Freezing and blushing
8:52 a.m.
Yesterday was spent inside, copying music and playing spider solitaire as I tend to do far too much. I have a system: after copying a page of orchestral score, I will play a game or two before getting the next page off of Hubby’s desk. I am still getting perilously close to catching up to him. I also didn’t change out of my pyjamas until about 5:00 p.m.
There is a man we know whom I shall call Abraham Parmesan because, while that is not his real name, it is a pretty close facsimile. If you knew his name, you would agree with me, but since you don’t, it really doesn’t matter. He is not from around here, but moved to the area last summer from parts much father west. I’m still not sure why, exactly. He organizes peace conferences and the like, and apparently he’s pretty good at what he does. I have no idea how he lives, as he doesn’t have any visible means of support (i.e. a job), but he must be around my age and single.
Anyway, he calls himself a “Jewish atheist”, a label I give myself, in fact. But whereas I have no desire to be associated or involved with a Jewish community just because I was born into that ethnic group, he does. He came to the wrong place if that’s what he wants. There is none to speak of here, not since the only synagogue was closed and sold a long time before my arrival, and then the one professor on campus who held it together moved with his family to the big city so they could live in a Jewish community. (He still comes here to teach his courses, just commutes.) Since then, a few people in the area tried to organize some things, but it never stuck.
Anyway, Abraham Parmesan hosted a Hannukah party last December in the lobby of the music department. It was a nice thing to do, and it was attended equally by Jews and non-Jews. One of the “Jews” who came (and you will see why the quotation marks in a moment) is the husband of one of my writing friends. His father is Jewish, not his mother, so by the law of descent, he himself is not Jewish. Mind you, this wouldn’t have bothered Hitler one bit as he marched this guy to the gas chambers, so I don’t really see what difference it makes. Jim feels Jewish, for all his having been brought up a Methodist or whatever. If he told me in what religion he was raised, I’ve forgotten.
Abraham Parmesan is also very interested in my husband’s jazz combo as a backup band for a young singer he represents, and it was for that reason that he invited Hubby over to his place yesterday afternoon so they could talk about possible concert dates. He took the cellphone with him so I could call at a certain time and he would have an excuse to leave. Abraham is the kind of guy who sticks like a burr, and it’s very difficult to extricate yourself from him. Anyway, when Hubby got home, he told me about their meeting.
Apparently Abraham Parmesan has made an arrangement with the United church in Sh’brooke so that he can use their friendship room so many times a year as a gathering place for the “Jewish community”. I commented to Hubby that this will fail, since the people who would make up this “community” seem to have no desire to organize themselves in this way. After all, we don’t congregate to worship, as most of us are atheists or simply non-practising, and for what other reason would we get together with other Jews? Apart from being Jewish, we generally have nothing in common.
Last night the Church Street Café presented a concert by this entertainer and I went, seeing as how it was the original date for our blues show and I had a free evening. Hubby did not join me, this kind of music generally boring him (and I must admit, I understand why completely), but the guy was decent, and he had a very beautiful singing voice, even if his enunciation wasn’t up to my exacting standards.
I generally know very few people at these concerts. They are a totally different crowd than come to the music department offerings, and Hubby would like to break into the series with his ensemble. The trouble is that the guy who runs it, the conjoint of my dear friend Janice, specifies only acoustic instruments. That means that Hubby would have to plug his guitar into the house system or use an external microphone. He is averse to both ideas. But I digress.
My writing friend and her “Jewish” husband were there, as they often are. I am very fond of them both, but they are not part of my regular social circle. In fact, I don’t think I have a regular social circle. But the point of this whole, drawn-out story is that I presented Abraham Parmesan’s idea to Jim, and asked him if he would involve himself in such a gathering. As I suspected, he said that he would not, that just being Jewish was not enough reason for him to associate with people on that basis alone. I joked that he hung out with me because he liked me, and then he said something that made me blush.
“I hang out with you because a) I do like you, and b) because you’re so damned gorgeous!”
Now folks, that made my whole day.
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