Passover for Schmooie

Last weekend, I spent my first Passover in nearly eight years with my family. Yep, I’d been traveling and at school for that many years. It was going to be an exciting event. One of my cousins was coming. The rest of the cousins would join us on Skype. We would be doing a significant amount of cooking, just like in the good old days. Plus and arguably most exciting of all, Shy Boy would be joining us for the festivities since he had no immediate family to spend the holiday with. For those of you reading who do not know how Passover works, it is an eight day holiday consisting of avoiding eating leavened bread and grains in commemoration of the Jews escaping slavery in Egypt. On the first two nights of the holiday, friends and family gather together in a Thanksgiving-style dinner setting to eat and read aloud the story of Passover as a family.

I spent most of the gathering feeling exhausted. My mother, sister, and I spent a lot of time early on into the wee hours of the morning in the days leading up to the festivities doing all the necessary baking and preparations. I was also a tad nervous to see how Shy Boy would interact and get along with the extended family. He knew my sister and my mother relatively well, but up until this point, he only met my uncle in passing and he never met my cousins. I was anxious to see how my uncle and Shy Boy would get along. They had never actually talked to each other before and I was worried either Shy Boy would become too shy or my uncle would come on too strong. I was eager to see what my cousin would think of him. She reads this blog, so she would be the first person who’s aware that this blog exists that would meet Shy Boy in the flesh. Interestingly, from reading this blog, she knew a lot about him, but he knew very little about her. And who knew if the paper version of him in her mind would be drastically different than what he is in real life.

Shy Boy considered taking the train because his town connects to my town and he’s not used to the suburbs where I live. I didn’t care one way or the other, but my sister was annoyed. She noted that on a weekly basis, I drive out to see him with no problems so why shouldn’t he do the same for just two nights? She didn’t express those feelings to him. However, he must have picked up on her cosmic rage because he called me the morning of the Seder to say he decided to drive over since I always do so for him (uncanny, it’s like he read her mind), plus he would be bringing cake and he didn’t want to accidentally drop it on the train.

Shy Boy arrived early, with little to no trouble finding the place except that he made a right instead of a left onto my uncle’s street. My uncle wasn’t home. He had to go pick up my cousin. My uncle’s girlfriend would be arriving soon as well. My mother gave Shy Boy a brief tour of the home and then told him to sit and relax while my sister and I finished slicing vegetables. At that moment, Shy Boy said he had to go to his car real quick to get some ibuprofen. He said had a slight headache. The headache part didn’t seem to register with my mom. It had been a long time since she’d seen Shy Boy and she was a bit giddy seeing him again. Without thinking, she heard the word “ibuprofen” and she blurted out, “Is it a penis problem?”

Well, that was an interesting first: casually dropping his guy parts into conversation.

“No!” I blurted out, not quite sure if I was answering the question for him or reprimanding my mother for going there.

He paused, blushed, and said, “No, unless you know something I don’t know.”

My mom added, “No, because when girls have to take ibuprofen it’s for period cramps.”

He laughed, “No, It’s nothing like that, I hope. I have a slight headache today.” 

When he returned, my mom gave him a slice of her world famous Passover sponge cake. He wanted to be helpful to us in the kitchen, but he wasn’t sure how. Then my uncle’s girlfriend arrived. She brought decorations for the table settings and some additional dishes of food. Shy Boy helped her unload her car. At the same moment, my uncle came home with my cousin and her boyfriend. Handshakes, introductions, and schmoozing (chatting) went on all around for the next twenty minutes. Then, Shy Boy took part with my uncle and cousin in a “search for the chametz” ceremony, a symbolic ceremony where the house is searched for any bread products and a piece of bread is then burned in recognition that Passover is beginning and bread will not be consumed or brought into the home for eight days. Shy Boy didn’t want to leave my mom or me alone in the kitchen, so he tried to come back and help. This was a good sign. When he was back home visiting his family in December, he was the complete opposite. He bragged to me over the phone that he wasn’t doing a damn thing to help his parents get ready for their holiday parties. He went to the movies instead. At that time, I was incensed. I kept picturing a lazy schlubby mama’s boy who would turn into a lazy schlubby manboy instead of acting like a quality boyfriend. Visions of being with him during important Jewish holidays swarmed in my head. Those visions had me working hard in the kitchen while he’d be off with his friends or he'd be at the movies. I was relieved to see today that he was behaving in the complete opposite way from my worrisome vision. Today he wanted to be helpful and he wanted to share in the burden of preparing for a family gathering.

While things in the kitchen settled down and the matzah balls went about in their cooking, most of the family was crowded in the living room socializing. My mom and my uncle were at the computer. My sister was engaged in conversation with my cousin. So Shy Boy and I went off to the quiet part of the house, a small alcove with a stairway. The alcove was decorated with subway maps on the wall for all the various cities my uncle had visited. We had a few spare bags of groceries we had brought with us at the far side of the alcove as well. Shy Boy sat on the staircase to rest his feet, well, he also wanted me to sit near him, but he used his feet as an excuse. Ha, his feet should hurt. My mom, sister, and I were the ones doing all the hard work. Hopefully now he realized how hard his parents worked when they had a large gathering of relatives. He was under the impression that during the course of the afternoon, we would actually have some quiet time to spend together. Did he realize that unlike him, I actually help my family prepare for a big family get-together? Anyway, at that moment, I wasn’t all that mad at him. I was actually quite proud of him. He looked very cute in his business casual dress wear. He was blending right in with my relatives. It felt like he really belonged there. My uncle having him join right in in the chamatez search was a great sign of this. He could joke and keep up with my whole family. It wasn’t like he was a stranger at all. It almost felt as if he had been to many of our past Passover Seders in the past. I sat close to him on the stairs and he put his arm around me. I was exhausted from staying up late the night before cooking, not to mention my girlie time had come (yep because it always comes during a busy get-together or during a vacation). He rubbed my shoulders and I wasn’t about to kiss him seeing as I had just put on my fancy purple lipstick. When I can’t kiss him in public, I rub my nose against his cheek which is just what I did. He has a deep fondness for a Simpson’s character called “Old Jewish Man” and will randomly jump into impersonations of him. He tweaked my nose and launched into his “Old Jewish Man” voice.

That’s when my uncle hurried by in the next room, glanced over at us through the doorway, and said, “Alright take it easy.”

It was embarrassingly hilarious. I think my uncle knew that we weren’t doing anything naughty but his reaction was priceless. I couldn’t sit next to Shy Boy on the stairwell after that, I was in a fit of giggles. It was always entertaining when my uncle did something hilarious that led to fits of giggles. It was even more entertaining that Shy Boy’s attempts at PDA led to an embarrassing moment with my uncle and fits of giggles on my part. I got up to study the subway maps on the walls, particularly the NYC subway map. Shy Boy wrapped his arms around me and held me while we discussed the NJ transit train map. Someone walked into the alcove to pick up a grocery bag at the far end of the room. I think it was my mother, but I didn’t mind. Normally, I didn’t want Shy Boy to be too affectionate in front of my mother or sister. I didn’t want my sister to get grossed out by mushiness, and I didn’t want my mom to wonder/worry about what Shy Boy and I were up to when we were alone. But at that moment, I don’t think my mom noticed us and even if she did glance at us for a second I didn’t mind her knowing that I really do dig Shy Boy more than I let on.

Dinner went well. There were lots of tasty things to eat. Shy Boy brought two Kosher for Passover chocolate cakes for all of us for dessert. My two favorite parts of the evening were having Shy Boy get better acquainted with my extended family and catching up with my favorite cousin. I’d forgotten how much I missed talking to her. We grew up together and are like sisters, so having her approve of Shy Boy was a big thing. Later after dinner, my mom and my cousin were talking about Shy Boy. My mother lamented to my cousin that I get mad when she brings up the subject of Shy Boy. It was great to finally admit to my mom that it’s not anger, it’s embarrassment. I keep a wall up about guys. I like to kvetch (complain) a lot about guy with her, but I don’t like to talk about mushy stuff with her. I was so glad my cousin helped me open up to my mother more about Shy Boy.

The following evening we had the second Seder. It was a much smaller, quieter affair consisting of my uncle, my mother, my sister, and Shy Boy as the guests. My uncle put Shy Boy to work helping him set the table and rearrange the dining room. I took that as a good sign that my uncle felt that Shy Boy was a part of the family. My uncle also complimented Shy Boy on his reading of the Hebrew parts of the Passover story. The weekend went so easily and smoothly that it was pretty amazing. It felt as if Shy Boy had always been a part of the family, even my cousin commented on something along those lines. My mother and sister interacted with him with such ease and they made such hilarious jokes with each other that it was somewhat astounding to watch. I’m so proud of him I’m almost speechless. I must be speechless, I'm starting to repeat myself. I'd better stop typing now. I'll only add that I dig this deeper connection I'm starting to feel with Shy Boy. He said something the other day that's both creepy and kind of cool. He said he can tell what I'm thinking. He's not exaggerating either. I don't know where or when we started to click so well, but it doesn't matter that he's not a night person, or that he complains about feeling old, or that he's not the perfect looking guy. He's got the rest of his act together quite well. Now if only there was a way to fix the fact that he's not a night person and fix the fact that he digs acting like an alta cocker (old fart) after a certain hour of the day, then things would be perfect.