No one has to be that lonely

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.