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That's how many days my Grandpa has been alive. Today is his 92nd birthday. Nine of us gathered at the Poliana (polish) Club to celebrate. Salud!
On the right is a photo of my grandparents, by Steve Pike.
My Babka passed away about ten years ago, when I was getting my first smooches with a boy on roller skates, when she was almost 82. At lunch my Grandpa leaned across the potato pancakes and vodka to tell me conspiratorially, after I'd finished rolling a smoke for my dad, "Some people say that smoking kills, but your grandmother smoked very strong cigars until she died. In fact, the doctors dismissed her from the hospital at the end of her life because she insisted on smoking."
The story in my family goes that when my dad was in hospital as a child, after being hit by a car, my Babka made a promise that if my dad recovered, she would give up smoking cigarettes. After he got out of hospital, my grandmother gave up smoking completely for awhile, until someone suggested that she could smoke cigars and still keep her word.
A better story about my Babka, that I've been told over and over, since I was about 5, also features smoking. She was at the cinema alone, when a strange man came and sat a few seats away from her. She was smoking a cigarette, as you could in those days. The man moved closer and closer, until he was right next to her. Then he put his hand on her leg. Just as slowly and calmly, my Babka ground the hot end of the cigarette into the back of his hand. He moved away.


If, the next time our paths cross, the swathe I am cutting through the madding crowd is wider than usual, if I am more rubenesque than the last happy time we met, do not be sad that I can't fit into my tight pants anymore. Every extra inch of flesh hanging on my hips is pure bliss, pure eating-with-family-and-sitting-around-shooting-the-moon, high-dairy-content, joy. And if I'm sad that my belly isn't flat anymore, remind me that surely there is no better way to get fat than to share pudding with little cousins and spend hours talking slowly to inebriated relations. Life is awesome.