Memorial Weekend

Dear Baby Girl,

We spent Memorial Weekend in your father’s motherland, Pittsburgh—the Tony Bear back in his natural habitat, surrounded by his kith and kin, filling him simultaneously with happiness, anxiety, and impatience. At center stage of the weekend festivities was Marielle, the graduate, salutatorian of her high school class and a few short months away from embarking on her collegiate journey to the highly esteemed Notre Dame. This cousin of yours is to be your role model, so make sure that when you come along you follow her around like a little duckling.

This picture was not taken by me, as I wasn't there
but it is an excellent picture of your cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandparents.
HOORAY FOR MARIELLE!

Allow me to brag a bit about her accolades—a near perfect SAT score, acceptance to her top choice of colleges, a future engineer in the making, and salutatorian to the fourth decimal. As far as cousins go, by the time you are born you will only have two of them, but what we have here is quality over quantity. Marielle and Michael are truly wonderful. Not only have you got the studious hard working older sister who sets the bar very high, but you also have the clever, witty, and dutiful younger brother—key I’m sure to his sister’s sanity and success (if it is anything like my own situation). I’m sure that you will fit right in with these two prodigies, and I hope for you to someday reap similar benefits of an unbreakable sibling dynamic.  

Unfortunately Dad and I missed the graduation ceremony (who has graduation on a Wednesday? Come on!), but we did attend Marielle’s graduation party on Friday. It was spectacular—the Gleason’s truly delivered here. I might have to send you straight to them for your own graduation party. With tents, and centerpieces, and Nonna’s meatballs how can you go wrong? Marielle looked absolutely beautiful (DAMN me for not getting a picture of her!), and I got rather nostalgic of my own experience when I saw her picture montage with her senior picture, prom picture, etc. (I’m getting ahead of myself but I am so happy I will someday get to shop for a prom dress with you!).

As I mentioned, I did not get a picture of Marielle at her party.
However, in the top left you see the brilliant graduate and the top right is her again PRE PROM!
(Hopefully she doesn't mind me posting these here. I have to assume the young kids are okay
with this sort of thing what with all the social media apps these days).
The bottom two pictures are my masterpiece cupcakes.

I spent some time with your Dad’s cousin Joe and his wife Maria (what you lack in first cousins will surely be compensated for in first cousins once/twice/thrice removed—both on Dad’s side and on mine), who is Pittsburg’s renowned barber—with an excellent sense of humor. I also got to meet Uncle Mike’s side of the family, full of big Irish personalities that you can’t not love. I wish I got to chat with them more, but, as per usual, my energy level and conversational capacity fizzled at around 9:30PM, and I’m lucky I now have a visible bump to use as an excuse for my diminishing lack of social skill as the night progresses.  

"Fighting Irish" is the theme we went with here.
Aunt Joanne did all the tent lighting and drapery herself.
And if that wasn't enough work she also took the time to wrap the barrels in burlap.

The day after the graduation party was a day I had been looking forward to for some time—a day in the life of Nonna. She took your father and I on her weekly shopping spree to the Pittsburg “Strip District,” and we hit up Pittsburg classics like Pennsylvania Macaroni and Wholey’s. Pittsburgh boasts a large European immigrant population hailing from countries that produce, arguably, some of the most delicious food in the world. “PennMac” (as the locals call it) is an Italian food lovers dream. Cheese, pasta, olives, sauce, balsamic vinaigrette—and we had the master chef doing the pickings for us. In fact, at one point Nonna acquired a shadow who was copying her every selection and putting it into his own cart (he laughed and blushed when I called him out on his game). PennMac provided samples at the door of a delicious pork marinara, but I didn’t dare buy any because in Nonna territory we make our own sauce (I believe she was quite appalled when we bought a pack of pierogi… why would we buy Polish food when we could buy Italian?)!

Above: Dad entering this family shop owned and operated for over a century.
Bottom: The EXTENSIVE olive bar PennMac has to offer.

Our next stop was Wholey’s. I found this place incredibly amusing. In a landlocked city, it is a fresh fish market. And it literally is fresh. They have tanks and tanks of live fish that are slaughtered on the spot, and for the most part, every fish you could imagine (albeit, not all live). This is the site of Nonna’s Christmas Eve dinner shopping for the famed “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” What I found most amusing about the place was that it was her unequivocal choice for lunch. It simply tickled me that in a city full of excellent European cuisine, we got fried fish sandwiches. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good shrimp po’ boy, but I had my fair share of fried seafood growing up on the coast of Maine. Also, Nonna will not dine out anywhere but here. Again, I’m not complaining. It was delicious and this is just part of her charm.

After lunch, and for the rest of the afternoon, we focused on “The Princess” (this is what Nonna is calling you now—and it’s a name you share with Marielle). She took us crib shopping and clothes shopping and very kindly insisted on footing the bill. She took a back seat and let your father and I get what we wanted (really me getting what I wanted, while they both tolerated my insane deliberations), and when she saw my eyes light up at a pink elephant rocker she announced that we were buying that too (thus, the origins of your pink rocking elephant).

I keep hearing from Dad’s family that Nonna had such a lovely time on our spree, and thanking me for it. I think the gratitude is entirely misplaced because I had one of my best days in Pittsburgh yet and am very grateful at her contribution to helping us prepare for you. Nonna is so excited to go on repeat shopping trips with you in tow—and so am I. Her and your father had the occasional quarrel, but though he will never admit it I think even he enjoyed it. Sometimes Nonna reminds me so much of Grandpa Steve—telling random cashiers our whole life story (“my son is having a baby girl!”) and knowing where the “secret” parking spaces are. It’s as if Grandpa Steve were morphed into a little Italian lady. I’m sure you will notice the parallels.

Our trip concluded with ice cream at Saris (another Pittsburgh hotspot I can’t wait to take you to), dinner with the Gleasons, and lunch the following day at Primanti Brothers. As per usual, we went home with a truckload of Italian eats that we will likely still be eating when you are old enough to eat.

Happy Memorial Day Baby Girl, I hope you enjoyed listening to all of the craziness as I am told you can now hear our voices!

Love,

Mom

Above: Nonna putting together the cheese and charcuterie for the graduation party.
Fortunately we got to take some of this home with us!
Below: Uncle Bart and Dad being silly.

Baby's first Primanti Brothers.
This is my absolute favorite Pittsburgh tradition, and it's another longstanding family business.
The original Primanti's was designed for truckers. They put the french fries in the sandwich because it was easier for said truckers to eat only one item.
I went with the kielbasa (another Polish dish... don't tell Nonna).