At Long Last?

Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?
Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?
Is it a cocktail, this feeling of joy?
Or is what I feel the real McCoy?

~Frank Sinatra, “At Long Last Love”

Okay—I thought I had no sense of romance left in me. I thought most of it had been sucked out by G. in college and then finished off by S. here in Chicago.

So why do I feel completely giddy?

I met K. at a party back in the spring. My friend and her boyfriend brought him with them (I think with the sole purpose of introducing us). We talked for awhile; I thought he was nice, but then I left to go to a party at my sister’s apartment.

A week passed, and my friend asked me if she could give him my e-mail. I said yes, he contacted me, and we went out to dinner. Again, I thought he was nice, but didn’t really feel any sparks. We kept e-mailing and went out again at the beginning of August. I felt the same—no spark—but at the same time, something told me not to give up.

We went to a party together two weeks ago, and we finally kissed for the first time. It was just a quick kiss as I was getting out of a cab, but I decided it was worth kissing him again.

This past weekend he invited me to a wedding. Maybe it was the romance of the evening, maybe it was because I discovered he could dance, or maybe it was because I finally saw him in a relaxed setting around his friends. Whatever it was, I fell. . . hard.

How is it that one minute you can feel lukewarm about someone and the next—BAM—you’re hooked? I haven’t felt like this in so many years—it’s almost hard to believe it’s real.

I think one of the most exhilarating feelings is when you realize you've fallen for someone and you know they’ve fallen for you in return.

More to come. . .

The Happy Copy Guy

There is a guy singing as he makes copies in the copy room near my cubicle. And he keeps singing the same thing over and over again! ("You just caaaaalllll my name!")

Now it's stuck in my head. Arghhhh!

City Interrupted

This past weekend I went up to Oak Creek, Wisconsin to spend some time with my friend Missy, who is recently married and whose husband was away on a fishing trip. After fighting through Chicago rush-hour traffic, I made my way up to the land of cheese and entered. . . dum, dum, dum!. . . suburbia. And I'm not talking Oak Park or Evanston "practically like a city" suburbia. I'm talking "brand-spanking new developments with houses that all look the same on wide cement streets where you have to drive to get everywhere" suburbia. Seriously. When I asked my friend where we could go for brunch the following morning, her best recommendation was Perkins.

Now I don't mean to disparage anyone who lives in suburbia (one of my best friends does, for gosh sakes). I just don't see how in a million years I could ever live there. Maybe my priorities will change someday, but as of right now I cannot imagine living in one of those houses surrounded by kids and swingsets.

Give me Sex and the City over Wisteria Lane any day!

No Use Crying Over Spilled Milk

Inspired by a wave of nostalgia (and my own hatred of carrying home heavy grocery bags), I recently decided to have my milk delivered to my door once a week. Every Wednesday evening, I take my grey cooler and place it down in the entryway of my condo building, and every Thursday morning, I'm greeted with two half-gallons of milk in glass bottles from Chicago's Oberweis Dairy.

Of course, I am usually running late in the mornings, so I completely forget about it until I'm bolting out the door to catch the bus. This morning, as I ran back up the stairs with my cooler, my flip-flop caught on a step, and I faceplanted on the stairs, cushioned by grey plasic and a loud CRACK follwed by the sound of swishing liquid.

My worst suspicion was confirmed when I got back in my condo; one of the glass bottles had shattered and a half-gallon of milk was now floating freely in the cooler. Of course, Walter, one of my cats, thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He proceeded to stick half his body inside and began lapping up milk. Worried about the broken glass floating around, I pushed him away and proceeded to the bathroom where I picked out all the big pieces of glass and dumped the remaining shards and milk out in the bathtub.

By this time, I was running quite late, but I decided I needed to at least rinse out the cooler before leaving. I turned on my tub and was quickly drenched by cold water streaming from the showerhead above. Apparently, the shower switch hadn't shut off when I turned the water off earlier in the morning.

As you can imagine, I ended up being VERY late for work and was reprimanded by my boss. Sometimes milk does NOT do the body good!

The Stain Magnet Part II

Words of wisdom:

Don't use a wet, blue napkin to try to blot out a stain on khaki pants--unless you want to add some color to them.

The Stain Magnet

Why is it that you only manage to spill something on your pants when they're khaki and dry clean only?

Any tips out there for removing salad dressing stains???

Peruvian Dinner

Okay--I now promise to REALLY start writing on this blog, especially since I've told my friends about it.

Last night I went for dinner at Daniel's house. Daniel is a 50-year-old doctor from Peru whom I'm tutoring in English. I volunteered to help him hook his computer up to the Internet, and in return, he and his wife, Rosario, cooked me a Peruvian feast. We started off with papa a la huancaina, a Peruvian appetizer that consists of slices of baked potato covered with a green sauce and topped with pieces of hard-boiled egg. (By the way, did you know that the potato is native to Peru? They didn't make their way to Europe until the Spanish explorers set foot in South America.) For our main course we had a beef dish (I don't remember the name) with white rice, and for dessert, a lovely fruit salad.

After dinner, Daniel, Rosario, and I sat outside and talked about the difficulties of learning English and adjusting to a new country. Rosario, a CPA, has a work visa because she was sponsored by a local parish. She needs to take some additional classes in order to be a full-fledged CPA in the U.S., but in the meantime, she at least has a job as a parish accountant. Daniel, however, is still trying to get a work visa while he studies to pass the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exam). He has been waiting for three years and still no luck. It is very frustrating because money is tight, and he cannot get any kind of job to earn some extra money to help support the family (they have two children).

It is so frustrating to me to sit here with all these rights I've taken for granted for so long and to watch as Daniel and his family struggle. I know immigration law was made even more strict after September 11 to protect those of us who live here, but I don't like to see it affect nice, honest people who have come here to make a better life for their children. Imagine going from being a professional with a pretty nice comfortable life to someone who can't even get employment serving french fries at a drive-through.

Any immigration law experts out there who can explain this to me?