Patriotic

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So today was the big day that my parents, Chris, and I went to Sedona and the Grand Canyon on a long 14-hour day tour trip. We traveled in a group of ten to see the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Like I’ve been told, it’s an astounding sight to see, even if you are well traveled and have seen lots of beauty, natural and man-made. At our first stop along the canyon, as I got close to the edge and observed the layers of colored rock, got a vertigo feeling when looking all the way down, and heard everyone else “wowing” at the depth, for the first time in my life I actually felt proud to be an American.

I’ve never been patriotic; in fact, I’ve spent most of my life being embarrassed by being American given how poorly our K-12 system does against other nations, how map-stupid we are, and how little we know about the world compared to how much the rest of the world knows about us and other nations. I get angry about how we make a big stink over pro-choice vs. pro-life and make it about morals, when the rest of the world shakes their head and thinks, what the hell is that about – It’s a medical procedure! I want to crawl into a hole when my crazy aunt and uncle get all NRA on me and compare the danger of guns to the dangers of pencils – if you ban guns, why not ban pencils, too?

So, it’s a big step for me to actually admit out loud that I was so stunned by the sight of the Grand Canyon and reveled in the fact that yes, it’s in the United States; yes, I was born here; and yes, I’m actually proud and happy for once to call myself American and be a part of this incredible country. I’ve admitted it.

Purpose

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Today, Chris and I flew into Phoenix and met my parents for our long weekend of exploring Phoenix, Scottsdale, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon National Park. As an added bonus, I arranged some time with my friend from Wellesley, who I haven’t seen since graduation almost six years ago. She moved to China to teach English, found an expat she fell in love with, got married, and moved back to Arizona with him.

It was hard to read her husband in the beginning. He was very quiet, serious, and had interesting eye movements. He was soft spoken most of the time and seemed very intent on… just observing. Based on what I know about my friend, I knew she would not pick a boring mute as a husband, so I knew he was a deep-thinker type, so eventually he started opening up, and I discovered his crazy sense of humor and wit that would no doubt attract my friend who I traveled to China with. He’s a balloon artist (not the clown type), and his goal in life is to make kids happy. If someone else said this to me, I’d call their bluff. When he said this to us, I really believed it.

After they generously dropped us off at our hotel at the end of the evening and we were parting ways, he gives me a big hug (as he’s a big man) and says, “Even though we spent the last several hours together, I realize I didn’t really get to ask you much. What is your purpose in life? What do you live for?” The question caught me so off guard that I initially just laughed. Because it was a big question for the minute we had left together, I said to him that I was still searching for my purpose and didn’t quite know what it was just yet.

In the midst of all my traveling, reading, brain games, theater, cooking, eating, exercising, grocery shopping, friends, family, cute things obsessing – what the hell is my purpose, anyway?

Indian supermarkets vs. Chinese supermarkets

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Last night, Chris and I went to get our Indian fix at Dosa Delight in Jackson Heights in Queens. As our usual routine, we’ll have dosas and mango lassies among other things there, and then we’ll stop by Patel Brothers to stock up on Indian spices, curry leaves, mixture, and plantain (banana) chips. I made a quick list of spices I wanted for our pantry, and one of them was asafoetida. It’s a very fragrant (or smelly if on your clothes or body) gum spice that gives a really distinct Indian flavor. I couldn’t find it immediately, so I asked one of the Indian workers there for help finding it. He walked me to the right aisle and showed me my options, and then started showing me other things I could use with it. Then, he asked me if I needed help finding anything else. He was so friendly and happy the entire time even though I had taken him away from stocking another shelf.

I thought about this in contrast with the tiny bit of help I’ve ever asked for at a Chinese supermarket (in Chinese, mind you), and I’ve always been treated gruffly and as though I was a burden. Chinese people in supermarkets are rarely happy to help you even if you are one of them. The difference is pretty stark… and pathetic. You’d wonder what makes Chinese people so miserable and Indian people so happy. Maybe Indian people’s smelly spices make them happier people. 🙂

Deserving praise?

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Today, I had a visit with my therapist again. I can count on one hand the number of visits I have left with her before she ends her time here. We talked about my upcoming trip to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon with my parents and Chris, and my thoughts around it.

I explained to her that my parents generally don’t take vacations. It’s not that they can’t afford it; they certainly can, but my dad is a homebody and generally doesn’t like to go anywhere because he likes being in familiar areas and thinks everything is a rip off or too expensive, and my mom is scared of the world and won’t go anywhere unless someone else suggests it to her first and then guides her around there (my dad won’t do this). So I told my therapist that unless I book, plan, and go with them on any “vacations,” the vacation will never happen for them.

She responds and says how mature that is on my part. She thinks it’s amazing I recognize this fact about my parents, but want to enhance their lives by planning these trips and then even going along with them, as she can imagine most kids would NOT want to do this, and would merely think, “eh, they’re miserable,” and let their parents continue on in their misery. They are who they are. I think I am getting too much credit for this.

While traveling with my parents is certainly not the easiest thing to do, I’m willing to do this because I’d like us to have shared, happy experiences, and I want them to see that there is more to life than all the work and pain and suffering they’ve had to go through. In most cases, the most rewarding things in life are not the easiest things to do.

The sad part about this trip is that we were supposed to have taken it this time last year with Ed. I guess this time, Chris and Bart will have to go in his place.

When things don’t always work out

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So my friend’s birthday was yesterday, and I decided to surprise her by having a cheery spring bouquet of ranunculus flowers sent to her office as a belated birthday gift using this awesome flower delivery tech startup I found out about through Chris (via a flower delivery he had arranged for me, which produced the freshest, longest lasting flowers I’ve ever had). Me being me, I wanted it to be a surprise, so instead of double checking what her office address was, I looked it up online and chose the second address I found and had it sent there.

Then I found out that Amazon.com, her employer, has numerous office buildings all over Seattle – not just on the Amazon campus. And well, the address I chose was NOT on the Amazon campus. Actually, it ended up being a 20-minute drive away from her actual building!

The flowers eventually did get to her (and still looked quite fresh), as someone had the package redirected to her building after I told her what had happened. I was intently tracking the delivery, and as soon as I got the FedEx notification it was delivered, I was waiting for her to message me. But she never did. And my gut told me something was wrong.

It’s funny how a delivery like this didn’t work out the way I had hoped, but when I had a birthday cake delivered to another friend in Singapore – halfway across the world – that worked out perfectly.

 

Food trends

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Chris has officially boycotted kale and quinoa. While both are full of nutrients and are obviously extremely healthy choices to add to our everyday diets, he refuses to eat or buy them, as they are so trendy now that everyone seems to be serving them on menus everywhere, and as a result, the prices of both items have increased significantly. He hates how trendy and hipster they have become. While there are some fair points made here, I refuse to completely stop eating them. There are places to buy both items at fairly reasonable prices, and it’s not like we eat them every single day. I’m not one of those people who have actually succumbed to purchasing “kale chips” at the market (though I have tried to make them, and the result was that about 1/4 were crunchy, and the rest were just… steamed in the oven).

A decent group of individuals at my office have decided to pay $120 for a three-day juice cleanse. Yes, that’s $40/day – for non-solid food. And apparently, that is considered “cheap.” With that said, I think that there are far worse and stupider eating choices to make than eating quinoa and kale regularly.

Lucky apartment

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We just found out that our next door neighbors in our apartment building are moving out as soon as their lease is up in a couple of months. Their desire to move has been exacerbated by a massive mice problem they’ve been facing. Mice have been raiding all of their cabinets, even the top ones, and it’s gotten so bad that they’ve completely stopped cooking or eating at home, and just go out for food all the time. Today, the building paid these exterminator-type people $125 per apartment unit to inspect each apartment. Lucky us (for real this time), there wasn’t a single trace of mice in our apartment anywhere, even in the heaters where they usually hide.

I’m still not sure how that is even possible that the mice could hang out in their apartment, which is literally on the opposite side of our wall, but never make their way to our side. Chris and I are very anal about cleanliness and making sure all food remnants are cleaned up and raw foods sealed in air-tight containers, but even when you are the model of cleanliness in New York, rodents and roaches can still come visit.

Or maybe just by writing this post, I will curse our good luck and a mouse might decide to stop by..

Party

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So the first birthday celebration at a bar I’ve been to in a long time happened tonight, and as lucky as Chris and I are, it was pouring rain most of the night. Chris’s shoes and socks were completely soaked. Then we got forced into a mandatory paid coat check because apparently at this drinks/dance/pool venue (yes, four-feet-deep only, though), you’re not allowed to wear your coat or even carry it. I also couldn’t order a drink for Chris and could only order a drink for myself – the rules of the bar. And my friend’s happy hour ended just half an hour after we arrived. Now, I’m reminded of all the reasons I don’t enjoy “partying.” Even before I was living with Chris and “settled down” in that way, even when I wanted to like it, deep down, I still didn’t. Why would I have a conversation yelling with someone over loud music when I could possibly do the exact same thing at a restaurant or wine bar where we could all sit comfortably and talk without straining our voices?

Maybe it’s a sign of age, or maybe it’s my inner “oldness” that I’ve always had because I never got that excited about these types of events. Either way, I’d only go for someone I really cared about. As time goes on, the need to “party” and “get wasted” will die down for everyone with age, anyway, and will be replaced with more meaningful activities. It’s one positive of getting older.

Carrying meat

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He came again. It’s been over a month since I last saw him in my dreams.

I was standing in some factory setting, and I saw my dad instructing Ed how to lift these big bars that had heavy metal hangers carrying sliced meat and sausages. It was the strangest scene ever. Each sausage link dangled individually from the hangers. Ed seemed apprehensive about the weight of the big metal bars and hangers, but he submissively went along with what my dad said, probably in fear that he’d get yelled at.

So my dad takes the front of the cart of bars, and Ed takes the back. Ed is obviously struggling to keep them up because they are so heavy, and seconds later, I see him stumble and fall, the heavy metal bars coming down after him, on top of him. I immediately rush over to him to see if he’s all right. I push the metal bars off of him, and he climbs out. I can see he’s been injured. There were some sharp metal edges on the bars, and parts of his face and the back of his neck have been cut. I happen to have a damp cloth in my hand, and I start wiping away some of the blood from his wounds. I ask him if he’s okay, and he nods and says he is fine.

This is by far the strangest dream I’ve had with Ed. Who dreams of people carrying metal carts of hanging sausages and then getting injured by them?

Leaving

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I finally went to visit my therapist today after over a month of not seeing her. It’s been difficult to see her regularly given work has gotten so much busier. Having flown out of the state twice for three to eight day spans in the last month didn’t really help that, either.

But I was sad to learn that she is actually leaving in five weeks. She’s not actually a “therapist,” per se – she’s a social work intern who’s finally graduating and moving on to the next big thing in her life. I guess we all have to move on at some point.

So before we began talking about what I came to talk about, she asked me to spend some time in the next week thinking about what I have been getting out of seeing her, what I am taking away, and then compare that to what I thought I would accomplish by seeing her. I can’t honestly say I am better off just because I have seen her – time heals a lot of pain in itself, even if we secretly may not want it to. I do think it has helped to have someone who doesn’t know me personally to reassure me that I’m not becoming a mad woman, and that what I am thinking and feeling is normal. It’s helped having someone non-judgmental. All my friends are judgmental whether they want to admit it or not. They’re human beings who know me. That by default makes them judgmental.

She asked me if I might want to consider continuing to see one of her colleagues. I think the answer to that is definitely not. I don’t want to have to go through my life story with yet another stranger all over again. I will miss her when she leaves.