I mean, come on, there’s a god out there for everything, right? Surely one of their job descriptions includes looking after emotionally stunted neo-new-age families who attempt to have Thanksgiving together. At the head of the table is Gary, my mother’s husband. I can barely look at him without wincing. He’s short and Yul Brynner bald with a thick black mustache and furry nostrils, dressed in a white cotton tunic and Guatemalan-print pants. Around his neck are several strands of large wooden beads. The weird thing is, you could put him in a used-car salesman’s suit and he’d look a lot more natural. Every time I’m with him I see a guy from New Jersey who took a wrong turn in 1985, ended up in Mill Valley, California, and has been passing himself off as a guru ever since. Across from him is my mother (Mira, if you want to keep your head intact) with her long, glossy brown hair and her big, Carly Simon mouth painted a matte orange. She’s looking a touch hefty these days; her boobs were always huge and she’s naturally got a Venus de Milo figure (plus the arms, of course), but today she looks a little bloated, and the skin around her eyes is slightly bruised with exhaustion.
