The End of The End.

Like the cliche goes, all good things must come to an end, and our lovely week in Montauk was capped off with a family lunch prepared by the one and only, Uncle Leo. His gentle and subtle way of letting us know that it was ready consisted of him screaming at the top of his lungs from the deck that his pasta waits for no one! In other words, get our asses inside, eat and don't even dare to leave so much as a single penne on the plate. Ginger who had her hands full with her in-laws, momentarily couldn't be found and Uncle Leo insisted that I call or fax her, whichever was easier because again, we wait for his pasta, his pasta waits for no one! The original plan to get back to my mother's house was to take the train with Uncle Leo who didn't want to sit in traffic on the L.I.E, and put him in a cab at Jamaica, Queens. As we were descending from the beach house with our bags ready to walk to the station up the street with Uncle Leo in tow, we saw his little face speeding away in the backseat of what appeared to be a getaway car. We got ditched! He caught a ride with Cousin Victorio whom I had no clue was still even alive. The last I heard, he was living on the decrepit family farm in the foothills of Puglia back in 1998 when he was already 77, but clearly he is still alive, kicking, and driving. Apparently the bumper to bumper traffic on the Long Island Expressway sounded like a much better option to Uncle Leo than three hours on the Long Island Rail Road with Séb and I. Diss. Honestly, I was so disappointed! I wanted one last adventure with Uncle Leo and his stories, even if they were a little offensive, and he still had no idea who I was, as we relived the first morning with him like Groundhog's Day for four days. Maybe his equally entertaining and straight forward son Little Beppe is right when he says, "the dog is cute, but the dog bites". So I guess that was it. No goodbyes. No I love yous. No Uncle Leo. How sad. After a total of four hours traveling on the train, we finally arrived at my mother's house, where she was preparing a barbecue of grilled chicken, Italian sausage, ricotta salata and ice cold rosé. Before joining her, her boyfriend the Pilot, my brother Andrew, his girlfriend Francesca, and Séb who was helping her hang her summer backyard lanterns, I went into her office to log into my personal Facebook page to send Ginger, Angelo and Josephine a thank you note for hosting us this week.  To my surprise, I found this waiting for me... an e-mail from MF. Now what....