No one has to be that lonely

[sovay]

Tonight we made latkes, not for my family's party, but for my family, and lit the candles for wisdom, which has always been my night's choice since childhood. We had sufganiyot from Mamaleh's. Everyone else in my family orders a 50/50 and I am rotating experimentally through things like kippered salmon on a bagel with avocado. There are pictures of me peeling potatoes with one of my husbands and spinning dreidels with my niece. The one present I had managed to buy for anyone given the last twelve days was my niece's very own copy of Eric Kimmel's Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (1989), which I have read to her for years and which I forgot I had managed to buy until my mother reminded me that it was on her bed and needed wrapping, which is incidentally a précis of the last twelve days. My father's gift to my mother was Amanda Hesser's The Essential New York Times Cookbook (2021), which rushthatspeaks and I somewhat commandeered and sat on the couch reading about salad dressings from the 1870's and sherbets from the 1940's and pancakes from the 1960's and eggs from last year. I brought spatch different fruits of marzipan like a hunting cat. My parents gave me Gemma Files' Invocabulary (2018), which I have put happily on my shelf beside Dust Radio (2007). The end of my month really just vanished and I am not reconciled to the onrush of December. So many things are not all right. A little cat has his paw on my wrist for my attention, gently, with his superabundance of claws as velveted as he can make them, which is also true.

Comments

[vass]

A little cat has his paw on my wrist for my attention, gently, with his superabundance of claws as velveted as he can make them, which is also true.

I'm glad you have him to do that.

[sovay]

I'm glad you have him to do that.

Thank you. So am I. He's very good at it.

[shewhomust]

I brought spatch different fruits of marzipan like a hunting cat.

I picture you delicately biting the head off each one ...

[sovay]

I picture you delicately biting the head off each one ...

I sometimes bring them back alive for him to practice his own hunting with!

[asakiyume]

Cats' way of tapping you gently with a paw is so endearing

[sovay]

Cats' way of tapping you gently with a paw is so endearing

It is. It's very polite. We call it the paw of attention.

[asakiyume]

We call it the paw of attention --I love it; it could be in the cat version of Robert's Rules of Order.

[minoanmiss]

*beams at all of you*

[sovay]

*beams at all of you*

*hugs*

[oracne]

It sounds like it was a lovely holiday.

[sovay]

It sounds like it was a lovely holiday.

There were and are stressors, but it is an important thing to do.

[umadoshi]

A little cat has his paw on my wrist for my attention, gently, with his superabundance of claws as velveted as he can make them, which is also true.

Such an excellent floof, as always. And that cookbook sounds delightful!

[sovay]

Such an excellent floof, as always. And that cookbook sounds delightful!

Highly recommended! Both the cat and the cookbook, really, but one is easier to get hold of than the other.

[duskpeterson]

Those last two sentences really got to me.

[sovay]

Those last two sentences really got to me.

*hugs* if appropriate?

[starlady]

Hershel and the Hannukah Goblins! That book rules, they read it to us in elementary school and I still remember it fondly. I guess at the time it was hot off the presses, which I didn't realize when I was five.

[sovay]

Hershel and the Hannukah Goblins! That book rules, they read it to us in elementary school and I still remember it fondly.

I love it. I think I must have been given it for Hanukkah with my grandparents because I associate its pages for the first time with the light in their house. I always hear my grandmother's voice on "I know you're not Queen Esther."