Bob's Your Uncle

Oh Me, Oh My..... My Godfather Has Connections!

My Godfather/Client/Friend who shall remane nameless has some interesting connections, I must say. In one recent story about a (long ago) health scare and the accompanying healthcare provided to him at a Sonoma Valley hospital, he explained to me that no visitors were allowed to see him unless they signed in at the nurse's station, and were cleared by the guard placed at his hospital door. No nurses were allowed to enter his room unless summoned by him, and no "orders" were to be given to him by anyone other than his doctor. He was provided a private room, with a close private entrance by which his visitors could enter and exit. There was a confidentail document, signed and sealed by the State Department (?) that was only to be opened in the case of his death....weird, I know.


On one occasion, two visitors came to see him in the hospital, but did not sign in. They walked past the guard, and nurses station, where people stared in awe, as though watching a celebrity. Many people were whispering hushed statements, and one nurse came running after the visitors to stop them, for fear her "patient" would be upset by the intrusion. Just as one of the men were bending down to hug the patient, the nurse hurried into the room, saying "I'm sorry Mr. Mondavi, but you can't......." and stopped herself as she heard her patient say "Hello, uncle Bob."


Robert Mondavi, of the wine fame......who everyone seems to know by sight in the Napa/Sonoma Valleys had come to visit my Godfather/Client/Friend.



There you go, Bob's your uncle!

Leave the gun.....take the cannoli

So, Barzini will move against you first. He'll set up a meeting with someone
that you absolutely trust guaranteeing your safety and at that meeting you'll be
assassinated. I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more.

If you know me, you know I can't get enough of The Godfather.

It's just the best!!!

It's the one movie I can watch over, and over and over again. Words cannot express my love for the Don. You could learn everything you need to know in life by watching (and learning) The Godfather. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. The secret to good pasta sauce. When someone seems too friendly, be very scared. Never say never. And many, many more life lessons.

Interestingly enough, my husband feels about this movie (or entire series) like I feel about Legends of the Fall, Dances with Wolves, The Patriot, Gladiator etc... These are movies he could watch every day of his life. Well, not me. If I had to, I might slit my wrists. Not to say I didn't love those movies. I did. But, I can only have my heart ripped out by a movie once. Not twice, not a few times, and certainly not daily. If I'm ever sent somewhere to be tortured, rest assured, I'll either have to watch Cops (God forbid), or movies that are heart wrenching, where all the good people die.

Anyway, I digress..... back to my first love. The Godfather. As some of you know, I recently joined "the family" business. I am now a realtor working for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Funny thing, it's not half as bad as you would think. More on that later. Anyhoo, I got off work yesterday thinking I would go home, do 4 or 5 of the 36 loads of laundry laying on my garage floor, and jog a few miles on the treadmill. But no. I took one look at the TiVo, and it was done. So, I watched 7 (yes) hours of movies yesterday afternoon. I did skip the commercials, so it wasn't quite that long after editing for content, etc. I would not - as most moms- allow my girls to watch these movies. So, Lolo comes into the room at one point and starts to run on my treadmill (at least someone is using it), but I gave her the look, and told her I was watching a mommy movie and she couldn't see it. No big deal, she left the room.

After the first movie, the guilt got the best of me and I decided to feed my children some dinner. At 7:00 pm, I drug myself out from under my quilt, put on my slippers and went to the kitchen to slave over the stove and make dinner. 8 minutes and two cheese quesadillas later, I was on to movie #2. Lolo, again, came in the room and wanted to eat her quesadilla with me while I watched my movie. I told her it was a mommy movie and she said "Don't worry mommy, I'll leave when the private parts come". Is she not the cutest thing ever??????

Can you believe I typed that much crap to tell you one little funny line that my daughter said? Welcome to my world.


More on The Godfather.......

You can imagine my surprise and delight when I recently met a "client" from a "family". I like to say he comes from "THE FAMILY", but he says he's not like those "dirty wop, guineas". (You have to know, these are NOT MY WORDS....) He clarifies for me that he is Genovese, and not Italian or Sicilian, and that he and his "family" are merely "businessmen" and like all good Jews, just good at making money. He recently asked "permission" to leave the family "business" and went to a meeting from which he did not know if he would return. Hhmmmm.......

My client also clarified for me that I am not, in fact, a Jew from the old country, like I thought. My father's family apparently left Russia for Germany during the Revolution, and then left Germany for the United States sometime before my grandparents were born. But, as my "client" puts it, you must be Jewish through your maternal side, to be a cultural Jew, which apparently, is the only real kind. So much for the one ounce of religion/culture I thought I could cling to in my last dying moments......Guess I'll look into Buddhism after all.

Again, everything you need to know, you learn from The Godfather.

a day in the life....

Lolo (my youngest) makes me laugh every day. Tuesday night I had a friend over - who is more like family. She has two young kids who have grown up with my kids. At one point in the evening Lolo came over to me and my friend, and asked "Mom, when is Klara going to take her monsters home?" I just laughed. What can you say?

Lolo likes to call herself Lola Angel Martinez Martinez Trongo. Lola came from Lolo which came from Lauren. Lauren could not say "Lauren" when she was learning to talk, so she said "Lolo". It stuck. We all call her Lolo. Just before she started kindergarten this year, she decided she would be Lola. She also changed her middle name (according to her) from Elysse to Angel. She then decided Martinez is such a pretty name compared to Trongo so she is Lola Angel Martinez Martinez (it's so pretty, we use it twice) Trongo. She is her own little person. We go with it because it can't hurt, right?

Alaina is my oldest, who is 10. She is in 5th grade and is wise and beautiful and moody. She will be having surgery on her tear duct in a couple of weeks, and the nerves finally hit her last night. She's starting to freak out. Which is not something I can help her with since I'm freaked out.

The story it this: Sometimes when a baby is born, they have a blocked tear duct, so the doctors can go right in and "poke" it to clear it up. Alaina wasn't so lucky. Her tear duct became infected two summers ago, and started to tear on it's own from time to time. Just one big tear drop would fall from her eye at random. We took her to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotic steroid drops. They cleared up the problem, we thought. Almost exaclty one year later, it all started again. This time, when we took her to the doctor, he said that scar tissue has formed from the infection, and has blocked the duct to the point that it's not viable any more.

She has to have surgery..... They do an incision in the inner corner of the nose/eye area. They will have to shave away a bit of bone, remove the scar tissue and non-working tear duct and place a sack or artificial duct with small tubes coming out of the upper and lower holes that our tears come out of. This will stay in place for 6 months. She cannot rub her eye or blow her nose for 6 months as it could dislodge the new duct. After 6 months, they should be able to remove the artificial duct and a new, natural duct will (hopefully) remain in it's place. She will have a scar, obviously, although the doctor says it will lie in a natural crease and you won't really see it after a while. Poor Alaina. If there was ever a time I wish I could just take care of something for her, it's now.

Julianna is another story. She's all heart and emotion. She's seven and my "middle child". She uses that phrase all the time - I could kill my mother for even telling her there was such a thing...... She's either loving, laughing or screaming a tantrum. There aren't really any in- betweens. She's definitely an empath. She knows what everyone is feeling, and is very sensitive to it. She can't just BE - she literally does not know what to do when things are boring, (or normal). We're working on this. She is probably the one who would take care of anyone or anything if she were asked. She has been like a mother to her baby sister (Lolo Lola Lauren...) since the day she laid eyes on her. She calls her baby, takes care of her, reads to her and lets her sleep with her in her bed, although Lolo has her own room. She is constantly finding something wrong in her life, and even gets upset when she can't find something wrong. Altough, you won't find a more grateful kid when things go right. She will thank you to the point that you think you need to do more nice things for her so she won't be so surprised by nice things.... She's very bright and by far the best student so far (in our family). She loves homework and is upset when she doesn't have any. (yet one more thing to be upset about) She's almost one full grade ahead of herself in school, yet who would want to be bumped up a grade?

Garrett is our oldest. I call him mine, altough he's not. He's my husband's son. He is almost 16 years old and an incredible kid. He started living with us 50% of the time as soon as we got married. He was only four years old at the time, and we shared custody with his mom for about 11 years or so. Unfortunately, in the summer of 2007, we had a family argument, and Garrett chose to live with his mom full time from then on. We miss him because he's not with us every other week now, but we get to see him and talk to him (and text him!) as much as possible.

At his age, I think it would be incredibly hard for anyone to have to change houses every other week, and I always knew the arrangement wouldn't last forever. I am thankful for the years he was with us, and I am thankful that he and his sisters were able to get so close by spending time together for all those years. I think we will all benefit from our situation, regardless of how hard it may be from time to time.

More on the fam later......

Welcome to the Family....

Here you will find strange (but true) stories about people who are living a good life. A crazy, funny, strange, twisty, turny, exciting, but really good life! Mostly, you'll read stories about the kids. Sometimes sweet, sometimes weird and sometimes just plain cute.

It's really easy. If you like what you see, keep reading. If you think it's boring, just close out of the window. Hint: I'll never know.....