Hey! Pictures!

So it's been ages since I've posted pictures, and you know what that means:

Lots. Lots and lots in a long, long post. Hope you're not busy! Hope you have nothing to do this summer!

Anyway.

Did I mention that my youngest sister Lauren got married to her excellent boyfriend, Wes? In January? In Detroit? Michigan in January? During one of the snowiest winters in recent memory? In a city that's broke so it can't pay for snow plows? Not sure if I mentioned that.

It turned out really lovely. Yes, there was a major snowstorm, but Detroiters are not fazed by much, and one thing they're not fazed by is weather. Everybody showed up to the ceremony on time, dressed to the nines.

Saturday morning just as the snow hit, we went to the salon to get our hair and makeup done. The Nephew came.



Alex was so unbelievably well behaved. We were there for hours, and he just checked everyone out, looking all handsome while we got made purdy, and then passed out from milk-drunkenness. He slept the whole slippery ride back to my parents' house.

Jennifer, Stephanie and I were just about an hour late getting to the hotel for pictures (see: lack of snow plows), so when we got to Lauren's suite, we found this:



It was surreal. I kept telling Lauren that I really loved her Halloween costume because there was no way my baby sister was getting married. More to the point, there was no way my baby sister was having The Sex. Here's the age difference between the four of us:

Jennifer, born December 1971: 37
Me, born June 1974: 35
Stephanie, born October 1977: 31
Lauren, born July 1984: 25

So we pretty much all had a hand in raising her. When she walked down the aisle, we all just looked at each other, totally flabbergasted, because it felt like five of us were her parents. (For the record, Lauren was not an oops baby, although we have spent years enjoying showing her pictures of the family before she was born and saying, "See this one? This was taken before you came along. When we were happy.")

Lauren felt her wedding was the perfect time to reenact The Sound of Music. Because when else would be a better time?



The wedding was beautiful. The cake was the best wedding cake I've ever tasted. Ever. Anywhere.



This is my cousin Michelle:



Michelle is six weeks older than me, so we grew up together. When we joined ski camp in sixth grade, we realized we hated skiing and spent every Saturday sitting in the lodge eating french fries and drinking hot cocoa. When we went to summer camp together, Michelle would be homesick and try to get sent home by sitting on a chair, propping her feet on another chair across from her and then asking me to jump on her legs to break them. I'd be all, "Um, we're going home in three days. How about maybe sticking it out for a bit longer?" We lived together our freshman year at Michigan State and spent the entire weekend before midterms writing private jokes all over our wood loft in our dorm room. Michelle has always been the most organized person I've ever known, one of the funniest people I've ever known, has the biggest heart, and lets me exaggerate stories for dramatic effect even though she knows the real, less embellished version. She now has three beautiful kids, married her high school sweetheart and is just dreamy. I love her desperately.

(Note: This being the last of the Garfield weddings, I walked into the salon and told them to do whatever they wanted with me. I always find that hairdressers and makeup artists do a better job and have more fun if they can just go to town and be creative. I told them I didn't want to look like myself and to just go with it. Then I thought for a second and said, "Wait. Now I'm thinking Old French Whore. Can you do that?" This picture was taken long after Old French Whore was mingled and danced out, my eye makeup, which had been excellent, was a bit worn, the lip gloss muted, the earrings removed from my sore lobes and put into my purse, but you get the idea. I think they did a great job. The back was all nice and messy, and they really went with the whole "slutty and festooned with pearls" look. I was pleased.)

Later in January, as you all know, was the inauguration. This still makes me laugh:



Maybe it's the angle of my TV, but did you notice something about Biden and Obama?





Aren't their hands tiny? They look like Barbie hands! Obama's hand looks like it's actually the hand of the guy standing behind him! And did they ever say who the guy is behind the not-Obama's-hand guy who looks like James Cromwell?

On their way to their honeymoon cruise, which left from a port in Bayonne, New Jersey, Lauren and Wes stayed with us in Brooklyn. Wes had never been to New York, and this excited me to no end. I am always unreasonably thrilled to show people around the city for the first time because I remember what it was like my first time and I still maintain it's the most exciting place in the world. But they only had one full day to do it, so I packed that Saturday full of touristy goodness. The idea is, you want to give the visitor an excellent overview of the city, see most of the main attractions even if it's only a glimpse, and that way, on their second visit they can spend more time at the places that really interested them, and then on subsequent visits, they can get into the nitty gritty of New York and not have to worry about the touristy bits and just do fun bits and see how New Yorkers live. So we got up in the morning and headed to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which offers the best view of Manhattan across the East River, south from the Statue of Liberty to north past the Empire State Building.

This is Wes's first glimpse:



It was unbearably cold. There were some days this past winter when it was so cold I tied two scarves together and wrapped them around my upper half, very Nanook of the North. Josh and I wanted to take a picture together but couldn't move closer to each other, we were so frozen.



Me: We look like old-timey immigrant ancestors. Like, we're just off the boat from Poland. The Statue of Liberty is somewhere behind us and we're not really touching.
Josh: Yeah, but we're smiling. So not exactly.

We had some delicious breakfast and then made our way into Manhattan to grab a double-decker bus tour. As cheesy as they are, they're the best way to see a large part of a city in a very short period of time. And you can get on and off if you want to walk around a neighborhood or site, so in the span of a couple hours, Wes saw Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Garment District, the Flatiron Building, the Chrysler Building and the West Village. We got off at Ground Zero, then walked through the Financial District to the New York Stock Exchange, which I'd never seen.

Here was the problem: We had the shittiest tour bus guide. He punctuated every single sentence with, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" and littered his tour with name-droppings instead of actual facts about the city: "See that apartment building there? Rob Lowe used to live there. Yeah, I knew him because I'm an artist, and he came into my class one day, and he lived right there." Josh was beside himself because a lot of the city facts the guy did manage to spew were not fully accurate, and here's my research-nerd husband saying under his breath, "It was 1983, not 1981."

So I flipped the guy off.



We very easily could have hopped off the bus and waited for another to come, hopefully with a better guide, but it was so freakin' cold. When we did get onto a different bus after walking around Ground Zero, the guide was immeasurably better. We finished the tour driving past South Street Seaport, the East Village and Rockefeller Center, where we got off, walked up Fifth Avenue past Tiffany's, then across Central Park, caught the subway and had an amazing dinner at Josh and my favorite soul-food restaurant in Harlem, Amy Ruth's, and then went back down to the West Village for dessert at an old bakery. Needless to say, we were exhausted and cold, but it was a great, great I Heart NY day.

The next day, I went with my horror-film-junkie husband to see My Bloody Valentine 3D. The movie was, of course, terrible, but check out the glasses!



So much more high-tech than back in my day. [waving fist, crotchety] In my day, we had cardboard glasses! They bent before we used 'em! They didn't actually work! They just made you look stupid! We didn't need no stinkin' functional plastic Vuarnet-lookin' 3D glasses! The fanciest we got were the ones at Captain EO because they were purple, dammit!

In February, Josh and I went to Boston to babysit Alex while Stephanie and her husband, Josh (I know; confusing), spent a romantic Valentine's Day night in a hotel. This is the gist of our night with Alex:



The kid is a dream. He's good-natured, so cute it's ridiculous, undeterred by colds and teething, laughs easily, loves nothing more than being upside down. My sister made the perfect baby.

Wait, Johnny Galecki is on Craig Ferguson right now. Why does he look like that? Where did his adorability go?

Anyway.

In March, my friend Amy asked me if I'd ever seen the "little doors."

"Little doors?"

"I'll take you to see the little doors."

Here's Amy at the little doors:



It's a very short street called Dennet Place, a block between four main roads, tucked away in the reaches of my old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Nobody seems to know the story behind the four- to five-feet-high doors — they may have just been access doors to staircases going into basements — but people live behind the little doors. It's a very quaint street, very neighborhood-y. The doors sit beneath outdoor stairs leading to full-length doors and the main entrances to the buildings.



After wandering up and down Dennet Place, Amy and I walked around Carroll Gardens. We found a great vintage knickknack store.







During Passover, we had lunch at a kosher for Passover restaurant with Josh's brother, Adam, and Adam's wife, Rachel. They observe Passover more religiously than we do, so after lunch, we stopped off at a kosher grocery store so they could pick up a few things.

Now, I'm not a terribly religious person — I'm more of a cultural Jew than a regular synagogue-goer — but I went to Hebrew school through twelfth grade, had a bat mitzvah, I can read and write Hebrew, I went to Jewish summer camp, I know how to pray, I know from my peoples. But this, this I've never seen before:



Mishpacha means family. A family of mushrooms.



It was a gorgeous spring day, so we went for a walk in Central Park.





The short white building on the left is the Guggenheim Museum:



Spring!



April 18 was International Record Store Day, Josh's favorite day of the year, so we puttered around Manhattan and bought some music. I paid $5 for an Oasis CD. I have no idea what I was thinking. I've never liked Oasis. International Record Store day clearly made me a terrible judge of my own taste.

I love this:



A garden center with a clear view of a parking structure. Yay, nature!





This is Other Music. Josh has been shopping here for 100 years. He used to have his own record label, and then worked in the business for other labels until he went back to school a few years ago. These are his people.





In May, I went with some friends to our friend Marisa's country house up in Columbia County. It was just beautiful, and I hadn't had a girlie weekend in forever. So we ate a lot. We also spent an afternoon in Hudson, one of the more very charming, very old towns in New York State. There's a main drag there with really beautiful little mom-and-pop shops and a firehouse.

In Hudson, many shuttered business had this taped to their windows:





I love how these salt and pepper shakers look like they're doing "I'm a Little Teapot." Well, that's just a different item of kitchenware entirely.







I have truly wondered what the person who created this is trying to say:



Are they saying that Sarah Jessica Parker looks like Bea Arthur? That Sarah Jessica Parker wishes she were as talented as Bea Arthur? That Sarah Jessica Parker is the second coming of Bea Arthur? That Sarah Jessica Parker idolizes Bea Arthur? That Sex and the City is this generation's Golden Girls? So many questions, graffiti artist!

I just want to take this opportunity to say that I miss Bea Arthur. That is all.









In front of the firehouse.



Memorial Day weekend, I headed back to Boston. My parents came too, and we had a whole Alexfest all weekend. Because so many people were descending on Stephanie's house, I spent the first night in a hotel. I've been over-reading about the bedbug problem infesting the East Coast, so naturally I was struggling to convince myself that my hotel room would not be crawling with bugs that would then jump into my suitcase that I would then bring home and, as a result, be forced to spend thousands of dollars I didn't have to get rid of the problem. Once I convinced myself of this, I got to the hotel, and this was the pattern on the bedspread:



It did not help.

The next morning, I took Alex to his swim lesson. We had some time to kill before it started, so Steph, my mom and I took him to a nearby park to try out the swings. The best word I can think of to describe his reaction to the swings is: suspicious.



He could not seem to get his head around the whole sensation of dangling in the air without a person attached to him in some way. He reacted the same way to being in the pool. He didn't squirm, he didn't cry, he didn't freak out. He just looked around with that furrowed brow, sort of like, "I'm just not sure about this, and I don't know why all of you people seem to be." Except for when we did the Hokey Pokey. The kid loves the Hokey Pokey.

This is the view from Stephanie's gym. That is mean.



A pirate canoeing along the Charles River. Arrrrr.



Alex and my dad looking jaunty.





OK, I just spent four hours trying to load a video of a bunch of adults making humiliating noises to Alex while he looks at us like we're insane, and then it failed to load and error-messaged, and I'm gonna sign off now so I can pull my hair out. But just wait! Coming up next: A former Army base! Lawn chairs! Spiky phalluses! Christ candles!

[I can't even think of a title. Useless.]

I am staring at this blank page. Which is no longer blank because I wrote this sentence.

It's still not encouraging.

This writer's block is killing me. For the past two months, I haven't been able to think of a single thing to write that might interest you. Probably because I've almost forgotten what interests me. I keep thinking, Do something fabulous! Quick! Go to a park and see something hilarious or quirky or drunk so you can write about it and stop boring people! But the good news is, I think I've hit the tail end of my end-of-year blargh, which basically consists of 2 parts frantic work schedule + 1 part sleeplessness x 5 parts not exercising / 8 parts bloating = 1 woman loafing on the couch — except for when she's at work — and not expanding her horizons. Hopefully now that things have normalized, my schedule has regulated, all weddings and babies of the moment are born and celebrated, that's a thing of the past and I can stop using pictures of Crocs superstores as blog-filler. But for now, I regale you with these tales of nothingness:

1. Last Wednesday, I walked 30 blocks, from a doctor appointment to work. This seemed like a very good idea, as I usually walk to work after doctor appointments because then I can pretend that I'm healthy and didn't just get weighed. (And I understand 30 blocks seems far, but you'd be surprised how frequently I do this. New York is very much a pedestrian’s city, and I can often walk that far without even noticing.) I was wearing my pedometer, so it was immensely satisfying to watch numbers go up, up, up. But here's the thing: It was 18 degrees outside. And windy. By the time I got to 25th Street, I couldn't feel my fingertips (wearing fingerless gloves, holding a very large, hot coffee), and by 32nd Street I couldn't feel my entire face. I ran into my office building and headed straight to the bathroom so I could look in the mirror to make sure I still had lips.

2. Not surprisingly, I watched and was thrilled by Barack Obama's inauguration. However, I was less thrilled by the fact that I discovered I’m kind of an idiot.

I don’t work on Tuesdays so I was supposed to be home alone during the ceremony, and the only scheduled blip in the day was a visit from the plumber to fix our radiators. I was kind of bummed, because I think the inauguration — this inauguration — is the kind of event you want to watch with people. (If I’d bothered to watch George Bush’s inauguration, I’m sure I would have done it alone in the dark, under my bed, weeping into ice cream.) As luck would have it, the plumber showed up at 11:30 a.m., so we watched the swearing-in together. He worked through most of the opening rigamarole and Aretha’s hat (as far as I’m concerned, she’s the Queen and she can wear a feral cat on her head if she wants to) while I took pictures of my TV and jumped around the living room. And then we watched the swearing-in together and talked, not so much about our own political beliefs — he was pretty clear about not wanting to go there — but more about the campaign that Obama ran and what we hope he’ll do, knowing he’s going to fuck up but also knowing that he’ll do a lot of good. It was great. Exactly how I wanted to experience this giant, giant moment.

Here’s the thing: My plumber is African-American. And as a black man who goes into dozens of homes every day, he probably has dozens of people who are not black looking at him while he works and wondering, What is this historical moment like for him? Inasmuch as when a Jewish person finally gets elected president (Mike Bloomberg? Carl Levin? Winona Ryder?) people will be looking at me and wondering what it’s like for a Jew. Or a woman, when that happens. But I confess: I wanted to know too. Because for me, the inauguration was one of the most moving, exciting, monumental things I’d ever seen, but I will never be able to truly, fully experience the cultural significance of the first African-American president the way an African-American person can. It’s not my experience or my history, and it would be wrong for me to attempt to adopt it simply because I’m American. So I kept thinking, Don’t ask him, don’t ask him, don’t ask him … Because he very obviously just wanted to be at my house to do his job, and then leave to do his job somewhere else because it was no degrees outside and everyone’s radiators were kaput and he was busy and had many, many appointments to keep. And just because he’s black didn’t mean he wanted to talk about what it was like to be black, and it certainly didn’t mean that being black automatically invites stupid questions, even though I understand that being Jewish certainly invites stupid comments from people. (How many times have I heard, “You’re Jewish? But your nose is small!” [True, but my heaving bosom is right off the shtetl.] And, “Why don’t you go to church on Christmas? It’s a national holiday!”) Really, it just seemed like he wanted to watch the swearing-in and then go about his day, doing his work that he’s very good at. He was all business. Ultimately, what was he going to say? “Eh, a black man is president? It’s OK.” ??? Come on.

But because I’m an idiot, I asked anyway.

“Did you ever think you would see this?”

He smiled. “I thought it would happen eventually, but not in my lifetime. Not yet.” He said he thought this changes everything in terms of country leadership, and he’s certain the next president, regardless of race or party affiliation, will be a woman. He humored me, then showed me how the radiators work (down to the distribution of steam and how it passes through the home and oh my gosh I do not understand these things), and went off to his next appointment.

I hope I didn’t ruin the moment for him by putting him on the spot. And I imagine that when Shmuel Ishkabibble or Zac Efron or whichever Jew is the first to be sworn into the presidency, karma will rear its head and someone will say to me, “So! The Jews control the media and the banks, and now the government! My, you Heebs are a resourceful peoples! How does this make you feel?!?” And I’ll have deserved that.

3. Yesterday, Josh and I had this conversation:

Josh: So, I’ve been thinking.
Me: Uh-oh.
Josh: You were supposed to say, “I smell wood burning.”
Me: I will not succumb to cliché!
Josh: But that's my thing!
Me: Cliché is your thing?
Josh: Yes.
Me: How did I marry you?
Josh: Say it.
Me: You can’t make me do it.

4. Also yesterday, I found this very ugly word in the dictionary that describes something (potentially) pretty:

fard: vt to paint the face with cosmetics

5. My cat Tallulah eats from her food bowl with her paw. She doesn't dive in with her face; she scoops it out with her fingertips. Very dainty. The other night, I had a dream that she was eating with a fork.

6. OK, I’m out of material. I’m taking suggestions. You want me to write about [insert topic here because I can’t think of a damn thing]? Let me know. My creative juices have clearly fermented.

FYI: My favorite color is purple.

Tonight I was in the bathroom — OK, I was peeing — and Nora walked in, got all catlike around my legs, and sat down, watching me.

"Let's have a conversation," I said. "Tell me about you."

She stared.

"What's your favorite color?"

She kept staring. (And yes, I am aware I was having this conversation with a cat. I am that person. And I bet that if you've ever had a pet, any pet, you've been that person too. When I was in college, I discovered, based on a pattern of enthusiastic tail-wagging or lackluster or nonexistent tail-wagging, our beloved Bichon Frisé's favorite colors. He liked: purple, pink, yellow, and blue. He did not like: orange and brown. He could was neither here nor there on: green.)

"Tell me, NoraBanks, what's your favorite song?"

More staring.

"I'd like to know: Where's the most interesting place you've ever been?"

She blinked, got up, walked over to the bathtub, sat down, and looked at me again.

"The bathtub?"

When I said it, I realize I'd taken a whole "You love Chuck Bass?" judgmental Dan Humphrey tone. Nora looked a bit insulted, so she left. I would have been insulted too. Dan can be kind of a dick. And Blair really loves Chuck Bass. So.

And right there, I realized that my cat being in love with the bathtub and Blair Waldorf being in love with Chuck Bass and me being in love with Gossip Girl were all teaching me to not be judgmental of people for loving who and what they love. See? I was tying in a real-life lesson during the course of a pee based on both my feline and terrifically fictional television characters because I love my cat that much and felt bad that I might have insulted her even though she does not speak English but I really think she knows what I'm saying because she's brilliant. Right there, that's what love does to a person.

Anyway, I didn't say that very important real-life lesson was going to stick, because there are folks out there who inexplicably love magicians and mimes and, like, wicker and, you know, Crocs, and I can't help judging those people. But that leads me to another life lesson culled from something I love tremendously — the New York City marathon, which was today: It all takes baby steps.

Can you tell I had nothing to write about today? Coolness. Feel free to use the comments section for thoughts equally random.

Also: vote vote vote vote vote Obama vote vote vote vote vote. Vote. Vote on Tuesday. Vote.

You start with a cookie, you end with a cookie.

It was 53 degrees outside today, the sky was clear and blue, the air was fresh, and a neighbor down the block — a girl of roughly six years old — set up a cookies-and-lemonade stand with signs that said Thirsty for Change? All Proceeds Go to the Obama Campaign. Not only did the whole civic-minded-youngster thing make me feel all warm inside, but it was just an idyllic scene topping off an already excellent last few months. (And yes, I'm voting for Obama, but even if it had been a lemonade stand for McCain, I would still have been impressed with this enterprising elementary-schooler. She was shy as hell, but was on a mission.) I really have to say, I had a helluva summer and fall is looking pretty stupendous.

You want proof?

I think it's been mentioned once or twice, here or there, half-assedly and undercover, that this was the last season for Yankee Stadium as we know it. I think it may also have been printed with just as little fanfare that the All-Star Game was held in New York to commemorate the stadium's last hurrah. Josh and I took advantage of the All-Star weekend events and got tickets for the Futures game, which highlights star players in the AAAs who might possibly have good chances of landing in the majors. Following the Futures game, there was a celebrity game, and I have to say, if this day was any indication of what kind of batter I am, I could kick Chris Rock's ass. He really couldn't hit anything a foot in front of him.

Yankee Stadium is Josh's temple, so he was particularly emotional that day. He went to his first Yankee game when he was four, and has gone back every year since.



(Incidentally, I think Josh has worn that Lou Gehrig jersey to every game since he was four, too. The New York Yankees managed to retire Lou Gehrig's number, but Josh refuses to retire that jersey. Cool as it is, and as much as I love Lou Gehrig in every way — Pride of the Yankees is one of my all-time favorite movies — Josh's decrepit jersey needs to be put down. It's old and experienced enough where it could tell you this itself.)

That tall pole behind Josh (dirty!) is a giant bat that became the easiest meeting-up point at the stadium. "Are they moving it to the new stadium?" I asked Josh. "People won't know where to meet up with their buddies. It'll be mayhem!"

The new stadium is being built directly across the street from the old one.











Bobby Murcer died the day before the game.



They had a moment of silence for him, and the sadness was thick. Bobby Murcer was so deeply respected not only as a player but also as a broadcaster, and by all accounts — all of which were positively glowing — he was an exceptional human being. I never saw him play beyond the old-timers' games, but I heard his voice on radio and television, and he was kind in everything he did. It was a huge loss.

I decided that any fan scuffles that have ever taken place in the right-field seats had nothing to do with the game being played but had everything to do with



where the hell seat number 6 went. And if the person with a ticket for seat number 5 had any right to take up twice as much space with their hot dogs and crap.

I've always liked going to baseball games, but I also grew up in Hockeytown, so baseball never captured my heart the way the mulleted, toothless Czechadian Red Wings did. So when I moved to New York and met Josh — and was, by default, but also by choice — parked at Yankee Stadium every season (and I just could never get behind the Rangers; I do miss hockey), Josh immediately set forth and taught me how to keep score. It made baseball games immeasurably more interesting. I won't go to a game now without keeping my own scorecard.



Cracker Jacks in bags.



Don't get me started. Just ... ugh ... gah.

I'm gonna be 16 for a minute, but look at this guy's arms.



I freakin' love New York.

Back home, this was going on:



For about a year, we had a sporadic but persistent leak coming through our bathroom light fixture. We'd had it checked out but it always stopped and the plumbers could never find the source. In July, it finally became less sporadic and more persistent, and the plumbers had to go into the ceiling to see what the problem was. Turns out, the seal around our upstairs neighbors' toilet wasn't sound, and let's just say that the water coming through the light wasn't ... all water.

"Our house is peeing on us," I said.
"Our house is not peeing on us," Josh said.
"I think it's had enough. This is its way of telling us it wants to be painted."
"There isn't any poo up there, is there?
"No, just pee. I think our house wants to be painted, but it isn't so angry that it would shit on us."

I'm not all wrong, you know. I mean, I panicked at the idea of having to replace an entire ceiling, and now we have to have a contractor tear down the pee-ceiling and put in a new one, but that also means the bathroom has to be painted, which means we should just go ahead and do the whole apartment because it desperately needs it, and now I'm glad our apartment peed on us. See? It all happens for a reason.

Something else that happened for a reason, though I'm not sure what the reason is, is this:



Josh bought the apartment from a couple who had a five-year-old son. He remembers they had alphabet magnets all over the place, on every surface they'd stick to. Josh bought the apartment eight years ago. Somehow, this summer, the cats managed to locate these two letters and leave them on the kitchen floor. I think they're trying to tell us something. They saw a mouse? They want us to paint our house? They smell something foul? They think that, as parents, we are astounding? They haven't unearthed any more letters, so until then, I just have to believe what I choose, which means I've decided that I think I'm awesome as a pet-owner.

Our five-year anniversary:



In September, Josh's brother, Adam, got married to his longtime love, Rachel. The wedding was a couple hours north of New York City in a town called Claremont, right along the Hudson River in the shadow of the mountains (the Catskills?).

The night before the wedding, it was pouring rain. Everyone was nervous, as the wedding was to be located right on the banks of the river, all outdoors. The ceremony and reception would take place under tents, but come on, nobody wants it to rain on their wedding day. (Although they say it's good luck, but "they" probably never had to deal with mud on "their" wedding day. Josh and I lucked out at ours — not a drop of rain in the sky, despite a history in Michigan of Labor Day Weekend being soaking wet. An hour after everyone left our reception? The skies opened up. We took it as a good sign.) So Josh and I, Adam, and a bunch of Adam's friends piled into our cars and headed out for Adam's bachelor party of a delicious dinner and letting out steam during some excellent small-town bowling.

I have to say, I kicked ass in my first game, seeing as how the last time I went bowling, I bowled a 33.





Socks in a vending machine



We decided to play Skee-Ball — the greatest game ever, perhaps — in the bowling alley's arcade and bestow some gifts upon Adam as a farewell gesture to his bachelorhood. Herewith, the spoils of 200 tickets:



The next morning was Adam's actual farewell gesture to his bachelorhood. Miraculously, not only did it stop raining, but the sun came out, the ground dried up, and Adam and Rachel's wedding day was just gorgeous.

This is where the wedding was, on the grounds of a historical mansion that is now a state park. Friends and family converged, the hora was danced, there were delicious sweet-onion empanadas served with salad. A beautiful wedding.











As Rachel and I were saying goodnight, I realized: I have a sister-in-law! Holy moly, with all my sisters, men have been joining my family en masse. But with Rachel joining Josh's side, a new sister. Pretty cool.

The week after Adam and Rachel's wedding, I went to San Francisco to visit Stacy and meet her son, Sebastiaan. Bass was born in July, so Stacy was in the groove of parenting, and Bass had just started to smile. It was amazing.



Stacy lives in Marin County, just north of the city, in this fabulous crunchy town where hippies who fled to San Francisco during the '60s and then traveled north still live. I saw a rather hairy fella sitting on some stairs with what I believed was a pile of animal pelts next to him. It's a beautiful place: sunny all the time, hilly and green, excellent mom-and-pop shops. There is a town ordinance that bars any chain stores from setting up shop there, and Stacy's husband, Mark, told me that there are more farmers' markets there per capita than any other town in the country. Everything there is locally grown, sustainable, organic, and homemade, and for the first time in ages, all of my systems worked and I didn't feel bloated or digestively heinous. Everybody is incredibly friendly, interested in who you are and what you're up to, and people introduce themselves with ease. Stacy's only lived there for about a year, but it seems that it wouldn't be too difficult to make friends there because everybody's so laid-back. She's met some really lovely people.

The first thing we did was hit up a farmers' market for dinner, where they not only sold the standard flowers and produce, but they had all different kinds of ethnic cuisine. I ate Himalayan food.





This peach was the size of Bass's head.





When Stacy and I went on a bus trip out west with our summer camp in 1989, we learned how to play euchre. It's really the most fabulous card game ever, except that as far as I can tell, the only people who know how to play are from Michigan. And you need four people to play. This is a problem, since Stacy has not lived in Michigan since 1996, I left in 1998, and we've managed to pull together three people at a time who can play but we rarely found a fourth. We miss euchre. So as luck would have it, Stacy took prenatal yoga with a very cool woman named Marissa who is from Michigan. She brought her twins over and Stacy, Marissa, Mark and I played a rousing game of euchre. It's addictive.



I particularly like how Bass, wearing his Johnny Cash Folsom Prison onesie, is eyeing Stacy's hand as if to say, "Hey, you know, Mom, some guys in my cellblock say to never call trump on a queen. That's all you have. I say, Pass."

The next day, we drove to Muir Woods. When I made plans to visit her, Stacy asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to do. I hadn't given it much thought, because my main — and only — goal was to spend time with her and help her with the baby. But I did tell her that I had always, always wanted to see the redwoods. Lucky then that Stacy and Mark live just miles from several national redwood parks.

As a side note, the whole feeling of newness about this whole trip really sort of washed over me not long after I landed in California. I've been lucky to have visited some places in the last couple years where I've never been, but those getaways are always quickquickquick and what I've seen usually doesn't truly sink in until I'm already home. Last summer I was thrilled to finally see Seattle and Portland, but I saw them for about 24 hours each. This trip, I was able to really take it all in. (I'd been to San Francisco once before. For three hours. Ate on the wharf and then headed to Fresno for my cousin's bar mitzvah.) The newness — of the place, of the people, of the food, of seeing my oldest and dearest friend be a mom — felt fresh and energizing. I'd sort of forgotten what that was like.

On the way to Muir Woods, we stopped off at this cart:



The guy who ran it was a character. Ornery, but he gave me a free peach because it was too delicious to just sit there. I bought fresh almonds (I'd never really liked raw almonds until that moment, but these were unbelievable), and Stacy told me to buy fresh figs.

"I don't like figs," I said. "I like dates. Wait — dates? Yeah, dates. I confuse them. I don't like figs."

"You will," she said.

It turns out that if you've ever had a fig outside of California but in the United States, you've had a dried fig. And dried figs taste like bark-flavored ass. Figs outside of California are dried because fresh figs don't travel. Who knew?









This is called burl:



It grows on the redwood tree, obviously, and in some cases falls off, takes root and grows into its own redwood tree. I thought this particular cluster looked a little bit like Diana Ross. At Muir Woods, you can buy a piece of burl, put it in a bowl of water in your house, and watch greenery shoot off of it. Mark bought me one, I put it in a bowl, and then I forgot about it. I think I've already killed it. I think I killed a redwood tree. Who the hell can kill a redwood tree? They're thousands of years old. I killed a redwood tree.



Redwoods attract ladybugs. They were everywhere.



I can't begin to describe the smell of that place. Tree, tree, tree. It reminded me of two other vacations — one to Denmark and Norway, and one to New Zealand — when I found myself standing in the middle of the street and drawing in huge, deep breaths, trying to store the fresh air in my lungs so I could take it back to New York. I am a moron.

These are sprouts from burl:



This deer was standing on a completely vertical incline:



Afterward, we drove along the very beautiful, very winding, and very chunks-inducing Pacific Coast Highway. I was fine as long as I, strangely enough, didn't look at the road and kept my eyes on the cliffs and ocean. It was gorgeous. And winding.



Remember that peach that was the size of Bass's head?



Yummy.

Remember the figs?

Outside:



Inside:



Fresh figs are sweet, but light. OK, so they look rather vaginal on the inside, but — wait, you know what? I'll stop here.

Anyway.

Stacy and Mark have lemon and pear trees in their backyard, not to mention countless spice bushes. There's Mark in the background, picking I think it was rosemary for dinner. It's kind of ridiculous.



Bass has a tire swing. Also ridiculous. Also in a good way.



This is the part when I told Bass that, as Auntie Marla, I will buy his condoms for him if he's too embarrassed to do it himself.



But I did add that if he's too embarrassed to buy his own condoms, he's probably not mature enough to have sex, and maybe he should wait a while.

The trip was extraordinary. Stacy has slid right into being a mom. It's really something: I've known her since we were six, and I have no recollection of her ever holding a baby. And there I was, sitting on her couch, feeding her son while she and Mark bustled around the house doing parent things and feeding me delicious food, and it felt like that's the way it had always been, the way it was supposed to be. It felt completely natural. It's cheesy, I know, but I thought it would feel shocking, one of us becoming a mom — especially since we both had such mixed feelings at one time or another about the concept — and seeing it happen, it wasn't that way at all. I cried when I left, and I can't wait to go back. The other day she was telling me how she takes Bass everywhere with her, and she said, "And then we went out and had lunch. I had a really nice salad, and Bass had formula."

And then Stephanie went into, like, a 1,000-hour labor or something, and out came Alex.



October 6 is now Stephanie's birthbirthday. "There are 365 days in a year," she said, "and my son had to pick my birthday to be born. Great."

"Don't worry," my mom said, "by the time you hit a certain age, your birthday no longer matters anyway."





With my dad:



Aunt soup:



Last Monday, Alex had his bris. This is, in my opinion, the most — how do you say? — fucked-up tradition in the Jewish religion. Now, Jews have some odd customs. Some of us go over our pantry shelves with feathers during Passover to make sure there are no bread crumbs in the house. We smash glasses to a zillion shards with our feet at the end of wedding ceremonies. Others shake noisemakers during the reading of the story of Purim whenever the villain's name is said. (Haman! grgrgrgrgrgrgrgr ...) And when a baby boy is born, eight days later there is a bris, during which family and friends gather round as a mohel performs the circumcision, and then everyone has brunch and cake.

Remove the foreskin, have corned beef and coleslaw on rye. Oy!

Now, I'm all for circumcision. I'm all for opting against circumcision. Do what you do. But to have a party? Yeah, no. Needless to say, I did not react well, hiding in the corner of the kitchen. From what I understand, it's a grueling experience for the mother: Not only is she present during the procedure (though not all watch, and some do leave the room; nobody would blame a new mom for not wanting anything to do with the actual procedure), but she's also throwing a party. Eight days after she has a baby. While she's recovering from childbirth. And sometimes c-section surgery. And adjusting to parenthood. I just don't get it. I just kind of think this is the kind of thing a doctor does in a hospital where it's, you know, sterile.

But Jews have been doing it for generations, and I've only been to one. Stephanie, being a pediatric nurse, was a champ during the whole thing. All business. She and her husband, Josh, were tired, of course, but they handled the entire afternoon with a great deal of grace — grace I don't know that I'd have if I were in Steph's position, so I'm incredibly impressed by her. And Alex, well, he cried for about a second and then slept the rest of the day. It didn't faze him. He's such a good baby. I think the trauma was all mine. Auntie Boo sucks. I did find that, once it was over, it really wasn't that bad. And the cake was good. And the company was great. So how bad can it really be?

So, to reiterate, here's what I learned during my October in Boston:

Joy:



Travesty:



And then, to top everything off, Josh and I went to Costco this weekend, which is a chore we hate with the fire of a thousand suns, and discovered Costco is now carrying Mallomars, the perfect cookie. Three boxes of Mallomars for $9. We're rationing them: We only force ourselves to go to Costco once a year, so these have to last.