Update

Sorry it's been so long since I've written here. Everyone's been busy, so family fun time has been at a minimum. As you can see, I'm terribly broken up about this.

But here's a quick update. As in so much of my life, there is a theme, and that theme is... boobs.

Mom's December breast cancer surgery went well, and she bounced back quickly. Two days later she was at a party, and three days later she was frying latkes. Granted, they were pre-made Trader Joe's latkes, but I think they got the same recipe out of the same cookbook as she did -- so, really, not much difference.

So, there she was, frying latkes... and going on about how single and childless I am. Way to buck those Jewish mother stereotypes, Ma! Her theory: "You might be coming off like you think you're too good for everyone." Yes, my mother -- feminist, educator, put me in a particular junior high school program that wasn't about to let me slide into any sort of "I don't want to look smart in front of the boys" adolescent timidity (good thought, but totally unnecessary in my case) -- was about half a step from suggesting I dumb myself down for guys.

I stifled a laugh. "Mom," I said, "if a guy is scared off because he thinks I think I'm too good for him, then I probably am too good for him. I don't think it's too much to ask that a guy be able to hold up his end of the conversation."

I mean, really: I know the woman wants grandchildren, but that's not the way to get them.

The only other thing worth noting from that evening is that my parents gave us GPS navigator thingies. I think Dad's tired of them calling for directions from the road -- and if they get one for the kids, then they have to get one for me. Fine, then! New toy!

Fast-forward to late February. Mom had demanded a surprise birthday party. Yes, you read that right. She'd wanted to throw one for Dad's birthday in November, but he wasn't going along with a party of any sort. Dad indulged her. He quietly summoned about 15 friends and relatives to show up at a particular restaurant the night before Mom's birthday. It's a restaurant where they go all the time, this nice, comfy Chinese place in Glendale. She had assumed that Dad would find some way to spring his surprise at brunch the next day, so she actually was surprised.

I was sitting near the end of the table with B., G., one of our cousins, his wife, and their three-year-old. The kid was so well-behaved that he surprised his parents, but he's still a wiggly three-year-old. B. was heard to mutter, "We are not having one of those."

"Yeah, we're sticking with one," my cousin's wife said. "I love him, but it's a lot of work."

The conversation turned to Mom's recent surgery. B. turned to me, holding her chopsticks. Despite being married to a Jew, she's still not exactly adept with the things, and was showing no embarrassment in using plastic things to hold the sticks together. I still can't decide if it was sweet or painful to watch.

B. started in on how I'm at higher risk for breast cancer.

Okay...

And since I'm clearly not going to have children, I'm not going to be reducing my risk by breast-feeding.

Oooookay....

So maybe I should just have a double masectomy now and get implants!

Oooo.... whaaaa?

I stared at her for a moment. She looked very proud of herself for having thought of it. It's absolutely logical, and, I fear, exactly the kind of preventative advice she hopes to give professionally someday.

Finally, I thanked her for her concern, but told her I'm rather attached to the boobs. They do balance out the ass, after all.

She nodded sagely, but encouraged me to think about it.

If the waiter hadn't chosen right then to bring out Mom's cake, things could have become... unpleasant. But he did bring out the cake, and I busied myself talking to some of Mom's oldest friends.

"So, do you like your brother's wife?" one of them asked.

"We get along." I smiled thinly. He got it.

"Family," he said.

"Yup."

Family.

Holidays, Part One: Thanksgiving

Apologies for the lack of updates. Darn life, always getting in the way...

As you probably surmised, this here is the Thanksgiving roundup. Chanuka Family Fun Time deserves a post of its own, which I'm hoping to get up in the next couple of days.

Thanksgiving

As predicted, dinner was had at my aunt and uncle's house. Since Mom's test results came back with the best possible outcome for the situation, that subject was off the table. Instead, people kept asking me when my brother and his wife were going to have kids.

Um... I should know this... why? I can only guess that when they asked my parents, Dad shrugged and Mom sighed.

Instead of the response that the question warranted, though, I just politely said that as far as I knew, there were no immediate plans. B. is applying to med school and, anyway, she's only 25.

"Oh," the questioners all said, sitting back, looking simultaneously disappointed and relieved. "They've got time, then."

Okay, people, I know that there haven't been a lot of babies in this branch of the family lately, but seriously. Back the hell off. If you're nice, I'll see if I can get one of my east coast relatives to ship you one of theirs.

Dinner wasn't as bad as it's been in previous years, thanks mostly to the presence of a visiting cousin, his wife, and my uncle's caregiver's new dog, a teeny-tiny chihuahua who took a liking to my cousin.

(My cousin and his wife don't get bugged about kids. His sister has two. Turns out that takes the pressure off considerably.)

After dinner, I went and spent the rest of the evening with some friends, pointing out once again the subtle distinction between "relatives" and "family".


Day After Thanksgiving

You know how when B. and G. are late, it's cute, but when I'm ten minutes late, it's a catastrophe?

It turns out that there's a catastrophe threshold for them after all. It's about an hour after the the time that we were supposed to sit down to day-late Thanksgiving dinner.

Dad tried to brush it off with his usual joking about G. marrying into a family of tardy-types, but this wasn't just a case of the kids not realizing that traffic doesn't take time off for the holidays.

This was a case of my brother -- my brother, the PhD -- being completely oblivious to the fact that it was going to take time for his pumpkin pie to set.

I arrived at the parental homestead a few minutes after six. The pie, I'm told, was just about to come out of the kids' oven.

"The turkey's not quite done yet, anyway," Dad said breezily.

"Why did you get the apple pie from the freezer case? I told you to get the one from the refrigerated section," Mom berated me.

"Okay, Mom? First of all, I called you when I was at Trader Joe's, told you that I was getting a frozen pie and asked you if there was anything else I should pick up. You didn't say anything then. Second? There were no apple pies in the refrigerated section."

"I guess we'll just have to defrost it in the microwave."

"Just set it out. It looks like we'll have time."

B. and G. called with a pie update. They were just about to put their green bean casserole in their oven. I suggested that they skip it.

6:30. Mom and Dad started to take turns yelling about how late B. and G. were. One shouted; the other was calm. The see-saw tipped every ten minutes or so.

I assembled the salad and stuck it in the fridge, undressed.

7:00. "I thought that people would be on time, since I have CANCER," Mom yelled.

"Oh, come on," Dad yelled right back. I agreed. If the latest test results had been of the really-bad-news variety, we might have been more sympathetic to the cancer card. But after the whole stage three business of a few years ago, the fact that this latest lump turned out to be malignant but totally localized -- and therefore removable -- is wonderful news, and therefore gets only the sympathy due a relatively minor surgery.

7:30. B. burst in. "Let me tell you about the idiot I married," she said tersely, as she made a beeline for the paper towels.

"You don't need to tell me," I replied.

"I have pumpkin pie filling all. Over. Me. It would've been fine if he hadn't made that sudden stop on the freeway...."

"I didn't have a choice," G. protested, entering with the pie and the mashed potatoes. "Anyway, the pie tastes fine. It's just a little liquidy."

The potatoes heated in the microwave while the turkey re-warmed in the oven. I brought out the salad.

G. brought wine to the table. I mentioned that I was going to go easy on it tonight, since I'd had a few glasses last night at my aunt and uncle's.

"Oh, you went there," B. said, her voice full of pity. "We went to Hometown Buffet."

Okay. Hold up. This second Thanksgiving dinner was only happening because she'd been scheduled to work on Thursday night. So she took the night off after all, and didn't spare us the Friday dinner? I can understand if it were just a question of wanting to spend their first married Thanksgiving by themselves, but it seemed more like they just didn't want to go to the big extendo-family event. I can totally understand that impulse -- which, frankly, is why the situation bothered me so much. I bucked up and dealt with the family. Why couldn't they?

My store-bought pie came out perfectly. G.'s homemade pumpkin pie was half-liquid, half-Jello-like. "But at least it tastes good," B. assured him.

I was glad I'd limited my wine consumption. It made a quick getaway much easier.

I went home, changed into something a little less comfortable, and met up with the de facto gang at my favorite bar. You would have, too.

Movin' On Down

The kids are moving.

"Well, that makes sense," you're probably thinking. "It would be nice for them to be in a better place that's closer to where they both work."

Oh, they're not moving closer. They're moving five miles farther south.

Yeah. I don't get it either. They say that the new place is quieter and more secure, but they don't exactly have a great track record on sussing out quiet neighborhoods. As for security and affordability... well, I guess they've decided that that's the only area they can afford, or something.

Whatever. It's their gas money. I'm just glad they're not moving up by me, since B. works so close to my apartment. I really, really didn't relish the prospect of running into either of them at my favorite bar.

I wonder if I can spend Thanksgiving at said bar.

Mom called me today to inform me of the Thanksgiving plans.

"We're going to your aunt and uncle's on Thursday, but [G.] and [B.] aren't coming, because [B.] has to work." (And... G. can't be compelled to share the turkey-night joy?) "We'll have dinner at our house on Friday."

Spiffy.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what your aunt pulled."

You may remember my aunt. She's the one who refused to come up the hill to my parents' party, the one who's never let reality get in the way of how she sees the world. The one with whom my mother's patience is wearing very thin.

"Last year, we said we'd do it together this year. So I called her and asked what the plans were, and she said, 'Oh, I already have ten people coming'. I don't know if she didn't remember or what, but I had to guilt-trip her into having us. I told her that I have an appointment the day before that's going to be either bad news or worse news, and I'm not going to feel like putting on a dinner."

(About that appointment. It looks like Mom's got a recurrence of something she had a few years ago. The day before Thanksgiving is when she's scheduled to get all the test results in and start planning treatment. Fun times, if by "fun" you mean "not at all fun, and, frankly, pretty freakin' stressful".)

"Mom," I said, "that's just her being her."

"Well, I don't like it."

They've been in-laws for... let me think. Thirty-six years.

"You just have to laugh at some things," I told my mother. I tell her this every now and then. Despite a generally good sense of humor, she never quite gets it. But, then, she never quite gets how much of my comedy comes from me trying to make sense of my meshuggene family. Which is a pity: The rest of my family would probably enjoy this blog. My mother would say she enjoyed my "unique take," but would end up complaining about how bad I make her look. Just to be on the safe side, I don't invite relatives to any show in which I poke fun at the clan. As far as they're concerned, I only do political comedy. And that, right there, is my strategy for dealing with relatives (i.e., Mom): throw so much information out there that they don't realize you're not really telling them anything.

New Year, Same As The Old

Some things are inescapable: Death. Taxes. Rosh Hashana dinner with the family.

Rosh Hashana started on a Friday night this year, but my parents decided to hold off on dinner until Saturday night. Mom said they were doing this because they didn't want us to have to contend with Friday traffic, which was a nice thought. The reality was that I had just enough time to dash home from my previous engagement, change clothes, and make the drive.

Naturally, when I got there, I found out that dinner was going to be delayed, because something wasn't done cooking yet. Naturally.

B. and G. were already there. I said my hellos, mentioned that I had spent the afternoon having Rosh Hashana lunch with some friends who are more religious than I am. I was telling the kids that while my friends consider themselves Modern Orthodox, they don't go in for the full-on dress code. Mom took this as an indication that she should give B. a crash-course on frum dressing. She ran and got a book with a passage that described the restrictions posted on some random town somewhere, and launched into a dissertation on how she wanted to go take a picture of her grandfather's house when she's in New York, but it's in the middle of Crown Heights, which is Hasidism Central...

By this time, G. was reading the paper and B. was looking like she wanted to flee.

"Mom, just wear long sleeves and a long skirt and cover your hair if you feel like it. No one's going to kick you out," I sighed.

"Well, that's not hard. It's going to be cold."

I refrained from asking why, in that case, she'd just put us through all of that, because by this point B. was saying to G., "I didn't know your parents were going out of town."

G. looked up from the paper and took a beat. "Yes, you did," he said patiently. "You've been telling people about the trip they're taking."

"I knew about the cruise, but I didn't know that was them!"

"Well, it is." And he went back to the paper.

It's further proof that my brother has married our mother.

I grabbed a beer, stepped outside, and stayed there until dinner was ready.

Mom likes to have the traditional Rosh Hashana challah. Instead of the more familiar braided loaf, it's round, like the year, and has raisins, for a sweet year. Mom explained the challah to B., and told her that people usually tear chunks off. B. tentatively pulled a bit from the loaf and put it in her mouth.

After a moment, her eyes lit up. "Mmmmmm! This is good!"

Once again, B. has discovered that Jewish tradition? Not so scary. Too bad she hadn't tried challah before the wedding: Forgoing the huge community loaf was one of the reception compromises.

During dessert, B. pulled back her shirt collar and pointed out something to G. "See? I just got another one!"

B. had apparently been bitten by an invisible flea.

"You know," Dad said casually, "I didn't spot any evidence of fleas when we got home."

"She had bites all over her legs," G. shrugged. "I saw them."

"And the cats have been sleeping on the bed since we got back, and there haven't been any fleas," Mom said. "I have to be careful about flea bites because of my lymphodema." She indicated the compression sleeve she has to wear on her left arm.

"Maybe we got rid of them."

Dad kind of shrugged.

I still don't know what's going on there. If the kids are to be believed, the house is infested with fleas that are only visible to them and drawn to her.

What I do know is that the kids won't be house-sitting when the folks go out of town later this month -- or, I'm guessing, ever again.

I don't remember much about the rest of the evening. I spent most of it petting the cat that had decided that now that the food was gone, it was her turn on the table, and plotting my escape. I think we talked about the illogic of airport security, which does limit the escape radius.

B. and G. left before me. Once they were safely gone, Dad turned to me.

"I really don't think there were any fleas."

"Me, either."

"She could have been bit by something, but if she did, I don't think it happened in the house."

"Or else she's allergic to something in the detergent, or she's breaking out from stress," I suggested. "She is a little high-strung."

Dad shrugged. "I'm just saying, I didn't see anything."

It's nice when we're in agreement on something.

--

In other, related news, the gifts thought to be lost surfaced in another bag. I don't know if security moved them, or Mom had just been wrong about which bag she'd put them in. Experience favors the latter.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, but the museum stuff that Mom had mentioned? Turned out to be a set of pins -- not a collectors' set, but card-affixed buttons meant to invoke the Mods exhibit at the Victoria and Albert; a small spiral drawing set, which inadvertantly invoked the Spirograph I was given at age seven; a blank journal from Harrod's, and a bag from Harrod's. Were it not for a very nice pair of earrings purchased earlier in the trip, I'd've thought she just ran through Harrods and the V&A gift shop and grabbed random stuff that she'd hoped I'd find whimsical. But, hey: at least they remembered the Smarties.

At least it looked like Mom had tried to take my personality into account when she selected the tchotchkes. After dinner, Dad gave G. a bottle of scotch to make up for an unacceptably lame present that they'd brought him. I could've told them that the ancient Roman cookbook wasn't quite his style. Yes, G.'s a pretty good cook; and, yes, it does seem like the kind of thing he might find amusing at first glance -- but he'd rather have things he can use. I'm the one who would think a totally useless cookbook was funny. G.? Not so much.

B. got a Harrod's bag. I didn't ask if anything was inside.

I know. I should be grateful that my parents came home safe and sound, etc. And I am, I truly am. You didn't see me wrangling a make-up gift, did you? (Though I get the feeling it was more Dad's idea than G.'s.)

No sign of the camera battery. I'm sure some TSA agent putting it to good use.

Life in the Big City

The folks are back on this side of the pond. They'd taken off a day or two before the latest terror scare, so they found that they had to do things differently on the way back.

On the way there, they'd each had a roll-aboard and a separate carry-on. On the way back, they had to check the roll-aboards. They transfered the super-important stuff to the carry-on bags, and checked the rest.

You can guess where this is headed, can't you? Of course you can. The parents arrived home with bags that were lighter by a camcorder battery and several gifts.

Including, of course, a very nice whatever-it-was they got me.

At least, I'm assuming it was a very nice whatever-it-was; they've got some serious ass-kissing to do if they want me to house-sit for them next month.

Dad made all the proper complaints, but it doesn't look like anything will be recovered from TSA limbo. He figures he's done all he can, and at least he'd thought to put the cameras and memory cards in his carry-on, and, really, it's kind of silly that they couldn't lock the checked bags after they were searched, because they got to do that before their transatlantic flight, and that seemed to work out okay...

Yeah. Whatever. Your airport security, ladies and gentlemen: Keeping the country safe from batteries and much-deserved trinkets, if not actual bomb components.

"But your Smarties came through okay," Dad assured me.

I know, I know. The important thing is that they had a safe trip, that my chocolate made it, and that the cats survived three weeks with B. and G.

"They said there were still fleas all over the back bathroom," Dad said. "I didn't see any signs."

"Yeah, I didn't when I went over, either."

"They said you only came over once."

(Which was true. Sorry for the lack of parties, but even that one evening was more trouble than it was worth.)

"I did go over, and that was before they set off the flea bombs. I didn't see anything. Maybe a couple got in from outside, but that's what happens when you've got those portals to the outside world in half the walls."

"Well, if they were there, I don't know why they only went for [B.]," Dad said.

"Yeah, if there were any fleas to begin with."

Dad couldn't really say anything to that, because it's a fair thing to wonder. I mean, I don't want to be any snarkier about my sister-in-law than necessary to preserve what little remains of my sanity, but I'm thinking that those "flea bites" were really a reaction to realizing that living in a house wasn't quite as idyllic as she remembered. Yeah, see, it's one thing when you're living with family and not paying much by way of rent. It's another thing when you're working the graveyard shift about as far away from your usual residence as it's possible to work, because you were so sure you were going to be working in the next county south for years and years. Kind of a bitch to end up with a job that's a lot closer to where your husband's sister suggested you look for a place, isn't it?

There was no evidence of any sort of biting insect. There were just signs that life in the big city isn't quite what B. thought it was going to be.

The parents are going out of town again next month. Dad says they're not even going to mention the possibility of house-sitting to B. and G.

I hope they brought me a lot of Smarties.

Transatlantic

Dad called me yesterday, just a bit too early, by which I mean that there were still two blurs in front of the colon on my clock-radio. In my defense, I'd been awake for quite a while; I just wasn't ready to get out of bed. But if Dad was calling, it meant that he was calling from the other side of the world, and it would be bad form for me to let the call go to voice mail.

"I just talked to your brother. He says there are fleas all over the house, and they're biting [B.]. I don't know why there are fleas, because I just put some of that flea stuff on the cats before we left, and there weren't fleas in the house when we left..."

I fiddled with my computer while I waited for his train of thought to reach a station.

"...so they're going home, and you need to take the cats to the vet and set a flea bomb tomorrow."

?

I left aside the obvious first response, which would have been something along the lines of, "Wait -- it seems perfectly reasonable to you to send me into a house full of fleas after two people have fled in horror or hypochondria?"

"Dad," I said instead, "I wasn't really planning to go over there today."

"I thought you were."

"I said I might. I've been able to reshuffle stuff, so I've been able to keep out of their hair."

"Oh. Well. You'll have to work something out, then."

"So they're freaking out over a few fleas?"

"He says they're attacking her. Just her, though."

Of course.

He continued: "From now on, you're my default person for the house. They're just too..." I missed the next word, but it may have been "flaky," "unreliable" or "overly sensitive to the realities of life." Or maybe I just filled in that last one. I refrained from pointing out that that -- whatever it was -- was exactly why I'd been the default house-sitter for years. It wouldn't have done any good, and anyway he'd gone on to telling me how he'd run into my kindergarten teacher, her husband and their daughter for the second time.

(This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. My parents are active in the teachers' union, as are the other couple. Mr. and Ms. My Kindergarten Teacher's daughter was a year ahead of me in school; we went to the same high school and university, but we never really crossed paths. She was on that side of the globe to perform at Edinburgh, and her parents were along for the ride. I'm sure my mother went into a whole thing about how she keeps telling me that my friends and I should take our little comedy show to all the fringe festivals. She never mentions how we're supposed to fund this tour.)

I said goodbye to Dad and called the homestead. I got the answering machine, of course.

"Hi, it's your sister," I announced to the telephonic abyss.

G. picked up the phone and said hello.

"So I just talked to Dad," I said. "He says you said the place is full of fleas and you and [B.] are leaving and I need to come over and take care of everything."

I could hear G.'s eyes roll from across town.

"I told him that there were fleas, and we might go back to our apartment. We were still figuring it out. Tomorrow I'll drop the cats off at the vet and set a flea bomb, and if that doesn't work then I'll just stop by and feed the cats on my way to work."

"Is it really bad?" I asked.

"Well... [B.] has a lot of bites. And I did see a couple."

Now, I'm not discounting that B. could, indeed, have a lot of bites, while G. escapes relatively unscathed. Bugs are funny like that. At the same time, it's not like G. to be chased out by some fleas.

Which left me to wonder who the bigger drama queen is: B. or Dad?

I'm sure both of them would strenuously object to the label, insisting that Mom and/or I are the drama queens. Which, if you ask me, would be a pretty clear sign they were in denial, and raise their drama queen quotients accordingly.

G. called me later that day.

"Do you remember where the gas shut-off is?"

He didn't sound panicked, so I assumed that the place was not about to blow. Instead, I asked him what was up.

"The flea bomb says you're supposed to shut off the gas."

Huh. Last time I read the directions, it said to shut off all flames and lights, including pilot lights. The house doesn't have a pilot light. Well, whatever; the instructions could have changed, or G. could be being overcautious (and, perhaps, not a little clueless).

"Um... it's been a while. I think it's in the basement. Or it could be the valve outside, in the front."

"I know one of those is water, and one of those is gas, but I don't know which is which."

"Why not turn them both off? It's not like anyone will need water while you're flea-bombing."

Apparently, this had never occurred to him.

"I'll email Dad," he declared. "I'll just hope he checks his email sometime in the next couple of days."

I haven't received any more calls, so I figure that either they're waiting to hear back from Dad; they're still checking and re-checking the directions on the package; or they've set off the flea bomb and have decided to spend a couple of days at their apartment, which suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

I'm starting to wonder if they'll last the rest of the month.

Always The Last To Know

Dear readers, you are about to see a side of me that's not very pretty. If you would like to continue to think of me as a slightly bemused observer of family insanity...

Oh, who am I kidding? This is right in line with everything that's happened before. I'm just particularly pissed about it, enough so that I don't care if I come off as whiny and petty.

In a nutshell: Next Tuesday, my parents go out of town for three weeks and change. They had asked me to house-sit, as usual, and so I rearranged my life around house-sitting. As usual.

Today I got an email from G:

"So, talking to Dad yesterday, it sounded like he hadn't mentioned this to you yet--[B.] and I will be staying at the parental house while they're off on their vacation..."

Um... what now?

Oh, and I'm to call ahead if I want to use the laundry facilities.

I wrote back:

"Uh, yeah, this is the first time anyone's mentioned it to me.
I really need more than a week's notice on this sort of thing. Since I've already planned around it -- and have been doing so since the parents made flight reservations and told me when they'd need me to be there -- you might be stuck with me and some visitors for some of the time anyway."

G:

"Yeah, I was a bit surprised when Dad said "I haven't gotten around to mentioning it to [Sib] yet...", even though they asked us if we wanted to stay there several weeks ago. I figured I should say something to you, so..."

Several weeks? Several weeks?! And neither of the parents had thought that... oh, I don't know, maybe I'd need to know this?

After a bit about how how he works early days and she works graveyard, so they need quiet so they can get their sleep shifts in...

"If you've already made plans to be there that can't be changed, let me know what they are and we can try to figure something out. Extra visitors might be a problem, though...

Just the messenger,
[G.]"

Wow. Just when I think my parents have some sort of respect for my time...

It's not that they're out to screw me over, exactly. They just seem to give a lot more thought to G. than they do to me. I used to think I was being oversensitive, but even G. notices it.

When I finally got a hold of Dad, he said he wasn't sure if it was going to happen, and, yes, he should have told me, but I was overreacting. In fact, I should be happy, because I wouldn't have to schlep across town. And it's just so much closer to where the kids work...

Overreacting. Overreacting? You mean, that thing when I have some emotion in my voice?

I think I'm reacting quite appropriately.

I hadn't pinned down a lot of specific events, but I think it's now quite necessary to have parties all weekend, every weekend. If you need a place to hold an event; if you've been thinking of coming into L.A. and but didn't have anywhere to stay; if you have a weekend afternoon or evening that looks free and you suddenly think that it sounds like a very nice idea to come over and have a drink with me -- please speak up. Post a comment or shoot me an email at siblingofthegroom at gmail dot com, or whatever other address you may have for me.

If B. and G. decide that they're invited simply because they're there (I know, such a leap of logic), guests are welcome to toy with the kids, or ignore them altogether. I don't want to be outright mean -- after all, it's not their fault -- but I do want to decrease the likelihood of this happening again.

Who's in?