Sweet and Savory Things

It is morning in November and I am riding a bus from Glover Park to Dupont Circle. My commutes lately are inconsistent: now to Bethesda, now to Tenleytown, now to Capitol Hill. This is good because it means I have not had to return to the wasteland of a day job that my paralegal job was, in the wasteland of a neighborhood that is Silver Spring (sorry Silver Spring-ers, I love all of you but I just can’t stand the Astroturf). It is bad because sometimes I forget where I am actually headed.

This morning I am marveling at the differences between a bus ride in my neighborhood (exhibit A: the infamous 90 “party bus”) and in C’s neighborhood (Exhibit B: the very low key D2). On the D2 there are students and out of town visitors and non-profit types who are lucky like me and don’t have to be at work until 10am. It almost seems like a tour bus—the view is lovely, all autumn and Georgetown and colorful leaves and well kept buildings—when we pass the statue of Gandhi the white woman across from me nudges her South East Asian guests (“Look—Gandhi! You all like Gandhi!”) There is not a bottle being passed around the bus, no one is smoking out of the back windows, and I don’t have someone preaching to me that Jesus will save my soul.

But it’s boring, The D2 is boring. The 90 is many things, but the 90 is never boring.

I am listening to This American Life, a live edition from seven years back commemorating their fifth birthday, and I am thinking about family. The episode celebrates special days: anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, even funerals. Sarah Vowell is telling the story of her parents coming to spend Thanksgiving at her home in New York City from their home in Montana and it is funny and touching and her cute little girl voice grows on me. The story is part fish out of water (country mice in the big city), part coming of age (Sarah makes the full T-day dinner for the first time). I think about how I can never really tell funny stories about spending time with my parents in New York because my father grew up there which forever makes him more of a New York-er than my brother or I will ever be, even though the city has changed immensely since he actually lived there. New York will always be my father’s city. And DC doesn’t lend itself to fish out of water stories. As long as you don’t lose your metro card (mom), as long as you know to walk on the left and stand on the right, you can fit into this city regardless of where you last called home.

My parents are in Florida for the holidays at their timeshare. I still smirk a bit when I say that. My parents have never struck me as *timeshare* people. I will spend the holidays with C and his brother’s family in Northern Virginia.

I realized the other day that, with as many random orphan thanksgivings as I’ve had, I have never spent thanksgiving (or any actual holiday for that matter) with a boyfriend’s family. I have had several beaus spend thanksgiving with my family (always at Uncle Pete’s for some reason) but never made the reciprocal visit. I think this has something to do with the duration of most of my relationships. These visits have always gone quite well, regardless of the eventual fate of the significant other. There was the remarkable moment when my Uncle Pete realized that he’d lived downstairs from super-mover-man’s oldest brother when they were both at Niagara University. The world is strange and small and sometimes a little bit magical. Everyone went to another place in that instant, into foggy far-off memories, my Uncle Pete thinking about the crazy days of his youth and s-m-m thinking about his brother.

Then we ate pie.

This year I will be sharing in someone else’s family history.

It occurred to me suddenly that every thanksgiving I’ve taken part in since I’ve been an adult has been with other vegetarians or with my family who is super-aware of my eating habits. I freaked out momentarily, worrying that I would awkwardly be in the position of having to turn down stuffing with sausage in it or sweet potatoes with ham or some other almost veggie-but-not-quite dish. C assured me that even people from the south know what a vegetarian is.

And speaking of vegetables (errr, Cookie Monster’s carrots) this article is kind of amazing. Who knew?