What a week for Séb to visit New York. Holy shit. So far he has been to a cemetery in Queens, been to a Long Island hospital, not once, twice but three times, a doctor's appointment with me in Manhattan where my doctor was practicing her French with us as she was giving me a breast exam, part one of an Italian funeral and has met every member of my extended family, people even I haven't seen in years. It's been exhausting! Kitty keeps wondering if any of us are ever going to see him again. To keep things light between us, Séb and I have been relying on humor to get through this week that has taken some unexpected twists and turns. Besides the handcuff and cufflink faux-pas, the second joke has been the vial Maryvette, and all of the stupid shit that came out of her mouth during Easter dinner.
As Séb and I were walking though the Manhattan, Séb brought up something she did that annoyed him, even more than her insinuating that I can't hold on to a man and that my life seems to be a revolving door of French men. That in itself was a pretty low blow, so I couldn't imagine what could have ruffled his feathers more than that.
Over dinner, Maryvette had mentioned that she watches the television series Nurse Jackie...okay harmless enough. Since I keep my television limited to high quality shows like Gossip Girl and Toddlers and Tiaras, I wasn't able to join Maryvette in her cable series bliss. This however piqued Carmella's interest who is a big fan of the show and chimed in from the other end of the table. "Maryvette, do you watch Nurse Jackie too?" Carmella asked with a warm smile, wanting to relate to or at least converse with this peacock who was at our dinner table. Maryvette swung her Bergdorf blowout in Carmella's direction and merely tolerated her presence with a half smile. "It was so funny," she said in a forced blasé Upper East Side drawl, "we were eating at (insert chic restaurant du jour here) and we sat right next to Edie Falco," Okay..and? But that was it, Maryvette ended the conversation there which made it clear that she couldn't possibly stoop down to Carmella's plebeian level and admit that she does something as simple as watching a television show like the rest of the world, even though she had previously admitted it. Carmella, who wanted to talk about the evening's season premiere about the show, not Edie Falco's personal life, just looked back at her waiting for the punchline, but once she realized that Maryvette was through acknowledging her, the topic was immediately dropped and talk of Nurse Jackie and Edie Falco was never revisited at the Easter dinner table.
Because Séb adores Carmella and Vinny, it irritated him that Maryvette couldn't just partake in a normal conversation that she in fact initiated, and she had to somehow be better than us suburban folk with her acquired Metropolitan attitude.
Incidentally enough, at Cafe Gitane on Tuesday, we sat next to a very pregnant and glowing Alyson Hannigan and upon seeing her, Séb and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. This was our karma for making fun of Maryvette "hobnobbing" with celebrities and now we would be damned if we told anyone about our sighting. Damn it, this is what we get!The following night, we had dinner with my family where Carmella and Vinny brought up How I Met Your Mother (those two watch a lot of tv!) where Séb just couldn't resist. In an attempted Maryvette voice which sounded more like a flamboyant male flight attendant said, "Well, it's funny you should mention How I Met Your Mother because..." The joke was well received and we all rolled our eyes at how self-important people can be over things that really mean nothing at the end of the day.
It's the little things that have been getting us through this tough time, from something as simple as a Hollywood sighting at a hip downtown café to stupid Maryvette-isms who just has a way of keeping them coming.
Bon week-end à tous!