is astroglide pareve? vignettes from an evolving relationship

abraham lincoln

Sometimes something comes over Plan C, I don’t know what to call it, and he just has to talk about Lincoln.

It’s really bizarre.

And boring.

I’m sure — nay, I know — there are worse habits. I know, because Performer had lots of worse ones, as did my ex. This is really benign, compared to theirs.

I wonder if there’s a clinical term for it, this having to talk about Lincoln.

And evangelize!

He told me about the Gettysburg address and the back of the envelope etc etc etc.

Duh!

Who doesn’t know that?

He got quite evangelical about Lincoln, uttering such striking sentiments as ‘Lincoln was the greatest American that ever lived.’

‘No, he wasn’t,’ I responded. ‘Elizabeth Cady Stanton was.’

Of course, I said that not to engage in argument, but just to show that argument was possible on this ridiculous issue.

‘No!’ answered Plan C. ‘Lincoln was the greatest.’

* * *
What can you do with a man like that?

Give him a dose of his own silly medicine.

So I began arguing that Chester A. Arthur was much greater than Lincoln, and soon Plan C was laughing so hard he was coughing.

* * *
And oh yes: he told me the fairly familiar and not-all-that-fascinating-the-first-time-I-heard-it fact that the official orator at Gettysburg had spoken for two hours and no one remembered his oration, whereas Lincoln had spoken for 2 minutes and everyone remembered his.

BUT: he told me the guy who made the long oration was Edward Everett Horton.

* * *
It took me a few minutes, but then my brain kicked in.

‘No it wasn’t!’ I said. ‘How could it have been? Edward Everett Horton was in Fred Astaire movies!’

Plan C started laughing again. He cracked up.

* * *

I looked it up later on the web: the long-winded orator at Gettysburg was Edward Everett.

a romance in the Depression

Plan C’s parents met in 1936 at a lecture on “Sex in the Soviet Union.”

another generation’s JDate

Plan C’s older son met his girlfriend on JDate. He was the first (and only) man she met on JDate, and they have been together for 2.5 years. Lucky woman! She didn’t have to endure an exhausting sequence of JDate after JDate, the countless emails, first-dates, and disappointments.

his family

One of the many attractions of Plan C is his eagerness for me to meet his children and for them to meet and accept me. Plan C is also eager for grandchildren. We were talking a couple of days ago about the fact that I would — what verb to use? — function as? be in the place of? be, in fact — a grandmother to his grandchildren. He has already decided that he wants to be called Grandpa by these not-yet-existent beings, and he asked me what I wanted them to call me.

That wasn’t a question that had occurred to me yet. I was still wrapping my brain around the notion that his sons’ children (neither son is yet married), the children of these young men I hadn’t yet met, would think of me as their grandmother!

Amazing and wonderful.

At the same time, I would feel sorry for his late wife, who would never know her grandchildren. But we will all tell them about her.

email and lovers

In a 2.75 hour period, between the time he returned to his own house Sunday evening and the time he went to bed, Plan C sent me twelve email messages.

Just counted mine: I sent him twelve also.

is astroglide pareve?

What?? you’re asking. Who cares whether lubricants are kosher or not?

But Plan C was busy with two sets of plans at the same time: finding out the best lube for us to use, and organizing a venue and guest-list for a seder. He didn’t care about the religious part at all, but he wanted his whole family together with him and me for Passover, and my mother and children too, if they would agree to come.

He was talking about them both in the same email, and forwarding things right and left to his children.

‘Sorry to mix religion and gynecology,’ he wrote me, and I thought, Uh oh! He’s going to forward the astroglide conversation to one of his sons! Oh god! And one of them might not like this unholy combination.

There’s a sort of loose-lips-y quality about Plan C sometimes: when he was telling one son about spending the night in my apartment, the son said, ‘Dad! Too Much Information!’

I thought the lube/seder combination was an unfortunate one.

I managed to separate it into two email conversations before it went to the wrong recipients.

* * *

Meanwhile my gynecologist recommended KY, so the wonderfully named Astroglide will not grace our table in April.

Oops!

what Plan C sent on valentine’s day

The first flowers anyone ever sent me on Valentine’s day (I think! but then, I can’t remember Valentine’s Days before 1980…).

Explore posts in the same categories: Plan C, families (oy), jdate, you'll find much of this hard to believe