Happy Passover!

Damn, missed another Sunday post. I'd say it was due to religious reasons, but the truth is, I was just hungover and didn't want to make the effort. On the other hand, I was hungover for religious reasons. So really, God wanted me to miss a post, and all the people who were waiting anxiously to experience my special brand of wit and poetic flavor need to take it up with the big sparkly one upstairs.

That's Mr. Sparkle to you!

Last week was Passover. The BF and I had two Seders to attend this year, which is great news for my social life and bad news for my liver, as four cups of wine must be consumed during the ceremony. I'm completely out of practice for a mandatory drinking event and probably should have had a training montage beforehand instead of just waltzing in and pounding manischewitz like it's a genetically engineered Russian.

Shalom!

The first Seder was at the BF's folks' apartment. I wore a modest navy blue frock and didn't swear in front of the children. The second Seder, the one that interrupted regular Sunday blogging, I wore polka-dots, threw water on God, called Pharaoh a bitch, and led my people across the Red Sea so that nothing bad would ever happen to the Jews ever again.

Between then and this, nothing but sunshine.

My friend R comes from a theater family, so her new tradition--

TRADITION!

Sorry, it's compulsory. R's new tradition is to do a Seder play, where instead of just reading about the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, her guests act it out. I got to be Moses this year, hence the throwing of the water on the guest who played Burning Bush God, which is a far more sensible reaction to finding God on fire than Moses taking off his shoes (which is what actually happens in the scripture during that sequence. I may not know Hebrew but I'm not a total goy). I think I made a pretty good Moses, even if my voice is high and squeaky and nothing like Charlton Heston's.

Next time, though, I think I'm going to be Pharaoh and let the BF be Moses. That way, when he's all, "Let my people go!", I'll be all, "Make me, you staff-wielding peasant." And he'll be like, "I'm going to beat you with my staff!" And I'll say, "Ooo, not the staff, my delicate royal skin bruises so easily!" And he'll say, "You've been naughty, Pharaoh, and you know what we do to naughty gods-in-mortal-form out in the desert." The safety word will be placemat, and--

Wait, what am I thinking? R would never allow ad-libbing at her table. Or on or under her table. We'll just have to stick to the script. I think there's some light bondage in Scene 2 I can work with.

A night at Edith Wharton's

I love Edith Wharton's books like a fat guy loves cake. She was the daughter of on old High Society New York family, one of the "Four Hundred" as they called them back then, the class of people that never worked for a living and didn't allow divorced women inside their houses. And Edith, mighty authoress she, divorced her husband and ran off to Paris to write. During World War I, she offered sanctuary for refugees. Edith Wharton--kicking ass and taking names.

Back to her books--"Age of Innocence," "The Custom of the Country," "The House of Mirth,"--they're all about the men and women of the upper-upper class, engaged in delicate drawing room and parlor battles for prestige, status, and happiness. (Lots of wardrobe envy, too. I can relate. I feel it whenever I ride the subway past Broadway-Nassau.) Wharton's mastery lies in creating for the reader the rarefied world in which her characters live. You can practically smell the wallpaper in these 5th Avenue mansions she word-crafts.

So you can imagine my delight upon entering the National Arts Club at Gramercy Park: the vases, the settees, the fainting couches, the oil paintings, the Tiffany glass in the ceilings--where were May and Newland and the Countess? (Bonus literary nerd points for that one.) I was sure glad I wore my good gown!

Due to my respect for the privacy of friends and family, I can't tell you exactly why and how I garnered an invitation to this time capsule. I can say, however, that Edith Wharton would be pleased to see one of those old WASP-y mansions she eviscerated in her writing used to pay tribute to writers, actors, and musicians.

It was a great party, much music and merrymaking. I met many of the BF's far-flung ohana (BS and his lady friend were there, he always likes to be mentioned), and this guy. He wrote the script for "Fiddler on the Roof." Yeah. THAT "Fiddler on the Roof." I even got to hear one of the songs that was cut from "Fiddler on the Roof" due to time and story constraints, sung by a Broadway actor who I'm sure I'd've been really impressed to meet if I knew a lick about modern musical theatre. Lotta Tony winners in the room, let's put it that way.

As it was, I just smiled a lot and curbed my impulse to visit the extremely well-stocked open bar. A girl's gotta have some class when she goes uptown. I did, however, sneak upstairs to the top floor of the mansion and discover the secret bathroom.

Rachel Brown, carrying on the proud family tradition of going where I'm not allowed.