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- So I met my wife, Juju, on the subway.
Well, almost. We actually met online
but when I showed up for that first date,
she took one look at me and said,
"Oh my God, you're the guy from the A train."
(audience laughing)
And it turned out she'd been seeing me for months and months
up around a 109th Street
and she used to sit there looking at me,
she later admitted to me
and she used to think to herself,
that guy looks like he might make a pretty nice boyfriend.
(audience laughing)
Me, a nice boyfriend, I certainly didn't think so.
At that point of my life,
I was this 40 year old blind single dad
just trying to figure things out
and I was very, very grumpy
because I was supporting myself as a waiter.
I was waiting tables
at a novelty restaurant in Times Square.
This was a place where people ate in the pitch-black
and I would go from table to table and say,
"Use your other senses and don't be afraid."
(audience laughing)
And when they were really scared,
I would pressure them into another $18 Alabama Slammer
to try and get the tips up.
So that's who I was.
Now, who is this Juju person
who thinks I might look like a nice boyfriend for her?
She's a doctor and she grew up in Brazil,
but after school then she traveled the world extensively
before settling in Mozambique where she built clinics
from the ground up that have literally prolonged the lives
of tens of thousands of people suffering with HIV/AIDS.
And she speaks five languages and she dances, I mean, Samba
and she's warm and she's funny
and she's very, very beautiful.
So you're thinking,
oh, she's way out of this guy's league, right?
So yeah. Okay. I know what you're thinking.
But while we're a dating fate intervened
and we unexpectedly got pregnant.
So then it was only a matter of just smuggling
like my underwear and my CDs and my books
one at a time into her apartment.
So she got so used to me and my daughter, Zoe
kind of just being around
that marriage, at that point felt inevitable.
And we got married and that was great,
but it is not always easy being married to Wonder Woman
because she's always flying off somewhere
or coming up with this new, better idea,
let's do it like this.
Or doing something very unexpected
to the point where it can drive me a little crazy.
Like the time we're going to Caribbean, everything's booked
and she was like, "This could be really boring.
Why don't we go to Maine instead?"
And this is in the middle of January.
Or the first time her mom was coming up from Brazil,
she was like, "Okay. Yeah, my mom's going to stay for 10 days.
It'll be a little tight, it's a small apartment."
11 weeks later, her mom is still there in the apartment.
And then the night she came to me in tears, very upset
and I couldn't imagine what was wrong
and she asked me if I was having an affair
and I didn't know what to say.
And I'd left my email open and she saw this woman's name
again and again and again, who was this Rosetta Stone.
(audience laughing)
Rosetta Stone, the language software I was using
so I could learn Portuguese
to speak to her dad down in Brazil.
And this was really important
because I was going to be meeting him for the first time.
Not face-to-face, but over Skype.
You see, he was getting a new computer,
he was getting broadband and I made a plan.
I said, "Okay, rather than have him
calling in a random time,
Thanksgiving's coming up, let's have him Skype in.
We'll put the computer on the table
and he can join us as a family."
And I had no ulterior motive
because I'm actually a pretty good cook.
When I was a kid, I lost my eyesight and my aunt Rita
who's a wonderful chef, she's a professional chef.
She said, "Listen, there's some things you can't do
'cause you can't see, let's be realistic,
but there's so many more things you can
if you just put your mind to it
and I'll teach you how to cook."
And she did.
And I've had that skill in my back pocket my whole life
and has been very useful.
So my idea was I would make a Thanksgiving dinner
like I'd done before with the big turkey and the sides
and it would look really nice
and my father-in-law in Brazil
would be really impressed and think that I was okay.
So Thanksgiving was about a week away,
I was planning menus, I was in my element
and I could tell Juju wasn't feeling it.
And I said, "Honey, this is going to be great.
I'm going to make the pumpkin risotto
with chestnuts and fresh sage. You like that."
No response. I said, "Oh, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to do the homemade cranberry sauce with ginger
and Meyer lemon zest. Remember last year? That was a hit."
I said, "Juju, honey, what can I do to make you happy?"
She said, "You really want to know?"
I said, "Yeah."
She said, "Okay. I want a pig."
"For a pet? What do you mean you want a pig?"
She was like, "No.
I'm so excited about my father calling and everything,
I don't want some boring, dry old turkey.
I want a pig, a whole pig.
When I was a little girl,
I'd go to my grandmother's farm
and she'd help me, let me pick out a piglet
and she'd kill it and cook it
and we'd eat it and it was so nice and I want that feeling."
I said, "I am not cooking you a pig
in a Manhattan apartment.
I wouldn't even know where to start.
My mom is coming from Boston, friends are coming.
This is America. We're having a turkey."
And she accused me of being inflexible.
I accused her of everything ranging from like
being a domineering bully to hating the Pilgrims.
I said, "This is never going to happen."
Then a couple days later, she's at work at the hospital.
I can hear all the noise in the background and she says,
"Listen, I found a pig online,
I bought it,
don't say anything."
And it was one of those moments
you have in a marriage quite often
where I could either keep fighting or give in.
And I thought about more fighting. And then I gave in.
And that's how I found myself day before Thanksgiving
with the girls, two and four, Zoe and Isabelle,
were down in the West Village.
They're in their Bugaboo double stroller,
which is this giant monstrosity,
it's the size of a Jeep Cherokee.
And it's like across the sidewalk
and I walk into this little old time vintage butcher shop
and I'm, "Hey, I'm the guy. I'm here for the pig."
And the butcher is like, "Oh man. Oh man.
Because of the holiday and everything,
your pig never showed up."
And I'm thinking, thank you, Jesus.
I am getting my turkey, right?
He's like, "But don't worry.
I actually have another pig for you.
It's not the fresh pig that you ordered,
but it's a bigger pig. It's frozen."
And he hands me a 22 pound block of ice,
which is a frozen dead pig
and I can feel these long twisted limbs
with hooves, sharp hooves on the end
and the head and the snout.
It was a gargoyle, okay?
And I walk out of the butcher shop
and Juju's there with the girls
and I'm trying to shield my daughters from the pig.
And they're all excited,
they're, "Peppa Pig! Peppa Pig! Peppa Pig!"
I said, "Juju, how on earth are we going to get home?"
Because the Bugaboo is too big
to get in a taxi or the subway.
And she's like, "Oh, no problem.
I'll just throw the pig in the cart, we'll push it home."
"You want me to put this dead pig
in the stroller with our children?"
"Oh yeah. Why not?"
And that's how I found myself down on my knees
and I'm pulling diapers and wipes and cracked sippy cups
and crumpled bags of Goldfish Crackers
out from under the stroller.
And the Goldfish is spilling
and I'm crushing them under my knees
as I jam this 22 pound dead pig in under my kids
and it doesn't fit.
It doesn't fit all the way.
The legs and the head are kind of rearing out like
it wants to escape.
We turn and we're walking up Sixth Avenue,
a couple of quiet blocks
and my older daughter, Zoe says, "Daddy?"
"Yes, my love."
"The pig--
"Yes, my love."
Is making my bum cold."
"Yes, my love. We'll hurry, I promise."
And we get back to the apartment and my mom is there
and she hates the pig
and she doesn't want to say anything at first,
but then she finally comes over and she's like,
"What are you going to do with that thing?
You can't put a frozen pig in the oven.
It'll stay frozen in the middle, it'll burn on top of it,
you'll burn down the apartment."
I said, "Mum, I am not going to burn down the apartment.
I'm going to thaw it in the sink."
And I bring the pig to the sink,
it's small apartment, sink is about two feet across ,
pig's about three and a half feet long.
Not even close.
I stand there for a second,
think I know what I want to do,
I draw a warm bath and I slipped the pig in.
So, it's New York, you don't have a lot of space,
the rest of the day, you want to use the bathroom?
Boop! There's the pig staring you in the face, right?
(audience laughing)
So next day is Thanksgiving.
I get up early. I go to check.
The pig has thawed. Okay, that's good.
I wrestle it into this big aluminum tray.
I don't really want to touch it,
it's rubbery like a hot water bottle
and I get it all together.
It's about the size of a couch cushion, maybe.
Once it's in the tray,
I remove one of the racks from the oven and I jam it in.
And a couple hours go by
and the house is smelling pretty good.
And we've got some pies going, we've got all kinds of--
it's like, okay, you know what?
This might actually work.
And so we're going to eat at four.
That's when my father-in-law was going to call in.
So a little bit before that, I step in the bedroom
and I'm thinking,
"I've picked out a shirt and a jacket and a tie
that I'm going to put on 'cause I want to look really nice
for my father-in-law."
And while I'm kind of standing there at my closet,
my daughter comes to the door and says,
"Daddy, there's some black smoke in the apartment."
And I run out and I go to the kitchen
and I open up the oven, pig is on fire.
So I grab a dish towel and I am beating the pig
until I get the flames out on the head.
One of the instructions was,
make sure you wrap the ears in foil
before you insert the pig in the oven.
I had neglected to do that and the ears burn
and they're like two blackened bat wings
kind of sticking out of the side of the pig
and a turkey never would have done this, right?
I'm like, "Where is my turkey and my American Thanksgiving?"
So I grab a roll of foil and I wrapped the pig's head
to make it look a little more presentable,
but now it looks like it's getting electroshock treatment
and it's four o'clock.
It's game time.
I grab the pig,
I bring it to the table
that was put in the middle of living room
and the table is beautiful.
We have flowers and candles and in the middle, the computer
and I settle the pig down in front of the laptop
and we Skype my father-in-law in Brazil.
And in my best Rosetta Stone Portuguese, I say,
"Bom dia, Sr. Silva. Porco grande."
Which means, "Good day, Mr. Silva. Big pig.
(audience laughing)
All those lessons,
that was the best I could come up with, but
please, please cut me some slack.
I was unraveling,
I had a terrible looking pig on the table,
I was wearing a greasy T-shirt with holes in it,
meeting my father-in-law
and all I could think was,
the only good thing about this holiday is it will end
and at some point tonight
I can get in a bed and pull the blanket over my head
and this will be over.
And then I noticed Juju on the other hand
is like this balloon of joy. She is so happy.
She's full of light and energy.
And she's taking pictures of the kids with the pig
and she's taking the computer
and moving it around the pig like a film director,
getting it from every angle
and her father is loving this.
And we sit down and we start eating
and I'm surrounded by this babble of voices and languages.
And my kids are having a great time.
And my mom, she's having some more roast pork.
She's having a great time.
And I had a moment.
I wouldn't call it a revelation.
I still am who I am,
but I had a moment and I thought,
my Brazilian wife
certainly understands this American holiday
a whole of a lot better than I do
because Thanksgiving's not about turkey.
It's about family.
And family is about love
and love is ultimately about change.
And I had been resisting change at every turn.
But if you're not willing to change,
if you're not willing to give something up,
you're never going to get anything new.
And I thought, what'd Juju given up
to be here at this table?
She gave up her country and her language
and her mom and her dad
to start a new family with me?
And what had I given up?
I'd given up a bunch of dried out leftover turkey
that no one really wants the day after Thanksgiving, right?
So I really got the better of the deal.
So later that night when we were clearing up
and I knew no one was around,
I brought what was left of the pig out to the kitchen
and I kind of leaned into that
little aluminum foil wrapped ear
and I said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
And thank you.
(audience cheering)