Words of wisdom, from a big ass Nana…Congress and Obama should listen.

Nana and the crane...

Just a quick post to say the evening news will be a bit late tonight.  Today is the first anniversary of my Nana’s death.  And I could not help thinking of a little phrase she would yell to my grandfather, Nano…quite frequently.  I am mentioning it  because it has some bearing on the debt issue we have been dealing with the past couple weeks.

Now, to say that my Nana was your stereotypical Sicilian grandmother will only get you a slight vision of a wonderful woman who loved her food and her family.  Yes, even a heart attack or a fallen refrigerator would not get in the way of Nana enjoying a good meal…or at least a few grapes.

To illustrate this, here are a couple stories about my Nana…

Jennie Centinaro Traina

When she was 76-years old and still living in Tampa, FL, she went to see her doctor.  She had not been feeling well and there was good reason.  The doctor told her he believed she had experienced a minor heart attack and gave explicit instructions…go to the hospital immediately. We did not live to far from the Dr. office and St. Joseph’s Hospital, so you would think the doctors orders would have been followed right then…I mean, we are talking five blocks from the hospital…she could be there in a few minutes. Did my Nana listen to Dr. Sierra? Nope, she went home and hung a load of laundry out to dry.  She then proceeded to the nearest Checkers, which fortunately for her was right across the street from the hospital, and stuffed her face with a big cheeseburger and her favorite “Checker” fries. The doctor actually had to postpone her heart bypass because she had eaten all that food!

Her reasoning? Well, if she was going to die, she was going to die with a full stomach.

In another Nana incident, about six years after her Checkers “last supper,” she was up late one night foraging or should I say raiding the fridge.  While checking out the goods in both the fridge and freezer, she always opened both doors at the same time and would stand there pondering her next meal, she began to fall…bringing the refrigerator on top of her. Had she not had both the freezer and fridge doors open, it would have crushed her. It is hard to believe but the freezer door stayed ajar, and was holding up the heavy appliance just enough so that it was not fully on top of her. And while my father was figuring out a way to get the fridge off of her, she was eating up the loose grapes that had rolled out onto the floor.

Well, this magnificent woman used to have a saying that really says it all…and if I could step into the Capitol and yell it I would.

“Shit if you gotta shit!”

Granted, she would always say this to my chronically constipated grandfather, but you get the point.

Congress and the President have to stop sitting on the toilet, whining and complaining and bitching…they need to make a damn decision and stick with it.  They need to piss or get off the pot…they need to shit if they gotta shit!