Liberal Arts

I tend to think things are common knowledge and it’s not a good idea for me to think that way. I confronted this assumption today while I was at work.

Someone I know who is trying to finish their Bachelor’s degree was calling their school to register for an additional course. They asked the registrar if the class they were trying to enroll in would satisfy their liberal arts requirement. When the person said the class was “The History of New York”, I shook my head in disbelief. Doesn’t everyone know that history is a liberal art? But apparently not everyone knows that so I can’t assume that because I know it that everyone does.

What it did show me, however, is that some people are just beyond hopeless.

Top Chef

A few nights ago I had a very vivid dream that I was one of the contestants on Top Chef. The best part of this dream was that I had a very thick Italian accent. Every time they interviewed me, I would say stuff like “My momma she taughta me how to maka this disha. I luvva it!” Or I’d make some reference to my aunt and how she taught me how to cook.

I was watching myself on the screen of my dreams. I was cutting pieces of meat and vegetables. Creating complicated sauces and presentations. I even remember that I had made some kind of filet mignon in a wine and rosemary sauce. I can’t remember if I won for that dish but I was in the top three.

At another point in the dream, the camera stopped on me and I said “I don’ta lika her!” I’m not really sure who I was referring to but it was pretty funny on the show and in my dream.

I suppose I dreamed about all this because I have been craving food and wanting to cook but I’m a bit limited in the Mexican kitchen of my husband’s family. Whatever the reason, I knowa I luvva food!

Staring Contest

Yes, I had said I would stop blogging about my cousins but then I remembered something else they did. I couldn’t just let it be. I needed to write about it.

While my cousins were here we went to a very famous camera store. The cameras and electronics sold here are state of the art without being too pricey. You almost always get a good deal.

The store is run by a number of religious people. Living in New York all my life, the traditional garb that these people wear doesn’t phase me. I just know that how they dress. But my cousins couldn’t believe it. They spent an awful lot of time staring at everyone who worked in the store.

When we walked up to one of the employees to ask for help, my cousin couldn’t even tell me what he wanted because he was so awestruck by the persons dress and hair style (not sure you can call it a hair style but for lack of a better word, I will). He just stood there his jaw wide open that he could have held a hive full of bees with all the space! I knocked him in the ribs with my elbow and asked him what he needed. He finally woke out of his shock and awe to tell me.

They both continued to stare and comment even after I told them it was rude. I suppose that I acted the same way when I was in Egypt and Morocco when I would see women in their burkas. But I tried not to act so confounded. I was more interested in how the women were eating under their traditional dress! I didn’t stare at them; I was more curious to know how they kept cool in the heat under the dark garments.

I guess when you’ve never seen something like that before you are given to staring but I just thought it was rude. I won’t even talk about their comments or gazes when they saw transgenders or men in drag. I don’t think I need to. It’s pretty easy to imagine how they reacted.

Fashionable

I am definitely not a fashionista. I like to look at different clothes and designers but I don’t try to wear anything that people would say is trend setting. I just can’t be bothered with things that aren’t comfortable.

Lately though, I think I am crossing the line and becoming trendy. It’s hard not to think about fashion in Mexico City, where all the women get decked out in their finest and wear all the makeup imaginable to go to the grocery store.

My crossing over happens at night. Just as I am getting tired, I change into my flannel pajama bottoms and tuck them into wool socks. I then put on a long-sleeve tee shirt and a long sleeve hooded running shirt on top of that. As the night gets colder, I’ll put on a velour zip-up sweater and take to the excitement – reading in bed or watching tv.

Indoor heating is a hard to find and pricey so you have to do your best to keep warm at night. The only thing I am missing from my super sexy outfit is a bunch of hair rollers. Give me a few days though and I should be able to complete the ensemble.

Hand-in-Hand

This could be my wrap up entry on the recent visit from my cousins. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, they are very much in love with each other. Or at least their public displays of affection would suggest that.

One example of their p.d.a. is how they would go everywhere walking hand-in-hand. This is all sweet and squishy to a point; then it becomes annoying. It crosses the boundary when the streets in Time Square are overflowing with other tourists that can’t get by because a certain couple won’t unleash their hands from each other. The frustrated looks, the curse words spoken aloud by the people who can’t get through, the football tackle tactics to try to break them up – all would have been obvious to me even if I didn’t speak the language. But to my cousins, it didn’t make an impression whatsoever.

For a while I overlooked this because it was sweet until I realized that my cousin was holding his girlfriend’s hand so tightly. Why would he do this? Why was he fretting so badly when she wasn’t in his hand? It occurred to me then that the hand holding was a way to control his girlfriend. Upon this epiphany, I started to shake my head and tsk tsk to myself. It stinks to project your insecurities on others.

I’m sure I do it too but I certainly don’t go out of my way to hold my husband’s hand. (Most of the time because he’s got insanely sweaty palms!) Every so often we’ll hold hands in the street and sometimes (on that rare blue moon) we’ll kiss in front of other people. But this is all incredibly rare. I’d like to say we don’t do this because we are mature. I also think it’s because my husband isn’t much for p.d.a’s. Plus, hand-holding is nice when there isn’t an ulterior motive.

What's on the Menu?

For my cousins, it’s pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I love pizza. It’s one of my favorite things to eat and I certainly crave it often. But I know there is so much variety out there to try and appreciate.

For the two weeks that my cousins were here, they did try Korean food but mostly it was the barbecue steak pieces that they tried. My cousin’s girlfriend tried some of the kimchi but found it to be too spicy. We also tried Chinese food with them. They liked that which I was surprised about. But that was pretty much it.

Even when we went to Italian restaurants, they wouldn’t even try the pasta. It was all about pizza. And not even different kinds of toppings on the pie – just the margarita basics – dough, sauce, and cheese. They even complained when there was basil on the pizza, which defeated the purpose of being called margarita in the first place. You could call them purists! I would call them boring.

I’m not saying you have to eat it all but at least try the different foods. It reminds me of a story another aunt was telling me about when she and some friends went to India and to China (separately) on tours. They always made sure someone brought pasta and sauce with them in their suitcases.
Italians love their food and they are very proud of it. Don’t get me wrong, I agree. But I still couldn’t imagine a life without saag paneer, naan, kimchi, sushi, koftas and tacos! So many wonderful flavors around the world, it’s a shame that they are missing out on all the splendor.

A Night at the Opera

A couple of night’s ago my husband, my two cousins and I went to see Bizet’s Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera. I got the tickets for my husband and myself months ago when he had expressed how he wanted to go to an opera because he had never been to one.

When I found out my cousins were coming for a visit, I asked if they wanted to join us. I thought it would be something different since I was pretty sure that at least one of them had never been to an opera before. They said they wouldn’t mind going.

So off we went, my husband wore his inappropriate clothing as usual. I was excited to see an opera that I have always liked and was looking forward to hearing someone whose performance in another theatrical show had impressed me. My cousins were impressed by the Metropolitan opera house. And that’s pretty much it.

The subtitles were not in Italian. So that was problem number one. We had a slightly obstructed view which was problem number two. There were 4 acts which was problem number 3, especially when they were hoping it was intermission just after the first act. So after the 2nd act, I opted to leave because I knew they weren’t having a good time. It didn’t matter too much as the price of the tickets wasn’t expensive at all. I decided my husband and I could come back and see the whole opera another time for the exact same price and finally enjoy it in its entirety.

It’s hard to teach people culture especially if you don’t have an open mind to trying new things. I’m happy my husband was enthusiastic about it and that he liked the part we saw and wants to go back for more.

The Waiting Game

Living in NYC gets you used to things that you don’t even question. With such a big population of people, you overlook crowds and lines at times. You just know there will be either a line when you go to a restaurant or a tourist place. There will be crowds at stores and in the street. It’s just something that comes with the territory of living in such a big city. I’m not saying this only happens in New York. I think most inhabitants of major cities must feel the same way.

With my cousins in town (and their consistent disbelief of the lengths of lines and waiting times for things) it has made me think about all the stuff we put up with on a daily basis. If there isn’t a line in any of the shops I frequent, I’m always amazed. I keep thinking that perhaps there is an influenza going around and it has wiped out a nice chunk of the population. If there isn’t a crowd at a tourist site, a government office or on the subway platform, I think it must be a holiday that I forgot about.

What has been fun to watch with my cousins is how impatient they are. I’ve always prided myself on the teeth-sucking and eye-rolling abilities of all New Yorkers when it comes to impatience. But I think my cousins take the cake. They see people walking slightly close to each other and they begin to freak out that a crowd is going to form. The huffing and puffing commences. And if they have to wait on a line with more than one person on it, they won’t do it. It makes me feel like the most patient soul in the whole world.

Starting Over

The New Year always feels so refreshing - a chance to start anew and make some changes. People make resolutions to do things they don’t usually do or to be increase things they already do. I, for one, plan on increasing my gym frequency this year! I want to spend more time at the gym as well as going more often to the gym when I go.

The problem with the New Year though is that sometimes it’s like that movie ‘Groundhog’s Day’; you just repeat the same things you were doing before in the hopes of getting it right. But it’s very rare that you get it right.

You get on the subway and hope there will be a seat but because it’s the New Year, all the commuters are back on the train with you. No more vacations that will considerably decrease the strap-hanger population. So the commute is annoying because it’s crowded and everyone is irritable.

You get to your office building and the elevators are packed because again all the vacationers are now back. The rudeness of the people who don’t hold doors and don’t say thank you when you hold one open for them is overwhelming. People with their idiosyncrasies and neurotic behaviors are the same because they haven’t made any resolutions to change things they don’t think are a problem.

So even though you might feel you are starting over in a better way, most things are the same so it’s disappointing to have a New Year sometimes.

Young Love

Youth is wasted on the young in so many ways. They don’t understand how easy things are. It’s a rite of passage to go through the trials and tribulations of your 20s and early 30s, don’t get me wrong. You have to experience all of that to live a truly fulfilling life. I’ve realized as you get older though that those years of distance change you and make things a lot clearer. Of course hindsight is 100%.

With my cousins here, I’ve noticed things about them and their relationship that I wouldn’t deal with now-a-days that I probably did deal with when I was their age. My cousin is a little bit of a macho man. He thinks he’s pretty great and sometimes puts his girlfriend down. This annoys me to no end. I’ve even told him to stop treating her like that. But I doubt that will do much.

The girlfriend is a little younger than my cousin. She’s super sweet and very nice. She is so in love; she doesn’t see the insults as things that shouldn’t be tolerated. I can not be held accountable if I punch my cousin though. I just have to warn you.

But what it does make me feel overall is that I have to be more appreciative of my husband. He’s really very sweet to me and my being able to see that now is due to what I experienced in my 20s and 30s.

House Guests

My cousins have come to visit me from Italy. We are actually hosting my cousin and his girlfriend at the moment. It seems like the next month will bring lots of visitors but at this stage, it’s the young couple.

They arrived to spend the New Year with us. New Year’s Eve was nice. My husband and I cooked dinner; the Mexican made turkey and I made soup and sides. It was a lovely meal.

Sadly because I am no longer young, I had to take a two hour nap to even make it to the New Year’s countdown. I’m pathetic but these things happen. As we rang in the New Year with my parents, my sister, our dogs and the cousins, it was nice to have a big gathering of people with whom to celebrate the New Year. It’s been fun watching them take pictures of and to see their excitement for all the tourist sites. It’s stuff I so often take for granted.

We are expecting a couple more house guests this month. My husband’s best friend will arrive for a short jaunt and later this month; my father-in-law will come for a visit. It’s going to be an interesting beginning to the New Year with all the friends and family visiting.