match.com meets thanksgiving

the match.com moment

The best moment of Thanksgiving:  I glanced at Performer, who was seated to my left, occupied either talking or eating,  glanced at him and couldn’t believe that this man who had  carved and displayed the turkey beautifully  (see http://sexagenarian07.wordpress.com/2007/11/24/performer-carves-our-turkey-650-pm-thursday-22-november-2007/    )  came to us via match.com.

How could this nice man, who had met and mixed with my family twice before, who had met some of the friends now dining with us before, who looked more than presentable — he looked good –, who was sociable, pleasant, my bed-partner, a personage in the world and in his profession, a very good person to hug etc.,  how could this man who fit in so well have come to me — to us  –  from that global, impersonal, ridiculous  (‘Wink at someone for FREE to show you’re interested!’) corporate conglomeration?  

Was this man whom I had first connected with through his prose, prose that attracted me (”I like intelligent, self-confident women who are creative in their approach to life and living and who are interested in art  —”) but was not precisely or altogether  to my taste, because it seemed a bit too serious  (”interested in art, behavior, and the complexities of life in our civilization”), this man whom I met through typeface on a screen,  really the equivalent in our family of my adored grandfather, who met my grandmother on the steps of a midwestern hotel during a Hadassah conference in 1907?

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Well, anyway, that was my thought, as I ate the best meal of the year, one of the few times I deviate from my boring diet of yogurt, spinach, granola, apple sauce, et al.

the ‘families, oy’ moment

Two members of my family of different generations pooled their hostility and were, jointly, a huge pain.  Although it would be an exaggeration to say that they ruined Thanksgiving for me, they came very close to that, and I’ll never remember this Thanksgiving without thinking of them and their unpleasantness.  I think it was a matter of PMS in one case and residual or recurrent anger in the other.   They left early, not long after dessert, for which everyone was grateful.  But it took me several hours to recover from them.   Fortunately most of the other guests stayed till 2:30 a.m., so I had plenty of time to listen to silly, pleasant, witty conversation and banter. 

Those ‘other guests,’ btw, include two occasional readers of this blog (thank you, guys, for coming to the feast!), one of them the person who (last February) suggested I start a blog.

One of my children was in a happy and hilarious mood; she kept saying funny things, and when everyone laughed, she’d nod toward me and say something like, ‘I get it from her.’   So when I said something funny, as I eventually did, I’d say, ‘I get it from her.’

 Ha ha.

Thank God for her good humor and for the lovely guests.

turkey clones

On Thanksgiving Day 2007, Performer carved two identical turkeys and displayed them identically (see link above).  He was amazed that two Amish turkeys from Ottomanelli’s would be so identical as almost to seem like clones of one another.  From the video on the New York Times web site he had learned a new carving method.   Performer is good with tools (ha ha…..yes, he is, I can testify) and also a foodie, so carving is something he knows.   But he liked this new method, and he had two opportunities to use it last week.

First Thanksgiving dinner of the day, chez Performer ( 21 blocks north and 3 blocks west of chez Mimi), he cooked and served this festival meal for his two children, his brother and his brother’s partner/almost-wife, and her daughter and grandson.   Everything was delicious and everyone had a good time.   He phoned me at 6 pm to say he had just finished cleaning up and would be over here (my apartment) by 6:30, and he was;  his children were told he was going to ‘a grown-up party.’

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You may be wondering who knows what at this point; Performer’s life feels to me like a Henry James novel, perhaps What Maisie Knew — or, in this case,  what Adam and Rachel don’t yet know.    That’s right: they haven’t been told yet that their parents are divorcing, although Performer and Becky haven’t had sex for a number of years,  signed a separation agreement several years ago (I can’t remember when; the small gradations by which their marriage ended become more confusing to me the more I hear them; I can’t keep the chronology straight, so I’ve given up trying to),  and began divorce proceedings this past summer, about a month after Performer met me, which was about 6 – 8 weeks after he put his profile up on match.com.

The current datetotellthetruthtothechildren  is two weeks from now.  

Will it really happen? 

Yes.

Why? how can you know for sure?

Because Performer doesn’t want to spend Christmas with them.  He doesn’t want to drive to their house in a nearby state, and he has chosen that occasion to mark the divorce, or rather, the fact that he has another life now. He doesn’t like Christmas anyway, so he’ll spend a Jewish Christmas with us, which means everything but theology  — a tree, presents, carols, a good dinner (but not as good as Thanksgiving), and hanging out playing with the presents all afternoon.   He adores his children and will spend as much time with them as possible, but the separate family life begins with Christmas.

And the day after Christmas Adam and Rachel will come to New York and –  drumroll — meet me.

Maybe.

It seems a little soon, just two weeks after they’ve been told about the divorce, but as every friend to whom I recount this narrative says to me, ‘They know already.’

dessert

My children made delicious pies: 

The glass candlesticks in the photograph were given by my mother to my ex-husband.  He used to raise goats, and she bought them thinking they were goats.  In fact they’re rams.  

Yes, the ram candlesticks  –  two of the more innocuous items in his unpleasant legacy.

They’re one of a number of things he left behind in the old house, the house I happily moved out of to begin my own new life.   

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