And when I say “practically,” I mean “forcefully.”

Oh, that’s right—I have a blog. I knew there was something I was forgetting.

We’re back from scenic Salt Lake City, where my brother- and sister-in-law live with my brand spanking new niece. Conveniently, Heather and Jon also live there, so when we weren’t gorging on sweet, sweet New Baby, we were hanging out with them, begging them to move to Jersey. (Their responses: “No, thanks. Really, no. No. No. Please let go of me.” I think they’re coming around!)

Of course they won’t come here, because there’s no reason anyone should ever leave Salt Lake. Damn it, we should all have such low humidity. Maybe some people find zero percent humidity to be a bad thing, but I am squarely in the Hooray For Desert Climate camp. Not to mention, it’s sunny all the damn time, and there’s all this, like, space, and everyone is friendly. Crazily friendly. I was suspicious, but they seemed like they meant it. I had to find a doctor for this sore throat that I was sure was strep and that I would kill the baby (it wasn’t, and I didn’t), and I was calling all kinds of doctors and urgent care places, trying to figure out where to go, and everyone I talked to was so lovely and genuinely concerned and not trying to hang up on me, I just wanted to cry. At the urgent care clinic, the nurse put me in an examining room, and then returned five minutes later to apologize because the doctor was late. Five minutes. I practically humped her. And then the doctor arrived, and he was hot. They think of everything there!

When we weren’t ogling the baby, we were leering at my brother- and sister-in-law’s nice house, with its plants that are alive and its stuff that isn’t broken. Scott and I would ask questions like, “So how do you, uh, keep plants from being all dead and you know?” and “How much did you pay for, like, this thing that works and also is pretty?” We got some answers, but all we wanted is for them to come live here with us and do everything we’re too lazy to do.

So once my sore throat was better, I decided to throw myself down some stairs. That’s what I did at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday (we were leaving at 5:30 a.m., and I figured I’d ruin any chances of sleep with an injury or two). And I’m bruised in so, so many ways. My arm has this fascinating lump on it that if you touch it I scream. It hurt so much that I didn’t even notice the broken pinky toe until 12 hours later, when I was all why does my toe hurt? And what’s that purple stuff on my foot? And then I took my shoe off (NEVER TAKE THE SHOE OFF) and saw the horror therein. I honestly saw stars. If I had had a tiny tiny saw in my purse, I might have just sheared the thing off. Just to never look at it again.

I'd do it all over again, bruises and all, to see Henry holding his new cousin and kissing her soft little head. If my baby niece and her lovely parents were to come move here they could beat me up every day. And if that doesn’t get them here, nothing will.

It’s the little things.

So Friday my family went to Italy. The whole Italy trip is a complicated and dangerous subject, and I won’t get into it! You can’t make me! The bottom line is they all went and I did not. Which I thought I was totally over because after all I had six months to get used to the idea; they were going on my birthday (well, okay, two days before) and I was a little sad about that, but it’s not like I usually see my family members on my birthday anyway, so whatever. When they originally made these plans I hadn’t known we were going to move, so feeling set apart from them in our New New Jersey-ness didn’t help my feelings about the trip, and on my birthday I found that I was perhaps more upset about it than I had anticipated (read: wept until I thought I might throw up). And yes, I know, we moved two hours away, it’s not like we live in Alaska, OMG GET OVER YOURSELF, but wow, I felt sorry for myself that day.

And that night! I started losing my hearing! And by Monday morning my right ear was throbbing and shooting pains were radiating into my brain and also! Peeing felt like I was being stabbed in the pelvic region, and we all know what that means, don’t we, girls? So I call my nice New Jersey doctor, who calls in antibiotic drops for my poor ear and antibiotics for my poor bladder and I stagger around yesterday feeling like a steaming pile of dung, but as I pointed out to my husband, at least I can’t hear my screams when I’m trying to pee!

I woke up today fully expecting to 1) feel better and 2) there’s no #2, but in fact my bladder feels worse, and I went to see my doctor! And he says! That! I need another antibiotic for my ear because I have a more serious infection than he previously thought, and that it seems my bladder infection might be resistant to these antibiotics, and I really should see a female urologist as I get bladder infections if I look at a cup of coffee or if I even say the word “tampon,” and I’m sitting on the examining table hearkening back in my mind to my bladder surgery when I was ten, and please oh pleeease don’t make me do that again, and I want my mommy! But I don’t tell the doctor that! Because I think he would have climbed on a plane to go get her!

But then I was waiting in the waiting room (where you wait) for the doctor to provide me with yet another passel of prescriptions (does my local pharmacist believe that I have the clap? Oh, yes he does) and while I’m waiting, the man sitting next to me is talking on his cell phone about his medical problem. And he says, “I’m calling about my swollen bone.”

And I started to laugh. And I couldn’t stop. I’m hiding behind More magazine (because I’m not over 40 yet, but it’s only a THREE YEARS AWAY) and he keeps saying it. “I’m just not getting relief with this swollen bone. This swollen bone is really a distraction for me. I’d really appreciate it if you could get your hands on my swollen bone.”

He didn’t really say that last part, but my god—thank you, sir. I’m sure your condition is painful, but it brought me joy.

Why I'm glad I took the firewire cable with me.

Because if Scott had been able to upload this to our computer and send it to me in Amsterdam, I would surely have sprouted wings and flapped my way back to Brooklyn.

If you're wondering where all the liquor in the tri-state area went, here's your answer.

My mother has thousands of cousins, all of whom attended my nephews’ graduation party last weekend. (One nephew graduated from high school, the other from college. My friend J. observed how convenient this was, that they could combine the two parties. Yes, I said, a lot of planning went into that. That’s why she had kids four years apart. Then we made all kinds of tasteless jokes about the many abortions she had to have between the two, to keep alive her dream of the combined graduation party. Ha, ha! )

Anyway, my mother’s parents had hundreds of siblings, and they spawned progeny that numbered somewhere in the millions. And they all attended the party, all these old guys. They are all loud and aggressively jovial; they guffaw at their own jokes and if you don’t laugh, well, you had better laugh. I hadn't seen them since my wedding, and in the past few years it seems they've all become caricatures of themselves. Their heads have become larger than I believed possible. Their tans deeper. Their chains, more plentiful. Their wives younger and then older and then back to the younger ones.

God, their giant heads. They have faces like granite slabs. I said about one cousin, His head is an enormous block, and my dad said, That’s true in so many ways.

One of them calls me “Alison.” He’s known me for 36 years, you’d think he’d have my name right by now. He’s the one who kept telling me at my wedding that my husband “is a real good guy.” Except with his pronunciation it kind of sounded like “goo’ guy,” and that plus the manicured hand gripping the back of your neck sent the clear message: but if he stops being a good guy he’ll end up at the bottom of the river.

I make them sound like criminals, but they’re good guys. Or good fellas! Italians, you see! Crooked, dirty Italians!

No, no. They are clean and nice. And not even very good at bocce. Or maybe they were too drunk to play well. See how I tear down all the old stereotypes.

Henry wisely kept his distance for most of the party, but as things wound down, he ventured out to the deck and introduced himself to a few of them. They stuck their tremendous faces in his and bared their capped teeth. Henry’s response was the same each time: “And what’s your name?” he would ask them, and when they barked out their answer, he would exclaim, “Wow! That’s a lovely name!” He says this to every name, but you couldn’t tell these guys that. They thought that was the greatest thing ever. And then they flew off in their fleet of rocket ships and went off to populate their own galaxy. At least, that’s what I told Henry.