Life……and death.

This week has been busy.

Namely I have been working since Saturday stacking wood, little by little the twenty foot diameter pile that remained was whittled away one wheelbarrow at a time. I think since Saturday I made a hundred trips to bring pile after pile of split wood to the ever expanding wood pile. I think it’s over a hundred feet long if I counted it. Maybe this weekend I will. Saturday Nina worked on my last nerve as per usual tactic complaining about the wood issue.

Namely that she feels it is a bad idea to buy this woodsplitter, and to buy it from my brother. Her family has this stupid idea about doing business with family. The thing is I’ve used this splitter before and even after this massive pile of wood I had no issues. Anyhow she made it painfully clear she didn’t want to do it.

I caved in.

I just can’t bear to hear her harping me like a shrill she devil. She is relentless.

Eventually she will whittle away any enjoyment I get from anything.

I mean, she all but regulates anything that I might enjoy spending time doing.

I know I’m a father and I have responsibilities but I have to make time for me, but it seems even this is set with regulations.

I just feel trapped.

I spoke with my brother and we agreed to discuss me buying wood from him  at a later time. When I briefly mentioned this to my wife she ended up googling prices on cords of wood and later made it clear that the "deal" my brother is giving me is the normal price everywhere else.

I just want to tell her to go fuck herself.

He’s my brother and I trust him. Fuck your backwards ass thinking and leave me be. My brother wouldn’t cheat me and at least I know the wood is standard oak. It isn’t like he’s slipping in sasparilla or something.

It just pisses me off.

Sunday I went fishing with David my brother in law and my father in law. We had a pretty good time aside from the guy sitting next to me puking over the rail 4 times.

We did bottom fishing for porgie and jigged for blues.

I love jigging for blues. I love fighting them, it’s like reeling in lightning.

I brought home  12 lbs of fillets, nuff said.

I worked every night to get the wood together, I’d put Joe down for bed and I’d go to this labor.

No mercy.

Relentless.

Mostly anger at my wife fueled me. She was insistent the whole time that the wood had to go so the sprinkler guy could do his job on friday.

Yes. Tomorrow we get sprinklers!

I am happy about this.

It means actual non dead grass. 🙂

My dad is away in Sicily.

His best friend Pietro passed away.  I have been thinking about this since Sunday night when my mom told me.  She always has a way to just say it without an expression, holding it in.

Before I knew it my brother was there and he was dressed and packed and my son looked at him with wide eyes. Little arms reaching up to his Nonno. The hug. My dad reassuring him that he’d be back soon. Made me think back to those long hours my father worked in the eighties.

Pietro and my father met in the hospital when my father lost the fingers on his left hand at the factory when he was 18. Pietro was in rehab, he lost his legs from an old WWII landmine. Pietro and my dad would become good friends. Travel across Europe together and when my father had no one else to turn to he lent my father two hundred lira so he could follow my mother and start his life there.

We owe him everything.

His entire family loves us like their own and we feel the same about them.

Chosen family.

When my father showed up and they saw him Pietro’s daughter locked him in a hug and just started crying and she wouldn’t let go. I don’t know if he cried. I just know that he was there for them, he made sure he was there.

When I came home that night I held myself together for only so long before the thoughts of him flooded my mind.

Pietro was a fisherman and the entire time Sunday while I was on the boat I thought of all he taught me about the water and fishing.

I can still see him sitting in his cellar fixing his nets.  His wonderful smile, his razor wit, his generosity.

I cried alot that night, it’s difficult when you lose those you love.