Monday, June 02, 2008


I'm off to DC tomorrow where I'll be live blogging Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey's GREEN OUR VACCINES rally, sponsored by TACA. The rally is Wednesday morning at the Washington Monument Grounds. Over 7500 people are signed up already.
Click the green link to learn more. I'm going to stay with my brother and his partner. I haven't to their townhome since I was preggers with Bella and she's almost 8! I really don't get out much.
First Communion went really well. And yesterday I allowed the girls to wear their dresses again. Unbeknownst to me, the girls' names had been printed in the weekly bulletin! And Father Cipriani, who said Mass, singled them out during the closing notes as having made Communion. Everyone clapped! And then Fr. Cipriani proclaimed that Mark and I are some of the best parents' he ever seen. And everyone clapped.

Are you a Soprano's fan? Mark laughs at me that Fr. Cipriani is like the priest from the Sopranos that Carmella and her friends fawned over for his attention. They always brought him baked Ziti or Rigatoni. At the risk of being hit by a bolt of lightning... the good Fr. is really handsome - and surely plays a lot of hockey or rugby or something. OK, am I going to hell now? We also have a doll of a priest named Fr. Dunn (not Will. B. Dunn like the comic) who is also quite handsome, although the fact that he too, like every darn priest at the Church, is a die hard Yankee fan slightly diminishes his matinee idol looks. Fr. Murphy runs the Parish - and celebrated the Communion Mass with great joy. Fr. Flynn gave me his business card and a wonderful pep talk at Poricelli's when I ran into him in the freezer section and told him that Mark had lost his job. (He found a job in April!) And we have sisters at Church too who wear real habits! I've never enjoyed a Church so well. Maybe because it feels kind of retro to me. I'm not a big fan of round, spaceship design churches. My husband Mark refers to me as a heathen quite often, but I think that's just because of my potty mouth and snarky attitude. BTW, Fr. Cipriani prayed for the Giant's to beat the Patriots too. AND THEY DID! And he even gave us a little "beat you to death" with his fists the morning of the SuperBowl when we Staglianos sat proudly in the front pew wearing Patriots sweatshirts in the row. Not from the altar mind you, he was in the back area for which I'm sure there's a fancy Latin name but I don't know it. Yes! A priest gave us the "beat you up" hand. Madonn'! We laughed. Then his team beat our team and we cried. I'm sure our envelope was a bit lighter the next Sunday as a payback. Therefore St. Theresa was short the cash for say, one lightbulb.

So the folks in Church clapped for us as fabulous parents. Man are they dumb! LOL! Little did they know that earlier last week I had baked a four layer cannoli cake for the priests to thank them for having the special needs class at St. Theresa's Church. This cake is a work of art - not in its beauty but in its taste. It's four layers of butter cake with a cannoli filling (sweetened cooked ricotta cheese mixture) between the layers and smothered in thick, dark chocolate ganache. It takes two days to make that bad boy, but let me tell you, it stands on the plate like a 10" round brick sh.... Wrong analogy. Like a tall, round chocolate super hero! I hated to give it away without a taste. I used to make it for my nephews in Ohio for their birthdays. Good Lord, maybe I AM Carmella Soprano? If that's the case, I'm going into the backyard to dig for a stack of hundreds.
I know I'm rambling today. It was a long night. More on that later. 85 year old Dad, stomach flu, Gianna, stomach flu, my Mom, just had stomach flu. And the spew flew!
I'll be live blogging the Rally at http://www.ageofautism.com/ on Wednesday. And probably a post tomorrow. Stop by!

8 comments:

Petra said...

Oh boy.. I'm gonna have to read this post at least 5 times before it's all gonna sink in.

Have a great time in DC. Raise some hell for me, will ya? Will catch you when you get back.

Michelle O'Neil said...

I'll be on pins and needles, following your blog at the rally.
Tell us everything and don't leave anything out.

As far as the priests go...of course they're gorgeous...they're....holy.


Sorry about all the flu bugs. Hope everyone is better.

Love.

Amanda said...

Hope you manage to dodge the bugs and have a great time at the rally.

Your priests sound a whole lot better than the version we get over here - 45 minute sermon to a congregation of in mates at a mental hospital on you must go out and do things in the community when they would be lucky to remember the way to the loo and not such good eye candy!

(I went to an ecumenical school so know what Catholics are but not the internal workings)

Philip said...

Along the lines of your daughter's first communion, congratulations! It's very exciting for me to hear about kids that are, in some way able to participate in church. We hope for that for our son. Also, I just read an article where a 13-year-old boy with autism was just banned (restraining order) from a catholic church. I wondered if you had heard about that.

Drama Mama said...

I want that cannoli recipe. Now.

Where are the pics of the holy girls?

Growing up, my priest looked like JFK

The pastor looked like Colonel Sanders. Imagine my mother's shock when we went to KFC and I genuflected in front of the statue of the Colonel.

I was four. Gimme a break.

Kim Rossi Stagliano said...

DRAMA!! LOLOL!!!! When I eat KFC I pray to the porcelain god. I saw RFK Jr. yesterday up close at the rally. He is SO handsome.

I'll get you the recipe. It's fab - and from a great book called, The Cake Mix Doctor, so it's not entirely from scratch - and more time consuming than difficult.

Kim Rossi Stagliano said...

Oh, photos - Bella dropped my camera and the lens twisted, I can't download the photos. I'll have to go to CVS and burn a disk and then download it. ASAP!

Kim Rossi Stagliano said...

Philip - sure did. Blogged it at AGe of Autism. And Jim Carrey (or someone at the rally) mentioned it yesterday. Along with the 5 year old booted from class and a 14 year old girl in a coma from Gardasil last week.