This coffee tastes horrible!

For Mother’s Day I had a nice “dinner” (I put it in quotation marks because it was at 4:30pm) with my parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin, as well as my grandparents. As we sipped some wine and ate some authentic Italian cuisine, my nonni (Italian for grandmother) told a story about a recent mix up she had.

She and my step-grandfather had received an invitation for a 60th birthday party for Gayle thrown by her husband Bob. They had assumed the invitation was for a couple who are very close relatives from my grandmother’s side of the family. After showing up at the party, to a gigantic house they had never seen, and sitting amongst 20 guests they had never met, they realized it was not the Bob and Gayle they had thought. They had a momentary freak out until they questioned the guests to figure out where the heck they were. It turned out the party was for old friends of my step-grandfather, people he hadn’t seen in a very long time. After that, they tried to easily mask their confusion and thanked their lucky stars that the birthday card they wrote was vague.

Nonni telling her tales

After my nonni was done telling her recent mix up tale, my mom and uncle started sharing some other hilarious stories of my nonni’s infamous mix ups.  My uncle told an anecdote about a particularly funny dinner from his childhood. He had been eating salad and kept telling my grandparents “this salad doesn’t taste right”. In his typical strict fashion, my nonno told him to be quiet and eat his food. My uncle continued to eat the salad, until he started literally foaming at the mouth. That is when everyone realized my nonni had accidentally made the salad dressing with dish soap instead of olive oil. Nonni claims the bottles had been next to each other in the cabinet, and that the soap and olive oil were the exact same color.

My mom then told a story about another kitchen mix up involving my great grandmother (we called her nonni-nonni). She had been a very particular woman; very elegant, yet extremely outspoken. She was never afraid to have her own opinion and tell you to your face. After dinner one night, my grandmother had poured everyone a cup of coffee. Nonni-nonni practically spit it out saying “this coffee tastes horrible”. Everyone thought she was just being difficult, until they realized that my nonni had accidentally put Country Time lemonade mix into the sugar bowl.

Party confusion, dish soap, and lemonade mix aside, my nonni is a very kind and gracious woman, with just the slightest absent minded streak (a trait my mother and I have acquired genetically as well).

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mommies out there! I hope you had a fantastic day!