Bright & Dark

Or, in the tradition of my ancestors, happy new year.

I’ve not practiced Judaism in many, many years, so it was a strange thing to experience a sudden desire to invite my family over for dinner on Rosh Hashanah. I don’t think we’ve had one of those in a decade or so.

Time’s not the only difference, either. All but one of us are gluten-intolerant. That meant some changes to traditional family recipes — most importantly, the kugel.

My family’s kugel recipe is the plain salt and pepper kind, savory rather than sweet. It calls for a large package of egg noodles, said egg noodles apparently unfindable in the short space of a week. I mean, I found some online made from corn, but the idea of corn kugel just didn’t do it for me. And I’ve heard that a body can find GF egg noodles around Passover, but Passover was a wee bit ago. So, the settling for Tinkyada fettucine. It worked out really well.

I always forget how much work cooking a holiday meal actually is. I started in the kitchen at around 2:00 and dinner didn’t materialize on people’s plates until 7:30. Roasted chicken (thanks to Top Chef’s Elia for her “proud chicken” recipe), the GF noodle kugel, and an apple cake that would’ve been better off for having used either smaller or fewer apples, but that tasted right good with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. (On the other hand, it’s pretty hard to screw up Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla.)

After all the hard work, it was a fun evening. The rest of the weekend? Bittersweet.

I drove to Austin on Saturday with the primary purpose of seeing my friend who has been ill for some months with cancer. Because of a communication snafu, the seeing didn’t happen. There were hugs and lovely conversations and walks in the sunshine with other friends, and many prayers were said. Prayers continue to be welcome.

May the Gods bless and keep my friend, and bless and keep her family and loved ones. She is the kind of person who has brought enormous joy and love and delight to everyone in her life. She is a blessing.

Dear blessing, I send you love and apples and honey, sweetness and warm, gentle hugs.

In happy wire news, there’s an off-Broadway revival of Angels in America in the works. I’ve only ever seen the fabulous HBO version, and it would be even more fabulous if I could see a touring version of the off-Broadway production here.

The play reminds me of my friend Roy Oakes, may he rest in peace and joy, because it was his oft-stated favorite. I met Roy the year I started writing — he and I took a beginning fiction writing class together and were the only two invited by the instructor to join her advanced class. I remember both of us standing outside her front door on our first “advanced” evening, terrified that we wouldn’t fit in or that no one would like our work. And of course it turned out neither of us had a reason to worry.

Roy eventually moved to Taos, New Mexico. Visiting him was my first real vacation. I met great friends of his. It snowed. We ate Stilton (well, *he* ate the Stilton) and drank port and fed cookies to the Corgis in his living room, feet bare with the radiating heat warming our toes.  I fell in love with Taos so hard he had to push me into the van that would take me and my luggage back to Albuquerque. You have responsibilities, he said. You can’t stay here.  True, but I kept on coming around when I could.

When his favorite play was slotted to be shown on HBO, I ordered the channel (which I don’t normally keep) just so I could see it. I thought of him often while I watched.

I ordered the soundtrack and played it incessantly while I wrote for the next year or so, and it became the soundtrack to one of my novels, Skin and Bone. I thought of Roy often then, too.

And here I sit, thinking about my friend some more. What a blessing he was and is.