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Rocket stepped up to perhaps the ultimate test recently. He met the entire side of my mother's family when I invited him to come to my grandmother Rose's 80-somethingish birthday. It was really my mother who invited Rocket having fallen in love with him when we saw her on a weekend trip to Rockport this summer. I seconded the invite. I hadn't intended it as a test. Your family is much more bearable when you have a boyfriend. I wanted him to come to this dinner with me for purely selfish reasons.

I dread these annual gatherings for two reasons. My not-so-unrecent family's history is rife with secrets and lies. One story in particular, which took place about 29 years ago, involves my grandmother Rose convincing my mother to tell the extended family that I was adopted from Vietnam because coming clean with the fact that I was the product of a common law marriage to a black man was something no Jewish grandmother of mine was ready at that time to accept. When I told Rocket that story several months ago he joked, referring to the fact that people often ask me what my ethnic background is, "you should just tell people, 'well, I used to be Vietnamese...'" It's my world and welcome to it.

We arrived late to the dinner which took place at an Upper West Side restaurant that specializes in early bird specials. Everyone was there raising arms and flashing smiles as we walked in. The other reason I don't particularly enjoy going to Rose's birthday dinners is because it means dining with her 91 year-old boyfriend's son and daughter and their spouses who are among the craziest -- and not really so much in a good way -- people I've ever been forced to spend time with in my life.

Rocket was safely seated between my uncle, who is always a source of comic relief at these dinners, and me. He dreads them as much, if not more than I do. Things were made easier by the seating arrangements and the welcome distraction of Rocket's presense. With my beau in tow I was able to avoid various things. I didn't have to chit chat with Chita, the uber neurotic daughter of my mother's boyfriend with her thinning Joan Jett haircut complete with bald man's sweep. My poor aunt was stuck next to Chita's brother, patiently listening to him preach about Bush's underrated foreign policy tactics and his opinion that if you're not reading the Wall Street Journal everyday you know nothing of what's really going on in the world. I avoided the advances of Chita's Xanax dependant husband who attempts to kiss me on the lips at each birthday dinner. I realized that between certain members of my family and the other, there were so many prescription drugs in that dining room you'd think we were registered members of the National Pharmaceutical Convention.

Within a half hour of Rocket's introductions, while my mother made stoner eyes at him from across the table, my grandmother leaned in to me and showed me the diamond ring on her finger. "You know this ring. It's the one that your grandfather gave me when we got engaged."

"Yes. It's beautiful," I said.

She twisted it between her thumb and index finger and said, "When you get engaged, it's yours."

"Wow. That is so nice. Thank you so much." I blushed and hoped that Rocket hadn't gotten wind of Rose's gesture. "What if I don't get engaged?" I asked.

"Then you can't have it."

A couple of days later my mom reported that after Rocket and I had fled the scene everyone started asking questions about him. "Charming" and "cute" were the most common words people were using to describe him. I thought, if this had been a "Sex and the City" episode I would have been considering whether the fact that my mother and evidently other members of the family have fallen in love with my boyfriend means that I should keep him or kick him to the curb.

The voiceover would of course begin with "I started to wonder...", but it would end with "...even my mother's gay husband was flirting with him". Also, I'd be wearing faded navy flip-flops and junky jeans instead of toe mauling Manolo Blahniks and Helmut Lang leg warmers. But maybe if I got my hands on that diamond ring I could hawk it and at least be able to afford the shoes, only I wouldn't be able to walk, really and I'd have absolutely nothing to wear with them anyway.