Friday, July 15, 2005
Florida Wrap-up: Love for Sale; the Congregaytion; Just Call Me Doctor
Random bits from the Funshine state:
Mom and I went to the Seminole Casinos Resort, a big white temple of gambling with a very nicely designed outdoor mall area where we did some mid-morning browsing. We wandered into a classy expensive shoe store (all the stores seemed classy and expensive) where mom was trying on some footwear for a wedding she’ll be attending soon. The staff, two well-groomed young women, had given us a cheerful “hello” when we walked in, and then left us, thankfully, alone. After a few minutes of mom looking at the shoes and me making occasional semi-helpful comments and trying to entertain myself, one of the staff sort of did a double take and asked mom, “Is that your son?” Mom grinned and confirmed the fact. “Wow, you look fantastic!,” she continued. “I thought he was your....” and with that she sort of fluttered her hands before her face and giggled a little. Maybe it’s not the first time I’d been taken for a hired loveboy, but it’s the first time anyone told me about it. I was flattered, in a cheap, sleazy way.
Later on, mom and I attended Friday night services at a synagogue she had never visited before up in Ft Lauderdale, where her friend was assuming the rabbi’s pulpit on a permanent full-time basis for the first time. This was a rabbi she’d known out in Riverside CA, where mom had been the temple president when this guy had been hired there. It hadn’t been a very good fit though - the city is pretty conservative and the rabbi is an outspoken gay man. Now, however, he was taking over at Congregation Etz Chaim, whose mission is “to provide a nurturing environment for Gay and Lesbian Jews, inclusive of Bi-sexual, Transgender, and Heterosexuals in South Florida, ‘Jews of the Rainbow.’” Honestly, I’m taking this right off their bulletin. I knew the rabbi was a cool guy, yet for no good reason I faced the prospect of davening with this congregation with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. Would I be “outed” as a straight boy? How would the service reflect the orientation? Was there going to be dancing? Line dancing?
As these questions did the electric slide in my mind on our drive up to the unassuming mini-mall where the congregation had temporary rented quarters (but quite nice for a mini-mall, really), I saw an answering revellation in the sky: an actual rainbow, arching gorgeously in a perfect hemisphere, shimmering against the darkening eastern skies with the last rays of the setting sun. But as I looked at it, I saw it had been joined by another rainbow outside of it, a complete double rainbow. And here’s the thing about the double rainbow, that maybe you already knew: the interior rainbow and exterior rainbow reflect each other’s colors. They don’t both have the same colors in the same order, red on top and purple on the bottom - the red bands are adjacent in the middle, and the colors appear in opposite order so violet stripes border the whole confection below and above. It seemed a poetic demonstration of the concordance of opposites, in which things diametrically opposed to each other complement each other and support each other. Harmony is created by resonant dissimilarity. By the time we arrived at the synagogue I was reconciled to the possibility of being the only straight man there - because by being there as myself, distinct from those who welcomed me so warmly, I complemented them and they complemented me. It felt right, and I was grateful to the heavens for clarifying the situation so sublimely for me.
Services were beautiful. I hadn’t been to friday services in a long time, and sort of sang my heart out to the old tropes still hardwired into my larynx. Afterwards, as the services concluded and we all began to mill around and get ready for the little oneg, or snacky-service with cookies and wine, I was approached by a very handsome man who’d been sitting in front of us with his extremely beautiful partner. Really, these guys stood out as unusually well-formed men. One of them (the “butch” one, not the pretty one) wanted to know if I could read and write hebrew so I could help him with his hebrew name - because, he told me, he’d noticed that I sang beautifully. I was deeply flattered even as I admitted that I knew, essentially, no hebrew at all. I thanked him warmly, though. His boyfriend did not seem very pleased at all with our conversation, though, and kept giving me sullen looks under his eyelashes like I was trying to steal his date. The upshot seems to be, in South Florida I am more than usually likely to be taken for some sort of gigolo. I’ll take it as a compliment. Just so long as I don’t have to take it in my upshot.
Also at the oneg, I saw a man with his young (10- or 12-year-old) daughter. She was dressed in white silk and had somehow managed to spill purple grape juice all over herself. He was fretting as one could imagine a fastidious dad might over the fate of the silk blouse, with words like “dry cleaning” and “never get it out” tumbling from his mouth repeatedly. I stepped up and told the girl, “you know, that’s consecrated grape juice. We said a blessing over it. You know what that means? You are wearing a mitzvah. You are clothed in a blessing. You’re very lucky.” Her face broke into a broad smile; her dad looked at me and took a deep breath, and when he exhaled he just said “okay,” and stopped kvetching. It was a sweet moment, capping off a beautiful, joyous, and very spiritually fulfilling evening.
And since I don’t expect to get around to sharing this later, I’ll just mention that the major street near my mom’s condo had several doctors’ offices along it. These included the offices of Dr. David Bitchatchi, and the offices of Dr. Harry Pepe. I’m sorry, these are just funny names. I can say so because I have a funny name. But really, these guys have me beat. I imagine David pronounces his name “Biotch-itchy”, which just sounds like he isn’t attentive to matters of personal feminine freshness; I have already thought of too many hairy peepee jokes to pick one to repeat here, so consider yourself lucky. On the other hand, near my office here in SF there is a dentist named Leslie Plack. It’s all I have to offer in response. I guess I’m at a floss for words. Obviously I should stop writing this immed
