WebJournal - The blog will set you free

WebJournal - The blog will set you free
News of no interest whatsoever except to very close and patient friends and family members and maybe people with no life

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Today's Wednesday already. Yesterday Mario and I finished our work before 1 AM and went out for a drink at an Irish pub a couple of blocks from home. I did not return home too late (before 3 AM that is) but this morning I slept through several alarms and woke up exactly 13 minutes before M.A. rang me from downstairs to go out for lunch. I am really getting good at grooming at the the speed of light. By the time he walked into the apartment I had showered, washed my hair and was halfway through my make-up routine. We had lunch at a Chinese place he likes and that was indeed both very good and very cheap, a perfect combination. I came back home to send some e-mails and do some paperwork before heading to work in a couple of hours. So, as to the backlog ...

Thursday
I finally took a car to NJ - you know me, if there's a way to do it that's at least 50 times more expensive I will not pass it by. I got to Convention Center for registration before going to the hotel and going back to the Center for the first crew meeting. As always with these seminars, I feel a little awkward at the beginning, but then I see familiar faces and the unfamiliar faces tend to belong to very friendly people anyways so I end up chatting up and down.
I met Andrew, the guy who had made my hotel reservation. Nice guy, cute guy.

Friday
The firewalk. I just love it. I did not do it myself this time because it was way too cold and I was soaked from hosing feet on my knees but I enjoyed every minute of it.

I met Antoinette, who had traveled by train from Canada and was looking for a room to stay. I also met Janet, Andrew's friend and my other roommate. We had lunch with Roby, who was staying in Andrew's room and who I know from previous seminars. More on her later.
I spent a lot of time talking to a guy named Gary. He was in the special needs group I had taken care of last year and was now crewing with me. More on him later too. A fascinating man.

Saturday
M.A. and I arrived in DC at about 3.30 PM. We went to Pam's though she was not there yet and waited for her. She came in a short while later and took us for a tour of DC in her parents' car. By then we were ready to go for a drink but the parking situation was a nightmare and we had to come back home, leave the car and get to a pub in her neighborhood.
After a while we left M.A. at the pub and Pam and I went home to change. The first stop of the evening was at Agua Ardiente, where Pam has designed the curtains and know the owners. The tapas were great, the drinks were not (totally watered down). Our waitress had an attitude and the crowd was very weird. It almost felt like Geneva, Switzerland. An international clientele, very Washington, lots of South Americans, Indians, Arabs, lots of wanna bes. The DJ was supposed to start at midnight, then at 12.30. When he finally started he played maybe three great songs and then it went downhill from there. M.A. and I had been ready to leave for quite a while and finally just decided we could not take it any longer. By then Helen and her sheriff had left (I finally got to met the sheriff!!! Cute guy of the quite variety but that was to be expected given that Helen won't stop talking for a minute) and everybody else was sort of sitting and calmly. Pam and I were both very much into a young (29 y.o.) Indian guy at our table. Adorable, interesting guy who looks a lot like an Indian version of Joey from Friends. Born in India, raised in Madrid, Spain, until his teens and then in Kansas for a year and the East Coast ever since. He was an investment banker in NYC but has quit to travel the world. He was leaving DC in a week to go to Sri Lanka. So ... handsome, nice, intelligent, daring and also touchy feely, the kind of guy who hugs you and the kind of guy who enjoys women. Too bad I am married. He could have been one hell of a fling.
Eventually M.A. and I left, dragging Pam along with us. She tried to get us to a certain type of places, we managed to lead her to an overcrowded second floor bar with a 20something crowd and beer all over the dance floor. I gave her some idea of the house rules and told her eventually somebody would end up dancing behind her, which is what happened but she got rid of him pretty fast. I, on the other hand, enjoyed my posteriorly attached dancer song after song. The secret is not looking at them (I would have no idea what he looked like if it wasn't that he tapped on my shoulder when I came back to the dance floor after a trip to the bar) so they stay anonymous dance partners and not actual men on the prowl that you need to get rid of. In any case, the bar closed at about 2.30 AM and we barely had time to pop in into the Irish bar downstairs so M.A. could jump around to Irish music for a few minutes. As usual, I was ready to go somewhere else and had gotten a couple of addresses from a guy on the street but Pam was tired and M.A. wanted to wake up sort of early on Sunday to go visit the city. They ganged up on me and no amount of pleading and cajoling worked.

Sunday
It was Pam's birthday. M.A. woke up not feeling too hot or maybe he was just being polite and was really bored out of his mind and decided he was going to go out and sightsee the city a bit and then take an early train back to NY. Pam and I went to her parents' to prepare a very ladylike tea party. The cake, the sweets, the finger sandwiches. Reem came with her daughter Tamara who is now 9 years old. I adore this child. I feel like kidnapping her and taking her home with me. She is the cutest little thing, slim, tiny, almost birdlike, darkskinned and extremely articulated, animated and bright. A pleasure of a girl. I also met Janis' niece, Vivian. Another adorable little girl. She is still only a baby, but one of those happy smiling babies you are irresistibly drawn to cover with kisses. There were 6 of us adults, we sat at the formally set up table and had a very pleasant conversation. I like doing the ladylike thing now and then and this time I had a truly good time. After everybody had left I sat down with Pam's parents and kept her father company while he was having an early dinner. I don't remember what time we left but we ended up having a late dinner at a pizzeria near her home.

Monday
Keeping up with my spending habits I traded my regular train ticket for an Acela and was back in NYC barely in time to drop the luggage at home and get to work.

Tuesday
... was a double lunch day.
Antoinette, the girl I met at the seminar, called me on Monday from Brooklyn and told me she wanted to see me before going back home, so I invited her for lunch. She was supposed to arrive at noon but she did not show up until 1.30 PM, when I had almost given up hope.
M.A. showed up instead so I ended up having lunch with him and later on with her too.
Antoinette is originally from Bulgaria, but lives now in Canada. I met her the second night and she came to stay with me at the hotel. Within 10 minutes she was weeping. It seems I have a knack for making people cry. I am Barbara Walters II.
But her story was beautiful. She left Bulgaria and an abusive relationship. She met Enrico, a 10-years younger Italian. At 42 she came to NY to study fashion, with his full encouragement and supports. She goes back to Canada and he is dead within very little time.
She still gets very emotional when she talks about him, and it has been over 5 years now. Emotional in a very beautiful way. She talks about him like I have hardly ever heard anybody talk about somebody else. She says they did not need to leave the house, they had everything they needed within themselves. They had fun, and friends over at their house constantly.
She is a very poetic woman. She used to be in the Bulgarian skydiving team and when I asked her what it feels like to be freefalling she answered with an open-arm gesture and said that it feels like you are embracing the globe. Now I want to skydive too ... almost.
I like Antoinette. She is not your run-of-the-mill kinda gal, she is even a little too "spiritual" for my pragmatism, but she is very genuine and sweet.

3:56 PM

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