Juggling Relatives - The Busy, Busy Weekend!
The juggler in our house is Joe. He can actually juggle! He learned as a kid. I love watching him. The concentration on his face - as he tosses the colorful balls into the air where they appear to be airborne all at once - is fascinating! It's also not easy. Juggling looks like it's child's play, but believe me once you attempt to do it yourself, you realize how much skill must go into it to get it right.
That is kind of how he and I felt this weekend as we juggled our relatives over the Saturday-Sunday blur with plenty of good times, good laughs and great fun! Sure, we're completely spent! Sure I am exhausted beyond words and at work, while Joe Puccio had the forethought to take today off and sleep in. But you know it was all well worth it!
On Saturday, our plan was to have a belated celebration for my brother's birthday. We wanted to do something nice for him, so we treated them out to dinner then we had cake and ice cream back on the homestead.
We met up with Mikey, Sandy, Ellie and my Dad in our new favorite Colombian eatery in NJ called Villa de Colombia. It's what 'home cookin' tastes like to us. This place has great food and service in a pleasant, slightly upscale environment. It’s definitely not your usual Colombian grab-n-go place. It's always absolutely great to include Ellie in all of our fun grown-up time because she is such a little lady. She sits at the table with us and politely eats, joining in our chats when possible and stopping at a second’s notice to mug for the camera. She is a riot!
After a meal that left us all overly satisfied, we headed back to our place where Dad, Brother and Husband vegged in front of the TV watching a game while Ellie hit the PC for some Nick Jr. playtime and Sandy and I leafed through magazines in the cooled bedroom. Then Joe and I got the cake and ice cream out, including a special little cupcake just for Ellie, and we lighted the candles to sing Happy Birthday!
Afterward, needing desperately to walk off the many pounds we'd all clearly added, we decided to hit up the mall to walk around and cool down. Great idea! Joe stayed home because he'd rather poke an eyeball out than go to the mall.
The evening ended. We waved my family away as they pulled out of the driveway for their long drive back to Long Island. I felt happy with exhaustion and so ready for bed. I knew Sunday we'd have to do it all over again!
DAY 2:
10:00 a.m. Sunday: Joe and I are driving around getting last-minute additions to Rob and Victoria's themed 4th Anniversary gifts. Turns out traditions say the 4th year is either fruits and flowers or appliances. This nearly made me nuts! What the heck could I get to represent fruits and flowers without actually getting those and what appliance were we to get, since we're pretty sure they have it all?
Drama!
Well, we somehow managed to have all gifts for the anniversary AND Rob's upcoming birthday covered by the time they rolled up into our place at 10:45 a.m. However, there'd be no exchanging of gifts or niceties right then. According to our trusty 1010 WINS on the radio, traffic was building and we were heading into Queens to see the Mets at Citifield. This was for Rob's sake; as everyone knows we of the Puccio home are hard Yankee fans. In all honesty, we needed to check out the new park to do the requisite comparison with the Yank’s new home.
Off we went, with Rob at the wheel and me hoping not to toss my cookies all over backseat - as I get crazy carsick if I am not driving. We parked off Roosevelt Avenue and sauntered our way to the park. Did I mention it was going to be a sweltering 90ยบ and humid...in the shade? Yes, it was that hot. And being that we were going to spend the next 9 innings in an open-top stadium, we were bracing ourselves. As per usual, I was covered in SPF 50 from head to toe. However, Joe Puccio thinks he is immune to such things and chooses to hit the sun face-on with nothing to protect him but his skin!! Adventurous guy!
After we did the prerequisite walking around of the new, family-friendly stadium (the new Yankee Stadium is better!), we preceded to find our seats, which were nicely cooking in the afternoon sun. A few quick trips to the concessions stand and we were ready to watch the 'Amazins" be amazingly bad. But then...SHOCKER...it was actually a good game and they actually won! The Mets! Won a game! Do you not see the importance of this? I mean what are the chances the Mets would win on the off chance that diehard Yankee fan, Joe Puccio would be there?
As usual, Victoria and I assumed our normal stadium stance, which is to sit immobilized wondering how and why we're there and to pray incessantly for "NO EXTRA INNINGS". We got the next best thing: Husbands who, in the midst of their dripping foreheads and reddening skin, decided we would run out at the top of the 8th, thereby avoiding all manner of man and traffic on our way out of there. We were nearly back at our place when the celebrations began for the winning Mets. Hey, at least we could say we attended a winning game!
We relaxed at home a while, Rob catching up on some Tiger Woods action, then headed out to our neighborhood Houlihan's restaurant (back in America). The totally cool restaurant manager even put golf on for Rob, which was nice. We piled on more pounds of food, and then left there with that same feeling of WTF? we had the day before. You know it. WTF did we eat and why do we feel like we're going to explode?
Back home again, where we witnessed something unheard of - or so Rob told us. We witnessed the unprecedented as Tiger Woods lost a major tournament to some unknown South Korean named Y.E. Yang. History in the making! Then we finally had time to give them their gifts and have a little fun with it.
Then, like just 24 hours before, we stood in our doorway and waved them off, as they pulled out of our driveway and headed out for their long drive back upstate New York.
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