I’m crazy and it’s because I come from crazy. Last week my entire family made the historic trek to visit me for Thanksgiving. Some would call this a nightmare but not me.

It’s been about 10 years since everyone came to Chicago to see me at the same time. This year, all of the planets came into alignment allowing for my mom, dad, sister, her significant other, my niece and nephew to come.

I’ve always prided myself in building a good support network here because we don’t have much family nearby. But really, there is nothing like being with *your* family. Among my friends I’m generally the nutty one and last week it was great to be among the nuts in the nuthouse.

I felt like Logan got a better idea of why mommy’s crazy. He got to see other “grown-ups” shakin’ their rump to the radio or doing gymnastics in the living room. He saw others yelling and breaking out in ear-splitting laughter.

For Thanksgiving we ate ourselves stupid, per usual, and sunk into the obligatory coma. It was great and my bird was highly praised.

The next day four of us decided to go downtown, the others were going to chill at the house. While preparing to leave, I bellow that we’re leaving in 20 minutes and suddenly our party of four grows to a party of seven. Who knew so many people could get ready in such a short amount of time?

We piled into the car like fraternity boys in a telephone booth and raced to the train station. Once we were downtown, we stopped in a deli for a bite to eat. Hardly anyone was inside, but Def Leopard was blaring Pour Some Sugar On Me.

My sister and I exchanged knowing looks. Oh yeah baby. We have the same eclectic taste in music and were equally stoked.

Me, my sister and Hubby sang between placing our orders and eating our food. My niece, nephew, son and sis’ boyfriend danced and bobbed their heads. This went on throughout lunch thanks to artists like Whitesnake and Tina Turner. Whenever getting a refill on a soda it was like taking a spin down the Soul Train line.

The workers behind the counter smiled with amusement and the owner’s wife looked so entertained all she was missing was a bag of popcorn to munch on while watching us.

After our yummy sammiches were devoured, we heard the unmistakable riff by none other than Slash. It was Sweet Child O’ Mine.

Out came the air guitars and the Axl Rose sways. My sister and I dominated on the vocals, even though neither of us can sing. It’s all about the passion, I say.

We cleaned up our mess while rockin out and began walking out as Axl unleashed his last wail. Then like all awesome rock stars, when the song was over, my sister shouted: THANK YOU! … GOOD NIGHT!”

I don’t think the people in the deli will ever forget me and my crazy family.