Thats-a mi familigia!

Got this from a (very) Italian friend at work.

42 Things in the Life of an Italian Child

01. You have at least one relative who wore a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral. I stayed away from those women - they scared me.

02. You spent your entire childhood thinking what you ate for lunch was pronounced "sangwich."

03. Your family dog understood Italian.

04. Every Sunday afternoon of your childhood was spent visiting your grandparents and extended family. For the first five years of my life, we lived in a cottage behind my grandparents' house - every day was Sunday.

05. You've experienced the phenomena of 150 people fitting into 50square feet of yard during a family cookout. That's not normal?

06. You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals a day, not seven.

07. You thought killing the pig each year and having salami,capacollo,pancetta and prosciutto hanging out to dry from your shed ceiling was absolutely normal. (Wow, that's really Italian!)

08. You ate pasta for dinner at least three times a week, and every Sunday, and laughed at the commercial for Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day. Not pasta - macaroni - see #38.

09. You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that the price of everything was negotiable through haggling.

10. You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven. I'm not sure it took that long. I have a cousin who is 4'11".

11. You thought everyone's last name ended in a vowel.

12. You thought nylons were supposed to be worn rolled to the ankles. No, silly; just below the knee.

13. Your mom's main hobby is cleaning. For a real-life, contemporary look at what is expected of an Italian woman's cleaning ability, check out Jen's blog. I can't find the post right now, but an Italian study found that women spent an average of 21 hours per week cleaning, whether or not they worked outside the home...I'd say I take after the paternal side of my family in the cleaning stakes, but that side is German. I guess my cleaning habits come from some bad blood centuries ago.

14. You were surprised to find out that wine was actually sold in stores.

15. You thought that everyone made their own tomato sauce. The first time I bought Progresso, I felt as if I betrayed my heritage. It really doesn't take that long to make sauce from scratch.

16. You never ate meat on Christmas Eve or any Friday for that matter. We must have been heathens - Christmas Eve was always salami and meatballs in sauce.

17. You ate your salad after the main course.

18. You thought Catholic was the only religion in the world.

19. Your were beaten at least once with a wooden spoon or broom. Urr, yes.

20. You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your hand. And don't forget every cup of coffee - bread was meant to be dunked.

21. You can understand Italian but you can't speak it. My grandfather spoke in a mix of Italian and English, but we always knew what he was saying.

22. You have at least one relative who came over on the boat. My grandfather arrived at Ellis Island in 1914. My grandmother was the youngest in her family, and the only child born in the U.S.

23. All of your uncles fought in a World War. My uncle was in the navy just after Korea ended. My grandfather fought in WWI, for the Italians (arrived here, then went back to Italy to join up).

24. You have at least six male relatives named Tony, Frank, Joe or Louie. Prudence seemed to also be a family name (including my poor mother, who changed it as soon as she was legally able).

25. You have relatives who aren't really your relatives. Doesn't everyone?

26. You have relatives you don't speak to. Oh yeah.

27. You drank wine before you were a teenager.

28. You relate on some level, admit it, to the Godfather and the Sopranos. My mother is obsessed with the Mob. Me, not so much.

29. You grew up in a house with a yard that didn't have one patch of dirt that didn't have a flower or a vegetable growing out of it. My grandparents' little (city) yard had plum trees and grapevines.

30. Your grandparent's furniture was as comfortable as sitting on plastic. Wait!!!! You were sitting on plastic.

31. You thought that talking loud was normal. Shouldn't this read "talking out loud to yourself"? But yes to the loud - that may be why I;m generally the quiet one now - I could never get a word in edgewise without shouting.

32. You thought sugared almonds and the Tarantella were common at all weddings. Gosh, I hate those almonds.

33. You thought everyone got pinched on the cheeks and money stuffed in their pockets by their relatives. Pinched, yes; stuffed with money, not so much.

34. Your mother is overly protective of the males in the family no matter what their age.

35. There was a crucifix in every room of the house,.

36. Wakes would be held in someone's living room.

37. You couldn't date a boy without getting approval from your father.(Oh, and he had to be Italian.) Thank heavens my dad was German. But oddly enough, two cousins (the daughters of my only uncle) did both marry full-blooded Italian men.

38. You called pasta "macaroni."

39. You dreaded taking out your lunch at school.

40. Going out for a cup of coffee usually meant going out for a cup of coffee over Zia's house. My mom had a couple of spinster cousins - I absolutely hated going over there. There was nothing appropriate for an eight year old to do for a couple of hours, and there were breakable thingees on every flat surface.

41. Every condition, ailment, misfortune, memory loss and accident was attributed to the fact that you didn't eat something.

42. Those of you who get this...KNOW who to pass it on to!