well-being of my lower limbs. 

The days are long, and I marvel at the dedication of my mother, uncles, brother, and some of the other girls and guys that are there before opening to midnight, roughly hours 7 AM to 12 AM and sometimes later. Even though I came to work late today (11 AM), I still managed to fit in 12 hours. You are constantly moving, constantly stacking or filling or carrying or painting or rolling or cupping or sugering something. It’s constant. 

There is something about repetitive, manual work that I like. I would prefer to stack cookies than to talk on the phone with costumers. I like to think of myself as the packing mule; the one doing all the handy work and filling in the gaps where a worker is needed. It’s an Renaissance-Man sort of job. I work the men’s table (old traditions remain, but can be broken), I buttercream cakes, I bring things to the post office, I wing butterflies and soak babas. I learn to do a little bit of everything. Well. Not everything. I’m not very good with working the counter. I stay away from the counter on the holidays. People get a little scary when it’s Christmas Eve and they want their lobster tails. Really want them. 

Meh. My computer is dying. I’m sleepy. I just want to talk to my girlfriend and make time to see her and see my other friends and get some fencing in and maybe go to the gym a few times and visit my high school properly and other things. But for now, I’ll just sleep. Because before you know it, it’s going to be 6:30 AM and I’ll be in my apron and chunky clogs by 7 AM, filling cakes. 

On the bright side, there are really only three more days of bakery madness. 

I tried drawing a picture of Josephine just now. Sadly, it ended up looking nothing like her so I’ll have to try again. 

I have so many tears to cry. There is so much sadness surrounding this young girl and everyone that loves and cares for her. It hurts, and I’m hurting. But I smiled today. I cried of happiness today. I felt so overjoyed to hear how Jo is being her typical, rambunctious, kick-ass self. With a little medication to put at ease, she is playing hockey in the hospital with her rough cousins. IV? No problem. Other beeping machines and wires and monitors? Forget about it. The nurse can worry about it. Josephine has to get her game on, decked out in pajamas and green frog slippers. I can practically hear my grandmother yelling with concern and fear as her two grandsons run around after a puck with sticks in their hands while Jojo is dragging the nurse behind her with all the wires and tubes.

We’ve known this all along; Josephine is a fighter. She has always had a fire, and it’s so wonderful to see that that flame hasn’t be snuffed out. She is an amazing, inspiring, brave, and resilient child. I love her so much and hope that she keeps that attitude of hers no matter what. 

What a kid!

Look at her in action! 

Being away from home means being out of the loop about what is happening with my family. My mom is a constant news reel, always running her mouth or on the phone or telling some sort of story. And there is always something happening that she needs to dig herself into. Not being home has really been strange because I don’t know whats going on. I talked with my mom on the phone the other day and apparently my one uncle is out of jail. My other uncle just married his girlfriend so that she wouldn’t be deported. My cousin’s wife just had a baby yesterday and I found out only through facebook. My aunt on facebook also has hinted that Josephine isn’t doing as well as I thought. I’m worried about her, and hoping that everything is going to be alright. But I know nothing. It’s strange coming from knowing every little detail to knowing nothing. My family is close, and my mom is definitely at the center of it all. College has isolated me a bit from that sort of information, whether that be for better or worse. I can focus on myself, but I really do miss hearing my mother ranting and knowing what’s happening when it’s happening and just being home with family. 

As we’re eating dinner, we discuss the carpenter ant problem that we’re having in the upstairs bathroom. The bug guy came yesterday and sprayed some stuff into their nest and apparently that they should be dead in about seven days. Today was like the zombie carpenter ant apocalypse. They are all over the fucking place. There are about 20 on my floor, I keep finding them in my bed, they are flooding the showers, all over the bathroom, and have crowded inside of the light of the shower. THEY BROKE THE FUCKING LIGHT IN THE SHOWER. It no longer turns on. I’m really fucking confused because I feel like I see them moving from the corner of my eye every two minutes but then there is nothing there and I feel dumb for snapping my head every time this happens. During dinner, like I said, the family was talking about the ants. As I start talking about an ant that I found on my bed that was huge, I feel this tickling on my elbow. I turn my arm over and look to find this little ant struggling over my arm hair. He was a cute little fellow and a ballsy one as well. Then my brother freaked out and smacked my arm and the ant went flying somewhere. Pat is really afraid of bugs and I really don’t understand the fear of bugs unless they will do any significant damage, like bee stings or deadly venom. Besides that, I really don’t get it. So he starts ranting about how we need to kill all the bugs and then my mom sort of yelled. We look to see what she is yelling about and this giant thousand legger is running across the tile floor. He was a real fat one. My mom stepped on it with her flipflop and put it in the garbage. The entire time, Patrick was yelling while standing on a chair. Yes; my 6 foot, 200 pound brother was standing on a chair because of a bug. Goodness. I’ve need to kill these ants on my floor. They are really abundant right now. This needs to change. 

Before, I was showering and my brother decided that he needed to use the bathroom. Now, at my house, the bathrooms don’t even lock. I don’t think any doors lock in my house other than the one’s that lead outside. Anyway, my family is pretty ok about sharing the bathrooms with one another. I’m the only person that really doesn’t feel comfortable about keeping the door open while using the bathroom. I don’t even like getting changed with my door open and the house is empty. But strangely enough, if my brother is shaving and I’ve got to piss, I’m going to take a piss. That’s just how we roll in this family.

Back to what I meant to talk about: I’m taking my shower, my brother comes in, he starts playing music as he always does, and then I hear these clicking and popping noises. Only my brother would bring a Nerf gun into the bathroom and start shooting the foam suction-cupped “bullets” over the shower curtain and into my showering zone. 

And then he played G6 and I almost killed him.

The end. That’s what goes on in my life.

Well, no. I wasn’t. My brother is. Today. SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HIM!

I really love him. He sometimes has little common sense, though, but it is very innocent and endearing. When he came home from working at the bakery, I see him carrying an Oreo cake and king-crab legs. I laugh a bit at the fact that he bought himself an entire cake for his own birthday, and then he explains the irony of it. When he went to shop-rite to buy the cake, the person working there sees the shirt he is wearing. Just so you know, the shirt he is wearing is the work shirt for the bakery and most people around here know of us. So he’s buying this Oreo cake and the guy says to him, “Do you work at {I’m not telling you my family’s name because I’m a dick like that}?” and he’s like “Yeah”. So the guy questions him: “Why didn’t you just get a cake from there?”. But really, having one of our own cakes isn’t all that special. I mean, damn! We make some delicious cakes! But, unfortunately for my brother, we do not make Oreo cakes. And so that is my brother in a nut-shell. Sort of. There are so many more things about him I’d love to talk about.

I would, but I’m going to eat some of his cake now!