Tex is texting his NOLA musician buddies to see what’s going on. “They’re at St. Ann’s now!” he calls out. “With Jewlu!”
Bradford is unpacking bags of essential NOLA ingredients: “I had to drive all the way to Altadena to find the Crystal hot sauce. And pickled okra. And of course we’ll need Peychaud’s Bitters”—he waves a bottle—“for the Sazeracs.”
Jerry is “warming up” by doing tai chi on the back deck.
On one of my four-time-a-week shopping rounds, I’ve picked up Mardi Gras beads at the Van Nuys Party Store. Charlie refuses them for their inauthenticity. Truth be told, the gold, green, and pink just looks tinny and sad. The plastic bags sit on the back porch unopened. More successful is the authentic King Cake I’ve bought, somehow effortlessly executed by Porto’s Armenian Bakery in Glendale. And for a time, all is festive. Cocktails clank, gumbo is engorged, Jerry and Charlie spar—with (relative) good humor—about the correct way to turn the shrimp on the barbecue. Charlie and Jerry always fight about the barbecue. This segues into drunken bro dancing in the backyard to a Cajun beat and singing that sounds like “Hey now! Hey now! Hey now! Hey now! Waikowaikowaiko!”
Mid-dance line, Charlie is seized with a brilliant idea: “I’m going to drive my VW beetle to Louisiana and register it! No smog laws there! Who’s in?”
“Road . . . trip!” everybody cheers. Never mind that the Beetle, with all the junk in it, at best seats three and can barely get to Long Beach.
The first pall comes upon Tex’s announcement that by 11 in New Orleans, 9 p.m. our time, second lines are breaking out all over town.
Charlie’s eyes glitter with joy—and then he takes the dark turn. “God, Mardi Gras in New Orleans is the best party on earth and every year I miss it!”
“And who knows how long New Orleans is even going to be there,” Bradford helpfully adds, downing another Sazerac. “What with global warming—”
“The levees, the flooding,” Jerry agrees.
“Thanks to the great almighty US of A!” Tex adds.
And oh boy, here we go, where so many of these gatherings eventually do . . . into the howling pit of political ranting. Which gives liberty to much shouting and bellicosity and the mad chain-smoking of American Spirit cigarettes (who brought those?).
“If it hadn’t been for the Russians—!”
“The Republican base—!”
“The Christian Right—!”
“Gerrymandering—!”
“The oil industry—!”
“Dark money—!”
“Big pharma—!”
“Coal—!”
My sphincter seizes up with it all! I can’t stand it!
SATURDAY MORNING, when I come out in my fabulous purple Pema Bollywood goddess pants, my household is not impressed.
Wisecracks Charlie (whose Mardi Gras hangover is finally lifting): “Did a clown die?” Sassy with mystery extra credit, Hannah mimes handing me a phone: “The eighties called. They want their pants back.”
“No problem,” I say grandly to all of them, embracing my inner size fifty-two. “I’m going to forgive all of you, because my birthday today is all about self-celebration.”
I’m doing that by throwing a simple birthday brunch. With ground rules. To begin with, conversationally, this one day will be a politics-free zone. It’s a safe space. A very soft, safe space.
I’ve asked all my girlfriends to bring any one of “the three C’s”—champagne, chocolate, or cheese. Just in case there is not enough cheese, I’ve stockpiled it. Right next to the Third Eye Bookstore I found a store called “cheese therapy” (all lower case, upper case being too stressful in these difficult times). It has its own “mac-and-cheese” bar, which includes gluten-free mac and dairy-free cheese (South Pasadena is a very particular town). Having no dietary limitations myself, I’ve rounded up a bunch of high-fat goddess food. A fontina-artichoke-honey dip. Camembert with cranberries. Brie and peaches.
On the big living room computer: Joni Mitchell.
“What is this?” Julia wrinkles her nose as she walks in, still clutching her gift bag. “Ladies of the Canyon?”
“Are we officially out of our Blue years now?” Andie asks. “Or Court and Spark?”
“Ladies of the Canyon, yes, suckas!” I say. “I’m now on Malibu time. Get used to it. I’m going to wear a wind-blown scarf and drive alone up the coast in a vintage convertible and I will paint breezy seascapes.”
“Okay,” Julia and Andie say, exchanging glances.
“PS,” I say, “I know I often make everyone throw the I-Ching on my birthday, but I’m sick of it. There’s too much darkness there—‘The Abyss,’ ‘Biting Through,’ ‘The Preponderance of the Small.’ Those Chinese can be tough. One time I had an eighty-year-old feng shui guy come to my old house and he said my then husband Ben would die in five years of a head injury. So today we’re saging that energy out and working with this very nice tarot deck card of white cats. I’ve taken all the bad cards out, like ‘Death’ and ‘The Tower.’ ”
What happens next reminds me that maybe I need to get new girlfriends.
I always have this idea that I’m going to get together with My Girlfriends and that it will be fun and fabulous. Sort of like on Sex and the City, or like with Nora Ephron and her I’m pretty sure fabulous girlfriends (Rosie O’Donnell?). Or Oprah, as on Oprah After the Show. I am fifty-six. These are supposed to be the Oprah/Gayle chill years, of Northern Californian spa retreats, hot stone massages, coconut oil, wealth.
“What are you doing?” Andie asks.
“You have a ‘cat’ tarot deck . . . and you’ve taken out the difficult cards?” Julia asks.
“It’s my personal journey to goddesshood!” I exclaim.
Thank God now my more woo-woo girlfriend Marilyn arrives, in dark glasses and a sunbrella hat, clutching what seems like a Jeroboam of Honest Tea.
Marilyn puts her hand up.
“No alcohol. I am on . . . A. Forty-eight-hour. Sugar. Cleanse.”
We all murmur how great that is—
Although I can’t help thinking, at the rate Marilyn goes on sugar cleanses—I mean, how much sugar is Marilyn ingesting that she needs such frequent cleansing? The last time it was a 72-hour cleanse. Now it’s 48 hours. Soon it will be “I’m going on a 4-hour sugar cleanse.” Does that mean the other 20 hours of the day sugar is being bolted?
Julia—she of the unwanted Groupon cardio barre—returns to what is becoming an attack.
“I don’t know what you’re doing with these—these pants, but Sandra, honey, these are not the Eileen Fischer years!”
“Um, excuse me,” I lash back, stung. “I’m fifty-six. I believe these are the Eileen Fischer years. In fact, starting from age twenty-two, I kind of wanted them all to be the Eileen Fischer years!”
Marilyn nods sagely, quaffing her Honest Tea.
“That’s right. Yes. This is the time of the important ‘crone’ work.”
“God, no!” Andie wails. She is mysteriously rearranging the cheeses. What—is there a more “correct” order? Alphabetical?