Allavan

I have to get dressed and head on over to target to buy my grandfather who has everything, a birthday gift. He is 74 this year. The thing about my grandfather is he's old world. My grandparents were born in Sicily and didn't come to this country until the 60's I believe. (My dad was born there too) They are so cute, they both have very strong accents still. We call them Nonna and Nonno (pronounced No-na & No-new) which is Italian for grandmother and grandfather. My cousins and I have adopted new words in our vocabulary thanks to them. (And we use them in love and adoration-not to make fun of them) They are the sweetest people, we'd never make fun of them!

Our favorite is the word "allavan". Allavan? Pronounciation: All-ah-vaughn. Meaning: a group of items together. Example: "We won't buy one or two but allavan." or "Take allavan home, we have plenty." English translation: all of them.

(another favorite word of ours is "ice-ah scream-ah" I'm sure you can translate that)

My dad was telling me this story the other day:
Nonno called my dad up and says "My television won't work." ("My tv-no work") So my dad asks if there were any power failures in the house. He says no. My dad asks if it is plugged in. My grandfather says yes. My dad asks if he reset the breaker in the basement. Nonno says yes. My dad asks if there is anything else in the living room that isn't working. My grandfather says no. My dad asks him, "The tv won't go on at all, nothing?" Nonno tells him no, he keeps pushing the button on the remote and the tv won't go on. My dad says, "Did you try getting up and pushing the button on the tv?" :-) Turns out the batteries in the remote were dead. Television worked fine.