The View From Up Above: A Truly Trivial Thanksgiving Memory

By now everyone in the food-obsessed world knows who Thomas Keller is. He’s the owner of The French Laundry in California, and Per Se in New York City. He’s the dude

whose ratatouille recipe Pixar used in the eponymous movie.

Here’s something I’ve not told many folks: My in-laws “discovered” Tom at some remote outpost in upstate New York while on a road trip. After eating one of his intricately-prepared meals, they convinced him to dream bigger. He was too good, they said, to be hidden away. They introduced him to important restaurant people in the city, and helped secure him a stage (internship) in France.

When he returned to the states he opened his first restaurant. The rest is culinary history.

He was always grateful to my in-laws. He mentioned them in one of his books. He offered to host our wedding dinner at The French Laundry (we ended up having to say no because he insisted on limiting the guest number to 32). He spoiled them rotten whenever they ate at his restaurants. And, he always invited them to his private Thanksgiving Day Brunch, an elaborate party he threw for a few hundred of his most devoted patrons.

My in-laws went a few times, always bringing along whichever one of their four children happened to be in town. One Thanksgiving, so long ago I don’t remember which year, we flew in from California for a visit and got to attend the coveted affair.

And oh what an affair it was. There was an orgy of small bites spread out everywhere. The kitchen was open to the public; the one and only time one could see what was behind the curtain. Drinks flowed. People schmoozed.

But what made it so extra extra special was that the restaurant looked out over the

Macy’s Day Parade route. Which meant that every single window was packed with people watching the floats going by many stories below. I remember getting giddy when I spied Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts and their young kids ooh-ing and aah-ing through one of the windows. Seeing them was far more exciting than seeing the ginormous Kermit float by.

There were other big names and faces, but one, in particular, caused me such embarrassment that I suspect it’s the reason I’ve blocked most of the details of that day from my memories.

I’d been standing in line to grab some caviar? Lobster? Something decadent enough for there to be a long line—that’s all I remember. Anyway, I turned around to the person standing behind me and when I saw who it was, my heart thumped. I said, “OMG, Mario Batali! I love you!”

Mario offered me a weak smile, but then suddenly I was next in line to take the food so before either of us could say anything more, we both filled our plates and went our separate ways.

A few seconds later I ran into my husband. With a mouth full of whatever deliciousness I’d just stuffed into it, I garbled, “I just saw Mario Batali. Look, there he is!” I pointed over at the famous chef.

“You doof,” my husband replied. “That’s not Mario. That's Emeril Lagasse.”

I felt so humiliated by my faux pas, I immediately grabbed a Bloody Mary off a

passing tray, made my way over to one of the windows and gazed down at the swarm of parade-goers below. I was thankful there was a space for me.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family. May your day be filled with yummy food, easy laughter and people whose names you know. 

Friends By The Numbers

There was a piece in the New York Times a few weeks ago titled, “How Many Friends Do You Really Need?”

I wasn’t sure how many I needed, so I read the article.  

The author says that “humans are only cognitively able to maintain about 150 connections at once…That includes an inner circle of about five close friends, followed by larger concentric circles of more casual types of friends.” And that “middle-aged women who had three or more friends tended to have higher levels of overall life satisfaction.”

After I digested this, I sat back, took a drink of my cold coffee and “hmmed” aloud to my empty office. I wondered:

1) Did I cognitively maintain connections with upwards of 150 people? 2) Since I was a middle-aged woman with three or more friends, were those close pals of mine, in fact, contributing to my overall satisfaction in life? 3) Who the hell were my actual friends?

Okay, so I got lost in thinking about this topic for far too long and it made me lose an entire day of writing because, for reasons I can’t explain, I decided I needed to dive deeper into this friendosphere.

My formal research consisted of scrolling through:

a) my social media friends: by this I mean the people I follow on Instagram (1931), as well my friends on Facebook (597); b) my email address book; c) my iPhone contacts; d) my memories.

After sifting through the many thousands of humans I have some connection to, I was able to winnow them down to the “friends” I actually interact with (further delineated below).

The total number was 112

BUT: WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

Just as I started to sort my friends into CONCENTRIC CIRCLE (CASUAL) FRIENDS versus INNER CIRCLE (REAL) FRIENDS I veered off into another (ADHD-fueled) direction. I suddenly wanted to know how I became friends with those 112 people in the first place. This is what I discovered about my friends' origins:

Friends I made during childhood through high school: 5

Friends from college: 14

Friends I made in graduate school: 4

Friends I made while working at Microsoft: 5

Friends I still have because I gave birth to Loy: 18

Friends I made from my time living in Bali: 5

Friends who happen to be relatives, or relatives who happen to be friends: 7

Friend who is a sibling of a friend: 1

Friend who is a friend of a relative: 1

Friends I met by a chance encounter: 9

Friends who were my neighbors before they were friends: 12

Friends I made while attending artist retreats: 6

Friends I met through other friends: 2

Friends I met while traveling: 3

Friends I made because I had cancer: 2

Friends I made while taking care of my dying mother: 2

Former lovers who are still my friends: 4*

Friends I made while engaging in illicit activities (just leave it): 2

Friends I made because they read and/or reviewed RASHRASH: 14

*those dudes appeared in more than one listing.

“Ah,” I said, trying to dissect some meaning from the breakdown. Ultimately, I concluded that:

1) having a child is the surest way to grow your friend group; 2) it’s important to make close contacts during your university years; 3) you should not hesitate to borrow some sugar from the people in the green house down the street; 4) if you write a funny book about your life overseas, you will meet very cool people from all over the world.

ACTUAL VERSUS CASUAL

Surely I cared about the lives of every one of those 112 people. I loved seeing pictures of their trips to Mexico; hearing about their kids’ accomplishments or news of their

new jobs. I mourned their losses with them; celebrated their milestones; read their books; listened to their music; took their advice.

So, even though I considered those 112 people friends (in the loose sense), and interacted with them easily and often, how many of them were my genuine friends? Who among them did I wish to really truly celebrate my good fortunes with? Who did I want to share my secrets with? Which of the 112 people cared enough to reach out with news of their own lives beyond yearly holiday cards? Who were MY people?

To answer this, I had to set some parameters. I would cull from the list anyone I interacted with solely on the basis of “liking” or commenting on one of their social media posts. I would not include  anyone I’d recently lost touch with completely. My list would consist of only those people with whom:

A) I hung out in person over the last year because I wanted to; B) I exchanged thoughtful, honest, intimate phone conversations, texts, IM’s, letters or emails over the last year;C) I thought about often and missed desperately, wishing we could see one another, even if we didn’t always reach out the way we used to.  

56 people made the list

After I counted the number I fell back in my chair and girl-whistled my surprise. I couldn’t believe it: exactly HALF the people I thought of as my friends truly were my friends! Actual friends. People I had connections with. Connections to. Connections beyond the casual.

How had I never before realized what a lucky person I was? Why was I wasting hours of my life wallowing in an isolated existence?

Oh yeah: Covid.

True, I’d gotten together with maybe 1/4 of those friends since 2020, but it wasn’t as if they weren’t trying to see me. It wasn’t as if they weren’t there for me. Even if we didn’t share a meal, a walk, or an adventure, I knew they had my back. Would always have my back. As I would always have theirs. And just because a few of them lived halfway across the planet, it didn’t mean they weren’t out there listening, holding me close, wishing me well, as I was them.

Now that I know who ALL my friends are, I want to say that I am grateful for my casual friends. I like whirling around inside this huge circle together, even if only for a moment. 

To my actual friends, I say, thank you for sticking around. 

I hope you know how much I appreciate your presence in my tiny life. 

I hope you know how much you count.  

Feeling Blue

Tuesday To have a cat dying in the basement, perched on the green towel we cover the treadmill with because she has a habit of throwing up on the black track preferring as we do not to run on it, while I am am up here in the clouds my head, that is, up in the clouds like a four-year-old, daydreaming whatever unpredictable plans the future has in store. No, not like a four-year-old rather, a writer I am a writer whose head is up in the clouds, thinking of— trying to reflect, reject the death happening beneath her. Conceiving ways for my character to kill another human without getting caught. A writer, who imagines she can hear her cat jogging. Wednesday She is no longer eating so I buy Beechnut baby food—beef with broth Chicken. I boil a bony thigh. I tell the man at the seafood counter that I am trying to keep my cat alive "Even the farm-raised salmon is $16.99 a pound? Wow, that’s expensive.”“It is,” he admits with the surety of a man who knows what things should cost. but then He slides a hefty fillet off the ice as if rescuing it from dangerAnd severs a fractional slice of pink fleshswirls of fat and bone, and places it atop a piece of butcher paper, white—is it still called butcher paper, I wonder, if one is weighing cold-blooded muscle? Yes, I really do wonder about this for less time than it takes me to breathe in one breath, —air, not water before he hands me the package, wrapped, and light, and now magically costing $12.99 a pound. A deal for a dying cat. Wednesday Night I eat the chicken on top of a salad. The dear salmon is, regrettably, forsaken. A few licks of Beechnut calms my worry, but only for so long. I am beside her, reminiscing. She is struggling to listen, to stay present, I can tell, but still I talk. “Bluestar,” I say, “you have had a great life. The animal rescue

found you strutting down Amsterdam Avenue in a snowstorm. All your whiskers had been cut and you were pregnant! They called you Sophie. As if you, Warrior leader of the ThunderClan, could have ever been a Sophie.” She nods, as if remembering that hard time in the city twelve years gone. Not really, but I continue on as if we are two old friends One of us in a hospital bed, connected to machinery, but knowing time is short. The other, in a chair, worrying hands wanting to remake the bed because the sheets are tangled and no one should die without smooth sheets.

Or a life that did not include:

-tuna water -the white fluffy ball (when you lost it we all mourned) -sunshine on your belly -Loy -licking sour cream from a fingertip -boxes, no matter the size

Thursday

I lay her atop a blue rug atop a metal table Like a piece of salmon She purrs as the doctor—she’s pregnant and for this I am gladdened—pushes A needle into her fur while, inches away, the faces on the phone My family, her family, the child and the man Who happen to be in the city Her birth city Watch and cry and we three cry together Me here They there Bluestar beneath my hand, her chest rising slowly slowly Falling slowly slowly The purrs diminish And then I remove my hand, still warm and open the door.