4th of July Weekend

Very eventful but not in the usual way.

Every year my family and some close family friends make our own wine. We buy the juice of different grapes and then 'rack' the wine every 7 weeks to extract the impurities. We make all types of reds and white; (Cabernet, Valdepena, White Zinf, Chardonnay, Chianti, Burgundy, etc). We started this year's batch back in October of 2007 and this last Saturday, July the 5th, the wine was finally ready to bottle. We spent the entire day cleaning and bottling the wine; a production of about 963 bottles give or take a few.

I couldn't fit all of the cases in the pic ... but those shown are piled two high making it about 750 bottles of wine in this pic.

Anyway ... it took close to 9 hours for the nine of us involved to bottle everything. Of course, this was partly due to the fact that there were at least 30 other people in attendance to watch us work making it more of a fun gathering than actual labor. AND of course we were drinking the entire time; sampling the vino and doing shots of Pelinkovac. AND of course as with every Italian family event of mine, the food spread for the day was most impressive; hot sausage, meatballs, BBQ ribs, brochette, fried chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage patties, kielbasa and sauerkraut, sushi, grape leaves, homemade pizza bread, cakes, brownies, tons of fruit ...

I was drunk, stuffed and tired by the end of the day but I still managed to meet up with my old high school friend 'Evil Genius' for dinner before heading home.

Songs at Funerals

My family still finds ways to crack me up.

I just got back into town after spending the last 2 days with my parents and extended family in Altoona, Pa attending my Uncle's funeral ...

Uncle 'Chick' passed away on Friday ... aka Charles 'Lotto' Lovette. (Everyone in my family has a nickname)

Back story: I come from a somewhat large extended family (Italian and Polish) and there seems to be a death in my family every few months ... I'm always going to funerals. Ask my friends ... it's ridiculous sometimes. I once had 3 funerals within 3 months all from the same side of the family, all at the same funeral home. I swear ... we were about to ask the home if they had some sort of frequent shopper plan, you know, buy 3 funerals get the 4th one free or something like that.

But anyway ... because of the frequency of the funerals, my family usually makes light of the situation, creating a cheerful atmosphere full of memories and laughter and not one that is drowned in sorrow and grief.

This funeral was no exception. Yesterday at the viewing, as the day went on, we kept adding things to the casket to be buried with my Uncle ... a ritual that might not seem so unusual to some but I'm sure not every family follows. So along with the regular items such as photos and old army medals, we placed items that we know he would enjoy ... some scratch off lottery tickets, liquor (my Dad and I provided two airplane bottles of Maker's Mark whiskey, go figure) and his Philly Eagles jacket among other things ...

But today was the kicker ... it felt like something out of a surreal HBO original series such as '6 Feet Under' or something ... Today, during the funeral ceremony at the cemetery, it was arranged that the song 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' by Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole be played over a PA system while my Uncle was being lowered into the ground ... and while this was going on, we were all given balloons to let go into the air. What an awesome moment. Everyone was smiling, walking around getting dizzy trying to follow the trail of multicolored balloons as they disappeared up into the sky ...

It was a beautiful, surreal sound and light show ... especially for a grave site.

... and it's very ironic that my friend 'Evil Genius' over at What I Like About the Universe posted a blog today regarding what songs he would have played at his funeral. He had no idea that I was at a funeral today ... and that a song was played ... and that I planned on blogging about it tonight when I got home.

Synchronicity indeed.