The Conversation Chronicles: Russian Expressions

me: i have the hiccups.

mom: someone must be thinking about you in the bathroom.

me: what? i thought hiccups just meant that somebody is thinking about you. that’s what you always told me it meant when i was a kid.

mom: that was only half of it. you were probably too young to understand the other half. but where do you do your heavy thinking anyway? the bathroom.

me: not really.

dad: what you two talk about?

me: i have the hiccups.

dad: oh yeah? someone you know go bathroom with you.

me: this changes everything. i always thought it was a sweet expression before.

dad: they have no sweet expression in Russia.

The Conversation Chronicles: Mom’s Baby Advice

mom: so i saw on Facebook that Jon-David was in town. you guys hang out?

me: yep, he was here last weekend. we had such a good time together. we ate a lot and went to the LACMA.

mom: that’s nice. have you ever thought about, maybe, you know having baby with him?

me: ummmm... never seriously, kind of more like a joke. i am still hoping plan A works out.

mom: what is plan A?

me: meeting someone and falling in love. then comes the baby. you know, the old-fashioned way. 

mom: well, it’s something to consider. you should talk about it with him.

me: wow.

mom: what?

me: it’s just that you have really come a long way — from communist russia to california suggesting to your single daughter that she have a baby with her gay best friend. i’m impressed.

The Conversation Chronicles: Dad’s Dating Advice

pops: so what’s going on in your life, Meel? anything interesting?

me: same stuff as always, Pops. mostly work.  

pops: what about social life? got something?

me: nothing worth mentioning.

pops: no? you know you not young girl anymore, Meel. you a woman now. time to get serious.

me: yeah, Pops, i know how old i am.

pops: it funny. all these years i never meet one man i think be good for my daughter. something always wrong. this one a cheat, other one a drunk, this one a gambler, this one lazy. 

me: and now you know what i deal with.

pops: but i got a feeling for you. i think somebody out there special just for you. he’s looking for you and you looking for him. but when he’s over there, you’re over here. and then you go over there and he comes over here, like you just miss each other. so far you don’t meet but you will.

me: oh yeah? and what’s he like?

pops: well, i think he a little older than you. good if he has own business. maybe married before but no kids. and he smarter than you, not too much, but enough to know how to deal with you. you know you’re not an easy woman. you need special man.

me: really? how am i not easy? this is all very interesting.

pops: you don’t like to listen to nobody. if you did, i would tell you what to do and you would do it long time ago. but you do what you want to do always. you too independent. not all men like it. they get scared, so you need special man that like it and look for it. but not a weak man. somebody strong that wants somebody also strong.

me: ok, i hope you’re right.

pops: i’m right. i got a feeling for you. take it easy, baby. you meet one day. 

The Conversation Chronicles: From My Birthday Dinner

dad: so i have little joke for you. i just remember it.

me: ok.

dad: it’s from Benny Hill. i was watching it long time ago, old show.

me: i know that show. i used to watch it with you when i was little. i don’t think i understood it at the time.

dad: oh, good. but you understand it now?

me: yeah, pretty sure i do now.

dad: ok, so Benny is in bed with his old wife after seeing young girls in the little skirts. you know how he chase girls. and he look at his wife all sad and say mean to her, “goodnight, mother of three.” and she look at him and say, “goodnight, father of one.” get it?

me: i think i do. very nice, pops.

dad: ok, so now let’s toast to your birthday.

The Conversation Chronicles: Dad's Birthday Dinner

dad: i want to drink for this country, thank it for saving our lifes.

me: second shot of vodka, right on time.

dad: if we were in russia, i would be dead long time ago.

my sister: here he goes again.

dad: it's true. i would be dead and you and your sister would be prostitutes.

{my sister and i exchange confused glances.}

me: well, that's a new one.

my sister: how do you figure that, dad?

dad: it happened to a lot of girls. and if i'm dead, it would happen to you.

me: i'll drink to not being a prostitute.

my sister: and now we'll be drinking to this at every family gathering.

me: yep.

Of Fasts, Pasts and Funerals

i fasted this year for Yom Kippur, something i haven’t done in over 10 years. i’m not even sure why i did it — probably to prove to myself that i could. anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time has probably guessed that i’m not a very religious Jew. i love bacon cheeseburgers and gentiles way too much for that. but being Jewish is definitely part of who i am, even if it’s not the main part.

you can find it in my numerous superstitions, my always expecting the worst in every situation and the fact that i know the words to countless Neil Diamond songs. the Russian part of me is a whole other blog post but trust that it’s present in many ways as well. there’s also the Angeleno part, but this is already getting too narcissistic so let’s go back to Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day of atonement.

so yes, i fasted that day. 24 hours of no food and lightheadness and bad breath and a growling stomach that made me spend most of the day in bed reading. what was i reading? a book on witchcraft, of course, but that’s also a blog post for another day.

i broke the fast with my also-fasting parents at Jerry’s Famous Deli, a restaurant i absolutely loathe, but they offered a multicourse kosher meal for a fixed price and you know us jews and our deals, so we went for it. during dinner, we got the call you never want to get during dinner, especially a Yom Kippur dinner: a relative had died.

she had been sick for many months, so it wasn’t exactly unexpected. still, it sucked, especially for my mom as it was her favorite auntie. to me, it was my great-auntie Tyotya Moosya, my grandma’s sister who lived down the street from my grandma for as long as i could remember, even long after my grandma died.

by Jewish law, the dead have to be buried as soon as possible, so the funeral was scheduled for monday afternoon. i came to the cemetery a little early to meet my parents and sister so we could visit the graves of my grandparents on my mother’s side, who are also buried there.

i also wanted to visit my friend Alexander Merman, whom i knew was buried at the same cemetery, though i wasn’t sure where. Alexander, or “Sasha” as i knew him, was an ex-boyfriend who was murdered three years ago during a freak killing spree in Santa Monica. the police never found his killer.

after dropping off flowers for my grandparents, reading a psalm and kissing their headstones goodbye, we started making our way to the temple for my great-auntie’s service. i was talking to my mom about Sasha, saying that i was going to find the directory to see where he was buried when i saw a headstone with MERMAN etched into it. and there he was, buried just a few paces away from my grandparents, when he was 36 years old.

he looked handsome in the photo on the headstone, just as i remembered him. some of his art was also embedded into the stone right next to an inscription from his mother. i couldn’t find a pebble anywhere, so i left a shiny penny nearby to let him know i was there. then i kissed his headstone, got up, walked away and burst into tears.

my great-auntie was one of five sisters. they were known as the Kravitz sisters, their maiden name. they were also known for being made of steel. with that strength came a fair dose of bitchiness. i well remember hearing my father tell my mother that she was “acting Kravitz” plenty of times while i was growing up. the Kravitz sisters were the matriarchs of their families in that iron-fisted Soviet way that didn’t stand for bullshit.

they were a close-knit family, staying together through the war that killed their only brother — and then their mother, whose weak heart gave out when she received the news about her son. (their father died a few years later.) the Kravitz girls endured, putting down roots in L’viv, Ukraine, where i was born some 30 years later.

three of the five sisters immigrated to the States with their families, leaving behind the oldest two, one of whom died six months after her sisters left, reportedly of depression. all of them married, changed their surnames and had children of their own (except for one, i believe). most of the sisters had daughters who also had daughters. on my mother’s side, there have always been far more women than men, and all of us have a little Kravitz in us, myself very included.

my great-auntie had a lot of Kravitz in her. she was a colorful character in every way, from her perpetually sparkly clothes to her vibrant personality. she was a gossip, but a kind-hearted one, generous with everyone and with an opinion on everything. a life force not easily dismissed, she hung on until the bitter end, dying from kidney complications at 88. with her death went the Kravitz legacy and the last link to a past that is nothing short of incredible.

to be honest, i don’t think it’s a past i’ll ever fully understand. it’s one filled with war, fear, hunger and a communist republic with state-sanctioned antisemitism that put my Jewish family at a disadvantage. it’s the reason my relatives left for the promised land, my then-twenty-something parents leaving with them with two kids under 10 and no english skills. i was 3 years old at the time and completely clueless as to how lucky i was.

i know it now, though. we all do.

my mother loved her auntie tremendously and visited her often — in her final days and in healthier ones. she was like a second mother to my mother, especially after my grandma died. “make your face before you make your bed” was one of my great-auntie’s more famous sayings. she was slightly vain that way. i’ll never forgot the bright pink lipstick she wore well into her eighties.

when they lowered her casket into the ground, everyone stood by watching, tearful and sad, while the Rabbi said a few final words. then we heard a boom that brought the service to a standstill. it was a big boom, too, one that seemed to shake the entire sky. everyone looked around for the smoke, certain that a bomb went off. but all we found was a blown tire on one of the cemetery’s golf carts. it had popped without warning or reason right as dirt was being thrown on top of the casket.

“she went out with a bang,” everyone laughed. that was exactly her style. it was the Kravitz way.

goodnight, great-auntie. you were a fighter until the end. i hope you’re enjoying a happy reunion with your sisters, brother and parents. be sure to tell my grandma i said hello.

standing sister is my grandma Zhenya; from left: Fanya, Riva, Manya, Moosya

35th Birthday

the 14th time i turned 21: was just like the last 14, or so it seemed. i don’t remember too much about that night beyond the fact that there were friends and alcohol all around me. but unlike the first time i turned 21, i wasn’t in vegas with my head in a toilet. i was at a local bar drinking top-shelf vodka with a raised pinky. however, as this photo demonstrates, i will still clearly acting like a fool.

the friends, they came! and kept my smile wide and my class full all night. not that i made it easy for them with my nonstop guzzling. from left: Cassie, Anna, Thurman, a still (somewhat) sober me, and Mike.



more friends! Justin, Ann, Raidis and Deo also showed up to brighten my night and freshen my glass. this year’s party was held at Verdugo Bar instead of my or Raidis’ house simply because it was more convenient for me. and that made cleanup very convenient by making it nonexistent. i also didn’t have to worry about annoying my neighbors or if everyone knew where the drinks were. overall, a very good call — one i should have made many parties ago.



when worlds collide: my two studliest friends, Thurman and Phillip, who had interacted with each other only through my Facebook page, met in person. it was a sight to behold, sealed with a bro hug. after, a glass was raised, a toast was said and many jokes followed.

my Felipe: we are likethis, hanging out all the time in my kitchen, cooking up vegan food and hatching plans for world domination. we’re practically married as we don’t have sex, instead spending our time watching bad movies and talking about how we could make a better one. (unfortunately, the person i do have sex with, the costa rican cutie, had to be out of town for work the weekend of my birthday, though he sent me a nice bouquet of flowers in his place.)    



21 forever! it’s my party and i’ll get sloshed if i want to. thankfully, i had the very beautiful Grace nearby to keep me upright.

group hug: Elliot, Juan, Christine and Cerreah make withstanding a bright flash in the face look easy.



then i took a bite of her face: Polly and her man Ron (whom she’s marrying this month!) arrived late enough to witness me at my finest. she was also kind enough to keep me upright even as i tried my hardest to drag her down by throwing my monkey arms around her — something i did repeatedly to various friends throughout the night.



happy birthday to me: but in the end, fun was had by all. (at least i think it was; i don’t really remember.) i do remember waking up the next morning without a hangover, which may seem impossible considering the evidence, but when my friends are the ones buying the drinks all night, top-shelf vodka is the only thing i’ll order. thanks, guys!



that morning: i slept in as late as possible and awoke feeling fantastico. my friends always know how to put a smile on my face, one that was widened by the 90-minute massage i treated myself to. it was sunday, june 26, my actual birthday, and i was 35 years old.



where it all began: the weekend ended with a birthday dinner, courtesy of my awesome parents, who took me to one of my favorite restaurants where they gave me some pretty jewelry and told me they were proud of me. seeing as they are the best parents in the world, i’m the one who's proud — and incredibly lucky. coupled with the best friends in the world, who kept me company the prior night, i’d say this birthday was pretty damn good.

here’s to hoping the year is even better.

Vacation 2010: Baltimore, Maryland

warning: this blog post contains photos of russian food, vodka and members of my big fat russian family. these elements were the main fixtures of the first stop of my train tour up the east coast: Baltimore, Maryland, where my father’s two siblings and their families live. my parents and i paid them a visit over the recent Labor Day holiday. hijinks and hilarity ensued. well, not really, but a lot of drinking, eating and laughing did.



la migra! i hope you know this about me already, but considering that my closest friends forget that i am foreign-born, please make a note that i was not born in the U.S. despite how americanized i seem. i immigrated (legally) from what was then the Soviet Union (now Ukraine) with my family when i was 3 years old. this was in 1979 when an exodus of jews with “political refugee” status left the former U.S.S.R. for greener pastures and greater opportunities.



my pops and his siblings: i came over with my parents and most of my mom’s side of the family, but my dad’s side stayed behind until the 1990s, when they began making their way over, landing in Baltimore. my pops, left, is the youngest of his three siblings, who are actually half siblings born of the same mother.



my baba Anna: my grandma’s first husband died in the war, leaving her with two small children whom her second husband (my pops’ dad) adopted and raised as his own. sadly, she passed a few years after immigrating to Baltimore. while we were in town, we made sure to visit her grave, leave her flowers and tell her that we miss her very much. she was a good grandma.



the food: oh, the food. russian food is really in a class of its own. given the climate, there’s not much seasonal, fresh, organic fare crowding russian menus. however, there are a lot of potatoes, beets, pickled things, salty fish, cured meats and colorful salads. the cholesterol and fat content are off the charts. admittedly, i don’t love all of it (aspic is pretty gross), but the food i do love (hello, salty fish!), i love immensely.



speaking of love: i know this is gross to most, but sardines are one of the great loves of my life. (herring, too!) i eat canned sardines weekly, usually in a homemade pate with hard-boiled eggs and mayo, and hit up a nearby armenian store to get my herring fix. i’m also in love with sprats, pictured above, which are small, sardine-like fish from the Baltics that are delicious beyond measure. so delicious i could lick my computer screen.



the family: considering the amount of food that was prepared, it made sense to invite a lot of family over to consume it. the party was at my cousin’s house, in his disco basement, which is wallpapered with faux brick.



100 grams: vodka shots for russians consist of 100 grams (“zhto grahm”) taken in one fell swoop after a toast is given. here, my pops is giving one of the first toasts of the night (many more followed). in typical jewish fashion, the toast sounded something like, “i’m happy that we’re all gathered here for a joyous occasion instead of a sad one, like a funeral.” good one, pops!



l’chaim! my cousin, Oleg, also gave a toast. it was decidedly less morbid and amounted to, “thanks for swinging by. drink up!”



my cute moms! she was there, too, looking beautiful as always and partying it up like it was 1981.



speaking of 1981: this is a picture of my parents taken in that year when they were fresh off the boat and partying like rock stars. (yes, i know i look just like my mom.) i have this photo framed in my house. it’s hard to tell, but my pops has a gold front tooth in the shot. he was so gangster!



back at the party: the karaoke machine, disco ball and flashing neon lights were fired up and ready to go. just add drunk people.



and here are some now: my cousin’s kid, Alisa, took her new American boyfriend, Eric, to the festivities, where he sampled the weird food, met the crazies and witnessed the chaos that is a family gathering. considering that he didn’t bolt toward the door screaming, i’d say he’s a keeper.



me and my favorite uncle: he’s a little bit famous and all kinds of awesome. a well-respected mathematician — first in Russia and now in the U.S. — my uncle is endlessly fascinating and exceptionally smart, a true russian intellectual. but throw him and my pops together with a bottle of vodka and prepare for the stories of grade school misbehavior to unfold. lets just say i learned a lot about my pops as a young man during this visit. gangster indeed.



not so hard anymore: the angioplasty he had earlier this year really did a number on his heart, making it so open that the slightest provocation of sentimentality renders him weepy and emotional. once a sergeant in the red russian army, my pops is a big ole softie now. and i am still his little girl who thinks he is the greatest man on earth.



another daddy’s girl: seeing my family interact, you’d think we were all molesting each other given the way everyone feels everyone else up at every opportunity. but the truth is that we have always been an affective bunch, even without the vodka.



now you tell me! i found a book of translated russian proverbs at my cousin’s house, many of which made no sense. i’ve been hearing proverbs like these all my life, usually from my mom, who once told me, “don’t be so dumb that you don’t notice the piece of herring on your face.” sure thing, mom!



cheers (again)! i’m sure there are a lot of great tourist things to do in Baltimore, but i did none of them. aside from a day trip to Washington, D.C., to visit the Newseum, which will be featured in the next post, i spent my three days in town shuffling between relatives’ houses — moving from one meal to the next, one toast to the other. despite how tedious that sounds, i had the time of my life and i can’t wait to go back.

more family shots in the slideshow:

You Might Want to Sit Down for This

these are words i never care to hear again, especially from my father, who called me the other week to say, “you might want to sit down for this. i went to the cardiologist and he said my heart has a clogged artery. i need to have surgery this friday to open it.”

thankfully, i had sat down, though i’m not sure it made the news any easier to hear. it sounded bad, very bad. my father was basically on the verge of a heart attack, had been FOR YEARS with a tightness in his chest that had been misdiagnosed as gas, as anxiety. the arteries sounded mighty blocked, if the doctor’s tests were to be believed. an angioplasty was scheduled and, if it didn’t work, pops would have to be rushed into a bypass, an open-heart surgery that had risks that made my head spin and hands shake.

pops sounded worried, so i was worried. he started telling me some things about taking care of my mother, that he loved me. the tears were already rolling off my cheeks. i sat frozen, stunned, speechless. this was an impossible situation because my pops is a superhero and heart problems only plague mortals.

“dad, i love you and you’ll be fine,” i managed to stutter through a cracked voice.

friday came and we were all nervous as hell. my mom, sister, Mo and sister’s husband sat in the waiting area waiting impatiently while trying to distract each other from the fact that we were waiting impatiently. we played Scrabble and Rummicube while checking the clock wall, which indicated that the surgery was taking longer than expected, first by 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then by an additional hour. still, no word from the surgeon.

my hands started shaking again while my head was reeling with an imagination that i couldn’t get a handle on. with mom already teetering near meltdown mode, i had to get it together. “G.I.T., girl,” i repeated to myself. Get It Together. stay calm and don’t panic unless there’s a reason to panic.

finally, the surgeon appeared. his white outfit made him look like a butcher. we quickly gathered around him, arms folded across our chests in a mirror image of each other, the dent in our brows creased, eyes searching his face for reassurance.

“the surgery went well,” he finally said. i let out a deep breath, my first in days. the surgery went well. mom was crying. doc was talking, telling us about the three out of five arteries around my pops’ heart that were clogged 99%. i wish that were a typo, but they were clogged 99%. my pops is only 62. we were mortified.

“i imagine your husband has enjoyed a rich russian diet of vodka, caviar and beef tar tar for many years,” doc tells my mom. and he’s absolutely right. i don’t recall seeing my pops order anything but steak at a restaurant. nor do i recall him eating any vegetable beyond a potato, usually a baked one with his steak that’s piled high with butter and chives. family suppers at home always feature cold cuts, cured russian sausages, smoked fish, herring in sour cream, a cheese plate and a variety of barbecued meats. vodka and red caviar also made an appearance.

exercise did not. beyond looking for the remote so he could change the channel (usually to Fox News, just to piss me off), i’ve rarely seen my pops exert himself. he had no hobbies that kept him active. he is not a nature guy or rugged outdoorsman. he is a sports nut with a big-screen TV and leather recliner, which he rarely parts with. why had i not recognized this as a problem before? why do i need this doctor to point out the fundamentally obvious?

mom is thinking the same thing, i can tell. it’s not like pops does much of the cooking at home. doc is saying that pops needs to make major lifestyle changes, his diet among them. we are all nodding. we are sorry it came to this. we will make it better, we promise. pops will also need to take blood-thinning medication for the rest of his life.

one more thing, doc says, before leaving us: the catheter attached to my pops’ heart during the surgery several times sucked out copious amounts of cholesterol and fat that surrounded his heart. this is a rare sight, doc says. we hang our heads in shame. we are all changed people now.

we visit pops in his hospital room, where he’ll be spending the night. he’s awake, cheery, drinking cranberry juice and waving us all in. we huddle around him, like we usually do. he’s says he’s hungry, but only for food that’s good for him. he can live without the steak dinners. and he wants to live. my mom’s not done with him yet, she says. she ordered two rocking chairs for the porch, where they will sit and grow old together. he’s onboard with that plan.

i lean down to kiss him and stroke his graying hair. it’s thinner now. i hold his hand. my superhero. he’s looking up at me, smiling, looking happy, looking different.

“do me a favor, eh?” he says.

“anything, pops.”

“don’t get old.”

Octobered

ever since i returned from my glorious two-week vacation, which i still need to finish chronicling, my days have consisted of work, work and more work, both at the day jobbie and during moonlighting hours. this has left little time for blogging, socializing and spa days, three of my most cherished pastimes. part of me thinks i should begin saying “no” to jobs to regain some of the downtime i so very much miss, but the bigger part of me is a greedy bitch who thinks i have no real reason NOT to hustle.

good news is that i’m making money, none of which i have time to enjoy and all of which is sent out the door as quickly as it comes in to pay down the debt i’ve been complaining about all year. i have set myself a goal that i must meet by the end of December, and as the internet as my witness, i will meet it, maybe exceed it, even if it means work-filled weekends and tired eyes. and then i will get a massage and sleep for three days straight.

when i haven’t been working, i’ve been enjoying oktoberfest-inspired activities like drinking beer and eating finger foods. Mo is very much a microbrew aficionado and for his birthday this year (October 19, mark your calendars), i took him to the kickoff celebration of LA Beer Week, held at our very own local watering hole, the Verdugo, where we entered a raffle to win two tickets to the closing celebration of Beer Week, held at Descanso Gardens. guess what? just guess. ok, i’ll tell you: we won the raffle! and so came a glorious week bookended by beer celebrations that had us sampling some of the best craft brews in the nation. it was pure liquid love. hiccup.

October also held a little travel, both professional and personal. it began with a company-sponsored trip to Washington, DC, for a two-day FINRA conference on advertising regulations — riveting! (no joke) — where i met my fellow compliance brethren and discovered that we really are the most despised department in all financial organizations.

then i went off to a suburb of Baltimore, MD, for a few days to visit my dad’s side of the family. for reasons unknown to me, this trip seemed to turn my father into my mother for a few days, which resulted in him calling me five times a day, every day, to ask if everything was OK. thankfully, it was OK — better than OK in fact. i had a marvelous time drinking, eating and exchanging stories with my cousins, and even got to meet my uncle for the first time in 30 years, an experience that was nothing short of life-affirming.

Maryland is beautiful in the fall, very New England-esque in the way the leaves change color to form clusters of trees that look like rainbows shooting out of the ground. it was a mesmerizing sight, one that had me uttering, “look how beautiful it is” every time i stepped outside, enough times for my cousins to say, “yes, we know how beautiful you think it is. we get it!” i, for one, do not get it enough. the plan is to return to Maryland more often and mostly in the fall. i simply must see more of that foliage.

The 'Rents

the ridiculously good-looking couple above, who also happen to be my parents, celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary recently, which you would never guess by looking at their spry little selves. but in the old world, getting married at 19, like my mom did, was just how things went.

they met at a mutual friend’s wedding, where sparks flew after they locked eyes and continued to ignite once they got to talking. my mom even confesses to a little kissing action at this wedding — “but that’s all that happened, because this was a different time and we were not as permissive as your generation, milla.”

when they returned to their respective ukrainian towns, a long-distance relationship punctuated by love letters followed, as did a few meet-the-family visits. a mere nine months later they were married — still virtual strangers by their own admission — but married nonetheless and dedicated to building a life together.

they say that this dedication alone carried them through the last 40 years, many of which were lousy. just give my dad two shots of vodka and he’ll be happy to tell you about the first 10 years of his marriage, which were spent living with his in-laws in a dingy communist housing project in Lvov.

then came the big move to america when i was 3, my sister 9. more struggles followed. at first, we used food stamps to eat and watched sesame street to learn english. my dad drove a cab while my mom went to night school. i have very few memories of this time but i remember that we watched The Jazz Singer on betamax A LOT.

i also remember the day, just months after buying their first home, that both my parents lost their jobs. i must have been 6 or 7. mom served us dinner that night, and i remember sitting across the table and watching my dad eat silently as tears slid off his face and into his borscht. he never once looked up. mom stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders the entire time.

forty years later, they’re still standing by each other. through all the birthdays and the first days of school, the graduations and vacations, the arguments and illnesses in the family, the deaths of their parents and births of their grandchildren. forty years of personal and professional triumphs and tragedies. good times and bad, sickness and health, richer and poorer, they stuck it out because they said they would and, along the way, managed to stay in love and serve as an inspiration to everyone lucky enough to know them — me especially.

happy 40th anniversary, mom and dad.

I’m All Growed Up!

holidays at my house: i hosted thanksgiving this year like a real grown-up person with a house that can host holidays. i wrestled away the honor from both my mom and sister, who seemed all too eager to pass it onto me. this was my first time doing such a thing and i surprised myself with how badly i wanted to host the holiday — a wholly stressful experience i wish NOT to repeat next year — but since this was the inaugural thanksgiving in the new house, i was hellbent on creating a happy family memory inside it.


the good crystal: thankfully, Mo had his mother’s china stored in boxes in the basement, saving us from having to eat off paper plates. but because we don’t really have a dining area — with most dining taking place on the deck — my pops bought us a foldable table, which we supplemented with bright yellow chairs from Ikea. with a few maneuvers and a striped purple tablecloth, we had a dining room in the center of the living room.


my pops! he performed his usual holiday activity of sitting on the couch and watching a football game while asking intermittently, “is food wready yet? hungry man ovur here.”


my moms! she was there, too, hounding me with her digital camera.


i put her to work: making the rosemary roasted potatoes.


my sister! she was busy making her buttery garlic shrimp and stir-fried asparagus. i stayed busy sorta supervising and savoring the chaos that usually ensues when my family gets together. you’d be surprised how much noise three jewish women in a kitchen can make. and this time we were in my kitchen making noise while preparing the feast, and that felt pretty cool.


my nephew! i can’t believe i used to change this kid’s diaper. Derek’s 7 now, smiley and cute as hell.


the cousins! they played beautifully and shared all their toys.


dinner’s ready: for thanksgivings with my family, there are a few things you can count on: 1) there will be vodka on the table (note the bottle of Level I in the background); 2) there will be no turkey on the table (we all hate it); 3) there will be russian cold cuts, cheese, and smoked sausage and fish plates on the table (because that’s how we roll in the old world).


the “turkey”: my folks brought over cooked meat from an armenian deli near their house. inside that hollowed-out super loaf of bread are about 12 pounds of pork chops, grilled chicken and beef kabobs. this meant we had an abundance of food (another thing you can count on), and i was instructed not to prepare the stuffed chicken, wild rice and butternut squash i had sitting in the fridge. that was cooked a few nights later when Mo and i had friends over to consume what was left of the meat pile.


i made the salad: tossed with delectable homemade dressing! ok, it was just oil and vinegar, but still.


yes, dad, the food is ready: “is vodtka on table?”


then we ate: and laughed and rejoiced and toasted to many things, including the house. my pops got particularly sentimental (after a few shots), saying how proud he was of his baby girl (me!) and how happy he felt to be eating thanksgiving in my house. i told him i was happy, too, and that i couldn’t have done it without his support. with that, a holiday memory was created and the house hosted it beautifully.


meanwhile: my nephew was still playing with the dogs, stopping to ask intermittently, “is dessert ready? i’d like some ice cream, please!”


it was ready: four-flavor cheesecake, apple pie a la mode and the best flan in the whole damn universe, bought from a highland park bakery. it was deliciously sinful, and because i didn’t want to offend the house i made sure to sample everything.


Mo said yes to cheesecake: and the flan, too.


we look nothing alike: my darling sister, Tatyana, had never been to the house before and decided that her housewarming gift would be washing all the dishes after dinner. because she tortured me regularly during our childhood, i made sure to add a few extra dishes to the stack. just kidding! i helped dry them.


Juice on the loose: the holiday meal ended the same way all other meals at the house end — with Juice surveying every inch of the floor in search of food crumbs. beyond that, the leftovers were split three ways, goodbyes were exchanged and i marveled for a moment at hosting my first thanksgiving before proceeding to collapse, exhausted, into bed.