forget the cat. there was never even a bag for it to jump out of.

I'm not sure how I want to remember today, if at all

There was a perfect five minutes during a Scopa game with my Nonna where she was really cleaning house. At one point, I just shot her a glance and asked her if she was done. She laughed and picked up another card and then patted me on the shoulder as she corrected my Italian, repeating the line to herself before laughing some more. She'd end up winning the game. And unlike my grandfather, I'd never belittle her for doing so. I'd never take anything as a game of cards so seriously.

I should have stayed there and played another round to twenty one. She'd ask me how much we were betting and then forget my ridiculous answer just as quickly.

This way there would have been no stress injected into the rest of my night. No need to argue over a hockey game that no one could really watch anyway. No need to beat our heads on the same issues. To explain where there was no explanation. To compete where there is no competition.

We should only ever have to struggle with ourselves and never with others. Tonight I learned, again, why that is.

Yes, I am still incomplete and unfulfilled and maybe it is in my nature to always feel this way. I'm idealistic and unrealistic. I'm a dreamer - always was and always will be. I don't need to be examined, cross-referenced or boiled down. You get it or you don't.

The more I surround myself with people who do, the less I want to be around those that don't.

in perfect context

There's that one story which she tells so nicely.

Today it came between games of Scopa. Something about the way she was wringing her hands while I was mixing the cards that must have triggered it. I knew it was going to be that specific one too. I could tell by the first words. Even the quality of the breath before the words, I think. The context was calling for it. And it amazes me that she's still right on it. It never ceases to amaze me, actually.

Her father is sitting down at the kitchen table. Probably after dinner. He's doing the accounts. And he's got his head in his hands because he's stumped.

And then my grandmother brings all ten fingers to her two temples to show me exactly what he looked like in those moments. Because those moments are now perfectly frozen in her mind. As if they just happened yesterday. And her blue eyes are suddenly locked in that moment. She's staring at the same numbers her father was. Staring at numbers that just didn't add up.

And then his wife, my grandmother's mother, would place her hands on his back and lean into those numbers and point out exactly where he had gone wrong. She probably knew it without even looking at them - my grandmother seems almost sure of it as she fills in more context. The woman with her caring hands on her husband's back was technically illiterate after all. (Off-Alphabet is the literal Italian translation) So the numbers themselves wouldn't have meant anything. But she had listened to him struggle with these same calculations before. She got the context. Just like her daughter would. And her daughter's daughter, for that matter.

And just like his great grandson would so many years after his death, her husband would just shake his head in disbelief. Every single time, he would. How is it that his wife knew all these things so intuitively, he would ask. His daughter would just watch and never answer the question. But she would record everything with her blue eyes. The tenderness in that disbelief. The grace in being right.

And so much never needing to be said.  

Missed call

     In the end, the bad news wasn't anywhere as bad as expected. When my mom called me and declared those words I held my breath and braced for the worst. I could feel my head slowly dissociating in anticipation. Because bad things always seem to happen in succession. Never one without two, two without three, three without four. And how many bad pieces of news were we at now, anyhow? Between the two oceans, I had lost count.
     But in the end it was just property damage - a tempo collapsed under the weight of snow and neglect.  It was only dented steel. A broken windshield. Competing insurance claims in the making.
     The biggest tragedy was that we made such a big deal of it in the first place. That we had to go there again. We can be such small people sometimes. Small people with our small problems. The only thing that should have mattered was that you were lucky enough not to have been sitting in that car. Life was kind enough to spare us that scenario. Kind enough to spare me that phone call.
     And so I spend the rest of the day trying to remember just that. Through all the conversations and the semi-awkward chance meetings, that's what I whispered to the back of my own head.
     Thank you, life, for sparing me that phone call.
       

In the cards

Our weekly game of Scopa has become the best way to pass the time.

When you and I go at it, nothing else matters. Not the pain in your side. Not the latest claim to your living inheritance. Not even the divorce and all the nasty words you heard but maybe don't remember. All your attention is on those old Napolitan cards I picked up in that perfect little Square in Rome. And all my attention turns to you. And every week I pray that you won't forget how to play. That you won't forget how valuable that sette bello is. I can sense how tightly you hold on to these few simple calculations. So I make you deal even if I mix the cards before you do. I love how you always cut the deck in half. How you count the cards to yourself regardless of the outcome. And I breathe a tiny sigh of relief every time the numbers add up.

And whenever Mommy makes a trip downstairs there's always a moment where you draw me close and whisper some obtuse Italian proverb in my ear. Something your mother told you when you were too young to even understand. Forcing it out before mine has a chance to come back into the kitchen. Not because you don't want her to hear. Just because you've been saving it for the right occasion.

I don't always get it. But I smile anyway. I smile with my tired eyes and you smile back with yours. Because you're still by far the wisest person in the room. 

all the pretty little blue lights

My mom had called me almost two weeks ago to tell me she had already started putting up the Christmas decorations. It was not like her to start so early.

Even tonight, as she hovered around the table cleaning up and preparing coffee and listening to my father and I talking the usual talk, I could tell she was eager to get to the tree. This morning we had all awoken to our first snowfall; a gentle blanket of white covering everything and sticking to nothing. It's not like her demand was out of season. Still. "I don't know why I'm so determined this year," she repeated. "Maybe it's a bad omen. Maybe something bad is going to happen."

The words just kind of hung in the air for a second. My father gave her the "I knew you were going to say that" glance (and then the line) and I just stared at my milky espresso and said nothing. I had heard her speaking with my Aunt over the phone. We were all quite capable of filling in the blanks.

So we went into the living room and got to work. My father disappeared downstairs. My grandmother sat on the couch and watched, perfectly content to stay out of the decision making process. Not that there is every any creative fireworks between the two of us. I credit my mom for my sense of aesthetic - her words, not mine. Time is no object when working on any thing of beauty. We worked on the tree for a solid two hours, tucking every last blue and white light bulb into those fake pine branches while Elvis sang "Love me tender" in the background. Every now and then I caught us both humming the same words and realized I can't remember ever singing a song with her - not wholeheartedly, anyhow. And every ten minutes or so my grandmother would look at us and smile and ask me when I was going to put up my tree. And I would tell her I usually waited until around mid December because Amy and I preferred a real tree and I wanted it to last until at least mid January.

And every now and then I would kill the lights to see how the tree was looking. And it was more and more beautiful every time. The way those white and blue lights reflected in every pane of the bay window - well, it made the street where I grew up seem even more magical. My mom kept saying how peaceful it all looked; and how happy it would make my grandmother to just sit there and stare at it, the way she often did with the window. If there would be no one passing by on a cold suburban night, at least she wouldn't be able to complain there was no life and no view.

And so there was no more talk of bad omens. At least not for one night.  

forever by your bedside

I don't think I was ever so relieved to get to the hospital to visit my grandmother.

I'll explain. I'm no fan of hospitals but I was just coming from a funeral home. I don't remember ever meeting Anthony. He was just 23-years-old. Died of a mysterious heart attack - not that the cause really matters. His mother was catatonic and inconsolable, denying the fact with a numbing repetition that made it impossible to focus on anything else. I watched her call out her father's name in a similar manner two years ago, the last time I saw this side of the family all together. This was a whole other world of hurt.

Then more bad news struck even closer to home. I found out my first cousin tried to commit suicide this weekend. Ingested too many pills with alcohol and then called the ambulance himself. My brain would not compute the reality - even if it had been quietly preparing for this very news for years.

So this is why I felt a strange sort of calm as I made my way through the familiar emergency room at the Jewish, straight to the elevator and up to the sixth floor. I even let myself get lost for a little bit - enough to find a decent coffee, anyhow.

When I finally did find my grandmother, she was just sitting next to her bed finishing off her dinner. Her hair was combed and golden and her face flush with life and colour. I knew it would be just me and her tonight and that kind of put my mind at ease. I was looking forward to just concentrating on her without getting distracted by background conversation - which is unfortunately easier to do with someone who has a tendency to ramble and repeat herself while storytelling.

I'm always relieved to know she still recognizes me and generally knows what's going on in my life. It makes me feel special even though that's probably stupid. I know even those details are getting hazy. (She asked me if it was still snowing outside, then gently brushed off the question) But then she kind of assured me as much when making reference to the old woman across the hall, who asked me to open her pudding cup and then couldn't even remember where her bed was or whether or not she was even in the right room.

"At least you still remember me," I joked in my broken Italian.
"Yes, I always remember you," she replied.

And then we got talking. We started with the funeral and she almost immediately wanted to change the subject. Then she told me how her mother never really recovered from losing her only son Angelo at 12 years old - the fact that she still had six daughters to raise offering little consolation. My grandmother told me the day her mother died, she stood by her bedside and heard her dead brother's name cross her lips as she reached for her light and slipped away for good.

Then she started telling me about my grandfather, who died before I was a teenager. I never heard her say much about him aside from pointing out he couldn't even make himself toast or boil an egg when push came to shove. Nothing like his brother, anyway. But as we were talking about functional and dysfunctional relationships she told me how the only times they really fought was when he would disappear for nights at a time playing cards. She somehow always managed to track him down (with God's help, of course) and finally got him to admit that cards were the one vice he could not control. In her persistent way, I think it was more important for my grandmother to be acknowledged for raising her four kids alone, for slaving over her sowing machine at all hours of the day and night and for never having to ask her husband for a cent. She was always a proud woman, though maybe too wise to believe she could change the man she was with.

She was repeating herself quite a bit but I was loving every minute of it. I kept thinking that I needed to get home to get this all down. Because this magical conversation - which was somehow everything I needed to be hearing right now - could not be lost or smudged to my poor memory.

And then she said something that blew my mind and nearly broke my heart.

She told me that even if I didn't think her words were important tonight, that I would wake up one day and realize they were. Then she took her right index finger to her right temple, her blue eyes wide and ablaze, and predicted that I would remember everything she said tonight because my brain could not afford to let it go. Maybe the pointless details, but not this. And she promised me I would even remember sitting on the hospital bed in this particular hospital room - the way she still remembered things her mother had told her with perfect clarity - when she was dead and gone.

And then she started to tear up, the way she always does. Releasing the unspoken emotion for the both of us. And she asked me for a glass of water and I gently massaged her arm and smiled.

And did my best to capture every last detail of that beautiful moment.

all in the family

two dreams in two nights where i'm fighting with my father. the first was kind of strange in that our entire disagreement had to do with my cousin Michael losing his wristwatch at the dinner table - and me apparently disrespecting him and the rest of the family by not having helped looked for it. but then even that argument seemed to have a more serious undercurrent to it, like we weren't discussing wristwatches but something else (my grandmother) completely. last night's dream was more intense and far more realistic. it actually started with my brother. in it, i was kind of calling him out on the fact that he's too quick to dismiss me or anyone and rarely thinks ahead when he's working. then i took it too far - as usual - and got too personal and he storms out, which is when my father walks in. "what did you say to your brother, he was working so well?" and even though i probably overreacted, i hate the fact that my father's only concerns seem to be those of efficiency. so i let him have it. except the second i open my mouth i have the distinct realization that i sound like my Mom - not just in the argument but my actual voice. frustrated, i can't help myself. i want to blame him for forcing me to have to work with my brother. i want to tell him he doesn't understand the cross i have to bear. but i don't go there. it's a heavy argument without anything actually being said.

the cloud with no silver lining.

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately. Ever since she came over for Thanksgiving and just kind of sat there on the edge of the couch, not quite that far from us but still watching from a distance behind her glasses. There's been a distance growing for some time now. I feel it's a confused sort of distance, like maybe she's no longer exactly sure what is going on with each of us at every moment and plays it safe by smiling and listening more than she speaks. I still catch her speaking to Amy in Italian, which is always a good sign. She's better one on one. And she always seems to know where I'm at in my life, even if she repeatedly asks me if I have two cats or just one. I understand why she might be confused but I'm not even sure she remembers that one of them died and was only later replaced. I always smile and answer the question, like nothing was. But maybe something is. Maybe the Alzheimer's is finally starting to catch up with her - and in more ways than just her forgetfulness. Maybe she's also starting to get a little paranoid. And maybe she's starting to feel like she's becoming a weight that few of us are truly willing to shoulder, my Mom excluded. And maybe she's partially right.

All I know is that I always visit every Sunday with the intention of trying my best to be as close to her as I can. But it's getting harder and harder to do. I'll rub her shoulders and then she'll tell me she's in the clouds and I'll believe her.

I understand. But we both live on very different clouds.

ahh. works every time

Tonight I was hanging out with my mother and my grandmother, searching the internet for people who have basically fallen off the face of the earth. People who used to call.

We searched the white pages. We ran maiden names past Google. I even checked the obituaries. (Talk about falling off the face of the Earth) At the end of the day, all the trails ran cold. Finally, my Mom just opened up that trusty little phone book of hers and scrolled down her own, neat handwriting. She found one of my Nonna's old Florida friends and put her on the phone. She answered. My grandmother lit up. No luck on the initial search, except for word Gloria may have moved to Mascouche. Still, it was enough to get her smiling. And out of the clouds.

so to recap...

i feel like i've been everywhere but right here. and this is the last you'll hear of any of this because i promised myself when i started writing this thing that i wasn't going to become that person that wasted all his words writing about how little he was writing.

my Nonna had the perfect quote today (the way she always seems to, you should know). spend all your time focused on every little step you're taking and you simply will never get anywhere. how is this relevant to me in this moment? i really can't say. but it feels relevant. because today was a quick baptism with family i don't get to see as often as i should and yesterday night was just a bike ride to the Jazz Fest with Cromeo in the background, street hot dogs and dorky tourists asking why you're lucky enough to be walking around with a group of pretty girls you hardly even know. and before that there were concrete walls to be built on sticky summer days. and before that perfect strangers convinced that you're always smiling, even when it's just on the inside. and before that a kick ass day at the water slides with Amy. and before that Fiona Apple in all her raw and angry glory. and before that...

not sure i want to go back any further. what's done is done. all seemingly inconsequential steps on some kind of path that is remains very much undefined. so we look ahead. and keep walking.  

my kind of Mother's day

It's been a long time since I've been to my Nonna's house with both her and my Mom in it at the same time.

There was a time when we used to spend almost all our Sundays and major holidays on Vianney. And sometimes you would even walk in on a random week night and she would already have served pasta and meatballs to my Uncle Sal, who would be absently flipping through the newspaper or some bills with a toothpick in his mouth. And you knew your plate was on its way; regardless of whether you came in looking for food.

Now, I wonder if she would even be able to turn on the stove and make that same perfect oily plate of pasta like she used to. A part of me will always want to believe she could. The rest of me has its doubts.

Still, you can tell she is still proud of that house and not at all lost once in it. And there's no way she was going to let us do all the work. I think my Mom was on her case before she even had a chance to bend down and pull out a handful of weeds on her way to the front door. "Ma, don't start!'" she would simultaneously shout to my grandmother and the rest of the street, warning that she would not tolerate any eventual complaints of pain later that night. My grandmother did her best to assure my Mom she was doing nothing, really - which did little to reassure my Mom, let me tell you. Meanwhile, I was trying to discourage my Mom from picking up the heavy Hibiscus plants due to her bad knee. She did it anyway and I didn't protest. Figured all three of us suffer from that same, somewhat perfectionist do-it-yourself affliction.

So while we re-potted all the Oleander plants my grandmother insists should be put out and cared for every summer, she went about tidying the garage, checking on the leftover preserved peppers and  mopping our muddy footprints nearly every time we passed by. It was driving my mother crazy, but it just made me smile.

on any given Sunday

there is a beautiful little scene that keeps replaying in my mind. it's late Sunday afternoon and the day is perfectly still. there is no wind and not a cloud in the sky. the sun is out and hitting us at just the right angle - the kind that makes for beautiful pictures, especially in the suburbs. we're in front of my parent's replanting the rock garden. i'm in charge of hauling the big bags of manure and soil out of my trunk and dumping there where the plants will go. my mom is in charge of telling me what to do. there's something about her crutch and the way she's leaning, then walking, then giving orders that reminds me of Dr. House. we're talking about how expensive that full-sized Magnolia tree was and why a smaller one will do just fine when my grandmother opens the front door. my mom repeats the price of the centrepiece in waiting to her and tells Amy to watch and wait for her reaction. on cue, she puts both hands to her head in her classic expression of disbelief. i have seen that expression a thousand times myself but never really noticed it until now. it's the cutest thing. it really is.

a rainbow in the grey

On the way back from court I stopped by Cafe Genova for a little dose of sunshine. I'm always kind of happy when I see Maria through the window. Not only because she very quietly makes the best latte in Little Italy, but because she speaks such perfect Italian and reminds me a little bit of my own grandmother - but only in the way every old lady (regardless of their background) kind of reminds me of my grandmother. And I always pray my own Italian is going to be at least adequate enough to keep her from switching over to French in some kind of act of mercy. Let's just say I was a little rusty out the starting gate. I sais hello in French and actually answered in Spanish when she asked me how many sugars I wanted. I tried to explain that I just got back from Costa Rica and she smiled and told me that the languages were quite close anyhow. (Yes, where would I be right now were it not for my Broken Italian. Possibly still in Central America on some volcanic dirt road, would be my guess) Anyway, I assured her that somewhere inside me, there was a fluent four-year old just waiting for a three-month trip to Italy to show himself. She smiled and told me that anytime I wanted to practice, I could just stop by and have a coffee with her. And that little invitation made my day.

I am my parents' son

It was good to see my parents last night.

I should clarify. It was good to see my parents more relaxed last night. More than they've been in a long while, anyway. The Cuban air definitely did some good. But I think being away from Nonna had even more to do with it - as difficult as it would be for my mom to admit.

It's a terrible thing to call anyone a burden - let alone your own mother. And I still can't bring myself to even consider my grandmother being that to anyone in our family. My uncles might act like it and may even agree with their wives in the privacy of their own homes. But I know they all care in their own ways. They all sympathize with my Mom but no one is willing to do anything more about it. Everyone's got their own problems, it seems.

And so my Mom (and my father, by proxy) has shouldered the heavy brunt. My Nonna was always difficult when it came to her health, but the Alzheimer's - although still in its relative infancy - has made living with her and caring for her even more frustrating and stressful.

So last night at the supper table, with Nonna still sitting in a hospital bed in Room 658B, the three of us had a very frank and honest conversation about how to help my Mom avoid having another nervous breakdown over this. And being a reasonably fair split between the two of them, I really feel like for the first time in a long time I was able to find a way to reconcile their very different approaches without stoking any of the old fires.

I felt like a judge and psychologist. I heard both sides. I translated viewpoints and gave my own when it was relevant. And I couldn't help but think of Don Corleone in the Godfather, doing his best to manage a generally unsolvable situation that is only likely to deteriorate.

It made me appreciate both of them so much more. And understand myself a little better.

a leap of faith

Another hospital visit. Another slow start/strong finish for my grandmother.

Tonight she kept telling me about how she's never one to ring for the nurse. She did today because she wasn't sure how to lift or lower the bed. (And even if she had been told in the last day or even the last hour, she wouldn't have remembered) When the nurse came, he basically showed her how to do it herself. Her lips pursed with a hint of indignation as she told me this. She was offended.

I just find it interesting how the nurses seem to forget that she's got mild Alzheimer's. So I showed her - even though I knew she'd forget. She must have repeated the same story five times after that. I tried my best to re-explain it every time.

And then I had this strange thought. I could literally come up with a different reaction every time she told the story. I could offer different explanations. I could be different people. I didn't, of course.

Instead, I took out the brush from her drawer by the bed and tried my best to puff up her hair. She laughed, Amy laughed too and everything seemed to get better from there. We showed her some old videos of our little nephew David dancing and then I got her and Amy to play cards. She ate some grapes and suddenly, her head wasn't so far far away.

And all was well - at least for that hour or so.

tonight you can sleep with the light off

Tonight really did not start out looking like a promising hospital visit.

My grandmother was anxious. Really anxious. Her hair had been simultaneously flattened and pulled into a strange kind of matted faux-hawk. She was wringing her hands and almost whispering the words "oggi, mi sento brutta. non mi sento bene" to herself. When I walked into the room, she said she had just been thinking about me. I'm not sure how that was even possible in her state.

I could tell she was more panicked than anything else. There was no pain. Only the sound of someone trying to cram the anxiety back down their throat.

I did my best to be a calming presence. I have stared panic straight in the face on more than one occasion. I did what I could in my broken Italian. A big part of me just wanted to get her talking and keep her talking - about anything, really. Besides, there was a reason I wanted to visit her alone this time. I love listening to her speak about the past. It's just harder to focus when other people are around. Now she had my undivided attention. I just didn't have hers.

She fired off a timely quote about how patients tend to go when doctors are too busy examining them. This from a woman who has been in the hospital for a week awaiting an MRI and sampling various combination of painkillers, sedatives and sleeping pills. In 2012 we try to make the patient comfortable. That's how the gentle Caribbean nurse had put it to us the other night. A guy who comes to the hospital for two hours at a time is in no position to judge that judgment call.

She finally began to calm down. After some unpleasant dry heaves I got her to sit up and we shared a snack: a vanilla berry yogurt for her, a chocolate pudding for me. Then we played Scopa. I dealt for both of us and kept myself at ten points for two extra rounds until she finally beat me.

And then after telling me I should get going, she asked me if I was happy in my new house, living where I was living. There are some questions you never mind answering again and again.

I told her yes, I really was. I told her that Amy and I were planning a trip to Panama and that Davey Cleinfeld was back with his girl and that it felt so nice to be able to walk down the block to get an Espresso whenever I felt like it. She smiled her smile. Her blue eyes welled up. She told me how she never would forget how Amy just sat there without saying a word the day we got into a fight while doing tomatoes some ten years back. We talked about marriage and babies and why I still felt ambivalent about one and unprepared for the other.

When I got up to leave she was no longer frantic. She didn't beg me to stay. We went over the different lighting arrangements one last time and finally settled on lights off except for her small Mother Mary nightlight.

She thanked me repeatedly for coming. I reminded her each time that it was my pleasure.

no Pain. no Gain.

I probably should become resigned to the reality that I won't be visiting my Nonna in the hospital forever. I guess I'm just not that good with reality.

Besides, she really didn't look all that bad last night. There was no dulling pain to complain of, no gut-wrenching nausea to deal with and - general forgetfulness aside - she was actually quite lucid. Her colour was good. She was talkative. Even the skin on her arms and shoulders looked extra soft and creamy - or far less wrinkled than I would have imagined.

My grandmother's fear of Death is what keeps her alive.

My mom tells me she's been this way as far back as she can remember. Always complaining of pain and more than willing to have her daughter drag her from emergency room to emergency room and specialist to specialist to seek out conditions that do and don't exist. I'm not willing to accept that she's a full-blown hypochondriac or some kind of manipulator, as has been suggested by more judgmental elements of my family. We know there is a sist on her pancreas that is causing much of the pain in her stomach. It's just difficult to separate the pain from the fear of the pain. And with a brain like my Nonna's, fear trumps all.

Last night, I could tell she was scared. I could see it in those blue eyes. She kept asking me if I thought keeping the light on would bother the man in the bed next to her. I said no, but I knew the nurse would close it once my brother and I were gone.

I wish I would have thought of bringing a nightlight. She would have liked that.

luck be a BIRTHDAY tonight

I was just about ready to go home. I really was.

The fairly recent tradition of going to the Casino to celebrate our belated birthdays (mine, my brother's and my grandmother's) was already starting to feel redundant. Not to mention it was hot like all hell in there - something about renovations affecting the ventilation system. So much for the expected oxygen boost. By the time we found my parents and located the only 25-cent slots my Nonna plays, my brother was down to a t-shirt and Amy looked ready to call it a night.

I sat down and watched one particular machine digest my ten dollar bill in under two minutes without so much as a burp. I despise slots. So i decided to move two seats down to remind my Nonna which sequence of buttons got her one credit per bet. Her luck was no better. I believe she was fumbling through her wallet for her second twenty (my Mom constantly has to remind her she's not broke) when my brother - who had since inherited my ungrateful machine - managed to line up two special doubles and a white seven. There were no flashing lights, no alarms of any kind. Still the credits began to accumulate and did not stop for what seemed like two solid minutes. We all watched as they crept past 100, 200, 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 and finally 2400 without any of us having imagined such a payout..

My brother Mark, who had cursed his own luck again in the underground parking lot, had hit a jackpot of sorts. He was up $600.

The collective enthusiasm, however, did little to curb the heat. Amy looked more miserable than ever, complaining there wasn't enough air. I could sense that lethal combination of anger and fear in her voice so we took a little walk to the Roulette tables, where it wasn't so stuffy. I considered dropping $25 on Black as was our own little tradition (started one magical night in Vegas) but she was in no mood. I was getting a little annoyed myself. I always find a way to enjoy myself - even if i never win. Must be the gambler in me. Or the one in my Nonna, i should say.

I asked her for $20 anyway and just put it in my back pocket. After getting a bottle of water, she insisted she'd tough it out at the slots, alone. I was going to go it alone when my brother found me. We decided to budget $100. Why ruin a winning streak, right?

The first couple of rounds did not go well. I was sandwiched between two older Asian men at the far corner of the table, the closest to the dealer. My brother didn't even bother to get in on the action, calling out his numbers from five feet out without ever lifting his eyes from his iPhone. And then this happened.

1 chip on 33 Black. Boom.

2 chips on 2 Black (my brother's birthday). Boom

2 chips on 25 Red. (my Nonna's birthday). Boom.

Three rounds, three straight numbers. I had since found myself a decent spot at the table and my brother was now standing behind me, phone in his pocket. Even Amy found her way back to the table. She called out 5 Red to my brother and he passed on the message. Boom. We were suddenly up $300 some odd dollars and had my father grinning. That's right, the rational accountant who does his gambling on the stock market exclusively was now intrigued by our stubborn luck. 

I, meanwhile, had been slowly increasing the bets with each turn and now had three chips on 2-3, the numerical compromise of both our birthdays. I put 50 on black as well. 2 Black came out again. This time i got the stiff-arm to the shoulder plate and a grinning "what the fuck?" from my brother. This was the fifth straight number we had hit. It was controlled insanity. The dealer was now throwing in some of those charcoal $100 chips with the payouts, possibly aware that the $2.50 turquoise variety were building up in six uneven piles in front of me. The Asians had also taken notice. When my brother called for 17 Black - not even realizing it was mommy's birthday - others followed.

It came out. With the four chips and the extra 50 on Black, we were now up close to a grand.

My mom was begging us to call it quits. "Wait until they lose first, Lina" was my father's reply. I recognized the need to get out ahead, but something told me we were just getting started. But 20 Black was to be the first number that caught us off guard. And even though i had picked Black, we got up and walked away.

On the way to the cash, I replayed the sequence of numbers to my father and discovered that by guessing 2 Black twice (my father was born on the 22nd) we had managed to hit every one's birthday except for Amy's. No amount of logic could explain the significance and my father knew it.

It's as if we had decoded the universe that particular family night. And nothing less.

a certain kind of blue

no matter how many millions of tiny paper cuts Alzheimer's manages to inflict on my Nonna's beautiful brain, it has yet to extinguish the fire in her blue eyes. those blue eyes see what i can never see. she remembers events, dates and facial expressions with photocopy accuracy. of course, the lens doesn't work as well as it used to. i always get asked whether i have one or two cats - sometimes in the span of ten minutes. but the dementia hasn't compromised her ability to cut to the chase when need be. and when the tears start to well up in those beautiful blue eyes, you know there's some raw truth coming. now, every time i speak up and debate/argue some point at Sunday dinner (and it happens a lot) i could feel those blue eyes on me. she will never interrupt, but i always feel she is quietly scanning through the family tree to see which relative i most remind her of. i'd like to think she is impressed - even smiling - when she does. but i also get the feeling she's seen it all before. those blue eyes know how this all ends. they just don't want to spoil it for the rest of us.