free car? no, free whisky!

This morning began with calls and emails to PR reps to get free stuff and ended with free whisky care of the hotel. In between there was breakfast in a cafe, lunch in an Indian restaurant and dinner at a mexican place.
I'll admit, I was sceptical about visiting the Tribune building today, but my dad had made a vague but convincing case for the "stones from all over" that are meant to adorn that building, so we went.
If we ever doubted that our friend Leksi was a fantastic tour guide, we shall doubt no more. We went to a used bookstore first thing. I got a book written by a man who drove a taxi after months and months spent in an ashram about dharma on the road. (Road trip reading!) Ivo got a travel book by a cyclist. Well done Leksi.
That afternoon, we approached the Chicago River and our tour guide pointed across, saying "There's that Wilco cover art from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." Ivo and my gasps at the two towers were probably even more enthusiastic than Leksi had anticipated. A jaunt up the road revealed the Tribune building and we showed native Chicagoan Leksi, the very bricks my father had described. They were pretty darned cool and we looked at them all and read their plaques allowed to one another.
We raced a storm to the Chicago Art Institute and even had time to see the bean at Millenium park! Just after entering the museum, the skies opened up and we officially began our tour of Rout 66.
We three saw American Gothic, the Nighthawks and a number of other modern American pieces. It was truly amazing and the mood of the pieces and what they stirred in us has created an incredible start to our trip across America (the whisky and tamales/burritos didn't hurt either).
Tomorrow we will officially begin our tour at Grant park on the coast of Lake Michigan. (Hopefully in a car that was specially chosen by the rental company's PR people, but beggars can't be choosers.)

From Logan Airport to Logan Square

We've made our first official stop on RT 66!
We are happily arrived in Chicago,  Il and everything that I've ever heard about the city is running through my head. Wind does blow garbage through the air ("What state's Chicago in? I'd say Il!") and grit painfully against my legs. Our hosts say that "Chicago-style pizza is disgusting and nothing but butter and cheese" ("....A toddlin' town") etc.
Our hotel is lovely. Chosen for it's proximity to our friend here, we're totally charmed by it. We had a wonderful lunch in the nasty heat, after a skinny hostess swayed away, burdened with our back-packs and saying "...it's no problem..." to put them aside until their 3 pm check-in.
A walking tour with Ivo's old college buddies led us through a veritable globe of segregated communities. A neighborhood resided in by Orthodox jewish and Iraqi communities led to a Korean neighborhood. (There was a deli that offered Korean-Mexican food.) We stopped in Little India for delicious milk-based refreshment and then continued down back down the road for Ivo's first experience with Korean Barbeque. (I had a buckwheat vegetable pancake.)
We're back at the hotel early, due to "jet-lag" and "meat coma" and will forgo using our "whisky tokens" that we've been given, to be used at the bar downstairs. For now, we can choose from provided reading material that includes "9 Stories" by Salinger or "The Missing Piece Meets the Big O" by Silverstein; in this hotel room that very much resembles that of a teenager in a by-gone decade (there is an old cassette player with pre-made mixed-tapes; a comforter that I swear could be an exact copy of my brother's from years ago and one accent papered-wall that a 16 year old would find intensely creative.)

Tomorrow, the Trib building and a Great Lake swim.

cultural nouse

When Ivo was in Russia, I got him a book: Unsung Cultural Icons of the Soviet Union. I saw it in the book store, opened it, flipped through and instantly saw a "Beveled Glass." This is just a normal, bog-standard juice glass, but Ivo had shown me one in one of our video chats and the coincidence made me chuckle.
Turns out, he loves the book. He's been reading it in bed and sometimes reads it aloud. This doesn't totally work, because he'll say "See?" just as I'm drifting off, trying to show me a photo from the book. A couple nights ago, closing my eyes to the proffered book, Ivo read about a popular toy that tips and teeters but doesn't fall over. "Like Weeble Wobbles?" I sleepily asked. "Huh?" "You know, 'Weeble Wobbles wobble but they won't fall down?" Ivo doesn't know this toy and it's now added to the list of things that are different about our childhoods. It's the small less obvious cultural norms that we forget about but that are so important. I think thats what makes this book so much fun and always gives us something to chit-chat about.
One cultural difference here is the chat in the street. In Zürich, I can't be in a rush, because I'll have to stop and chat to anyone I know if I run into them. Strangely, if I have friends with me when I run into someone, there is no obligation to introduce the different friends. If I'm with a group of friends and run into a friend with their own group of friends, the two groups will remain their own entities, while my friend and I do the obligatory stop-and-chat.
Last week I was rushing down the road in San Francisco and saw a friend approaching in her own rush, with bags on each shoulder and buds in her ears. I removed my own earbuds and we waved at each other and, without slpwing our paces, waved and said, "You good? - Yeah!  - Later!" and continued on our ways. I don't know which is better, but the differences strike me as comical.

new life philosophy.

Today I had what has become a typical occurrence: While walking on a new route I encountered a massively steep hill in my way. (I mean, practically vertical.)
When we first moved here, every hill was incredible. There always came this "this can't be serious!" moment. Now that I've been here a while, I find a massive hill in my path and readjust my bag, (possibly remove my jacket) and forge on, one foot in front of the other.
Today, as I leaned forward and looked at my feet (instead of the path ahead), I thought, this could be a metaphor for life and this is how I'd like to tackle them. A hill pops up in my way, I adjust, stay present and forge ahead.
Here's hoping!

Abara Kadabara

I've been writing 2 blogs at once the past 6 months. While this blog was helpful to me in Zürich for feeling connected to the states, http://deutlish.wordpress.com/ is a blog that I write with Ivo to connect to folks in Switzerland and I write an anonymous blog to connect with my emotions surrounding adoption and hopefully other people on that path. The private blog was alsp meant to prevent this blog from filling up with adoption stuff but I can't help myself and thus write this entry:


I believe in Magic; all kinds of magic. I believe in the good kind of magic like science and sports teams-induced superstitiousness. I believe in bad magic, like the stuff that fuels addictions. I believe in a magic that gets me through the day as well. I believe that little sparks of hope are like magic.


I'm currently experiencing a sense of magic that I acn't categorize. I fear that it may be in the center of a venn-diagram with addiction-magic and hope-magic (with a slight hue of sport superstition). No, it feels like betting magic, like sport/addict magic. Not sure. What I'm seeing are signs. They are fake signs that I make myself but knowing that doesn't stop them. I'll give an example of a sign-seeing internal monologue:

Will and Kate are getting married -= a royal wedding + I was born right after a royal wedding = my baby will come end of April


Another:


Jonas and Oli are coming in July + it'd be terribly inconvenient if the baby came in July = The baby will come in July


And another:
I last saw David Sedaris live when I was almost homeless + There, I met a guy who introduced me to my future housemates = I will get the call from the agency when I go see David Sedaris this April


and last of all
Our agency said that people often get chosen when they're out of the country + Ivo is in Russia = this'll take no time at all!


I think the last one is most dangerous. The others seem to fit the pattern of religious zealots who can be certain that the world will end on a certain date and then quickly rebound when that date comes and goes. The last one seems to set me up for disappointment. Luckily 3/4 of those above scenarios end with Ivo coming home, sane, lovely, supportive rationality-sharing Ivo.
I'm hoping that writing these down here will put them in a different place and might change my magical thinking. We shall see. Until then..... I'm off to bed on a unicorn's back. Ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum.

Asking and Telling

I have given my fingerprints and my academic history. I have listed every person with whom I have ever lived and in which cities we resided. I have described myself, given photos of myself, filled out questionnaires about the mental faculties and medical histrories of myself and my family. I have had two physicals, a TB test and discussed what an inability to reproduce means to me. So why is it, then, that our social workers blush, clear their throats and ask our pardon when they ask the question "So how would you describe your sex life?"
Our lives our open books and rightly so. We are adopting a child and the people responsible for attesting to our soundness want to know everything about us. Issues in our bed may well become issues in our home, so questions about our sex-life makes sense. When I apply for Swiss citizenship, bureaucrats will not only question myself and my husband, but also my references, friends and co-workers about my sex-life. This too makes sense. The natuaralizers need to know if my relationship is on the up-and-up and that I did not simply marry for the red passport.
I have never and cannot anticipate ever being in a situation in which my employer asks after my sexuality or sex life. When working with Planned Parenthood, the most intimate question was "do you feel safe in your home?". When working on a project for a domestic violence shelter for same sex couples, I was not asked about my sex-life or sexuality. So why do the government and the military feel that they have the right to make their employees sex-life their business. Why are they illegally ferreting out details in order to remove their soldiers from their posts?
Our California social worker has worked for the city for 30 years. In her daily attempts to help children live happier lives, I am sure that she has seen things that I would never let myself imagine. In removing children from homes and placing them in others, she has seen much that would typically be kept "behind closed doors". Nevertheless, she sat at our dining table and blushed from embarrassment, when asking about our sex life.
She needn't be ashamed. She is our social worker. I do, however, say shame on any government or military official, who would believe that the sex-lives of their employees is any business of theirs. Shame on asking, shame on telling, shame on the discrimination and bigotry that would stop Americans from serving their country.

over the hill and through the warnings.

It was winter. I was leaving work at the diner and was meant to head to Boston. My boss, a sweet, kind, caring fellow, asked that I please not risk the drive. This was good advice and I am glad that I followed it. As I slowly crawled home in my Saturn, the radio news told me that there was a huge pile-up on the highway. I headed through the east side of Providence and thanked my lucky stars that I would soon be warm and cozy at home.

I turned left onto the hill that lead to my house. A man clearing his driveway shouted and waved his hands. "Don't drive down there! It's never plowed!" This was true. The city nearly never plowed my neighborhood. "I'll be fine!" I smiled "I just live right there in the second road!" I confidently, though slowly and carefully, progressed further toward the downward slope. Just then, another man clearing another drive on the other side of the street shouted and waved "hey!" I lowered my window and affirmed that I understood his concerns about driving down the hill, and assured him that I wasn't headed down there. I rolled my window up, grateful for my caring neighbors, crested the hill and put on my turn signal for the turn into my road. As I turned the wheel nothing happened. I tapped the brakes and nothing happened - - I was headed down the hill.
I went limp, because I heard that that is what one is meant to do. It was taking forever, however and I couldn't maintain my limpness. Then I saw that at the bottom of the hill, there was a pile up. A car had hit a lamppost and dislodged another car that had hit the same post. A school bus had hit that car and the drivers were out of the cars and safe, but I saw that the bus was still full of it's little tiny passengers. Ack!
I tried swinging my wheel back and forth, hoping to hit a tree on the way. I pounded the brakes, ready to turn into the skid. No response. My plan to stay limp was failing, but luckily, my car just softly, smoothly and slowly inserted itself under the school bus. The children in the bus cheered.

I called my pal and neighbor on my cell phone. Her boyfriend answered. "Is Dacia there?" I panted. "Look in your back window." There, scooting, falling and finally sliding and paddling herself down the hill on her bum, was my buddy. "I'm coming!" she shouted.

I've told this story many times and it's probably fairly common. Today, though, as snow falls in other parts of this country and another, possibly on my loved ones who are far away, I am thinking of that day. I'm not thinking of the crash or the shattered car. I'm thinking of the snow shovellers and the woman on her bum. I'm thinking about the straining to go limp.
This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for all of my loved ones and all of my support. I hope that when they speak, that I listen fully. I hope that when they need me, I can scoot on my snowy bum and be with them.