New England, Old Priest: REID #246
And a cat stroller
SHORT:
Jess got a leash for our cat (makes no sense) and has been practicing walking him up and down our stairs to “train” for when they go outside in the stroller that they also bought for him (makes even less sense). Apparently, while I was away this weekend, they did their first excursion outside with the stroller, and Jess took the top down so the cat could “look around”, but he tried to jump out (makes a lot of sense), so they’re going to “work on that” (no idea what that will look like, given the fact that he is a cat with a brain the size of a walnut).
MEDIUM:
While Jess was walking the cat around the block like it was running for governor, I was in Nashua, New Hampshire for my grandparents' joint memorial/funeral.
To mark the occasion, my father designed Red Sox t-shirts with our last name on the back for his 7 siblings and my 17+ cousins and chartered a party bus to take everyone to Friday’s Red Sox game (and they won, despite being terrible this year, so, apparently, when enough white people wear matching shirts, God caves).
All five billion of us stayed at the Nashua Marriott. And because I hate myself, I got up at 6 a.m. every morning to do writing work in the Starbucks-adjacent “bistro” in the lobby. This also meant greeting every single one of my dad’s siblings and cousins as they came downstairs in 20-minute increments, so I didn’t get a ton done unless you count acquiring detailed info about how much it’s rained in New England the past month.
Eventually, when it was time to go to the actual service, everyone reemerged in suits and ties. Shoutout to my cousin Nick who entered the elevator with all the tags on his blazer, shirt, pants, shoes, etc. I thought it was a new Gen Z style trend, but his mother informed me that it’s actually because he just couldn’t figure out how to cut them off himself despite being 18 years of age.
LONG:
While my immediate family is Jewish, the remaining 5,000 branches are Catholic, so we went to Mass. When we arrived at the church, there was an old man slouched in a chair onstage. I nudged my mom and said, “I feel like that guy.” She laughed. Two minutes later, the guy stood up and began leading the service. It was the priest.
Nobody could hear a word he was saying, so the seven siblings started playing high-stakes charades trying to decide who should go up and tell him the mic was off. My Uncle Josh eventually approached the pulpit. The priest raised a hand and said something. We assumed he was like, “Sit down,” but apparently what he actually said was, “Get ready. The audio is wreck.”
There was, of course, a massive photo of the American Pope when we walked in the door and the priest made sure to include, “I’ve never had mass with 15 Popes before” in his remarks. He also kinda went woke with his speech, discussing how “there’s no borders in heaven” and “we’re all god’s citizens”. It ended with a final plea for people to move back to New Hampshire and that “he knows some real estate guys who could help”.
The church also had automatic faucets and toilets, which my dad claimed were known around there as “God flushing for you.”
He also told us that when he and his siblings were kids, my grandma would tell their dad to take them to church, and he’d drive through the parking lot, say “Alright, we went,” and then take them to the driving range.
My aunt Sarah gave a beautiful eulogy and then there was a lot of kneeling and sitting and us not taking communion while everyone else did and then we all drove over to the cemetery where many of my family members are buried (and that is now next to a big McDonald’s. The McDonald’s was having “Aloha” hiring day, which we didn’t really know what that meant but Aloha kind of smart branding since it means hello and goodbye, in case they decide against staffing someone).
We then had a little reception that featured one million Shutterfly photo-books of us as children, my Uncle Chris passing around printed out “Dave Trivia” about my grandfather, chocolate chip cookies so crunchy that my mom spent five minutes inspecting every single one to determine which was the “least crispy, because she has TMJ” before dragging over a rolling office chair she got from God-knows-where to sit down and eat it, and the bartender confusing my two cousins for the same person and cutting them off after they each only had 2 drinks because they thought they had 4*.
*The two cousins are not twins but one of them is a twin with my other cousin weirdly enough but the two that aren’t twins look more alike than the two that are twins. Lmk if that makes sense… kinda like one of those SAT logic questions…
I wish I was writing better about this trip, but I actually haven’t slept in weeks so my brain is atrophying, and I just got back from a comedy show with nearly 100 trans comedians on the lineup (which I kept calling DSM-5 Live!) so I used the little reserve I had there.
The show was proof that trans is beautiful… sometimes :) And sometimes trans is experimenting with leather in a way that needs to stop :) Nevertheless, it was nice to come together as a community during this difficult time (I am, of course, talking about Caitlin Jenner being stuck in Israel). No, but really, it’s important for trans people to gather (and ruthlessly compare ourselves to one another!). If you’ve ever wanted to know what it would be like to take every Tumblr user in 2012 and give them a microphone, you should attend the show next year. Okay I’m done. I’m really into roasts these days. This must be how Dave Ross and Ina Garten feel all the time.
Snack Of The Week is the Oreo Stromboli that my sister’s fiancé and I ordered at dinner post-funeral. Neither of us knew what a Stromboli was upon ordering it, but after eating it, we became major Stromboli heads. The waiter with a thick New England accent said “Best Thing On Theh Menu” to us, and she was not wrong.
C U Next Tuesday
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Sincerely,
Reid Pope
Things Coming Up:
Today: we have an incredible episode of Going Down dropping in the latter half of the day on YouTube featuring Peter Grosz, Frankie Cosmos, Fran Tirado, and more. Tune in!
June 20th & 21st: You can come to my play-in-progress workshop
June 27th: You can come see a very special Going Down Live! at UCBNY
i take my cat out in a baby stroller on occasion. she loves it. i don't take the top down anymore though bc she also tried to jump out lol