Enough With the Chicken Already!
So I've returned from my odyssey of Long Island funereal badness and from my week being home for Thanksgiving and am back in my usual life, sleeping in my own bed (that is, crappy futon that I really need to replace), hating lab and all its science-y life-stealing tentacles, and general pointless existence.
Let me just say that I hate New Jersey. I managed to get totally and completely lost somehow on the way to LI and wound up in total nothingness in the Garden State for over two hours. Two hours was just the "lost" part, that isn't counting the other two hours where I pretty much was on the right track in that damn state. Dear NJ: your highway system sucks ass, please label things like "exits" and "roads" better in the future. Anyway, that meant that despite my leaving DC and then Philly on time for once, I was still really late getting to suburban hell and my waiting family. Which was bad because apparently I was supposed to be at a private viewing at 5 and I didn't make it until after 7.
But wait, you say. Jews don't have viewings! Not having to be in the same room as a corpse is one of the few benefits of the faith, one that might almost make up for the lack of porkaliciousness! Yeah, that's what I thought. I just thought I'd show up and go to dinner but my mom decided that we should, you know, see him. Which I totally was not interested in doing, and I said as much to her during one of the panicked "I'm totally lost in fucking New Jersey" phone calls, and both my sister and my uncle told my mom that they knew me and knew I had no desire to look at my grandfather all dead and in a coffin, but did she listen to any of that? So I finally show up at the Jewish funeral home (I didn't know we had those, what with my apparently errant "Jews don't hang out with corpses" belief) and she's all crying, which was to be expected, but then she was like, "you mean you don't want to see him? Then why didn't we just go to dinner?" and it was then that the headache really started. Oh, and my charming grandmother's lovely comment, "I hear you said goodbye to your father's mother at her funeral" to which I managed to reply only "Well, that side of the family is Protestant, that's how things work" and not the "how are you, evil shrew-woman from hell, my only living grandparent? HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKING FAIR?!" which is what I really wanted to say. And why did everyone send chicken? I know sending food to the house during shivah is traditional and I sort of like the idea, but damn did I get sick of chicken.
Anyway. My family is nuts, my grandmother is evil, and apparently I have a burial plot somewhere out on Long Island. Which prompted me to start a somewhat panicked and probably highly inappropriate given the timing (while hiding upstairs from the shivah callers on Tuesday) conversation with my mom, sister, and uncle that consisted of me near hysterics yelling "Don't you fucking dare bury me on Long Island I fucking hate this place and everything it stands for please, please, don't bury me here! I swear, I'll write it down, I'll get it notarized just don't make me stay here after I'm dead!" and my mom giving me that look that she gets when I freak out and doing the calm, rational mom voice "okay, sweetheart. Where would you rather be buried?" And then my sister said that she didn't want to be buried in Long Island either, but then she upset my mom by being all "I don't want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery at all, I'm agnostic, and I don't want any mention of religion at my funeral either" which my mom was none too pleased to hear. But really, isn't 25 a bit young to have a plot already? What are they expecting from me?
On my brief stop in Philly between LI and home, I went to Sex Dwarf at Fluid which was awesome. Go new wave dance party! Except there were $2 drinks until midnight and let's just say I overindulged, passed out at Rachel's, and woke up with a raging hangover and that moment of "where the fuck am I?" panic. Luckily I was fully clothed and it was just Rachel next to me, and the club was basically filled with cute gay boys anyway so there wasn't any danger of anything untoward occurring, but still...moment of panic. But really, really fun and I'm totally going back only I think I'll have fewer than eight drinks next time. Ouch.
Let me just say that I hate New Jersey. I managed to get totally and completely lost somehow on the way to LI and wound up in total nothingness in the Garden State for over two hours. Two hours was just the "lost" part, that isn't counting the other two hours where I pretty much was on the right track in that damn state. Dear NJ: your highway system sucks ass, please label things like "exits" and "roads" better in the future. Anyway, that meant that despite my leaving DC and then Philly on time for once, I was still really late getting to suburban hell and my waiting family. Which was bad because apparently I was supposed to be at a private viewing at 5 and I didn't make it until after 7.
But wait, you say. Jews don't have viewings! Not having to be in the same room as a corpse is one of the few benefits of the faith, one that might almost make up for the lack of porkaliciousness! Yeah, that's what I thought. I just thought I'd show up and go to dinner but my mom decided that we should, you know, see him. Which I totally was not interested in doing, and I said as much to her during one of the panicked "I'm totally lost in fucking New Jersey" phone calls, and both my sister and my uncle told my mom that they knew me and knew I had no desire to look at my grandfather all dead and in a coffin, but did she listen to any of that? So I finally show up at the Jewish funeral home (I didn't know we had those, what with my apparently errant "Jews don't hang out with corpses" belief) and she's all crying, which was to be expected, but then she was like, "you mean you don't want to see him? Then why didn't we just go to dinner?" and it was then that the headache really started. Oh, and my charming grandmother's lovely comment, "I hear you said goodbye to your father's mother at her funeral" to which I managed to reply only "Well, that side of the family is Protestant, that's how things work" and not the "how are you, evil shrew-woman from hell, my only living grandparent? HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKING FAIR?!" which is what I really wanted to say. And why did everyone send chicken? I know sending food to the house during shivah is traditional and I sort of like the idea, but damn did I get sick of chicken.
Anyway. My family is nuts, my grandmother is evil, and apparently I have a burial plot somewhere out on Long Island. Which prompted me to start a somewhat panicked and probably highly inappropriate given the timing (while hiding upstairs from the shivah callers on Tuesday) conversation with my mom, sister, and uncle that consisted of me near hysterics yelling "Don't you fucking dare bury me on Long Island I fucking hate this place and everything it stands for please, please, don't bury me here! I swear, I'll write it down, I'll get it notarized just don't make me stay here after I'm dead!" and my mom giving me that look that she gets when I freak out and doing the calm, rational mom voice "okay, sweetheart. Where would you rather be buried?" And then my sister said that she didn't want to be buried in Long Island either, but then she upset my mom by being all "I don't want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery at all, I'm agnostic, and I don't want any mention of religion at my funeral either" which my mom was none too pleased to hear. But really, isn't 25 a bit young to have a plot already? What are they expecting from me?
On my brief stop in Philly between LI and home, I went to Sex Dwarf at Fluid which was awesome. Go new wave dance party! Except there were $2 drinks until midnight and let's just say I overindulged, passed out at Rachel's, and woke up with a raging hangover and that moment of "where the fuck am I?" panic. Luckily I was fully clothed and it was just Rachel next to me, and the club was basically filled with cute gay boys anyway so there wasn't any danger of anything untoward occurring, but still...moment of panic. But really, really fun and I'm totally going back only I think I'll have fewer than eight drinks next time. Ouch.
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