Hungry for Far Away Places

Is it the spring?! Or is it my birthday?! Whatever it is, I get bitten by the travel bug every year, around this time, and I start planning for the road… After the hibernation of winter, I guess, I just feel like I am rusty and gotta move around… After the stagnant air of the winter, when all I did was gather moss from the cold and the rains, I get hungry for far away places to freshen up my eyes and my heart, and wash away the mold… It’s a return to my true nature, of a wanderer; it’s a return to our true nature of changing and moving… I read more travel magazines and sites now than ever in the year, and I dream… I dream big, and I dream far away…
I want my mom’s crepes in a sun-flooded Sunday kitchen and dad’s homemade pizza slices for brunch; I want to smell the freshly cut grass and gather it, and stack it in the pastures of the mountains of Bucovina; I want the taste of the first kiss after a hard day’s work at hay gathering, taste of wild strawberries and fresh spring waters… I want to go mountain climbing in search of mushrooms for dinner, and wild blueberries for dessert; I want to walk the streets of Iasi and eat funnel cake and laugh while flirting, and stop for coffee or a half liter bottle of beer; this time of the year, I smell the dirty Istanbul, a city with no public restrooms, that smells like an overflowing public restroom itself…; I want to climb the Pamukkale peak, and slide and fall behind, but still make it to the top, barefoot and wet from the thermal springs, but happy in the face of God’s miracle; I want to eat Turkish olives with every meal, and Turkish bread to go with them, and feel just…orgasmic pleasure…; it’s now that I start smelling the pot in Amsterdam’s bars, and eat the pizza in Vienna, and have some great, pure, smooth, light Austrian beer to wash it down with; I smell cow’s manure in the stables of Pojorata that I had to clean for years as a child; I dream of the one night stands without consequences, that I had when traveling in college, around Romania… the taste of the risk was so delicious! (I can’t say “sweet”, I hate “sweet(s)”); they tasted like freedom…
I miss roaming the streets of England, with the perfect curbs and the flawless asphalt (no potholes there!), the traffic on the wrong (yes! the “wrong”!!!) side of the street; the red brick houses everywhere, and the black iron gates of London; the polite English gentlemen who are still using “pardon me” to apologize for inadvertently stepping on your shoe while standing in “a queue”; the smell of the sea, at Margate; the stuffiness of the people of Cambridge and the openness of their “open” markets; I dream of burying my feet once again in the golden sands of the Bulgarian Varna; I even miss seeing the empty communist stores of Moldova, before the “Revolution”, empty and gray, and sad with the silence of the people bored. Everything I remember from my trips is so rich and I miss it so…I want to take it in all, at one time NOW!
I want to breathe fully the salty air of the Black Sea, and the dry hot air of the Turkish desert; the cold, humid and rainy air of the North Sea, the cold dry air of the Rockies, in January, so crisp, your nostrils bleed, the salty, stuffy and stinky air of the Atlantic on 4th of July in Charleston; the throw-up smell of New Orleans’s streets, and I want to hear the zydeco music hollering from the bars, while watching the kids dance in the streets, while I am getting a heavenly buzz form the “huge ass beers to go” offered in every street corner bar; I miss the stinky Boston seafood, so fresh and sea-stinking, your pee smells for days. I miss climbing at the top of the World Trade Center and feeling truly on top of the world, really feeling like I have, alas!, conquered my dream, of being an American.
But most of all, I miss the airports, and the planes, people watching, the sticky, sweaty feeling of being on the road for at least 24 hours, the crappy food, the espresso shots in the Amsterdam, Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna, Detroit, Newport, Chicago airports, and everywhere between home and … anywhere…
It’s food and smells and images of distant places that I don’t get to see everyday for me that I miss and long every year, around this time. And somehow, I know, each spring, that I will find the roads to take me back to these places, once again, or to open new doors towards new ones …
I am part Gypsy, and I know I will forever have the wanderer in me. I have a wandering heart and a wandering eye for sure … and I thank God for that! The minute I come home, I think of the next place to set off to… It’s a constant move, for me, just like life… And it’s freedom: nothing is stationary in this world, so should we be?! The settling is just temporary; being stuck is a temporary thing, just like the concept of “today”… Just like the river gets bigger with every drop of rain, so I get richer with every new trip I take. Fuller of life, experience, wisdom, acceptance, and love towards everything that moves and breathes and exists.
Yes, I get bitten by the travel bug, and a friendly bug it is. I guess it’s like the heroin needle (had I ever done it, I would know better…): gives you pleasure and pain, but more pleasure… :-) But unlike heroin, it doesn’t kill you, but it feeds you and enriches you, makes you grow and bloom, like the new flowers in the spring: makes you a new and whole person, once again.
This year, so far, I have these planned: Europe, Canada (new territory for me…), the beach, somewhere, and definitely some mountain trips…And the world was created infinite, so who knows what else…

An A.D.D. World – or : An A.D.D. America, Revised

I have discovered that we cannot get frustrated or in the least bothered by the A.D.D. in our co-workers, partners, family folks, etc I believe we all are, to some extent, somewhat A.D.D. Think about it?! It's the society we live in that REQUIRES us to be that way: you hardly ever see a job ad in the paper that does not require us to be "multi-tasked". Well, you cannot be multi-tasked unless you're paying attention to 10 things at the same time: answer the phone, while reading a new e-mail, while opening the postal mail, while talking to your boss who's giving you yet a new task and all these have to be done efficiently and fast, so that we all can meet the deadlines! And it doesn't stop there: we drive home and the cell rings while we have to drive, and yield, and look for a jay-walker or another jackass driver who's cutting us off, and grab a snack from the purse since our blood sugar is low from spreading ourselves too thin in the first place, and we need an afternoon jumpstart, because we're driving to school, after a 10 hour work day! Then we get home, and we have to feed the pets, while opening the mail, and turning the TV on to see what else has been going on in the world, while the phone rings and it's our friend Alice who wants to go out for a drink tonight or maybe Saturday, and we're listening to the news while trying to figure out what in the world is on our calendars for Saturday anyways, while the cat decides to flip the water bowl and make a mess on the carpet, and oh, shit! we have a "sales" party tomorrow with a bunch of "fancy ladies" and the carpet is now wet and stained"Sorry Alice, let me call you right back"! It makes my head spin just to think about all this, although it's pretty much an accurate description of my (and many of the people's I know!) daily routine. And our brains get "trained" to constantly LOOK FOR the next thing to do. Never for the "what's here and now", but for "what else" I need to be doing to keep up...
The opposite of A.D.D. is focused, but you cannot be focused on ONE thing alone anymore: you would be stampeded on by the world, run over and left behind! The only way we can keep up, we think, is by rushing onto the next thing on the list while still doing the one before. I wonder sometimes where and if all this will stop one day?!
You know, Napoleon was so unique because him doing 5 things at one time was really a RARE, and indeed special talent: it's not customary for the human brain to function like that! (I am obviously not a doctor, but I don't think it is). By pushing our bodies in this manner, to make something so rare be part of our usual life, we're defying nature in the first place, and something, somewhere, is gotta snap! And therefore, we're all "diagnosed" nowadays! (man, wouldn't Freud be proud of me??!!). We should all be, anyways. Should we all be on Ritalin then?!
I go to Yoga class, and I lie in Savasana and the instructor says "let go" and you're supposed to LET THE HECK GO and just focus on breathing and just being and I am thinking: "Shit! Bills need to be paid tonight!" and "I haven't vacuumed since 2 weeks ago" and I hate myself right then and there. And yet I move on. Gotta catch up!
The only thing we don't do while doing other things that "have to" be done is relax, and breathe. We never think of that as a part of our "multi-tasking", and it's a shame. I read in one of my Yoga books one time, that "the giant turtle breathes 4 times a minute, and is calm, and lives many hundreds of years, whereas the dog and the monkey breathe 40-60 times a minute, and are restless and excitable and live 10-15 years only." It seems to me, we all have a lot to learn from the quiet and calm turtle. Don't you think?! Happy new week, everyone! And PLEASE, remember to breathe, amongst all the other things ...

The Taste of a Lonely Friday

You work overtime on a Friday, that’s when you know you have no life! Everyone’s going home, with plans, even the little ol’ lady who lives with her grandma, and you’re stuck at the office, entering data, because you were too busy answering requests all day… And you get an extra one hour of overtime at the office, ON A FRIDAY!!!! – that’s when you know you’re lonely. It can wait till Monday, but… you have nowhere better to go to, so you don’t mind staying over! In the process you run into problems, and you gotta call your co-workers for advice, and they’re out drinking at the bar, giving you instructions on how to fix stuff… They’re at the BAR!!! That’s how you know you’re lost! Un-redeemable!
You drive home and all the cars around you have one person in them. Just the driver. Of course, we ALL drive in America, but it’s Friday night, and people should have dates, family gatherings, birthday celebrations tonight, as a Friday… No, this particular Friday it’s all single person’s cars…And they all look either sad or indifferent. Staring at the road like into the hopelessness of single-hood: empty and bare, and scared; driving along… full of thought… And the music in the cd player even sounds empty, like it’s not playing for me, but just to fill the silence … It’s sad, in a way, too…
And you go shopping alone, and you come home alone, and the pets are so tired and bored, they find their own corner and want not to be touched. They’re lonely, too. It’s a Lonely Friday. Except for the fish! They’re crammed together in this small bowl! They HAVE to be “together”… They “socialize”, ‘cause they have to… Forced by the circumstances, they will NOT feel alone… So, there’s hope!
My dad always said: “Never drink alone. Call your neighbor for a glass of wine, just never drink alone”… Well, I am just doing that. And let me tell you, dad, you were right: a drink doesn’t taste good when you drink alone. It tastes bitter, just like loneliness… That’s what alone is: drinking alone on a Friday… and letting Aerosmith fill the silence. There is no tomorrow. There is only a very empty and lonely Friday Now…
And the cd is playing: “and we’re saying a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight”. I hope they are. I know that the desperate hearts need it. :-)

Valentines Day: Leave Hallmark Out of It!

One thing that still strikes me in America is how little her people know of her history and traditions; how ignorant they are about their own culture and their place in the world, as well. I think it’s my fault for being so nit-picky about this, because I come from a (very small) culture where history is valued and revered and it’s what makes us, as a small country, stand out in the world. I once had a professor (in Romania) say that yes indeed Americans are ignorant, and they don’t know their own geography and presidents, and political organizations, and all, they don’t know the history of America itself, past their photo albums, but when they drive their fast cars which they can afford to change every couple of years, and they live in their mansions on the lakes and oceans, when they have all their needs met at the snap of their fingers, they couldn’t care less who was the first president or the last for that matter; or what continent Romania is on. And he was probably right.
What I don’t like about this whole thing is the vehemence with which they profess their (wrong) knowledge of things; their self-assuredness, and the lack of interest in knowing better and in finding out what the truth really is. God forbid you (who are right) tell them different, you’re head is gone! They’re Americans, by God, biggest power of the world, in every sense of the word, how dare you?! Of course they are right.
The last thing that set me off was how everyone, across the board blames Hallmark for the "cheesiness" of Valentines Day, and calls it, again, across the board, a "Hallmark-invented holiday". Every year, around this time, I hear at least half of a dozen people say the exact same words and it just eats at me!!! And I have good reason why, trust me!
Let me explain:
We don't celebrate Valentines Day in Romania, for the simple fact that Valentine is a Catholic saint, and in Romania probably 90% the population is Eastern Orthodox. So, for 23 years I never celebrated it. The first time I learned about Valentines Day was probably in 6th grade (or maybe 7th?!), but it was NOT from an American, or an American-related occurrence: back then, I was falling in love with Thomas Hardy's novels: I was reading "Far From the Madding Crowd", and in the opening chapters of that book, the female heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, impulsively sends Farmer Boldwood a valentine sealed with the words "Marry Me". And that's when I looked up the word "valentine" and found out about the whole Valentines Day tradition on February 14th of every year. Hardy's book was written around 1874, and Hardy, for those who don't know is an English Victorian writer, who lived between 1840 and 1928. Now, back to America, the Hallmark founder, Joyce Clyde Hall, was born in David City, Nebraska in 1891. That is 17 years AFTER the aforementioned book was already on the shelves of Europe. Now, unless history is wrong, as you can see, he was not able to be of any blame at least regarding the "invention" of this holiday. Want more history? Here 'tis:

- if you want the whole legend (or legends as they are many) of how Valentines Day came about, visit the History Channel online and they will explain to you what you need to know (not what you want to know, which may be two different things); I got the link right here: http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valentine/?page=history ; but just to give you an idea : the February the 14th celebration points back to events that occurred during the 3rd century in Rome, more exactly the year 270. That is, as you can see, long before America even dreamed of being discovered.

- Also, according to the History Channel, Catholics started celebrating this feast on the very same date mentioned above, which has been kept to this day, around 498 AD, when Pope Gelasius said it's OK; again, that is LONG before poor ol' Joyce Clyde Hall of David City, Nebraska existed.

- And as I have mentioned, at least Hardy knew about it, in 1874 when he wrote his novel, well before Hallmark as well (Hall started this wholesale postcard business around 1910).

At any rate, after digging into a little bit of history like this, I felt it was right to exonerate the poor Hallmark name at least from this one wrongful accusation. The fact that Valentines Day today remains 'cheesy' is not to be contested however, but coming from the old world, let me tell you: "we the people" made ALL of our holidays cheesy! Look at Christmas! Look at the way we celebrate Easter! Now, tell me, what does the birth of Jesus in a poor, cold and dirty stable, a long, long time ago have to do with the insanity of gift-giving in our country ?? What does Jesus have to do with buying a new vehicle and a new motorcycle and 1000 pairs of socks, and ties and shirts and panties?! Don't give me the "spirit of Christmas" crap, because the spirit is Christmas is not, and should not, be maxing out your credit cards and paying interests to all the creditors known to man until you die and then some! That is NOT the spirit of Christmas. How cheesy is that?!? Are we blaming Hallmark for that too? What about Easter? Now tell me, what does dying on the Cross in horrible torture, and the Resurrection of Christ have to do with hiding plastic pastel colored eggs in the grass?? What do pastel colors (which are unnatural, lab made colors that you can never find in natural state, a fairly modern invention of ours) have to do with something that happened almost 2000 years ago?! Tell me what jelly beans and awful sugary peeps have to do with all that?! Hallmark again?! It's US who have and make a choice, not Hallmark.
I guess what we need to do rather, is reflect upon us, and what our choices are. "We, the people" are keeping these folks in business and altering tradition and passing on mutilated history. We try to embellish it and make it "fun", when the truth of the matter is: we have a moral duty to our future generations to pass on what the truth is, and the truth is not, in my opinion, in flooding your floor with presents on Christmas, and your yard with plastic eggs for Easter, or gaining 4 pounds from boxed chocolates on Valentines Day. I think the truth is much richer and deeper than all that and what the children of tomorrow need is to learn the naked, raw, albeit "un-fun" truth. Not the fads, which are here today, and may be gone tomorrow. And it's OUR responsibility to distinguish between the "cheese" and the history, and to teach them better. And it's ultimately OUR "cheese". So, don't blame Hallmark, or WalMart, or Target! They're here just to scratch OUR itches!

The New Addiction

It’s a “brave new world” this MySpace world, I tell you. And BRAVE it is! You can see things, and do things, and ask things, and show things that would otherwise be forever hidden and lost in the deep and dark barrel of the human subconscious. It is a peek through the dark curtain of our daily lives; it is an escape from our boring, no-time-for-anything-fun, overworked, under-vacationed lives and a chance to be risqué and dangerous at the same time, with virtually no consequences.
Sure, there are “decent” things/people on MySpace, like music exchanges and interesting conversations, talks about sports and books, and honest people who want to JUST be your friend or talk about their kids, their parents or pets… Sure there are… Just like any other society, there is always a dignified and honorable minority. There surely is. :-)
But in all its vastness, MySpace is much, so much more colorful than just that!
Where else can you break the ice between two complete strangers with “ hey, hon’, you think I’m bangable?”? (well, at least you try to break it; but if you “hit” the wrong person, then the ice is forever!). Try that as your new pick up line at the bar, see what happens! Where can you just look at pictures of naked bottoms (and I am not talking Victoria’s Secret naked!), see hard-on’s “the size of Florida” (a movie quote) just about around the clock? Where else can you get away with saying to someone “wanna f&^k?” for a conversation starter, after dinner or first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach for that matter?! Try that on your first date at the movies, and see how fast your head will spin! It even teaches us new phrases (or maybe this is just me living a sheltered life for a long time), like “hit me up”, or “got digits?”.
It satisfies the voyeur in all of us, and feeds the pervert. It puts smiles on our faces that we can so see that we are so much better off than others! It gives us the long awaited pat on the back, that we never get from our parents, bosses, spouse, or even LIFE, in general…
When we get depressed about our OK life of making less money than what we are worth, of being loaned out on a car, house, and computer payment, and of having the “being 30 and old” blues or being single, we turn to MySpace to feel better. And we do feel better when we read that some of “our friends” (or potential ones, that BEG us to be their friends daily) live in a low income part of town, with 15 smelly cats and a drunk boyfriend whose idea of productivity is walking up to the corner and buying yet another bag of weed when the bank charges them for $350 for bounced checks and the rent is 2 months past due, and they look like a stripper after a hard day, but they still have the strength (it must be strength!!) to call themselves “Ms. Independent”, or “Ms. Perfect” for the “screen name”! We feel proud reading Coelho and Frank McCourt, and Salinger, when others cannot spell the word “heard” or even “are” and cannot construct the simplest of sentences … Our lives are so much better now! Oh, yes indeed. We, unlike others, are headed somewhere. We might be old, and single, and lonely, but not that far off as most of our peers! We feel special.
And there is no bloody discrimination here, either… No such thing as “the house is full, you’re out”, no “A-list” bull crap, no “this party ain’t for you!” mumbo-jumbo, no American Idol and Survivor gruesome auditions… Not at all!. We ALL get to experience these stories, and pictures and lives of people as diverse as the leaves in a forest! Even if physically we are no richer in friends, nor close acquaintances, have no prospects of friends because we’re too paranoid to meet them, or simply too busy to make the time (and I am seriously starting to doubt if at least ONE person here can make a really good friend indeed out of this mess), we have at least the consolation that we can ALL be part of this Babel Tower, and can see into ALL these lives, we ALL have these enlightening happy moments right from our computer screen. And thus our lives have been changed one more time with a new fad… We sign up and that’s all we need … to have a friend, or 1000, or to be a star for that matter. We get compliments, and pass compliments, we wish happy birthday and happy valentines day and whatever else is going on that day to people we’ve never met, and probably never will…
All of a sudden, our lives get new routines and are changed forever: we’re all addicts for the daily MySpace fix: we get to work, we check “our space”; we leave work, we need some good juicy story to mull over on the ride home, and CNN and the local news site is SO overrated; we’re all hungry for the “real stuff”; we check “our space” before we leave; and we get home 20 minutes later, and we gotta see who else popped up on “our space”, what kind of freak is e-mailing us now, what kind of wacko wants to be our friend again, or what other survey is there to fill out. The blood needs it, and the brain needs it, and we make sure, loyal, pitiful addicts as we are to ourselves always, that we feed that need!
I guess we’re all slaves of our times: if it’s not books, or papers and magazines, it’s the radio or the tv, or the sitcoms, or the reality shows. Now, we’re a step up (wait a minute: maybe a step DOWN??!!) from Reality TV because we ALL can be stars! We all can get hitched here, in some sort of debasing way, we all can talk dirty and have at least cyber sex till the cows come home! We can all be on Oprah and Jerry Springer and the newscast all in one spot here. We are the actors, and the directors, and the spectators all in one. And there is no silly law to protect our oh so young and innocent eyes from a nipple, either! We get the full fledged instant gratification for free. We just can’t win a million dollars … yet! But other than that, Reality TV, move over! MySpace is here!!! And trust me: people dig it!

Tag-wonder?!

Driving down the road the other day, I read on a personalized tag, “GOD IS 4”. And sitting there, in my little Japanese car, I am trying to figure out what in the world that might mean? Or spell? “God is NOT 4” – I tell myself; I kept learning in church that “God is 3”!!! The Father, the Son and the Holly Spirit, right?! … So, He’s NOT 4!… Then I am telling myself: OK, go back to geography: think where you are: think America, think South, and figure it out, girl! Is He “FOR war”? “FOR life”? “FOR Peace”? “FOR … what the heck”?!? I still have not figured it out and I am still looking. It will bug me forever, and I keep thinking, probably all the people around me know the answer, of course… But to me, it’s one of these “cultural mysteries” that will never be found, maybe… Or if it will, it will be first laughed at… maybe… But it's one of those mysteries that make my life as a foreign transplant so wonderful: there will always have to be a splash of not-knowing and wondering for me to live this life to the fullest in this world. Always a little part of my curiosity ... un-satisfied. And that is quite OK. Just like an utterly divinely delicious food, that will always have ONE last ingredient you cannot guess!

Drama Queen?!!

I have been called many (oh, Gosh, SO many !!) things in my life, but “drama queen” is not one of them… So, my latest MySpace “friend” (you know, this site debases the meaning of that word so much, it should almost be illegal!) that has been “chatting” with me through e-mails and yahoo chatter thing calls me the ultimate drama queen… Why, I am not sure, but then again, he accuses me, also, of asking too many why?’s… Let’s see why he calls me a drama queen, first:
- about 75% of the conversations he starts are of sexual nature; now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a prude, and not shy when it comes to sex, and have been starving for it for some time now . I’m European, after all, and very open minded, in general, and that happens to be one of my favorite topics, too, … but it’s a bit odd to talk about oral sex, and how much I enjoy it (or not), and the size and the shape of the said “friend”’s penis, with someone who is a complete stranger, still…; if I ask to veer the conversation towards more general topics, like my life, and his life, I am a “drama queen”, because I want him to “know everything about me in one conversation, and not allowing him to discover that little by little”… yeah, go figure;
- he decides to come with me to a movie I have planned to go to alone, and after talking for an hour over the phone, he changes his mind, and he says he’s not sure about the movie, he will get back with me tomorrow, to tell me for sure; when “tomorrow” comes, and I wait to see what happens (although not very hopeful) , he says sorry, can’t come (after self-inviting himself in the first place, and being shocked that I would even consider going to a movie on my own, on a “date night” like Friday!!) to the movie; he says though, he misses my voice, so please call later; I say: well, you call me(and I infer, stupid me, “if YOU miss me, then freaking YOU call!) … when he doesn’t call, and I ask casually why he didn’t call, since he missed MY voice … I am a drama queen! Mind you I did NOT miss HIS voice, and I did NOT invite him to the movie he DID not come to! But when I ask why … I am a drama queen!
- we talk for almost a week and set up this “drink meet” thing ( I refuse to call the first MySpace meets, a “date”!!), and about … hhmm… 4 hours before we’re ready to finally meet face to face, he says sorry, he can’t make it to our “drink meet” thing, because, you see, he has this “obligation” towards his MOTHER that he (conveniently?!) forgot about; when I finally say: screw it, the guy is sooo not serious and wants to play games, and I share that with him, in an effort to remain honest (as I always am) …you guessed it: I am once more “a drama queen”… :-)And...and...get this: when I am doubtful about our "relationship" and seriousness of it, I am accused also of "feeling sorry for myself"...
OK… All I have to say to that, I guess, is: no comment… but at the same time: get a life, boy! If you think I feel sorry for myself because you keep pooping on your own word, you got a lot to learn about a woman: first, that they have way more self esteem than YOU!
I am still amazed at how childish and naïve and immature 30 year olds are in this country! They are out to party, play and be played, not having any “weight” about their lives and time at all … Their word means nothing, most of the time, and they are not only fine with that; they are proud of it, because you see girls are “such drama queens and boys are so simple and easy”! Sure, I’d say: boys wanna screw or cheat or score, or not be serious, of course, they are “simple and easy”… You hardly need a brain for THAT! I believe this culture of "there are other fish in the sea" is part of the problem: why would one "give a fiddler's fart" about their word, since the "sea is full of fish" and we can all start over again with just about anyone who's able and willing?! There is no seriousness about relationships around this place, and that's a fact!
When I tell people I want to meet 40 year olds I am laughed at, but I am least hoping that skipping a generation in my dating preferences can only be a good thing!
The one thing that strikes me to this day abut this culture (America) is … the naivety of all the people, the way they refuse to grow up! I went to class with people over 60 at some point, and only then I felt at home.
So, does that mean I am doomed to be alone till I am 60?! We can only hope not!

Things you miss…

… when just becoming single, there are certain things you do enjoy, like the lack of commitments and such, to family and friends, the lack of having to give an explanation for your whereabouts. The money you save in outings and family birthdays… But there are certain things I miss, too; here are some of them:
- a shopping partner, at Walmart, especially
- a TV watching partner
- a movie going partner
- a weekend getaway partner
- a long, far away trip buddy
- a drink partner for after work
- a sushi partner
- an open and honest chit-chat at the end of the day
- shop talk
- an occasional lunch buddy
- a “bitching about your family” - talk partner
- I have to pop my own toes now
- hearing “ I love you” every night before I go to sleep
- weird… I didn’t say love…or the three letter “S” word! I do miss that, too, …I guess …
But I try to move along, and live every minute just for the fullness of it, and not expect much! It’s not easy. But do I miss all these? Or do I miss the person?? Tough call! Yes, I undoubtedly miss all these… Could any other person do these things? I can only hope there is at least one out there who will be able to, one day!

Going to a movie

Sometimes, I am not sure how America made it so far at this speed! Let me tell you, some families out there LIVE to just make a whole entire day out of going to a movie! Forget common courtesy, forget manners, forget being mindful about other’s space, it’s THEIR movie, and THEIR day, and THEIR ticket booth, and THEIR concession stand and so help you God, you are going to yield to their fat asses, and hold your horses while they take their sweet ol’ time!!! I am cleaning today, and cooking, and doing laundry, and cleaning cat boxes, because I have a full time job and today is my chore day, and I give myself (silly me, this is the (sslllooooooowwwwwww) South!!! ) just about 40 minutes to drive to the movie theater, and get tickets, get popcorn and sit in my chair. Well, too bad! I would have needed about an hour and a half to do it all in a timely fashion.
I drive to the theater, and of course there is a line getting into the parking lot, because every fat a$$ mama wants a close parking spot! Well, too bad, folks, it’s 4.40, it’s not 6 am, so ALL the “good” spots are taken, move along! No, they coast! And they wait for someone to get out of a parking spot… I am not sure who they’re waiting for, because it doesn’t look like anyone is even in another parked car getting ready to move ! No, they coast! Oh, I see now: they want the curb: there are no spaces left, but there is always the curb! So I wait, and wait for the fat mama to get her curb spot so I can bypass her! I drive way to fast for a parking lot, but I don’t care! I finally park, at the end of the lot, and run to the ticket window. There is a line of maybe 15 people. Kids, old people, FAT people, mostly! I stand in line and can’t help but noticing one fat kid, maybe 14, with a stud in her lower lip, leaning against the ticket window. Not buying tickets, but she’s leaning against it. People come, buy their tickets, leave, and she stands there, VISA card in her hand, waiting. Fat lady with 2 skinny little girls (what do you expect, all the food goes to the mother, so the kids are skinny, right?) buy tickets, then head towards the same door everyone that buys a ticket heads towards: they wiggle it vigorously, the push it, pull it, one of the skinny little girls kicks it. The sign on the door as big as my head: EXIT ONLY! Too many calories can get to your head, I tell ya’. Person after person after buying the tickets goes through the same ritual: tickets- exit only door- turn around- long way around the line to the right entrance door! Over and over again! You’d think they’d notice the person before them doing it , but no, they always head for the wrong door first, JUST because it’s closer to the ticket booth! Oh, American convenience!
Two people before me, great! I’ll get my tickets and still might be able to make it just in time for the previews! Yey! Well, hold on a minute, the fat girl with the stud decides she wants a ticket! OK! You’ve been leaning against the damn window for 10 minutes and now you gotta jump in??? What? It’s too hard carrying your damn weight on your back? You can’t STAND in line?? You gotta LEAN?? Geez! NO, she doesn’t want tickets, she wants to ask if they take VISA cards or debit cards. After seeing 10 people or more handing their credit cards to the window lady, you could not figure THAT one out??? And can you freakin’ read??? There is a big FAT VISA logo and a MasterCard one right above your fat hand, on the damn window! Geez, what planet have you dropped from?? “Sign here, ma’am” – the ticket lady goes. The large 14 year old looks puzzled: “ It’s a debit card”; The little lady has to sit and explain, that yes, that might be the case, but you’re using it as a credit, since we don’t have the cozy little machine that lets you punch in your stupid pin! She looks at the lady incredulous, and signs the receipt, reluctantly! Walks away, ever so slowly, to the EXIT ONLY door!
OK, so I buy my ticket and figure well, all the people are probably done buying the popcorn, and into the theater, I should be fine! Wrong! Still a ton of people buying treats! But… the good thing is: I have a choice there between several lines, so I choose the shortest, only 3 people, but after 5 minutes of no one leaving I realize there is no one but kids in that one, so until they make up their minds about popcorn or sweets, or maybe both, Pepsi or Doctor Pepper, I might as well consider my movie ended!!! So, I head toward another line, 5 people in it, but all adults! So, I figure, they’re faster… Well, guess again! Husband wants popcorn, but wife can’t agree on the size! Husband wants butter, wife doesn’t, “it’s too greasy”; husband says: “well, just a tad, honey, please?!, we’ve dieted ALL week long”… Wife rolls eyes, “all right”… She plucks the napkins from the holder one by one, careful not to break them half way, and waiting to get to the little rip before she breaks them off! FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS, PEOPLE! My movie has started !!!!!!!!! I’m hoping I can see in the dark, and hope to God the previews ran a little longer! Movie has started 10 minutes ago, according to my schedule! Everyone, but I mean EVERYONE moves sooooo slowly! Like someone just woke them up from a deep slumber and put them on the streets! Stay the heck home and watch your dvd collection if you feel too slow and tired to go to the damn movies, don’t interfere with some other people that have a purpose and wanna get this rolling, dumba$$!
And yes, sure enough, after the little counter girl asks for my order 3 (THREE) damn times (small popcorn and a cup of ice, easy, right??), I finally get what I want, and head to the theater! And some prayers ARE answered, since now there is no line to get into the movie! Whoo-hoo! Walk in the dark, walk up the stairs, sit in the first aisle chair I find, and the first scene of the movie starts! Previews, and intro passed! Sh^t! I can’t even see who’s playing in it! Oh, well! I’ll watch the credits at the end! Happy Saturday to you too, people! And MOVE THE HEL^ FASTER!!!!!!!!

Dating… again… on MySpace and otherwise…

Hhhmmm… not sure what I’m going to say about the new chapter in my life, the one of trying to date and connect again! I do hate to admit that I feel very much rusty after 4 years of dating the same person! Although I don’t feel OLD, or even TOO OLD to date, I must admit that being thrown or just throwing myself into the dating scene one more time is more than just challenging! Wow! It’s like facing a new world, new solar system, maybe?!!
So, I have opened this new account on MySpace.com (or as my friend Sean calls it “HotStuff.com” – that is not a “real” site, it pulls up an adult site search engine, I checked!) and now I am being hit by all the freaks of the Universe with their weird comments, and undersexed longings, or even worse: unfulfilled teenage fantasies! So, on MySpace.com I met 3 people so far, I mean, “face to face”, because if you’re really into it, you “meet” people every day, if not every other hour!. Including women, offering … heterosexual affairs to … ME!
At any rate, looking at the pictures late at night, over a light beer and after a day’s work, and reading the profiles and trying to picture myself with any of these singles is… interesting to say the least! Frightening most often, and absolutely full of despair at times! I went as far as to even yahoo my ex boyfriend and demand him back! There is nothing but a zoo out there! People with weird tattoos, of shooting women, weird headlines, of “ I almost felt guilty once, but she woke up in the middle of it”, 30 year old people with Leprechaun suits showing up and competing for American Idol, and then bragging about it on MySpace.com, people posting someone else’s pictures so they too can look “cool”, and “sexy”, I guess, then insisting eve after meeting them face to face, that that too was their picture!… Just desperate people, lonely people, crying for help, and crying for connection! So far, to be honest, I have been WOWed by all this! But to find my next mate here is like trying to go to the zoo, or the mental hospital and trying to find the next sex partner amongst the exhibits or the patients! It’s a reality verging on illusion or insanity, rather! And these are supposedly “real” people, over 18 years of age that are truly trying to find someone to connect… This is just the opening chapter in my search for a partner and for a connection…So read on!

Not sure what…and some new things for the new year…

And another year started and another horizon has opened up. Although I should be sad and grim about losing Jeff and his whole family, I have been amazingly, scary-ly very bright, optimistic and open about this change… Not sure where all the optimism comes from, other than the freshness of an open door, which I have always grown to love…
I am teaching a Leveraging Conflict workshop at work, I am back (somewhat, money permitting) in Yoga, I am reading and looking into Real Estate classes, I am reassessing long forgotten relationships with old friends, and I feel surprisingly young… In the beginning, when I made the decision that Jeff and I were no longer an item, I was devastated that I am too old to start over… And I am not sure what happened, but overnight I became young again… Not sure what’s going to happen yet. I still have no trips planned, other than the ones to see my family, and Andy, but I am just looking forward to life and enjoying it… Jeff is still at the back of my mind (tomorrow will be hard: it would have been our fourth anniversary), but I feel somewhat free and that gives me energy. We can never feel truly free… But any amount of illusion is important… I meet interesting strangers online and that is somewhat of a novelty to me: to have honest too God communications with people you probably will never meet is quite the rush! In some ways, I think it’s easier, because there is no pre-judgment and no pre-conceived notions about the other person, so the flow is free… And there is no danger they can stalk you and kill you either…It’s a new thing I discovered, and I guess, for now… thanks to technology!
PS: and yes, I am aware that you NEVER start a story with “and”… but this is my blog, and thus free of criticism …

Happy New Year!

And thus I find myself in the year of 2006, almost turning 31, and alone. Strong though. I have some strength from places I am not sure they exist. I move forward. I find the strength within me every morning, to get up, and move along, and not cry and just take life as it is. Mom and dad say I have had no luck and yet I feel blessed. I feel blessed because I am alive and I’ve known some wonderful people, and places, and since I am alive and with God’s will I am well, I can make plans to see even more wonderful places and to live longer and wiser and happier, hopefully…
I am 31 and alone, and in the most desirable and envied country in the world, and on my way of becoming her citizen, and I am healthy, all things considered, and I have my family and my cats and life is good. I have hopes and dreams and the sky is once more the limit. I am choosy about people once more, and I feel like in college when there was little I wanted or needed, and yet so much. It’s good when you have a lot to be grateful for, and yet so many plans and potential for more yet. It’s going to be a good year. I promise! It has to be! We’ll keep “in touch” and see what happens, but I will plan on just having fun and enjoying the NOW.
The motto of the day is : friends you lose are not friends you needed to keep anyways. So, be happy you lost them and move right on.

30 and Counting…At the Bridge Between the Years…

Well, we’ve been together for 4 Christmases now. Same thing over and over again: at his parents’ house, lots of presents that we all “wish” on the Christmas wish lists, lots of whoos and aawwws and we move on, pass over in another year. The last one this time, though, so… momentous!
I’m done wrapping and buying and preparing, and not done cooking yet, but will be in a couple of days. I also have to travel to Charlotte, NC for my fingerprinting for my pending citizenship application ( the day before Christmas) and I’m excited about that. I’m also planning to see my Romanian family next March and my Canadian resident sister in the following fall, and maybe buying a house or maybe (just maybe) getting involved in the Real Estate business at all next year ( JUST to wow my ex-husband who thought I was never real estate material at all)…I need to stir some waters, plan some sh^t, since I’m 30, soon to be 31 and lonely, alone and feeling unaccomplished… Will figure something out eventually for the new year. Right now, busy streets, busy work, end of the year craziness at the major paper in the county, tree decorating madness, Christmas get-togethers with friends you really don’t want to see but have to, your life falling apart in the eve of a new year but you gotta pretend it’s a joyous occasion, holding breath when typing (sign of stress), blood pressure going up, Penguin wine tasting darn fine, even maybe against doctor’s orders (who cares? Life’s short, right?!), traffic madness, can’t wait for the next trip excitement, alone, and lonely and feeling for the first time in months empowered and strong. Old timy taste in the mouth of boiled red wine with bay leaves in the Romanian mountains, kissing and aroused. Andy near, and happy… Feeling love in the soul, although not near and not now. Living off of the memories this year… Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. No, really, honestly, a happy and a merry one! Hope for all… 

July 2005 Trip: Washington, DC Day Trip

A Day’s Trip
"Hotel rooms are like relationships: intimate and powerful. The good ones nurture, making you feel relaxed and happy. The bad ones get under your skin and fill you with impotent rage." (Jennifer Cox- "Around the World in 80 Dates").

Recently, we decided, Jeff and I, to take a one night – two day trip to Washington. It was mainly for an appointment I had with the Romanian Embassy, but we decided to spice it up a bit. We took off after work one day, on a Tuesday, drove to somewhere in Northern Virginia, and the following day we drove the rest of the day, to DC. For such trips, we never make reservations: we always find coupon travel brochures and find cheap hotels to stay in for a night. This time, the hotel was cheap indeed, and, as J reminded me, you get what you pay for. A Days Inn hotel that advertised a $38.99 rate in the brochure, turned out at the door to have a $47.99 smoking only rate going on. What could we do? Drive off somewhere else? It was close to midnight and we were both tired. The room appeared to have been flooded at some point, as the ceiling, the window treatments and the carpets were generously decorated with giant stains of water. Dried now. The smell of wet carpet was still persistent and so was the smell of smoke; a used ashtray was nicely placed on one of the beds, right next to a pillow. The next morning, we found that there was running water, but only through the tap, not through the showerhead ; the shower knob was broken, and could not channel the water through the shower pipe. That brought back memories from the communist days when we had to “take baths” in the sink, by splashing water at our bodies, since the water did not have enough pressure to make it through the tub’s piping system. After a breakfast of stale bagels and warm juice, we headed to Washington. After the appointment with the Embassy, we drove to the National Museum of the American Indian, a newly build Smithsonian institution, less than a year old.
Built in undulating shapes, just like nature, (no wall or staircase has straight lines), a 4 story giant, the museum makes you feel smaller than an ant and gives you a sense of “there is something bigger than life” out here. From the inside of the main hallway, it feels like you’re in a teepee, but one that is built around all the Indian nations from all over the land. We visited the exhibits, learnt about the different nations, took tons of pictures of artifacts (like ornate skulls, jackets made of fish scales and whale guts lining) and ate Native food: buffalo burger, Indian taco on fried bread, wild rice, a red snapper in coconut stew (delicious!!!) and the sweetest cornbread I have ever been given to taste in my entire life! Now, having lived in the South for the past 7 years, that is a really amazing compliment right there!
I marveled at the similarities these cultures have with other religions and cultures of the world, especially since they’ve always seemed so remote, as a culture, from the rest of the world. Here are some examples of such similarities: on one of the walls, I found this quote, near a picture of a turtle ( in Hindu traditions, the turtle is seen as either the Creator of the world, or as the support of the Earth itself): “The Creator is truth. The Sun is true. No one in this universe could ever change the sun. Truth is represented by those things that never change” – and what does our Christian tradition tell us: “I (Jesus, Son and God says) am the Truth, the Life and the Way”; a symbolic “eye of the storm” had a half black and half red background, which, in some Eastern cultures are true opposites (like black and white in others). Again, I pondered upon our similarities and things we all have in common: no matter how different we may look, we’re looking at the same world, and see it with similar hearts, understanding it with similar brains. Nothing is ever random, someone once said: we’re all connected, and related, and we are all part of the same big continuum. Nothing ever ends, it just evolves into stages and goes further (as the Natives also believe)…The peace I find in the unity and harmony of it all has a special silence, and an “awe-some” feeling of belonging. The visit was a moment in time: a moment when you feel that there is something stronger and bigger than us, something that governs all creatures of all places; and a moment when we too could bow our heads in respect of a culture so close to us, in more ways than one and so rich.
Shower working or not, room rate overpriced or not, we found out what's more important in a trip: it's the hidden treasures such as these finds that keep us going back on the roads, and not the promise of a Ritzy hotel. After all, 60 years from now, looking back, the museum findings will still be there, in our minds and hearts, the Days Inn will fade away as just another cheap hotel we spent one unfortunate night in.
We headed back home, and after fighting the now notorious Washington traffic, we got home late that night, richer and happier.
And for everyone who would like to see the pictures from that trip, please enjoy here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alinaafloarei75/album?.dir=e41f&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alinaafloarei75/my_photos

October 2005 Trip: In the States with Andy

My sister and I have not seen each other since 2003, in September, when I went home, to Romania, to visit family. This year, after being a Canadian resident for over a year now, she was granted a visa to come and visit me for a week. It was a visit of love, and memories we both hold dear; a visit of recollection and of finding each other again, in each other’s arms. It was like coming home, after a long and unfriendly journey. It opened up a new world for me: the world seen and enjoyed through HER eyes. It recharged batteries and put new smiles on our faces. It gave us (emotional) food to live off of for another stretch of time. Here are some highlights:
- we both remembered how different we are, and yet how complimentary: she’s patient, I have a short fuse; she has a sweet tooth, I don’t; she loves shopping, and I dread it; she likes chocolate, me-vanilla; she-gold, me-silver; she is warm natured, and me- (you guessed it!)-cold natured;
- I have lived in the West for a while now, and she’s been here for just over a year: so, things like using a credit card and paying for the gas at the pump are still novelties to her, and I thrive on seeing how people discover things like these, and open their eyes to a world that’s taken for granted by all of us here everyday;
- She’s never used chop sticks, so, when they came wrapped up in the handy wrapper, and she pulled them out, she thought she has to “stab” the rolls with them: she had no idea they need to be “separated” and the food needs to be picked up with them– cute!
- She thinks that “our” Walmart shopping carts are “so new and stylish” (Jeff will tell you all about our hatred for them!!) compared to the ones in Canada (I guess that’s the Big City inheritance, huh?!), which are always dirty, off centered and hard to push;
- She discovered and loved cheesecake; she also likes bagels and sushi – things I’ve been enjoying for years and we didn’t grow up with; she also did not know there are several ways to cook an egg, or that there are several types of bread you can toast in the morning;
- She is still the same ol’ clumsy baby sister I remembered: every morning, and I mean EVERY single time of every single morning she spent with me, she spills the coffee, while trying to pour it into a cup; she dropped the trunk of my car on my head and shoulder, giving me a bruise, after a whole day of driving; she pulls one thing off a shelf in a CatStore, and several others fall down, break to pieces, including things that are maybe 3-4 feet away from us, and we’re not even touching;
- she also fears and hates insects: the first few days she wanted to enjoy my balcony, but would not go out there alone; she needed me there to make sure there are no spiders; when we went to Myrtle Beach, to the Alligator Adventure Zoo, in the dark room full of enormous, scaly serpents, she screamed out of her wits, not because of the huge crawlers, but because of a “Palmetto bug” on the floor; she wanted out at once, without really minding at all that Boa’s and Pythons that she’s never seen before are waiting to be seen only a few feet away from her; I screamed with her and felt silly, but the bonding made us laugh hysterically afterwards! This is a girl who enjoys the scariest horror flick once in a while, too!- cute, again;
- She pressed the button for our floor (11th) in the elevator, with an armful of shopping bags, thus setting off the alarm button as well, and the security people started talking to us and asking us what is wrong in the elevator; she was quiet and giggling; like the good big sister, always protecting her, I had to speak up: “ I have no idea what just made that turn off, ma’am, but thanks for checking on us. We’re fine”- do you remember when we had to lie for them to our parents about her first kiss that she would not share with anyone but us?! Yeah!
- We both enjoyed all the pets we met including my own tremendously; we remembered our cat, Dolly, that we lost this year, and remembered how pets can bring people together into unconditional love;
- I got a chance again to tuck her in at night, the way I used to do growing up, and sharing a bed with her till I was 21;
- This past heavenly week, I loved cooking for her, feeding her, spoiling her with attention, gifts and driving her around; I fussed at her for not taking her cold medicine and not taking better care of her health; I got to play the Big Sister role once again and that is a priceless, God given gift; and she got to play the Little Sister role and she played it with ease and smiles and giggles, as I always remember she would.
We’re not the small children, growing up in Romania anymore; we’re the grown women of today, but it’s nice once in a while to play kids and dive into a one week vacation with one of the people you’ll always love the most and the most unconditionally. It was one short week, that went by fast, but I would not trade it for the world. I will be forever grateful for every second of it. And pray for the next one to come here soon! Love you lots, Andy!

August 2005 Trip: NC Mountains Trip

We leave Greensboro on Friday evening, after work. We take my car, since the gas prices are so high nowadays: $2.52 at Sam’s (I’m sure we’ll laugh 20 years from now). We head West to the Blue Ridge parkway, and our destination is this dot on the map (literally): Celo, NC, or thereabouts: we have the name of Celo Inn for our host, but the address of Burnsville, NC… so…somewhere in the Mountains is as close as we wanna be.

We stop on the way and eat the last familiar, “normal” dinner of a Wendy’s chicken sandwich with a side of crispy fries and some drink that comes with the combo: we have no idea this is the end of the normalcy for the weekend and we’re heading towards the unknown.

After a long and busy ride on I40 West towards the Smokies, and some winding mountain roads, after that, we get to Celo Inn right after dusk. Nancy(the Innkeeper) told Jeff over the phone that our room was to be the “yellow one” and the bathroom was to be across the hallway, also yellow: so, we unload the trunk, and try to find out where all the people that must have driven them up there are, but upon pausing, we hear nothing but crickets and the very distant noise of US-80 cars driving by. We walk up the pebble driveway, up some stairs towards the inn, under an old wood sign that reads simply “Celo Inn”, we read the “cats live outside” sign on the main door and smile and “aawww…”, we enter the quiet lobby, looking for some sign on human presence. Again, we pause and try to listen for a noise. Nothing but our heavy breaths and crickets, and maybe frogs in the nearby stream.

On the old wooden and heavy table in the lobby we find a sign that lets us know the innkeepers are away, will be back around 10PM and if we’d like breakfast to put our names and order on the signup sheet on the table. We decide we’re not going to commit to breakfast, since it’s between 8 and 9 am. We decide to walk up and find the “yellow room” we were promised: up to the second floor we go (still no sign of humans, no noise…), and we sure enough find a yellow door of what seems to be a hotel room open: we walk in and slightly surprised we’re starting to familiarize with the surroundings were going to share for 2 days : the room has “collapsed” ceilings, as in what I call “attic rooms”, but as in what’s more known as a dormer room; it’s tiny, since the bed, dresser a coffee table and a rocking chair take up pretty much the entire floor space, with hardly any room for us to stand!

We’re quiet, and just looking around: no air conditioning unit, the thermostat-looking thing on the wall tells us we can have heat, but there is nothing about air, or “cool” marked on it; there is no tv set not a phone. We did see a square white stand up fan that would hopefully keep up cool in the NC hot and humid summer night. We realize we’re literally away from the big wide world, and for 2 days we’re just going to have each other and the mountains to entertain us. There was no lock on the door, either, and Jeff asked how is that safe? I just said lazily: “you hope it is and not worry about it.” He didn’t think I was too convincing. I have been to Celo Inn before, but these details escaped me when describing the inn to Jeff who is now looking at me with a “where the hell did you bring us, woman” look on his face???

I did tell him that Burnsville is in the county of Yancey and that would be a dry one, so we did bring a cooler with beer. We checked the bathroom across the way, and sure enough it had a yellow door, and all you could expect in it: luckily, running and hot water as well. Upon seeing that Jeff realized that not all hope is gone: he can at least enjoy the shower in the morning and the privacy of his own bathroom.

We opened up some beer, and started walking the grounds. We did run into another couple who had another yellow room at the end of the hallway, but we didn’t converse: the quiet and peace were contagious, obviously, and we just respected that: we whispered to each other and hardly made any eye contact with anyone we saw for the next 2 days.

That night, city geeks that we are, we both pulled our laptops from the bags and started writing, or playing computer games. Drinking beer to unwind, of course, too…We were hot, and hot we stayed pretty much the entire night.

We woke up the next day, avid for a shower and some air conditioning. We knew we had to drive to the town of Burnsville for the latter, and that was at least 25 minutes away on the mountain roads of US 80 and I believe US 184? Or 191? Somewhere in there…

We drove to the town, admiring the small, quaint houses beading the highways, the mountains still smoking from the morning fog, and the lazy traffic along the streets. As we have learned the night before in all the quietness, and the laid-back-ness at the inn, time here is lived at another pace: there is no need to hurry, the sun will still rise in the East the next morning, the crickets and the frogs will be holding their concerts at night, every night, and the mountains will continue to smoke in the morning as they’ve done for ages, so why rush?!

We came to a sign that pointed us towards the downtown of Burnsville and after a short, maybe 2 mile ride we got in the heart of the town: old looking mountain little shops were outlining the 2 lane road that was cutting through he middle of it. We decided “Mountain Top” was a good name for a homemade breakfast, and we parked on the side of the road, and went in to have a huge meal of ham and cheese omelet, bacon, hushpuppies and biscuits, coffee and orange juice for about $4 a piece. After the breakfast we walked the streets in search of the taste of the town and mountain souvenirs…

Slow walking locals … college students part-timing in souvenir shops … dogs at the front doors of “general stores” … artsy overpriced shops of local artists …a couple of restaurants with odd hours (only open 11-2 for lunch, or open 5-8 for dinner) … 3 very Southern, middle aged ladies speaking about a common neighbor that just got married, and “oh, she’s so tiny and fine, and oh, he’s so chunky, but you figure she always liked chunky …look at all her boyfriends”… an architecturally Swiss or German church in the middle of the town … a police car … and clouds gathering …

A couple of souvenirs later, and a handful of shots, we hurried towards Mount Mitchell, the tallest mount East of the Mississippi river. By the time we got to the car and drove maybe 100 yards the rain started pouring… We took a joy ride through the mountains, and stopped for lunch in the small (and that is an understatement!) town of Little Switzerland: we entered the Little Switzerland Café, and on the menu we found out that the town was established somewhere in the early 1800’s by miners, and today it “boasts” a fire station, 12 shops, 6 restaurants and 2 hotels, a church I believe… It was one of those settlements that is clustered around the main street that cuts through it, and if you’re driving through, and decide to sigh and close your eyes, you missed it all together! Not even 100 yards long.

Amazing, to me, how wild views, cold streams, plenty of trout, breathtaking sunsets in the Smokeys didn’t urge some developers to overbuild, commercialize and practically destroy the peace and wilderness of this land, like it so happens with most of our national parks nowadays!

Being a mountain child myself, I have always prayed that mountains will always whisper so humans may never notice them, and leave them alone, to the wild, where they belong! My prayers were answered, for Little Switzerland it seemed, anyway. We had the special of the day: hearty home made chicken and noodle soup, with all grain bread. Just enough for a midday snack. And being in a different county, a beer to go with it, just for extra-fuel.

After an hour or so ride through he mountains and after the rain went away, we got to Mount Mitchell. This was our second attempt ever to climb to the top and see the views: not lucky the first time, when the rain was settled and stubborn to stay: this time there were clouds, but there was sun, too…

People with dogs of all sizes, and kids, too, and all mountain gear you can dream of. We felt above the skies on top of the world. A family called home and sang happy birthday to their brother and son, from the top of the observation tour. That was awkward, but they didn’t seem to care.

We stopped at the restaurant just below the top of the mountain, and had a cup of coffee (again, for fuel) and some iced water. Their air conditioning didn’t seem to function either, and the air in the lodge was heavy with humidity. The log cabin neighboring the restaurant, we found out, was home of 11 or 12 people that come there for the summer to work in the Mount Mitchell Park. They come from as far as 8 hours away to be in the mountains and attend to visitors. The house looked a little bigger than a double wide, made of logs and complete with a DirectTV antenna on the roof! I guess civilization tried to creep in every way it could.

We headed back home, and to some peace and quiet, and crickets again… We realized when we got back that the day had been indeed tiresome. I was not at all convinced that it had been the day, but just the stress accumulated over the week, in a stressful city and a stressful job.

After the fresh air and the quiet majesty of the mountains, after the slow moving people of the heights, we just now realized our lives do need to slow down some: we became more aware of the speed we’re used to, and be came to a screeching halt. We knew we had to drive back to Burnsville for dinner, and although hungry we just didn’t want to move.

Jeff took the rocking chair, and I took the bed: and we were lazily sipping a cold beer and hardly even talking… For an hour, we just let ourselves absorb the day. We tried to go to dinner at a close by restaurant, also, on US 80, at the foot of Black Mountain, called Albert’s, an authentic German restaurant that I remembered from my previous visit there, but they were booked for the night.

And thus we knew we had to drive back to the downtown area. I had to have trout, and fried too, since it’s my favorite fish and pretty much the only thing I ever eat in the mountains! We went to this family owned inn called Nu-Wray Fireside Grill: a colonial house, turned into a B&B and restaurant with a porch full of rocking chairs that reminded me of Cracker Barrel (I know, not as cheesy though).

The trout was delicious! A whole fish, de-boned and fried, fishy and fresh, served with a baked potato, steamed carrots and steamed cauliflower with “cheesy sauce”…. It was all out of this world! The service was outstanding, too: the mother and 2 daughters, it seemed, were the wait staff and they ALL waited on us, and the grandmother was the cook! The dining room had probably 8 or 10 4 chair tables out of which only 3 others were occupied when we got there and we were left alone, towards the end of our meal.

The closeness, and intimacy of these places makes you feel at home, and make you realize that the world is indeed small… You feel like your own person there, not swallowed in the big traffic of the city, amongst thousands of other lonely passers by like yourself.

Life has purpose and sense there and you have plenty of time to acknowledge that too, because you don’t have to rush towards your next chore! You just literally “take your time” and savor the day… while actually having the peace to "listen".

Happy, full and tired, we headed back home, and after reading a few pages from our books we fell asleep early, most definitely with a tingle in our feet and a smile on our faces. Our batteries were slowly recharging now… We needed them full by the end of the second day. The crickets were the perfect lullaby, too…Them, and the buzz of the fan…

The next morning, we did sign up for the breakfast at the inn, because we knew we had to get an early start to be able to enjoy more of the mountains. We took showers, and walked downstairs to the dining room: Mexican tiles on the floor, old antique furniture against the walls, huge wooden barn doors lead into the kitchen, and fresh mountain flowers on each of the 6 tables welcomed us. Nancy, also welcomed us, calling us “the Ghost Guests”, because she never talked to us, no one in fact talked to us over the weekend, and no one really knew we were in fact there… She said she figured we were, just because our door was closed, and she leaves it open at all times…

She started the breakfast with a bowl of fresh fruit, and fresh coffee, followed by a home made bacon-egg and grits “real” meal. Everything tasted greasy and thus delicious! We were full, and happy once more. We paid the whole remainder of the bill, said our good bye’s and please come back’s, and left as quietly as we came on Friday night.

Again, the driveway full of Japanese cars, but no people: we were starting to have a ‘Sixth Sense’ type of feeling all of a sudden: were WE the ghosts?? Or the people that allegedly drove all the cars, but we never saw? Hhhmmm…

We headed towards Grandfather Mountain for the first stop of the day, to continue our wanderings through the NC Mountains. The day was gorgeous! Poofy clouds here and there were resting on top of mountaintops like winter hats! The air was clear and sharp, one of those days when you just know the pictures are going to turn out great. The air was cool and fresh. Humidity almost died overnight, because we felt probably the first sniff of fall in the air… Springs were washing mountain rocks into the roads, and church parking lots were full… It was a happy day!

After an hour or so drive from the Inn to Grandfather Mountain, at the foot of it, when we pay the $14 fee, we find out that the wind is now blowing at the top with a constant speed of 56 mph, and they’ve registered gusts of up to 78 mph and 83 mph that day. Jeff’s eyes pop, and he asks the man why don’t they close the bridge then? The man politely says with a smile : “No, Sir, we close the bridge when we have 65 mph constant winds or higher. Right now, we’re open”…. Jeff thinks : “Oh, crap!!! Great then!” but doesn’t say anything.

I am thinking: “How cool!!! The mile high swinging bridge will be even more interesting in such a wind! All right then! Let’s go!” – but I don’t say anything either…We drive up, on the rocky, very steep roads, where the speed limit is 10mph at times, and my only fear is the little Echo we’re driving might be blown away! At he top I remember the man telling me my sun glasses might be blown away off my head, so I fasten them on my nose, then change shoes, to be able to climb the rocks, and step out of the car with nothing but my camera around my neck. We go towards the swinging bridge, people roaming around woo-ing and aaaww-ing around us. The view into the valley was picture perfect: no clouds, no fog, nothing but crisp mountain air and a flood of sun into all the valleys and lakes around us! And wind! Lots and lots of it!!! You felt like you had to scream for the person next to you to hear you. We all stood with legs apart, to acknowledge our surroundings, for a firmer foothold.

The sign on the bridge tells us that there are not to be more than 40 people at one time on he bridge and I’m thinking, looking around : Who’s here to count 40 people? No one, of course… I guess the trust in common sense is huge around these parts… We’re also told to be very careful while climbing the rocks: we are on the “craggiest” mountain in the Blue Ridge and it’s very hazardous to try to climb he peaks…

There are 2 peaks once you’re at the top, both rocky and bare, and in between them, a mile high up in the air from the sea level, the swinging bridge… Jeff is nervous; he laughs with fear that he’s not crossing. I grab his hand firmly and drag him after me, telling him there are 4 and 5 year olds around us that are crossing the bridge in a laughter, and shame on him! He’s laughing to kill the stress he’s in, and crossing, without looking down!

It’s windy all right, but despite the wind the bridge is not really moving much… It’s made of steal, and with not so tall railings, and I keep wondering how people don’t just jump over the railings more often? Or maybe we don’t hear about it?

Once on the second peak everything is quiet, and calm. We can hear the wind, but we don’t feel like we’re going to take off the ground anymore. We climb the rocks, take pictures, and head back. I stop in the middle of the bridge, to take some shots of the precipice, and to look at what the bottom of the bridge must be looking at every day, for may years now…Jeff keeps going towards the safe side, not thinking that looking down in the middle of a 80 mph gust at 1 mile up in the air is way cool…

I find him relieved on the other side of the cliff. We visit the small museum at the top that tells you a bit of the history of the bridge, the park, and gives you pictures of famous people that made it to the top; including Forrest Gump, who has a bend in the road named after him.

We head to the mini-zoo on he mountain, lower altitude, and we laugh at the goofy bears begging for more peanuts, and the playful otters, and we’re melting after the handsome cougars, and keep a moment of silence, as always near the bald eagle exhibit. To me they keep centuries worth of secrets! They are the most native American creature there are; they’ve seen it all, and are witnesses to ages for history… They don’t bother talking, although they could. They lead by example and advise us just to sit, be quiet, and listen to the wind, and watch the movement of clouds and passing of the seasons. And then, only then, we’ll understand the secret of life. But first we must learn to be quiet! And have good eyes to see…

After the zoo, we continue the descent towards the bottom. We’re about to leave the quiet and peace and serenity all behind, and head back into he “real world”. I feel lonely and regretful…

We head on the Parkway towards Blowing Rock…. The wilderness of the day (and of the weekend) is left behind, and we’re slowly sliding into the “civilized” city world: traffic lights, stores, cars and lots of them, Harleys, are welcoming us in Blowing Rock, a little after lunch time.

We stop for a late lunch of trout (of course) and catfish, and we decide we too can be tourists for half of a day. And we browse the souvenir shops, stop to talk to strange owners of small dogs, and listen to an awfully sounding Jewish, it seems, singer in the park.

The sun is hot and the asphalt almost melting: the cool wind of the woods is definitely left on the Parkway, and the town is overheated, overpopulated and noisy! No crickets …We’ve arrived back to our daily world…and I have to admit, I became kind of sad. Even if the batteries were charged, I wouldn’t have known it at that point: I couldn’t hear myself think from all the noise! Back to the world of real people. The ghosts are left behind… But it’s nice to know they’re only about 3 hours away from here…

On My Mind

... I want not to come home to an empty house anymore; I want to make breakfast on Sunday morning for 2; I want to go to hot, exotic places for the Holidays; I want to help the poor in Asia and Africa; I want someone, one day, to "lay me down in a bed of roses", and I want that to be a surprise; I want a diamond ring as a promise that I am the number one woman in that person's life, not because he thinks that's "the right thing" to do; I want to go shopping in Vail for the Holidays; and I want to be happy... In other words, I might be hitting my first mid-life crisis just now. It's funny how I have been married and have been in long relationships, without ever being proposed to. Hhhmm.... All I wanna say is: life is quite interesting, and I am just trying to see what happens next, after this door closes.
J and I have the "talk", and after the Holidays it does look like the end will greet us. And that's all that's on my mind today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to add "or is it..?!" but I refrained myself. It's tough when you're with the family you know you have to leave in a litle while. I'm still on the fence about J and about us... but I'm leaning towards the Completely Alone yard more so than towards the Alone Together one... It's nice when we're around people, and talk and share ... it makes us even look almost like a couple. But there is no sleep over anymore, and no real intimacy. No real talk of "us" anymore at all... Just talk about jobs and people and work, and family and how weird the world around us is. It's walking on eggshells time for us, after 4 years... And of course, as always, "he doesn't know" what to do about it and thus awaits... And I'm making my New Year's resolution to find another way to happiness... With him, if he wants to join me, but without if he chooses, as he's shown so far, not to. I've e-mailed him a question about what he wants as far as me in his life on November 6th. He's still thinking about it today. And I'm too tired to bring it up again. But jumping off the fence completely is hard, way harder than you might think. It's not like Ph. Breaking up with him was much easier: he was a drunk and an abuser. J is nice, and everybody sees him as the boy who pretty much hung the moon! So, it's tough. It's like saying an absolute NO to happiness, in most of the people's minds, including my parents... But I need to remember what Th., the retiring man at work, told me before he left: "A, get yourself a man who can take care of you!". He was right... And plus, conforming with J's family restrictions of having so many kids and having such an such job that would suit me better and living in such and such neighborhood that would definitely suit the entire family better is not in my character either. And these are small (or not) things that throw me off the fence in a heartbeat.
It'll be a hard Holiday Season for sure: faking it all the way, and then feeling like a bastard because they'll shower me with gifts and I will say good bye... Still on the fence.

They’re Finally Down!

… The leaves, I mean… They finally cover the ground much like a carpet of myriads of colors! Finally a good rain and wind shook the trees well that all of them fell! We’ve been dragging the fall out this year, just like J and I our relationship… Even now, in the middle of November, when my sister gets her first snow in Montreal, we still have leaves ON the trees, and the A/C is running inside! Even for North Carolina, this is pretty strange… But they finally fell today, in a whirlwind of rain!
And one more thing for the day: I discovered (on my own), that “you sure can” is such a Southernism and I need, I MUST stop using it at once! Especially around the Montreal people! Now, that I know better it scratches my ear, just like “might could” and “I have went”, which so help me the God of English Grammar have not ever come out of my mouth! Not ever!
And I started the Christmas Lent today. The year is surely over. Depressing. That’s it so far for today.

Learning to Say ‘Good Bye’? Maybe!

More couples around us together for the wrong reason: because of kids, money, because she can stay home, because he does the housework, because he loves her although she loves someone else… And we’ve tried to bring ourselves together for 4 years now, and we have thing in common, we laugh and we travel well, we have so much respect for each other, and we cannot be a couple. We can’t or we won’t, or someone or something prevents us from that… And I feel some days that I am going to scream from solitude, although that used to be my friend! I guess as you get older she turns into an ugly enemy! Nothing I can do except hope for a better day, whatever that day will bring. It’s funny how I go about my daily routine and about our “couple” routines and this can very well be our very last year together. It’s not very much fun to live your life with a deadline. Not very much fun at all. But that’s how I’ve felt this year: I don’t have an answer from J whether we’re together, we will be truly together, or we’re just living parallel lives; he needs more time to think… And that just makes me ask for more time to think, too. Every day that goes by with him not delivering me an answer I draw further and further away from him. It’s not voluntary, I think it’s almost instinctual: so I won’t get too hurt! But it happens, and I can’t control it. I HAVE to make a commitment not to say anything anymore to him: not to poison our silences with useless questions that will remain on deaf ears… I’ve GOT to try to learn how to be quiet, and listen to silence and peace. I’m tired of bitterness and questions, and defensive arguments. If he demands an answer, I will have to learn to say “I need time to think”. After all, what’s there to rush for?!
It’s quite a learning process for me. Until one day…When the need to have someone there when I wake up, or show up from work, or when I cook a meal at the end of the day will be stronger than myself and then I will finally learn to finally say ‘Good Bye’. Finally. This relationship has been the most agonizing wait I’ve known. It’s been quite a journey.
And as I’ve always said: I welcome more journeys, and I welcome more scars and band aids: they always carry a story!

Off the Beaten Path in the Virginia Mountains

We love getting away for the weekend, and we love “different” things, things that we don’t get to do often and that pull us out of the ordinary. I also, personally love fall festivals and fairs! I could live my life through fall festival foods and treats! So, every year now, we look forward for the Olive Fest at Villa Appalaccia and the Garlic Festival of the Rebec Vineyards in VA. Sometimes, we skip one of these events, because of other “obligations” with family and/or friends, but we try to make at least one of them.
This year, it was the Olive Fest that we tried to make. We tried to literally squeeze a half of a day visit to the Blue Ridge Parkway this October, on the 22nd. J had to work, so we had only half of a day to get out of town. We drove up US 220, to US 58, up to the Meadows of Dan (which to me sounds so much more poetic that “Dan’s Meadows”… it’s a spot right out of the fairy tales books to me, judging by the name alone), and the Blue Ridge Parkway, and we looked for this small vineyard, called Villa Appalaccia, that will have an “All Things Olive” weekend, with olive, olive oil and vinaigrettes tastings and of course, wine! It’s hard to follow directions in finding these wineries because they don’t have physical addresses, really, they’re located on “mile markers” and sometimes, those are hard to spot. We tried to use memories from 2 years ago, the last time we made this trip, to find our way there.
In the meantime, we were enjoying the drive through the mountainous space, up and down hills of early fall colors, and under smoky gray skies. The drive is beautiful: quaint little small towns and small, wooden shopping centers, elegant comfy homes, or run-down-looking trailers, they all add to the Virginian landscape, that we all know and find so familiar. The weather is typical fall weather, rain, here and there, bright sun peeking from the clouds at times, and as we drive higher, colder and colder air greets us. After a 2 hr drive, J spotted the Villa Appalaccia Winery to the right of the Parkway, going North. We took the gravel road off the Parkway towards the main building.
Once you leave the Parkway, you almost step into another space, all its own, quiet, and, because of the remoteness, sort of eerie. The main building has an Italian/ Mediterranean “flavor” to it, with the brick-colored stucco and the round arches around every corner and window, the stone walkway and the tile roof. I guess they meant it that way, because they also have an Italian flag on their property, and on their website they also advertise a Tuscan villa (as in set in Tuscany, Italy), that they bought recently and which can be rented by anyone who wishes to enjoy wine in the “true” wine country of Italy. Although there is no ocean nearby, as you would expect, because of the architecture, the winery does not seem out of place. Its elegance and style fits the Smokeys pretty well.
We do the olive tasting first, and we’re treated with olives and olive oils for dipping from countries as various and remote as Peru, Morocco, Italy, France, and Turkey, to the US and Romania and Greece. Some oils are smooth and almost tasteless (like the Frantoia, that J liked), others are pungent and spicy; the same thing with the olives: some are “meaty” and full of “olive” flavor, others are pickled in red wine vinegar or garlic, thyme and rosemary brine. The olives are amazing: green, black, purple, seasoned, “wrinkled”, green or black. Our guide tells us that “all olives come from the same tree, it all depends how long you wait to pick them, or how you cure them”. My favorite olive oil happens to be a French one, called “A L’Olivier”, which is infused with garlic and spices”. My favorite olives (although I’d have any amount of any specialty!) are the Gaeta ones, which are Italian, “slightly bitter in taste with hints of lemon and garlic”. I also liked the Moroccan Oil-Cured ones, which are black (of course!), naturally dried (thus “wrinkled”), full flavored with thyme and slightly bitter, too. They are all delicious! I am not really worrying about J’s experience through this all (he’s not crazy about olives!), because I am in cloud nine! I could sit there and eat 15 tons of these small fruit until I drop dead, sick with a stomach ache (as I used to do at home, back in Romania). Olives to me are right up there close to divinity! I have always thought they come from around the Mediterranean where all the Gods lived for a reason! They’re all divinely delicious!
After the olive tasting (which only happens once a year, sometimes in October at this particular vineyard; this is the link for further info: http://www.villaappalaccia.com ), we went on to the wine tasting: we tasted about 10 wines made on the premises, both red and white, some dryer, some sweeter. We both agreed we cannot understand what people see (taste) in red wines, but then again we’re not wine fanatics. We agreed, again, that while the white wines are OK, or the better kind, the red ones all “taste like feet”. We like simple things: if we like something, we say we like it because it’s “sweet”, or “bitter”, or “tastes like honey”, or “like garlic”… We both giggle when people try to sound sophisticated and find that a wine tastes “like the oak barrel”, or find that one “has a rich bouquet”. We call the smell of the wine, “the smell”, and not the “nose”, and we call the “taste”, the “taste”, and not the “flavor” or “bouquet”. We both agree that making wine is a labor of love, and a work of art sometimes, but we don’t get very “sophisticated” when we try to talk about it: to us, if it tastes good, it’s good wine, we’re not looking for the 13 bugs that happened to have rested on the grapes during the fermentation process, thus rendering the future wine the complexity of its taste. (roll your eyes) We’re simple people! But nevertheless, it’s fun to watch the others trying to understand the mysteries of this potion.
After the cellar tour and the wine drinking we proceeded into the patio upstairs where we were served the standard lunch, which included bruschetta bread, and olive tapenade for the appetizer, and a salad with a mild vinaigrette and a vegetarian pasta dish, in what else but a light olive oil sauce as the “main course”. A classic guitar was strumming in the background, and a ton of “wine people” surrounded us, some solo, some with groups of friends. We kept wondering how can someone drive for the day up there and drink a whole bottle of wine amongst 2 people and then drive back?! I guess we’re still novices in the wine drinking department, because just the little bit of the tasting gave me (at least) a buzz.
After lunch, we headed to Chateau Morrisette (http://www.chateaumorrisette.com). While the Villa is a small little family-owned business, the Chateau is a well-marketed “monster”, with an overpriced gift shop and wines being sold at all the Harris Teeters in NC, or at least all of them in Greensboro. I only want to go by there for their gourmet “Black Dog” signature dips and oils, and not necessarily for the wines: I don’t believe anything in the US can match my palate for Romanian wine, so I don’t even try to hope that one winery will even come close one day to proving me wrong. So, after buying my mostly coveted Sauvignon Blanc Garlic Mayo (how’s this for pretentious?!?) , I discovered another treasure, in the shape of a Roasted Garlic Grape Seed dipping oil – delicious, very garlic-y indeed dipping oil!!! We looked around the gift shop at the pricey merchandise and we left in about 15 minutes, after wondering how some people can afford between a $106 and $160 purchase of wines alone. That must be a true (and faithful) passion for wine indeed. I paid my $15 total for my mayo and dip (much to the dismay of the cashier, I am sure, which changed a whole role of receipt paper before she took me) and we drove off into the sunset, towards our next stop.
The next halt was the Mabry Mill, a staple on the Virginian Blue Ridge Parkway: built in the late 1800’s, the mill is a drop of the past on this scenic road. It now belongs to the National Parks, and it’s a nice reminder of the American forefathers and the way they lived back in the day. The mill, the cabins around it and all the bridges are build of wood, and the sound of water is soothing and peaceful, albeit being on the side of the busy road. The mill stop also has a blacksmith shop, and a cabin where you can find people making crafts, just for a more genuine reminder of the past. The gift store offers souvenirs which range from videos about the Blue Ridge Parkway to locally crafted goods and foods, from postcards to VA magnets and mugs.
After a few pictures of the mill, with ducks and without, with people peeking from the window, and without, and after a few shots of the colorful “fall”-y trees, we made our way back to Greensboro.
After a 2 hour drive, we got back to our city home, and routine, tummies full of yummy olives, dips, and salads, heads full of wine (I have always thought that wines must travel upward, towards the head!), and souls full of refreshment. I’m sipping good ol’ grocery chardonnay as I’m writing this right now, and I feel good: I guess wine was just the pretext for today’s getaway, not the purpose: it gave us a good reason to go search, and in the meantime, we found hidden treasures in the mountains of Virginia. And as always, we re-found ourselves, only more rested, mentally, because our retinas have now been cleansed and our batteries re-charged one more time!

A Scent of Fall

Summer will not give up in the Carolinas, with temperatures daily of 82-85, cloudless skies, blazing heat from the sun and trees all full of dark and rich green leaves. But I get phone calls from back home (Romania) and mom has almost finished the winter canning and preserving, and dad just finished picking the grapes, and will soon start the wine making. We're going to the local golf tournament this weekend, and that is the first sign of fall here. That event opens up a whole new season of fall fests and activities. The air is crisp and cool in the mornings and at night we watch tv and read a book with the AC off and the window wide open. Crickets are quiet earlier in the night, and flocks of birds cross the skies in the evenings, all heading South. The windows of all shops in town are dressed up in yellow and rust and WalMart is selling pumpinks and gords. Summer may be stubborn, still, but we surely are speeding her way out of the picture with everything else. It's the cycle of life and I'm always fascinated how we obediently go through it every year: without questioning, just trotting along, eyes on the calendar, we know, as we've known for centuries, that after September 21st, we must be getting ready for the winter.

What Am I Missing?

I’m not sure what the future will bring, but seeing my cat smile while I’m on the yoga mat, and purring, I know, somehow, that I’m in the right place. I have a home, all my own, I am completely independent and I feel free most of the time. I love the people I have close to me, and I got rid of the “poisonous” ones. My calendar was saying the other day (a quote): “I date nice people, I have a good job, and a nice home, what am I missing”; the answer was: ”Trust me, if you’re asking that, you’re missing it”… - and that’s how I feel! I’m reading “Transitions” and hopefully I will learn how to have more patience for my “temporary” status, and also, I will understand better what’s going on in my life now, in my 30’s. Who wants to go through the “mid-life crisis” when they have the 30’s?! That’s insane: like the same punishment twice! I’m trying to cope with the fact that I am a single woman, yet not single, because I have a boyfriend who’s not promising me the future, it’s just promising me the “right now”. And because the “right now” is good and happy, I’m supposed to live with it, and not ask for more. Almost a month ago, we almost broke up, and then decided it’s not the right thing to do: so, instead, we’re in this “not sure what we are or what we’re doing” state that will probably be forever, or so long and late that there will be nothing left for us to do. No options left… But I’m not supposed to plan and think of the future… And I’m trying not to plan, until…one day… Not today though… Today we’re having schnitzel and mashed potatoes and salad for dinner, and a glass of wine, or beer, and today it’s a summer day in the fall (it’s the Carolinas), and today, we are happy; so we declare.

Learn to Be Humble

Growing up and dreaming that one day I would be privileged enough to live in the “best nation” in the world (i.e. USA), I never thought a disaster like Katrina could ever happen to the “land of opportunities”… Seeing the waters and the people floating away, and the millions of houses drowned and the people with no life left, no place to go back to, I felt like my own life was crushed! I felt like one of those millions of kids raped by their own parents! I felt cheated by whoever represented America, in my dreams of a lifetime: that they didn’t have the ability and the sufficient care to protect what’s most precious in a nation: their people.
My own country, a Third World Eastern European country, was drowned by severe flooding this year, but less than 100 people died, out of a nation of 25+ million people!
And here, we have countless bodies, we’re not even sure how many thousands of them! But THIS is America!!! How can THIS happen to the greatest nation in the world, especially the nation that has the guts to go out there and tell other people how to live?!? How can this be?!!
Again, my guess is one that haunts America every day, and will bring it to their end, if they’re not careful: their ignorance and empty pride! “ We are Americans” “The best nation” “Most powerful” “In God we Trust!”… We don’t need to worry about our own yard, “In God We Trust”, we’re blessed, nothing ever can happen to us! A little humility can be learned from Katrina. And also, when you have a town of the size and the value of New Orleans you invest every penny you have to build those levees as high as the sky! You don’t cut the budget to put more money in God knows what else?!? Amsterdam is under the sea level and has an intricate web of canals, but the levees keep the sea waters where they belong, in the sea! But, again, this is America. We cannot think of what Amsterdam has been thinking (and doing) for ages?!?
I hope the Government now learns to be humble most of all, and learns to fear nature, if not all the other threats that are real and imminent, if we’re not watching. And also learns once and for all that America has always been the “New World”: maybe it’s time they learned something from the “Old One” and practice some of the learning, just like a child does from the grown-ups. It can only be for their own good!

Observation

Driving back from work, I notice this big red sign announcing “ Big Car Sale” (and an arrow pointing to the parking lot of the dealership followed). I follow the arrow and I realize that you can read that sign two ways: either the “sale of the cars is BIG”, or the “cars of the sale are BIG”: I voted for the latter: the parking lot is FULL with nothing but SUV’s, vans and trucks! No wonder the HUGE gas guzzlers are on “big sales” nowadays: the gas down here in the South is $2.59 lately… Back when I first came here, in 1998, it used to be $0.99… I guess huge inflation and crappy economy are the prices you pay for electing the wrong man for the “best job in America and the world”. Just a note!

Be Careful What You Wish For…

For about 5 years now I have been studying yoga and reading a lot about the yogic tradition of living in the ‘now’. To this day, the biggest challenge for me is to stay in the present moment, both on the mat and outside of it, and to live the ‘now’ to the fullest. Being an Aries and having Latin blood through my veins, it’s hard to keep me focused as it is; living in America where everything is so fast makes it even harder…
But what is a woman to do when she is told by her boyfriend of 3 and ½ years that my dreams of the future are not the same as his: that my desire never to have children as well as my plan to live in the city we live in now for at least 5-6 more years are not his plans – 2 very big decisions in dating someone successfully, right?!… He's also not sure whether we should move in together any time soon, or put all our pets under the same roof... Neither of us want to break up with each other, because what we have NOW is wonderful. But we both know, what we want tomorrow is different… However, we decided to stay together for the now…
We just made this decision not long ago, and my first impulse is try to “dream” about how it will all work out: but, you see, I can’t do that, for fear of disappointment: I have no idea where we’re going to be in this relationship a year from now, and yet, this insecurity needs to be put aside and I have to allow myself to be happy about what we have now: the laughs, and companionship, the travels, the family stories, curiosity and respect about life in general, the pets, the shop talk, since we both work in the same place etc… We are sure what we as individuals want for your future lives are not similar things – at least now. Can that change? We’re not sure, but we’re both very stubborn and set in our ways, too, so most likely, not… We’ll see… And thus, asking all these years that I learn, for once how to live in the now and be happy with the now, and stop searching for what’s next, I got “blessed” with the most radical life change of all: in order for me to have any kind of daily happiness, I will have to be able to enjoy every moment of every day, and not a second later… No one can tell me what the “later” will look like, should it be here at all…

Are We Ever Sure?

Are we ever sure that we are in the right place, at the right time, with the right people around us? I thought I was the only 30 year old lost in ConfusionLand, until the other day when a friend of mine, of whom I've always thought that he was established, respected and accomplished told me "we all wonder every day if we're on the right path". And that made me jump: "we"? You mean, YOU, too? He confirmed: yes, him, too, and he believes all of us are. Thinking that he's older and thus wiser than me, I trusted him. So, how do I know for sure I'm where it's meant for me to be?! I don't, and I probably won't for a long time, if ever, in this lifetime.
What is important is that I am still having fun, and at the end of the day I have no regrets. And I do know that: that at the end of the day I got no regrets... Not realy sure what tomorrow might bring, but as long as I have a roof over my head, a loving family, a couple of smooth cats to go to bed with, a book or two on the shelves, 2 arms, and 2 legs, 2 eyes and (most importantly) a mouth, a working camera, the desire to move on, a well respected (if only by me) job, as soon as I have that, I can consider myself fortunate. The rest (other people, things and actions that might be relative) is just accidental. And non-important.
As long as the sun will rise, and the moon, too, as soon as we have the notion of peace and we at least strive for it, as long as we at least try to respect ourselves and that and those around us, we'll be happy... And I am trying to live by these standards every day.
And also: as long as there are roads to take us places, there will be many of opportunities for new starts, and thus for renewed happiness... somewhere in the world, for all of us who are willing to try to find it.

An A.D.D. America!

I have discovered that we cannot get frustrated or in the least bothered by the A.D.D. in our co-workers, partners, family folks, etc… I believe we all are, to some extent, somewhat A.D.D. Think about it?! It’s the society we live in that requires us to be that way: you hardly ever see a job ad in the paper that does not require us to be “multi-tasked”. Well, you cannot be multi-tasked unless you’re paying attention at 10 things at the same time: answer the phone, while reading a new e-mail, while opening the postal mail, while talking to a co-worker – and all these have to be done efficiently and fast, so that we all can meet the deadlines! And it doesn’t stop there: we drive home and the cell rings while we have to drive, and yield, and look for a jay-walker that’s cutting us off, and grab a snack from the purse since our blood sugar is low from spreading ourselves too thin in the first place, and we need an afternoon jumpstart! Then we get home, and we have to feed the cats (or the dogs), while opening the mail, and turning the tv on to see what else has been going on in the world, while the phone rings and it’s our friend Alice who wants to go out for a drink tonight! It makes my head spin just to think about all this, although it’s pretty much an accurate description of my daily routine.
The opposite of A.D.D. is focused, but you cannot be focused on ONE thing alone anymore: you would be stampeded on by the world, run over and left behind! The only way we can keep up, we think, is by rushing onto the next thing on the list while still doing the one before. I wonder sometimes where and if this all will stop one day?!
You know, Napoleon was so unique because him doing 5 things at one time was really a rare, special talent: it’s not usually in the human nature or brain for us to function like that! By pushing our bodies in this manner, to make something so rare be part of our usual life, we’re defying nature in the first place, and something’s, somewhere, gotta snap! And therefore, we’re all diagnosed nowadays! We should all be anyways. The only thing we don’t do while doing other things that “have to” be done is relax, and breathe… We never think of that as a part of our multitasking, and it’s a shame…