he even threatened to take my card

H got into town the day after Thanksgiving, and when we went to my parents’ house, my mom served up the choicest cuts of turkey leftovers along with some of her homemade cilantro chutney. Personally, I found this particular batch of the sauce to be really potent and chased my little dab of it with a big mouthful of mashed potatoes, but H was all about it, slathering it all over the turkey and going back for more and more. Frankly, I was a little surprised, but he earned some major cool points with my mom just by being himself.

The next day, we headed over to BW-3s/Buffalo Wild Wings (an old favorite from my Champaign days) and ordered up some medium-heat hot wings and appetizers. For some reason, I wasn’t able to handle it—my nose started running and my tongue was lolling just a little bit. H was looking at me like my hair had spontaneously burst into small, flickering flames, because normally I like things pretty spicy.

“That’s it,” he said. “I think I might have to revoke your Indian license.”

a long, cold post about a long, cold night

My parents have a huge tv. And by huge, I mean of wooly mammoth proportions: a 60-inch screen, rear-projection behemoth that was WAY too large for their modest-size family room. And is probably near woolly-mammoth status in age, too. The red in the picture is completely gone and in the last few weeks, the blue has steadily started to wear away, too.

So this past August, for their thirtieth anniversary, my brother and I decided to get them a new one. Mostly because they didn't want us to throw them party or send them on a vacation, and we didn't want the milestone to go unrecognized. So H helped us find a great online deal on a 42-inch flatscreen HDTV. We were thrilled.

Unfortunately, my father was not. You see, when technological items enter our home, they rarely get to leave until they've become fossilized. My father is a very handy type of person who doesn't believe things should ever break or wear down, and somehow manages to resuscitate everything, from the '80s water heater to the vacuum cleaner he got as a company gift in 1979--we used that sucker until last year when Hoover discontinued making the vacuum bags it needs. And because we keep things forever, he's extremely picky about what we buy. In fact, he had some charger-thing on backorder with a tv repair shop for the woolly mammoth that is set to arrive and bring back the colors sometime in the next six months.

So the nice anniversary tv with all the colors went back before it even arrived at the house. I was disappointed, but not terribly heartbroken about saving the money. But now that the woolly mammoth is starting to lose blue, too, we decided something needed to be done. Even if it meant shopping during the nightmare that is Black Friday.

H mentioned that the electronic big-box stores were having some sweet deals this year and the tv we had bought and returned would be another $400 cheaper. If we were to get it, that is. But I had learned my lesson, and we got my dad to pre-approve a few models before we went out there. It turns out, he only liked one: a Panasonic flatscreen HDTV 1080p model, and we had to talk him down from a 50-inch to the 42. It was advertised on a non-BestBuy website as being for $899, normally $1799.

So we knew what we wanted and we knew where to get it. No big, we thought, Best Buy will open its doors at 5 am and we just have to show up a little earlier to make sure we get in. Right? But then H mentioned something about hearing that they gave out tickets of some sort at 3 am, and that you could only get those doorbuster deals if you had one. And then my brother's ex-girlfriend called to say that she saw on the news that people were already lining up around the block at the Best Buys around St. Louis, so maybe we should drive by and take a look at our chances.

So we headed over there. Not to the store in the bustling mall area, but one in a smaller town that we figured wouldn't be as crowded. And there was still a line nearly two blocks long. At midnight. Oh, and did I mention it was a whole TWENTY degrees in Chicago that night? It was a good thing that we both were wearing two shirts, sweatshirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, ski gloves, hats and scarves. But I still sent my bro home to get a folding chair and a couple of heavy blankets. And we were the amateurs! There were people with TENTS set up, and even a group with a propane-fueled heater. We were embarking on a serious mission here, and there certainly were some haters who drove by and shouted things at the line. One even threw a cup of coffee at people.

My brother and I took half-hour turns sitting in the car. H kept me company on the phone, but after he'd gone to sleep all I could think about were homeless people who didn't have many options for warming up and how I was doing all this for a freaking television. If it weren't for my parents, I'd have really thought again. I was sitting stiffly in the chair with a blanket around my legs and the heavier one over my head, and suddenly everyone got up and started RUNNING toward the entrance, leaving their chairs, blankets and empty thermoses strewn along the sidewalk like the wake of a tornado. It was quarter to 3 am. I didn't know what the hell was happening, but flung off the blanket and ran as fast as I could, hurdling all the debris.

People who got in line an hour after us were suddenly way ahead of me. There was a lot of grumbling camaraderie, and a woman who had done this many times before explained the drill: you get a ticket for the thing you wanted--no mercy for browsers--and if you're lucky enough to get one, you have until 9 am to claim your prize or else it'll be open to anyone. We grabbed the ticket for the tv and I held it to my heart. The very vocal black woman who had come all the way from Chicago told us that the other Best Buys in her area had lines twice as long at 11 pm and that she had her heart set on a laptop. The couple ahead of us (who really should have been behind us) wanted a TomTom at $119. We forgave their cutting because we weren't going for a tv.

By then, we had been in line for three hours and some minutes. My feet felt like sheets of glass that would probably shatter into a million pieces if stepped on or used in any way, and my brother said he didn't think he still had fingers. We decided not to stay for a second item and to go home to warm up and get a little rest. But first we wanted to verify that our ticket was getting us what we had hoped for, only to find that instead of 1080p, it was a 720p television.

So it turns out the deal we waited outside in below-freezing temperatures all night for wasn't quite as sweet as we had thought.

That was kind of a bummer, but we didn't want our wait to go to waste. Plus, if my parents had any idea that we were going to have to wait outside in the cold, they'd never allow us to do it or they'd yell at us for acting like fools for a tv that they'd say they didn't really need.

The tv is up and running, now with a gorgeous picture--with all the colors. No one really said much as far as praise; probably because very few televisions could live up to the hype created by what we went through to get it. But one thing's for sure, it's a giant step up from the woolly mammoth, and I'm sure as hell that nobody's going to complain.

Or maybe her real name is Alberta

"You know, I was thinking. Why are the parents named normal things like Fred and Wilma, but their kid's name is Pebbles?"

"Yeah, and Bam-Bam? What kind of name is that? Sounds more like a caption from the Adam West-era Batman."

"Dude, if Pebbles and Bam-Bam got married, she'd be called 'Pebbles Rubble.' "

"She'd probably keep her name. The Flintstones were pretty progressive for the Stone Age."

black friday

The reason today is called Black Friday is because that is the color the tips of your toes and your nose turn after waiting in line outside in the middle of the night in 20-degree weather.

It is also the color of the hearts of people who think it is okay to cut in front of you after you've been waiting for four hours.

happy thanksgobble

I hope that all of you are stuffed full of love and good food and are snoozing away on the couch. I give thanks for every single one of you.

let's just hope we don't get stuck

The first time H came to visit me in Chicago, it was an unusually warm November weekend. We did all the cheesy Chicago touristy things like hang out at the top of the Sears tower, indulge in delicacies from Portillo's, wander around Navy Pier and catch a 3-D Imax movie about space narrated by Tom Hanks. You know, first-datish stuff. And I was doing all the normal beginning-of-the-relationship test stuff, like see if he held the door open or noticed when I was cold and tried to do something about it. Things were going well, and he earned all E's for effort on that report card. Then one afternoon we tried to enter the Kenneth Cole on Michigan Avenue--through a revolving door.

There are some revolving doors out there that are designed to accommodate multiple people. You know the ones, they're found in hospitals and all-you-can-eat restaurants, and sometimes they even have motion detectors and rotate by themselves. However, in my experience, the pie-piece spaces in a run-of-the-mill revolving door are designed for single capacity only. And when H got right into the space with me, I came to know exactly why. When there are too many people in a revolving door, there's no room to move your legs and actually make it revolve. It took some fancy coordination and Fred-Flintstone-like quick babysteps, but we finally got out of there. I turned around and said to H, "What the HELL was that?" He was like, "What? That's not how you do it?"

It turns out that they don't have a whole lot of revolving doors in Southern California. Their main purpose is keeping the cold outside and the heat inside. And because the weather is always 70 degrees F and gorgeous, they don't have a whole lot them where H is from.

He's coming back to town soon, but I'm pretty sure that after two years he's got the hang of the whole revolving door thing. I just want you all to know that I don't plan on missing any posts for the rest of the month. But I just want it on record that getting stuck in a revolving door is a legitimate excuse.

so ridiculous it still makes me smile

In my first job out of college, I worked in two offices. From Tuesday through Friday, I was at my desk in a small satellite office. And on Saturdays, eight of us worked in the huge main office that looks sort of like a spaceship from the highway. The were no suits on the weekends, so we could dress down and joke around as loudly as we wanted as long as the work got done. But outside of our small group of cubicles, the empty building was really creepy. And I've never been good with lonely places.

Cc was on that crew, too. When I first met her, I admit I was a little intimidated. She was all business, striding around the department with her black boots and New York accent and focusing on work with steely concentration. But after several of those relaxed Saturdays, I noticed her sense of humor would break through the serious facade and catch everyone by surprise.

One afternoon in the mothership, I was walking around in a bit of a fog because I had been out late the night before. I left my desk to use the restroom. It was a huge one with a carpeted foyer area with a chair and a couch, where rumors said the weird IT guy slept late at night. And that day the feminine product machine must have been broken, because there was a gigantic box of them on the counter. I remember seeing that box on the way in and thinking, Damn, that's a lot of tampons.

I went into a stall and was minding my business, when a shower of unused tampons suddenly came raining down on me. I hadn't heard her come in, but cc was throwing them over the door and laughing hysterically. Especially because my gut reaction was to yell, "Heeey!" not unlike a little kid would if someone snatched her candy. She just wanted to see what I'd do and it seemed like she enjoyed the reaction. It was so ridiculous. But for some reason, that's when I knew we would be friends for a very long time.

Even all these years later, cc can make herself crack up just by thinking about my reaction to those flying tampons; it freaks people out on the train or in the elevator when she laughs to herself for no apparent reason. And now that I know her a lot better, when I think back on that incident, I can't believe I was surprised.

Happy Birthday, cc. Now if I enter a stall whenever you're around, I know to cover my head.

there's a reason i'm always ten minutes late

My mother has this habit of "rounding" the time. Like when we were growing up, when there was a 8:30 am dentist appointment, she'd tell us it was at eight so that we'd be strapped into the car by 8:15. This was clever, but we really got screwed during the times when the appointment actually was at 8 am.

I blame her for my overly optimistic time-judgement, which has put me in a perpetual rush for nearly all of my life. It's been a running joke in the family that I've only been on time once in my life, and that was on the day I was born: Monday morning at 10:30 am. It was the target day the doctors had expected and I showed up, just as predicted.

So while I've been unemployed, I've gone through some of the boxes of miscellaneous things and happened to stumble upon an envelope stashed among old magazines and tax bills from 1987. In it were our birth announcements, Christening announcements as well as the little placards they put on our clear plastic cribs in the hospital nursery where we hung out to be gazed upon through the window after we were born.

Of course I was comparing them, because I like to win. My brother was 19 inches long and I was 19 and 1/4 inches long; he weighed 5 pounds, 8 oz. and I weighed 5 pounds, 10 oz.; even my room number was higher than his (I was in room 234 and he was only in room 232.) All was right in the world. Until I looked at the birth times. It turns out that I was born at 10:40 am, not 10:30.

Suddenly I felt like all my life, I'd been living a lie. And when I told my mother, she she shrugged it off. "Eh, 10:40, 10:30, it's practially the same thing."

From this point on, I take no responsibility for my inability to show up on time.

because if i can't feel, i cannot complain

All I remember about when my childhood dentist numbed my face was that odd no-sensation feeling. For hours, I kept making sure I wasn't drooling or if all the food got from my fork safely into my mouth. Sometimes, just to check if the Novocaine had worn off, I'd smack myself and be appalled that it felt like slapping a side of beef that was somehow glued to my head. Even though, duh, that's what was supposed to happen. But still it amazed me. Every time.

So yesterday my dad gave me this spray to resolve some of my throat issues. One spritz and the itch was gone, but it left the inside of my throat completely numb. So of course, after a few minutes I began "checking" to see if it was still working. Swallowing hard, clearing my throat, trying in vain to get the insides of it to rub together somehow and locate any sensation.

It was such a bizarre feeling, especially because it was coming from the inside of my neck. After awhile, I was concentrating so much on testing it that I couldn't really pay attention to anything else. Eventually it wore off, but instead of reaching for the spray I felt a sense of relief that I could feel again, even though it was unpleasant. I decided that these newfangled medicinal treatments are probably more trouble than how much they help and busted out a bag of Ricola throat drops instead. I'm not ready to shout from the mountaintops yet, but I'm getting there.

throat for sale

What is it about throats that makes them all sandpapery and itchy, so much so that it inhibits your ability to understand the plotline of Heroes and forces you to rewind every few minutes; however, only a few days later it's so slippery and slimy-feeling that you have no choice but to turn the television up to maximum volume to still be able to hear the Desperate Housewives' desperation over all the hacking attempts to get it back to only just feeling sandpapery?

chilling...till the next episode

People, I have a problem.

It all started when CBS had long-running football, which would push back Sixty Minutes, which would in turn push back The Amazing Race. I had to start taping Cold Case (which comes next) to make sure I didn't miss a single second of the Race, but then when football stopped being a nuisance I kept taping it.

And now I am thoroughly hooked, like a stiff, dead body hanging frozen in a meat locker.

I don't know if it's because of the redemption factor or because I like the era-sensitive musical score or the way they cut from characters the way they were back in the day to present. H has made a very logical case for how the storylines are farfetched, but I don't seem to care. In fact, I now dvr the late-night reruns and catch up on episodes when Justin Chambers from Grey's Anatomy was Lily Rush's partner instead of Danny Pino (who is an improvement, in my opinion--Alex is better in a hospital environment).

It was all good until that episode about four innercity kids who were made to stand in a box and then locked up in storage-unit freezers with their fingers cut off and it was all because some kid had a bad experience in a home when he was young and... oh I had a nightmare about that one.

But I bounced back quickly; Now I just won't watch it very late at night.

in that case, i'll just drive dirty

a) indoors, surrounded by concrete cinderblock
b) no music?
c) NO MUSIC?!?

if one of those lands on me, you'll find it in your eyeball

I do not care WHO you think you are, it is NOT okay to clip your nails during a crowded and herkity-jerkity train ride. Wait till you get outside, away from hordes of people! I have no idea where you were sitting/standing, but after I heard those clip-clip noises, there was nothing I could do to get back to sleep for fear there was an errant former piece of your body lodged in my hat or my hair.

I'm still shuddering thinking about it.

i'll take everything but the hype. to go.

I've been an enthusiastic member of several failed book clubs. I'm not sure why they don't seem to work out, but I haven' t been to a single gathering at which every person has actually completed the reading. Maybe it's never meant to be for me. That's probably because The Universe knows that if there's one thing I love, it's to tell other people what I think.

So I've accepted that I'm alone in this reading thing. I just tell my notebook what I think instead. But I'm always trolling around for something new, trying to find something good and engaging that's either mostly undiscovered or old enough that I've missed out on all the hype. Because during that window in which everyone is all about it (I'm talking about you, Zadie Smith's White Teeth,) good books are like helium balloons with a slow leak: By the time you get around to them, they are doomed never to live up to all the rave reviews, and by that last page you're left with a limp piece of rubber and a resounding sense that you would've better spent that time watching a countdown on Vh1.

You'll see a little book on my sidebar from now on. It's linked to Shelfari, a new way for me to hunt around for something good to read. I've listed some titles that I've loved and if you're in the market for something to read, I recommend them (just click "next"). But that's all I'll say. I don't want to set you up for a letdown.

lifestyles of the rich and famous

"And then I was in the middle of telling him what Ruksana said, and he interrupted me."

"Why?"

"He said, 'Mom, why are you talking about all this other stuff when I called you for business reasons'? And I was like, "What business reasons?" And he said, "My Christmas List."

"SERIOUSLY? How old are we now?"

"That's what I said! I asked him, "You're 25 and you're still making Christmas Lists?!" And he just started telling me about how he needs a new golf jacket and some shoes and some other things."

"That kid's always had a lot of nerve."

"You didn't even hear all of it! He says to me, "Well, Mom, Cadiz is buying me a digital camera for Christmas."

"WHAT!? He just told me to ask H if he'd seen any good deals and that has somehow morphed into me buying him one for Christmas? I don't even have a job!"

"Be honest, Cadiz. You were already going to buy it, weren't you?"

"Yeah. But now I'm going to get him a pretend one from Toys 'R' Us, instead."


***UPDATE*** I asked my brother and he said he only told my mother "Cadiz is looking at digital cameras for me." But it wouldn't hurt to still check out the Fisher-Price/Barbie models as part of my research.

but what if i can't find it?

Highcontrast has suggested there should be a book called Soul Searching for Dummies, and that I should set out to try and write it. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what soul searching actually is. Whenever I sit around and try to contemplate where my life is headed, the exercise turns into a mental review of what has happened followed by thorough self-bashing over every single thing that I've done wrong along the way. Doesn't really sound very pleasant nor productive to me.

lucky numbers

My phone rang this morning with a number I didn't recognize.

It turned out to be a really good family friend from back when I was in junior high, whom I'd lost touch with and hadn't heard from in a really long time. She said she found my number on a piece of paper among a whole bunch of old stuff and decided to see if it still worked.

It turns out that she just moved to a place about a mile and a half from me, works two buildings away from my old job and is pursuing her MBA across the street from my home. All without having any idea that I lived here.

She's having a party tonight, and though I have different plans, I'm really going to try and go. She's a great person, and I've missed having her in my life.

I feel like I just won the lottery. Not the kind of money to significantly change my life, but an amount that makes people feel like they're having a really lucky day.

up to the minute what i'm up to

Yesterday, I joined Twitter. Just in case my posting every day this month and assaulting the unsuspecting masses with commentary wasn't enough Cadiz for you, you can now track my movements, too.

Now all I have to do is come up with lots and lots of mundane activities to twitter about as a cover for all the secret government work I'm actually doing.

you're making it real hard to be supportive, people

I have been diligently trying to uphold my promise to leave witty, encouraging comments on as many Nablopomo blogs as I can. And it's been going pretty well. Until today when I stumbled upon an interesting blog, read the entire lengthy post and even formulated a funny comment. But when I tried to post it, the blog began strong-arming me to join Vox, its bloghost. What's up with that? Disgusted and dejected, I was turned off.

And then the same thing happened to me with a WordPress user. This is really annoying, because his blog was very funny and I had a moment of genius-comment clarity, but was faced with having to register with WordPress to leave it. Seriously people, WHAT GIVES? I totally understand the thing about not wanting spam in anonymous comments and even just needing to know who it is commenting. I'm down with word verification and even submitting my email address. But registering? This kind of exclusivity is especially irritating. Dude, if you want to be so limiting on who can participate, why throw your hat into such an open and welcoming arena as NaBloPoMo in the first place?

I haven't had much luck with the randomizer, which seems clunky and not really random, so I've been clicking on interesting-sounding links from the list to some success. Granted, I have a little more time on my hands these days, but I'm working on DIALUP, people. One homepage can take up to 2 minutes to load if it's got enough bells and whistles and after I've read the post and crafted a comment, to not be able to share it is sort of a slap in the face.

I'm on a very strict schedule of sleeping, cooking, eating, not doing dishes and watching bad '80s movies on tv (yesterday I watched War of the Roses). I do not have time for this.

boo-rthday surprise

It's only fair that, after I've subjected you to a long (and somewhat nasty) rant about surprise parties gone wrong, I tell you a little about a surprise party that went extremely well.

I've spoken at length about my high school friends, many of whom make regular appearances in my posts. And one thing we're known for are our birthday parties, which come close to being over the top. Kaiya's the old lady of the group, so parties for her tend to be a little more extravagant than the rest. There was a murder-mystery dinner where everyone dressed like someone from the '20s, there was an all-out luau with a six-foot fake palm tree and caribbean chicken skewers where Ri and I painted an oceanscape mural on the back of a refrigerator box (people posed in front of it for pictures), and countless other gatherings preceded by covertly procuring emails and phone numbers, staying up all night making Jell-O shots, frantically cooking and decorating, then yelling surprise.

You'd think that after awhile, people in the group would get wise to the not-so-"surprising" theme. You'd be right, but in the interest of fairness we've all been keeping up appearances (at least that's my theory) for years. This time being Kaiya's 30th, we figured it should be even more of a bang than usual.

Because Highcontrast lives in New York now, it's trickier to pick dates. Early on, we settled on November 10, and told Kaiya to keep it open. Ri asked her if she was in the mood for a big shindig with all the extended friends or a more intimate gathering with just the core group. Kai said intimate, and that was the last of her input on the matter. We had other plans.

While Kaiya was busy clearing her schedule for the 10th, Ri and her husband, C, announced that they were throwing a huge Halloween party in the multipurpose room of their condo, which has a kitchen and a sweet theater area. We spent an ungodly amount of time crafting a poem for a spooky yet birthday-ish evite, then mailed Kaiya a fake invitation. But getting many of her nonmutual friends on the list was proving to be really tricky. The party room has a max capacity of 45 people, and we were hoping to get somewhere in the comfy zone of 30-40 to make renting it worth the trouble. So all of us repeatedly hinted to Kai that we were inviting loads of extended friends and encouraged her to send a list of her own.

She sure did. Kaiya submitted a list of TWENTY-FIVE people, pushing the guest list very close to 60. Getting all those extra people past the doorman was going to be interesting.

We were convinced the jig was up: she must have figured out this party was for her and was sticking it to us for being so sneaky. Why else would she invite so many people? We thought the budget we had set would go totally out the window and began frantically looking for deals on liquor and decorations. But despite the new parameters (and a few glitches), somehow two kinds of punch got made, tiny appetizers got little toothpicks, cheese was cut into little triangles and arranged with crackers and pepperoni, fruit got cut up, pumpkin cookies were baked, ice chests were packed with booze, fake spiderwebbing (which smells like shit, btw) was draped around every immobile object, mini lanterns were lit, napkins were fanned out, banners were hung, the screaming doormat was functioning and in place, the Caution, Do Not Enter yellow tape was stretched across the room, and the music was pumping. AND, for which I am most proud, we only went $12 over the budget and had plenty of food and drink to spare.

The party was supposed to start at 6:30 and some of Kai's less experienced-with-us friends actually showed up on time, as we were running around costumeless and twisting crepe paper from the ceiling. The rest started trickling in, and by the end of the night we counted a total of 54 guests. So much for the one-third-won't-show-up rule. And while The Lady of The Evening did not arrive until 9:30, we were too busy rocking out with the life of the party(cc and ray busting out their b-girl moves) to worry too much about it.

Kaiya showed up dressed like Marilyn Monroe with a new guy we had yet to meet. And what a welcome that must have been for him, especially with the 20-minute nostalgic slideshow and body-less photos of her head taped up all over the place. And poor Highcon--who had told Kaiya he wouldn't be able to make it--he spent most of the party concealed in a stuffy Grim Reaper costume disguising his voice and introducing himself to everybody as "Fareed." That worked until someone whose actual name was Fareed showed up, and no one bought the story that Highcon's name had suddenly changed to Julio. But Kaiya was pleasantly surprised.

After the cleanup, sobering up, knocking out and breakfasting on cookies and birthday cake, Highcon, Ri and I deemed it the best party we've ever thrown. The guest of honor seemed delighted and even people we'd never met before said they were impressed. But the icing on the whole thing was when Ri told us how Kai pulled her side during the party and said something to the effect of:

"You know, when you asked me if I wanted a Big Deal birthday party or something small, I chose the more intimate gathering. But later, as you started talking about this Halloween party and I was compiling a list of people to invite, I regretted it. I kept wishing all those people were coming to my party, but I didn't want to ruin the fun of your Halloween thing by saying so. But then when I got here and realized this actually was my party, it just made my year. Thank you so much."

That made it all worthwhile. But seriously, the next time someone proposes a surprise party, that person's going to get smacked in the mouth.

Unemployed: Day Two

"What are you doing?"

"Working."

"On what, your blog?"

"Yeah, so? I sent out some resumes, too."

"You spend so much time looking at that thing."

"It makes me happy. And what if one day I somehow get famous and I buy you a present and say, 'mom, THE BLOG paid for this present.'?"

"Oh, by that time I'll be dead, so it'll have to be flowers you can put on my grave. But I'm going to be cremated, so I won't even have a grave, so you'll just have to put them on the table and think of your poor, dead mother."

"Is all this continued death talk some sick and twisted way of encouraging me to hurry up and have children?"

"...Maybe."

Behold, the beauty in my tank

When I got the job for which I had my final day last week, my mom bought me a fish to keep on my desk, with the most adorable office-type setting in its tank. It's a Beta fish, with a reddish body and teal fins.

I took one look at the thing and groaned.

You can't really see it, but the red photo frame has a picture of two creatures hugging and behind the cabinet is a fine piece of plastic potted plantage.

It's not what you think. I happen to find the little fish so cute and lively. He responds to my mom's voice--and, by default, mine too because if it weren't for the accent, people wouldn't be able to tell who's speaking--and he flits around all day being all happy and not bored. What's not to love? But that's just the problem. I don't think I could handle coming home to find him unresponsive. I shudder at the thought. But of course I started preparing the speech I'd give while flushing the little cutiepie down the toilet the day I first laid eyes on him.

I didn't take him to work. Which was a good thing, because I got word of the layoff about two months after I was hired.

But despite my resistance, I did get hooked. This little fish just makes me smile. When there aren't people around, he snuggles up inside that green file cabinet and when I come up to talk to him or feed him, he pokes his face out to say hello.

Yes, I realize this is a horribly out-of-focus photo. But he's not very cooperative, so you get the gist.

I realize that this is likely one of those times where the owner/mother/caregiver thinks her charge is the most beautiful specimen of life on this earth and shamelessly subjects everyone around her to mundane stories and photos of him, but I don't care. This fish is frigging awesome. How often have you seen a non-legged animal rest his weary non-booty on a chair and give you the most sincere May I Help You look ever? There's a reason you come here, people.

No PhotoShop, I swear.

It's going to be a sad sad day when I lose this little guy, but one thing's for sure: he'll have a kickass obituary.

the abcs of cadiz

Velocibadgergirl tagged me with an alphabet meme. Here's an alphabetical list of words that describe me:

affable (most times of the day)

bristly (when someone rubs me the wrong way)

competitive (I like to win)

devoted (don't mess with my peeps)

earthy (I'm down with worms, just not mosquitoes)

festive (I loves me a party!)

gullible (but I've heard that dictionary thing already)

heavy-footed (only when it comes to driving)

irascible (but I calm down pretty quickly)

judicious (but sometimes it's hard to be fair)

keeper (i.e. packrat)

lamenter (I wish I could think faster on my feet)

madcap (only in certain, oldschool company)

nimble (it'd surprise you how quickly I can get across the room to the snooze button and back)

obstinate (this was suggested by my boyfriend. what does that say about me?)

precise (I'm not always right, but I try to be correct)

quirky (a quality I look for in any good friend)

rollicking (just put on some bumping music)

sleepy (I've managed to hold onto that childhood habit of passing out midsentence)

tyrant (mostly when it comes to wielding the remote control)

unruly (don't you go telling me what to do--unless you're my mom)

voracious (when it comes to gobbling up a good book)

warm (you probably want me at a party where you don't know anyone)

xenophile (I'm obsessed with my own and other cultures. Okay, I looked that one up, but it's true)

yowly (things always seem to go wrong, and I just can't keep quiet about it)

zesty (but that may have something to do with my soap)

sweet home--for now--alabama

As part of my whirlwind October, I paid a visit to my darling brother in Mobile, Alabama a few weeks ago. Things have finally slowed down enough for me to post about it, but to be perfectly honest, I kind of enjoyed my bro continually checking for a post. The best part of being an older sister is toying with the little brats, isn't it?

Because I had a free voucher for United Airlines, I flew into New Orleans (they don't fly into Mobile) and my brother rented a car to come and pick me up with his roommate, Mark. We spent some time hanging out at the Riverwalk and I was thoroughly chastised for stopping to read historical placards around town. For the rest of the weekend, they made sure someone was always walking between me and any reading materials. And this behavior was coming from two people supposedly completing college degrees. They claim they don't read, which baffles me because I did an immense amount of reading to avoid math when I was in school. But if all goes well, University of South Alabama will give them diplomas, so maybe that's how it works these days.

They live in a lovely house Mark bought from his grandparents with a woodsy back yard and a kitchen three times the size of ours (my mother would be so jealous). It's so nice and peaceful. And so many trees!

The "Avenue of the Oaks" at Spring Hill College, where graduates get to parade after they've received their diplomas. Mobile has plenty of tree-lined streets, but this was by far the loveliest.


I can't say the skyline is much to brag about, however.

They took me on a tour of the area, then capped it off by playing touchscreen video games at McDonald's. I have to say, the concept of eating all Chicken McNuggets and then touching a screen 10,000 other people have touched with their licked fingers is kind of gross (and when the screen goes black between games, you can see all the grease on it, too). I used my knuckle, which is the excuse I'm sticking to for why I was so badly trounced by the boys at touchscreen minigolf. Besides, of course, the fact that those boys devote a considerable part of every day honing their video-game skills while the rest of us are wasting our days working.

On "College Football Day" (Saturday, to those of you who don't bleed the colors of your team) it was more fun to watch the boys scream and throw things than the actual players on one of their three tvs. My brother's ex and I had to practically tear him away to go to dinner, at Felix's Fish Camp, a place I've been hearing about for years.

Gorgeous location, right on the ocean. Even the underside of the restaurant was lovely.
And the food was just as good.

That happened to be the night when LSU and Kentucky went into triple-overtime, so my brother stayed in the bar area watching the game for an extra forty minutes. His ex and I spent the time sharing a plate of oysters and some great conversation. And I've got to say, she spoke more on that one day than I heard her say during the entire four years they had been together, and I liked her so much more than I ever did before.

After dinner, we picked up Mark and headed to Biloxi. Both Mark and my brother's ex had spent quite a bit of time there before Hurricane Katrina, and as we drove around they pointed out places they used to go to that are now piles of rubble or nothing at all. The gas station the ex filled up at every time she went to visit her grandmother was reduced to two poles sticking out of the ground, and her grandmother's house on Ocean Drive is now nothing but an empty lot. It was really sad.

And when we went to the Hard Rock Casino, they had a whole display of destroyed memorabilia. The first time they opened the place was on the day that Hurricane Katrina struck, and only a handful of items could be salvaged. But they've rebuilt, and it's a pretty flashy place.

A whole wall of famous guitars, costumes and other memorabilia from hard rockers through the ages.

New Orleans was devastated very badly, but it seems like the rest of the affected areas don't get nearly as much attention. I used to joke around with people who continually asked me what I was going to do about finding a job by saying that H and I would move to Biloxi and join the circus. But after I saw how hard it's been on the place even this long after the hurricane, I feel like I need to choose a new place to joke about. As of right now, I'm thinking Poughkeepsie. Is that a big circus town?

The next day, my bro and I headed back to New Orleans. He and I hung around the French Quarter and had beignets and special-blend coffee at Cafe du Monde and caught some awesome street performers. Then we headed out and shared a meal at the airport.

I've gotta say, it was a great weekend. My brother has come such a long way from the whiny tag-along he once was, and I genuinely enjoy his company (but don't tell him I said so). It was certainly nice to be waited on by him, and I really liked his friends. In the time since I've been home, I've caught myself counting down the months until he comes home after graduation. There's something I can't explain that makes me feel happy and safe whenever he's around.

But ask me again when he's been home for a couple months and you just might get a different answer.

fraternizing with the enemy

"Oh my god I HATE CLIENTS! The deadline was this morning and now they're like oh, btw, we absolutely can't have this in there and you definitely have to change that about things they themselves approved WEEKS AGO!"

"Omg I do that all the time lol."

"You're going to hell with the rest of them."

"Ruuuude."

"But so truuuuue."

pack it up, pack it in, let me begin

The last few days have been somber, with me packing up my files into faceless cardboard boxes, dismantling furniture and watching cabinets empty themselves out onto the floor. I had my last meal at Brett's Kitchen and shed a tear or two at the timing that our office was closing right after The Onion headquarters moved in next door. So little time for witty banter at the elevator, but I did manage to squeeze some in, even though I didn't always get their jokes.

As for the job front, there isn't much to report but I fear jinxing myself as much as your average third grader, so hopefully there will be some good news soon. In the meantime, I'm struggling to keep my patience with this dialup connection at home and I'm embarking on the joy that is Nablopomo. Many other lovely bloggers (some 3813) have joined up, including some of my favorite peeps. You can check out my profile page or just browse around--you may just find your new favorite blog. Posting every day of November is tricky business, so every comment is even more appreciated than usual. I'm promising to leave a few comments every day at places I've never been. Good luck to everyone!

swiper, don't swipe!

Last night I got a call from my credit card company, saying that there were some fraudulent charges on my card. I was pretty impressed they figured it out after only three fake charges. And while I am very careful about where I use it, I have been throwing around that piece of plastic quite a bit lately in many different parts of the country. However, it seems that someone had memory on their machine and made a counterfeit card that s/he's been able to swipe and charge to my account.

I'm guessing they figured it out because I was making charges here in Chicago at the same time they were living it up at Von's and Albertson's in Redondo Beach and Torrence, California. They also made an $8 charge online, which is baffling not only because it was so small, but they certainly wouldn't be sending it to my house. I'm so relieved my company caught it in time, but hearing about this has made me feel violated and extremely paranoid. Not that I needed any more encouragement on that last part.

Watch your wallets, people.

you're so not invited

Dear H’s friend,

You are now officially on my LIST.

When I met you two years ago at the Christmas party for your and H’s company, I got a cold reception; barely a hello even though we were all sitting at the same table. But I didn't think much of it. For all you knew, it may not have worked out between me and him, and there’s no use getting to know someone who lives 2,000 miles away if you never see her again.

Then at the next year’s Christmas party, you didn’t even address me when we were all standing around in a circle under a plane. H was talking to someone and I didn't really know anyone else. I was baffled and kept wondering if you didn't like me for some reason. Sure, my clothes sometimes carry the faint aroma of samosas and I probably smile a little too much, but still. H told me not to worry about it, but I'm just not the let-it-go type, especially if I feel like I haven't done anything wrong.

I was determined to crack the mystery. I called you two months before H’s 30th birthday this year and asked if you’d like to help me do something nice for him. I figured it was a way to better get to know the people he hangs out with every weekend and it'd make him happy. I can’t say I was surprised you didn’t get back to me right away, but I was delighted a few weeks later when you called and offered to throw a party for him at your house. You said you’d get the word out and I suggested you send all the coworkers an evite; it’d be nice for H to see his pals from the office again. I was busy constructing a web of lies to get H to drive us three hours out of his way to go to your house when I came out to visit. And it was proving to be tricky.

About a week and a half before our agreed-upon date, I called to find out how the party planning was going and if I could do anything to help. I found out that you never sent any evite or told anyone at work, and the five-person guest list extended to the far-reaching corners of your living room (it consisted of your siblings, roommates and one friend who comes over all the time). I was baffled, especially because you work and play softball with so many of H's friends. And by that point, most people would have made commitments for that weekend and would likely not come, and I had already booked my tickets to fly out there.

H had told me that the weekend after I came to visit, you and your brother were throwing a Halloween party at your house. Everyone was coming as a rock star, and he was trying to think of what to wear. Just out of curiosity, I asked you about it. You said you invited 40 people from work and your brother invited 50 people from around town where you all grew up together. Granted, I've been told your brother probably had more to do with getting that shindig together—he's also the only one of you guys who came up to me at the Christmas party, said hello and asked me how my flight was. In fact, I'm kicking myself for not just contacting him about all this, because he's always been pretty cool and seems like someone who keeps promises.

You, on the other hand are NOT so cool. Believe me, I'm well aware that hosting parties is exhausting, and that you decided to have a big one the very next weekend. If it was too much work, I wish you had told me you wouldn't be able to do it instead of just sort of letting it fizzle out, or not even offered at all. And after seeing your lackluster enthusiasm and that limp guest list, I decided to cancel the party. It would have taken some fancy footwork to convince him to go all the way to your house from his sister's (whom we'd be visiting that weekend). And for a half-hearted evening, it just wouldn't be worth it. I was sad about canceling, but it turned out okay because nearly all of H's family decided to come down to his sister's place. We'd have our own little party for him. I wasn't going to tell him about the failed attempt because nothing sucks worse than no one doing anything for your birthday than no one doing anything for your birthday and then telling you about all the stuff they didn't do.

I figured what H didn't know couldn't hurt him. Then I found out that you told him about it. "We were going to throw you a party, but Cadiz canceled it," is what I believe he said. His reaction was pretty matter of fact, though, and he said it was no big deal. "When your birthday is on Halloween, Cadiz, you pretty much get used to everyone rather doing other things than celebrating it." That just broke my heart.

I was LIVID. Not only did you totally drop the ball on me, you disappointed a guy who has always gone out of his way to help you out, be it for rewiring your computer system and giving you advice on buying electronics or volunteering to do the annoying duties of a softball team manager when no one else wanted the hassle. And even though he blew it off, I don't think H would have told me what you said if it hadn't bothered him. And on top of all that, his sister said she bumped into you at a wedding, you asked her if you had to come all the way down to her house for H's birthday and she said, "No, but what you do have to do is offer your house for a party." That was the night you called me. So you didn't even come up with THAT on your own!

You may be one of his oldest friends, but from what I've seen, you're not a very good one. I'm pretty much over being mad at you, but I'm not in a hurry to hang out with you anytime soon. Or ever. I made an effort, but I've given up trying to figure out what your problem is. H has plenty of other friends who—even though they're far away—I'm sure would be delighted to do something nice for him. I plan on contacting them in the future.

When I found out you told him about the botched plan, I was so angry I said to my coworker, "I don't care who H is marrying, THIS GUY is not going to be invited." I'm sure he isn't getting married anytime soon, but that's lucky for you if he wants me to be his wedding planner. Because it'll take me a very long time to forget about this.

trial by fire

When she was first teaching me to prepare Indian food (read: making me stand near her but not allowing me to touch anything), my mother would often say it was imperative that I figure out this cooking thing or else my mother-in-law would ask why mom didn't teach me anything and throw me out into the street (in oldschool India, when a girl got married she went to live with the inlaws and often did all the housework). I quickly got bored of standing around and laughed it off. I told her I was only going to marry someone from America who would share in the household duties and who definitely would not still live with his mom, then went back downstairs to watch tv.

Later, in the race against expiration, I got more of a wing-it-and-be-critiqued culinary education (it's much easier to cook when she's not physically in the kitchen telling you to "move your hands and feet faster"). After I'd mostly finished the dish du jour, she'd look into the pot and throw a pinch of this and a shake of that into the mix to fix it. When I'd ask what I'd done wrong, she'd quote her own mother with "all you have to do is look at uskii shakal (its face) to know if you did it right." Mrs. Leuken certainly did not make Baked Alaskas and Peach Cobbler this way in seventh grade Home Economics class; she gave out written recipes. On the other hand, my mother's idea of a recipe is to tell you to put a "fistful" of this and and a "little bit" of that and "don't forget to throw in some" of whatever else. Repeating it too many times or writing it down is too taxing, and she'd remind me that if I had stood around and watched when I was a kid, this wouldn't have been a problem. Then, for good measure, she'd tell me that my youngest aunt could cook ten-course meals around the time she was learning long division.

At some point I realized I can't keep running to mommy, and I'd need to at least learn how to prepare the things I enjoy the most--simple dishes that you can't really get at an Indian restaurant without gross bells and whistles. Things like kadhi, dal, parathas, rotis, egg curry, chicken curry, meat curry, bhindi, aloo bhaji, methi, gawar phali, tindoora, rass malai, kulfi, etc. I also realized that I inherited my mother's discerning taste for North Indian food--when it's comes to our house specialties, neither of us find anything comparable to her own mother's cooking, including her own. (Dishes we don't usually make, however, are pretty well received.) I admit, this is snobby. But a lot of people ask my mom to cook for them or for her recipes, and my nani was known as Mummy to their entire town and often had drop-in guests for dinner. There's gotta be something to that.

All of this is pretty hilarious when you consider that my mother has four other sisters and was considered inept at cooking by my nani when she was a kid. Mom preferred reading about chemistry to watching the cooking process, and was often to blame if something burned even if she was in another room. So she was in quite a pickle when she found herself on the other side of the world, married and trying desperately to remember what snippets she did recall from passing through my nani's kitchen. She's often told me that she didn't really learn to cook until she got to the U.S., but she must have picked up something back then: All five sisters' cooking is remarkably similar to my nani's. Which means she did her job. And biases aside, my mom is a great cook, especially considering the late start.

So when I agreed to cook for H's family, my mother helped me distribute the haldi, garam masala, mirchi, dhaniya, jeera, adrak, laung and other assorted goodies into separate plastic baggies. She gave me some of the rice we use, (knowing it's my weak point) and explained the trick to this specific brand several times. She gave me a hug and said to call if I ran into any problems, because this was likely some sort of potential-daughter-in-law test.

H and I went to the local Indian grocery store and bought the rest of the ingredients. I wasn't about to handmake rotis without my trusty tawa, so we used frozen naan and parathas from the store and I made chicken curry, spinach with potato, dal, raita (yogurt with tomato, cucumber and spices), and my nemesis--rice. But of course, I couldn't just have it plain, but threw in some vegetables to make it a little more fancy.

The potatoes were a little overdone and the shakal of the dal didn't exactly look like my mom's (somehow it's always the simple dishes that prove the hardest for me to master), but it tasted all right. I was pleasantly surprised at the chicken, but more ecstatic that the rice was neither under nor overcooked (luckily, I'd transferred it to a ginormous stock pot when I realized that the one I had originally chosen would be too small). It probably didn't hurt that I got to cook in a dream kitchen with pretty much any and every cool gadget and pretty pot in the catalog.

When I panicked and called my mom, it was mostly for reassurance. She asked if I had remembered to turn on the stove, laughed and said I'd be just fine. I needed to hear that nod of approval, because whether or not it was actually true, I did see this dinner as a test. However, to me it wasn't a test of being worthy of H, but more to prove that I am fit to be called my mom's daughter and my nani's granddaughter.

There's plenty of room for improvement, but I think I passed.

the heat is on

I've been in California since thursday, and dreading today the last several weeks. You see, I agreed to cook an "authentic" Indian meal for H's family, and I've been freaking out ever since. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep my nerves at bay and not turn them off to the cuisine all together.

Wish me luck.

not conducive to the healing of the ulcer

I like to chat.
I am a bad liar.
Someone told me my face is louder than my mouth. And it's true.

And yet for some reason, I find myself compelled to plan Surprise Party after Surprise Party.

This year, all the planning is overlapping.
And there's quite a bit of stress.
Mostly because I can't keep my stories straight.
I have no idea what I've told to whom.
But in the end the recipients are happy, and so am I.

Unfortunately, being out of a job in a few weeks and having few viable leads is keeping me up at night, too.

And that stress is not quite as rewarding.

'tis the season...almost

Last year, I signed up for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) started by the mastermind behind fussy.org. Basically, it's a commitment to post every day for the entire month of November. And from what I understand, there were some 2,000 participants and some lovely prizes. I fulfilled my obilgation, but it was rough going on some days to come up with anything to say every single day. Shocking, I know. But Jam did it, too. And so did Jon. And that immensely helped me keep going.

This year, they've created an entire social network. I signed up at the end of September and was the 198th person to join. As of this morning, there were exactly 1000 people registered and promising 30 days of nonstop blogging madness. And in the time it's taken me to write this, the number is up to 1007.

The sheer number of participants this early in the game seems to indicate that this thing has gone pretty Big Time. I've found several very cool blogs, and can already feel a little performance anxiety. So I've started to hunt around for some good topics to keep in my pocket for November, and stumbled upon this little idea. I'm toying with the idea of doing all thirty days about people I know.

Regardless, if there are things that you've been dying to know or questions you'd like me to address or topics in general that you'd like to see covered here, feel free to send me an email, carrier pigeon or telepathic message with your suggestions and recommendations. I appreciate your help and love to hear from you, as always.

it's a bad day if i awaken in a good mood

I woke up today in a good mood.

I even got out of the house on time and relished the lovely weather--unseasonably warm!

I managed to choose the perfect spot on the train platform to stand at because when the train stopped, the door lined up right in front of me, so i got on first and had my pick of the best seats.

I sat down, fished out my monthly pass and settled down with an excellent and captivating graphic novel, in which I was engrossed for several minutes.

And then I heard it.

It was low and gutteral and came at me in unexpected bursts from the seat directly behind me. The train is nearly silent in the a.m., so every time it tore through my tranquility with a rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip, I'd cringe and sit up straighter in annoyance. This woman had sat behind me before, destroying my peaceful morning ride with her just-when-you-thought-she-was-done-oh-wait-she's-not throat clearing. But I didn't know what she looked like to avoid her. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against throat clearing, sneezing or even repeated coughing. People need to do what they need to do. It's just hers that I cannot withstand: Quiet and painfully drawn out, not unlike the opening of candy wrappers reaaaaaallly sloooooowly in a darkened theater in hopes that no one will notice. And what's worse is that, to me, her particular throat-clearing sounds a lot like the noises very small children make when they're having difficulty trying to fill a diaper.

It took every atom of energy I had for nearly 35 minutes not to turn around and yell at the top of my lungs: LISTEN LADY, APPARENTLY YOU HAVE SOMETHING IN YOUR THROAT. WHY DON'T YOU PUT SOME EFFORT INTO COUGHING IT OUT AND DO SO IN AN ABRUPT, ALBEIT LOUD, MANNER? YOUR METHOD IS DRIVING ME FRICKING BALLISTIC! But instead I sat there, eyes glazed over, pretending to read but contemplating exactly how I'd word my bitter, hateful blog diatribe against her.

And then suddenly, it had been nearly ten minutes without a single rumble. I started to panic. What if throat lady could read minds and heard all the nasty things I was thinking about her? What if she's actually got an untreatable medical condition that causes her to annoy fellow human beings (the guy she was with was rocking some hugeass noise-canceling headphones)? What if this was the one incident that was pushed me completely into the Definitely Going To Hell category? I resumed full concentration on my book, and tried to think nice, apologetic thoughts.

But then she did it again. Just to piss me off. And the rest of my day hasn't been right since.

the heart of the hood

Having grown up in suburbia, I'd always wanted to live that "city" life--you know, staying in some highrise and taking public transport everywhere and carting my groceries home in a little metal cart on wheels. It seemed so exotic and fancy. But over the years as I've hung out with cc in her hood, I realized that its neighborhoody vibe is much more my style. In Lincoln Square, they can walk to good restaurants and interesting shops, the El is nearby, friends don't have to spend 40 minutes trolling for parking (and when they do, it's free). The bumping nightlife isn't too far away, but the area is quiet with a lot of families. It has cute cafes, parks where kids play little league and martial artists practice on Sunday mornings, and its home to the Old Town School of Folk Music, which, despite it's hippie-ish name, offers classes in everything from Flamenco Dance to Capoeira.

This last week, I spent several more days at cc's barren digs. Even though we both had to work, we went to comedy shows, a friend's book release party, and stayed up watching all the premiere-week shows. It was a blast, as usual.

But as I was packing up my air mattress and saying good-bye, I was also getting my last look around her place. I've been coming over there for tea and great conversation for almost five years. I can't count how many times I've sat on her green-and-gray stripedy couch, gossiping until the sun peeked in through the blinds, the birds began chirping and her husband stumbled in half-asleep asking, "you guys are STILL TALKING?" Or how many times her son, b, came tearing down their long front hallway wearing some sort of superhero getup. I've crashed over there so much, and always got great sleep in that oh-so-comfy Spiderman sheet--covered bed.

It was hard to recognize the place without all the signs of the family who'd lived there: no framed black-and-white baby pictures on the walls; no wall-to-wall bursting cases of books; no viney-plant that I'd given them on the kitchen windowsill. (It touched my heart that her husband, P, took it to San Diego as a carry-on item). And there wasn't a Power Ranger in sight.

I know it's going to break cc's heart to hand over the keys today. Even though she was born and raised in New York, she appreciates how great this city is more than anyone else I've ever met. And while I'm lucky that she's going to be here for a while longer yet, saying goodbye to her place is just another reminder that soon I might be saying goodbye to her.

Lincoln Square is just never going to be the same.

it's people who make the difference

I'm the only one in the office today; everyone else is out or traveling for work. From the moment I walked in, it's been a battle to stay focused and get stuff done, but then when I got an e-mail addressed to the entire company about the merits of social media, all that productivity went out the window. Attached were some YouTube clips: Ask a Ninja (which is just awesome in general), and this.

I can't even explain why, but suddenly I was sitting here all alone, and crying.

what sucks about being a story collector

is having to throw a good one back.

Despite asking permission before posting, changing all identifiers that didn't destroy the story and purposely making the item extremely hard to stumble upon via google, I've removed "The ballad of Craigslist's 'Missed Connections,' " because my friend is having second thoughts about it being out there.

For those of you who missed it, I apologize. There's nothing more irritating than a post that goes up and then suddenly disappears. Here's the gist: Basically, a person that I may or may not know was sitting in an undisclosed location and made eye contact with someone very attractive. A post on Craigslist and a few e-mails later, they may or may not be talking on the phone/meeting up/destined for each other.

Sweet story; I'm sad to let it go.

Three Indians and a White Guy walk into a steakhouse...

When H came to visit in July, my parents took us out to dinner. My mom chose Sullivan's, because she had been there before with some colleagues and thought H might appreciate a hella good steak.

He did. As did my father. My slab of tuna was just okay and I believe my mom liked what she had, whatever it was. But of course, everybody knows that when you're sharing a meal with the DNA shareholders of your significant other--until you've achieved that certain level of comfortability--what you're consuming has little to do with how the evening goes, save for being the object you concentrate on to keep from thinking about what the other people at the table are thinking about what you might be thinking they're thinking about. Um, awkward.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't even close to the first time H had hung out with my parents; it was important to me that they all met each other straightaway, mostly because he lives so far away and I wanted them to know he wasn't a serial killer or someone who couldn't appreciate the virtues of a good chapati. And I was actually proud, because that time around, the three of them started to behave a little less oddly and more like their regular selves. Which was a lot less stressful on me.

I really thought we were all acting close to natural and that it went very well. Sullivan's has a '40s, sort of swanky decor, and it was pretty dimly lit. We were all seated toward the back, but that didn't stop three separate people from coming over and asking us how things were going. The fancysuited manager type guy even came by to ask if we were celebrating a special occasion. I simply replied "no," without any further detail and looked at my dinnermates with confusion. They didn't ask the people at adjacent tables any questions.

At the end of the night, a hostess came over with what I assumed was a satisfaction survey, which we thought was odd for a place that is considerably more fancy than Chili's (nothing against Chili's, but babyback ribs were not on the menu, to say the least). It was a card to fill out so Sullivan's could thank us for spending an evening with them. I filled out all of H's California information, and didn't think twice about it.

A few days later, he received this in the mail:

This note is undoctored, save for a tiny bit of PhotoShop trickery by H on his name.

You both? HER PARENTS? Our server, Jennifer, must have been working overtime--on making assumptions, because our conversations were very innocuous. It doesn't matter that she assumed correctly. I purposely told the manager nothing, so for all they knew the Indian people could have been the White guy's parents. Geez, it's 2007, for God's sake. Needless to say, that note freaked me the hell out.

My peeps aren't restaurant types anyway. So this past visit, H came over to the house and my mother cooked an eight-course meal in the comfort of her own kitchen. And for someone whose only experience with Indian food has been Cadiz-made chicken curry and undercooked rice (What!? I was nervous!), H did extremely well and said he enjoyed the food. I was much more relaxed and everyone was acting like themselves. For once.

too close to home

I haven't had a lot of time for books lately, but cc gave me one to read during my recent travels that was quick and extremely engaging. The Chicago Way is a private-eye noir that appealed to me for several reasons, but the thing that kept me turning pages was the dead-on description of the city. I was all ooh and ah-ha about places I recognized until the detective went to meet some acquaintances. River North gallery district? Hey, that's where I work! A double-dip from Mr. Beef on Orleans? Hey, I walk past that place every day! An unassuming little eatery with a red awning under the Brownline El tracks? Now hang on just a clock-punching second!

In the book, Brett's Kitchen is the setting for the detective's meeting with a mob connection, a place where they get cannoli and arrange a rendezvous with the big boss. Brett's also happens to be located across the street from my office (we can see it from the window), and sometimes I go there for both breakfast and lunch. The wry waitress has a new hair color every few weeks and reminisces about life back in Mexico, where she'd get her morning glass of milk straight out of a cow. However, the place is often bumping and people sit at the tile-topped tables to enjoy oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins with the newspaper. Or even for a meeting. And in the refrigerated case, next to the banana bread and frozen Snickers, is usually a whole tray of cannoli.

Normally, I'd chalk that kind of description up to artistic license and not think too much about it, but after I found out that the author was a journalist, I thought twice. Because if there's anything I know about good journos, it's that they do their homework. And not only was this guy an investigative reporter and one of the only ones to interview serial killer John Wayne Gacy, he's also behind A&E's Cold Case Files, which resolves real-life (and sometimes bizarre) murders.

So now every time I go to Brett's, I reevaluate the suited guys wrangling messy Mexican Chicken Sandwiches out of the corner of my eye and hope that I haven't done anything to piss them off.

pay more, sleep more

"I just can't understand how you sleep so much."

"Mom, I hardly think six hours of sleep is too much."

"I know, but I get to see you for two minutes and then suddenly you're snoring on the couch. And I wake up earlier than you do!"

"Whatever, I'm tired!"

"There might be something wrong with you. Have you been taking vitamins?"

"Not really."

"Maybe I'll pick some up for you at Wal-Mart."

"WAL-MART?! Don't you know that the only reason they can keep prices that low is by advising their employees to go on government assistance and forcing people in the Third World to work for like 0.002 cents an hour? I can't believe you can still go there."

"Cadiz, face the truth: people are not going to stop shopping there just because you watched some movie."

"I think it's worth the extra I have to pay to be able to sleep at night."

"So that's your secret: Don't shop at Wal-Mart, and you'll fall asleep in a matter of seconds."

25

I can't believe you've been around for a full quarter of a century. But I'd like to think I had something to do with how well you've turned out. Happy Birthday, little brother. I love you more than you know.

my dance card's filling up

I've managed to cram enough into the next couple months to justify why I may not have a job by the time our office closes. This week, I'll be in Connecticut with the colleagues to tie up some business stuff, and when I get back to Chicago on Thursday, H will be flying in from L.A. (cue the cheesy music and slow-motion running), which will be nice because I haven't been able to see him since the Fourth of July.

In October, I'll be making another collegiate trip to cc's house and one to Mobile, Alabama to see how the actual college students get by. (Word on the street is that it's with HD-tv, an Xbox 360 and lots of outdoor grilling and beer). Then off to L.A., where H and I might take a road trip to San Diego to see his sisters and also so I can decide if the place is worthy of cc. If I don't deem it suitable, her husband may have to think of another plan because I won't let her go.

I will likely carve out enough time to post just as usual, but I thought you'd appreciate a head's up. When I whine about not having a job come November, at least you'll know I had an excuse.

everything but the Ramen

Last week I spent a few days with cc in her nearly empty apartment. Her husband accepted a professorship in San Diego and has taken everything but the couch, tv, old computer and one pot to California. CC is looking for a gig out there, but nothing seems to compare with the awesome one she has now. So for the time being, she's staying here in Chicago and living like a college student.

Very much like a college student myself for a few days, I brought over an overnight bag and an air mattress and crashed at her place. We had pizza, ice cream, takeout kung pao chicken, movies and some company on the El ride into work (our offices are a stop away from one another on the Brown Line). On Friday night, we took in some hot dogs at Murphy's and a preview production of 'Night, Mother, a very thought-provoking story about suicide that was also a 1986 movie starring Cissy Spacek. After tears were running all the way down my neck, somehow dodging feather-capped drunks at OktoberFest didn't seem appropriate anymore. Instead, we swapped stories about family and commiserated about how much life sucks over appetizers and alcohol.

I love hanging out with cc. Few people understand me the way she does, and even fewer know exactly what I'm thinking about a situation even before they turn to look at my face. Which is why she got me this mug (and some awesome graphic novels) for my birthday:

The back says "Pessimist's mug."

Even though it's killing me that soon she may live more than 2,000 miles away, I take comfort in my skills at maintaining long-distance relationships. You're the best, cc.

An eye for observation

During college, I interned for a summer in Minneapolis. It was by far not my first experience away from home, but it was the first that required me to procure my own residence outside the state of Illinois. I'd never been there before and even though it was summertime, Minneapolis loomed ahead like a snowy forest of tall, blond people flinging lutefisk. On top of that, I was raised in the church of paranoia so I couldn't just sublet an apartment with some stranger or show up and find something when I arrived. So two months before I was supposed to be there, I signed up for the summer in St. Paul at the College of St. Catherine. In a dormitory.

The campus was a ghost town. I had a two-person room all to myself, and there were supposedly seven other people living on the floor. I had my own sink, but the bathroom, kitchen and tv room were communal. However, for the first few days I hadn't run into a soul. The grounds were lush and flowery, and I could hear the bells from the chapel every day. It was a nice place, but lonely.

If you must know anything about me, it's that I do not like to be alone for long stretches of time. An afternoon with neither human contact nor anything good to read/watch can drag on like the Paleolithic Age. Don't get me wrong, I need time to myself just like anybody, but I prefer it to be when I know someone is elsewhere in the house or on their way home. During college, despite the 39 other people on our floor, I wouldn't be able to sleep until I heard my roommate's key in the lock. Bizzare, I know. So staying at St. Kate's was freaking me out; mostly because I thought no one would be around to hear me scream.

One evening when I went to the community fridge to get a cup of yogurt, I saw some foreign salami. I hovered around the tv room waiting to see if anyone came by looking to make a sandwich to whom I could say hello. Eider (ay-ther) is a tall blonde from Spain with a gentle voice and dark eyes that crinkle when she smiles. Plus she has that soft accent I hadn't heard since my time studying abroad. She was interning for the summer at Fallon advertising agency, and would be commuting into Minneapolis every morning on a bus, just as I was. I liked her immediately.

Even though I met La Mariachi through a mutual friend and ended up staying most of the summer at her house (which was a lot closer to downtown Minneapolis), when I was at the dorm, Eider and I would walk a few blocks from St. Kate's for some of the most excellent cheeseburgers I've ever had at Highland Grill. My afterhours project was to create a scrapbook for my university organization and she came up with some great ideas--I remember thinking she had a great eye and that we would have made a fabulous team if we ever worked together. Sometimes Eider would come salsa dancing with us at First Avenue or Quest, but while we were busy trying to follow our partners' intricate turns without getting tangled up and breaking our necks, she was often hanging back and observing the beauty among the chaos.

After that summer, we both went back to school. We haven't really kept in touch save for the updates I get about her online magazine, but this week I got an e-mail about what she's been up to: She spent almost a year traveling around Southeast Asia taking pictures, and has posted one for each day of her trip, here.

Two-hundred ninety-one photos are quite a lot, but she's really captured the feeling I get when I go back to certain parts of the motherland. If you have some time, check it out.

just keep your fat mouth shut

The thing about falling asleep early is that you end up waking up early, too. Often on days when you don't have to. Which is extremely irritating.

The other day when I had a couple of hours to kill in the morning, I was flipping through the channels and caught Fat Camp on MTV. Somehow I got sucked into the documentary about camper smacktalking, hooking up, politics and slackerdom, and stuck it out for the entire two hours. And I wasn't even interested in the characters' losing weight, but more keen on seeing the drama unfold.

Yesterday my coworker said something that reminded me of one of the characters and I said, Hey, the other day I was watching this show about Fat Camp...but she cut me off. Offendedly, as though I were commenting about her personally, and then the other coworker joined in, too. At first I laughed along, but in trying to explain that what I was saying had nothing to do with being overweight, I forgot what it was. The mock-outrage went on for just a little too long.

I came away from that conversation feeling like a jackass, but then I remembered that these people decided I'm probably the only person who thinks Flight of the Conchords is funny.
They probably wouldn't appreciate the nuance of Fat Camp anyway.

crass in the name of love

Dear People,

Get your boobs checked. And your pipes. And the rest of yous. It's way less sucky than the alternative. This may be hard to accept, but you are not invincible, after all. As someone who's spent way too much time pacing around helplessly in hospital waiting rooms, trust me when I say that your loved ones will thank you for taking care of yourselves.

Much love,
Cadiz

p.s. Oh, and don't forget the sunscreen. And the vitamins.

hopes for the next generation

We don't have a lot of family on this continent. Aside from my parents and brother, it's pretty much just my dad's sister's husband's father's nephew in Long Island and his wife. Whom we almost never see.

So it was kind of nice to get a visit this weekend from my cousin's best friend Ayesha and Ayesha's husband. They took the Amtrak up from Tennessee. My dad's niece is an only child, so Ayesha is really a lot more like a sister to her. And when I was in Mumbai for my cousin's wedding, Ayesha was so kind and wonderful to me. It was great to see her again.

They've only been in the States a few years for his job, and my parents went out of their way to make them feel at home and comfortable. I think my mom sees a bit of herself circa 1977 in them because she kept referencing how people in India think living here is a cakewalk but it's a lot more difficult than they imagine. Especially when you have no family or support system and have to figure things out for yourselves. My parents drove around our town showing them places we'd lived (some of which I'd never even seen) and talked about how back in the day they had their white friend Tom inquire about apartments for rent because whenever my dad would call, there suddenly weren't any available. They were quick to add that things are a lot better these days.

I felt a little out of place in their fish-out-of-water bonding, because this has always been my bowl and I was too young to process what my parents went through back then. We walked around the neighborhood my parents have lived in for 21 years, stopping at the park and near the subdivision swimming pool.

About halfway down the bikepath, just as we came to the pool, several people splashing around in it stopped and turned to look at us. One guy, who looked to be in his mid20s, glared. I didn't make much of it until we were turned the other way and heard a rubber ball smash into the chain-link fence right behind us. Hard and loud. Then another one. These were definitely not cavort-y overthrows but pointed baseball pitching aimed right at us. The worst part about incidents like that is that even though you can't prove that they are hate-based, your gut knows it without a doubt. So I made us turn around and get out of there, because if one more ball smacked the fence between us, I didn't know if I'd be able to stop myself from hopping over it and tearing out that kid's long stringy hair by the fistful. That wouldn't make a nice impression on our guests at all.

As we walked down the path, we saw a bunch of girls in hijabs carrying brightly-wrapped gifts into the meeting hall attached to the pool, which was obviously rented for the occasion. I wondered if those nasty people in the pool (and I say people because no one said anything to him, including the lifeguard) had seen the girls, made some assumptions and taken it out on us. I couldn't help but worry for those girls and their party.

I was seething about that incident the rest of the weekend. Later I mentioned it to my mother, and she thought she was the only one who had noticed that pool guy. I'm sure we all noticed, even though no one said a word. It's sad that we tend to remove ourselves from a situation like that and rarely respond, even just by asking if the guy had something he'd like to say. Ball-throwing is tame, but will the kids around him who saw what he did build on the sentiment in the future? I can't help but worry for my children.

That bit of nasty didn't stop me from delighting in the fact that the bump that is Ayesha's tummy will grow into a baby come January. My mom and I are convinced it's going to be a girl, so while Ayesha and husband were at the Sears Tower and Shedd Aquarium yesterday, I made a pair of Saartje's Booties (Ale, I think she's in NL!). Ever since I saw the pattern, I've been looking for someone to make them for.

I'm really hoping it's a girl.