'cimi had seen these houses fall over hundreds of times ( claudio had also seen it happen from time to time , but not so frequently , because he was thirty years younger than 'cimi , who expected to soon retire with his bitch of a wife to a farm they owned in northern new jersey , where he would devote all his time to his garden ... and to outliving the bitch he had married ; not his mother-in-law , he had long since given up any wistful notion he might once have had of eating fettucini at the wake of la monstra , la monstra was eternal , but for outliving the bitch there was at least some hope ; his father had had a saying which , when translated , meant something like `` god pisses down the back of your neck every day but only drowns you once , '' and while 'cimi was n't completely sure he thought it meant god was a pretty good guy after all , and so he could hope to outlive the one if not the other ) , but had only seen balazar put out of temper by such a fall on a single occasion .