I'm baa-aack

So I know it's been about a century since I last blogged, but I touched down in the United States last week and I've been busy ever since. First, let's start with my harrowing journey back home. 

Though I love sitting in airports and people-watching, I'm not a big let's-hang-out-in-the-airport-for-8-hours-waiting-for-our-flight sort of gal. But, for some reason, every time I travel with my family this is what ends up happening. Probably because I'm always the one that pays for my ticket, while they use their airline miles, which they have a lot of. This inevitably puts us on different flights during a single 24-hour period, so here's me hanging out in the Buenos Aires airport for a total of 8 hours waiting for my flight, after my dad, mom and sister all depart hours before me for theirs. 

When it's time for me to check in, the American Airlines lady tells me I'm going to Los Angeles. "No...," I say, "I'm going to San Francisco." 

"No...you aren't," she responds, staring blankly at her computer screen. Luckily I have a printout of my itinerary, which I show her. "This is strange," she says, looking over it. Ten minutes of her tapping on a keyboard and a phone call later and she tells me my connecting flight from JFK to San Francisco is canceled -- and the next available flight they have for me is the following day, connecting through Los Angeles. Ugggh. 

I refuse to believe that there are NO other connecting flights I can snag the day I arrive in JFK, since I'm arriving at like 6:30 a.m. and I reeeeally didn't want to spend an extra night in a hotel (missing J like crazy at this point). So I tell her fine and figure I'll haggle a same-day seat on a plane out when I land. 

The plane ride to New York is long but pleasant since the seat next to me is empty. Highlights include watching Water for Elephants and Arthur, along with making out the Amazon river below by moonlight as we fly over the Amazon. 

When I land in JFK it takes forever (as always) to get through customs, and after standing in a ticketing line for 30 minutes I'm told I have a confirmed seat on a connecting flight at 6pm. I'm equally happy and pissed -- happy 'cause I still get to go home that day, pissed because I have to sit in the airport for 12 hours. The rest of the day is spent watching CNN on the overhead televisions and adding myself to standby lists on each San Francisco flight. A crowd of about 20 shares my plight, and they crowd the standby desk in front of me, yelling at the flight attendants that they need to get on the flight. Flight attendants, unfortunately, are not magicians, and cannot make more seats appear -- especially when American Airlines "overbooked every flight" that day, they say. Some of my standby amigos yell obscenities, a portly French girl begins to cry and shout some pretty nasty French words (as my limited knowledge of French would lead me to believe). 

I sit on a nearby bench taking pictures of this and trying not to laugh. At 7am, wearing the same clothes I wore 24 hours before, I find this all very amusing. No anger is getting any of us on this flight. This fact is apparently lost on these people. After the group parts I walk up to the desk and ask (very sweetly and very calmly because these people are essentially the gatekeepers) whether there is any way at all that I can get on the next flight out at 3 p.m. Attendants actually smile back at me and pleasantly explain the situation, which I nod at and say I understand. The last thing I'm in is a good mood since I'm greasy and tired and missing J, but I crack a few jokes with them and they laugh. The female attendant tells me she'll try her hardest to get me on the next flight, but no promises. I thank her, since that's really all I need to hear. 

One thirty rolls around and I make my way to the other gate, where the standby list has just appeared on the screen near the desk. And what do you know -- my name has been moved up to #2! Score. Thank you flight attendant lady. The standby crowd has joined me in the area, and has resumed yelling at the new attendants at the desk, as though this is really going to get them a seat on the plane. 

Plane pulls up, your truly gets the last seat. Angry people are left yelling and crying at the gate. Moral of the story: You attract more flies with honey.

When I landed J met me at the airport with a big bouquet of pink flowers (love him) and I couldn't stop hugging him. Though I had a  fantastic time in Buenos Aires, after the fourth week I was ready to come home. I missed J like whoa and was having (if truth needs to be told) major sex withdrawals that started about a week or two into my trip. (Whoever said sex wanes with marriage obviously isn't in my marriage, where frequency is taken to almost teenage proportions.)

When we got home he had his anniversary present to me sitting on the couch (it was one of the Kate Spade bags I wanted) and we pretty much did not leave each other's side all weekend. As cheesy as it sounds, I don't know how I lived before J. Sure I had serious boyfriends and I dated casually between them, but no one is like J. He really is my heart. 

Anyway, this weekend will officially be dubbed The Weekend of Real estate. We're going to our realtor's party tonight that she throws every year. She invites all her business clients and friends and serves unlimited margaritas all night. Obviously I am game. Then tomorrow we're going to start touring properties with her. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Fierce

This commercial is all the rage right now on television here:

It plays almost every five minutes, and it never gets old. The model is fierce and the song is so addictive. Wish we got Mexico's Next Top Model in Estados Unidos.

Buenos Aires pictures (finally!)

Good example of the Belle Epoque architecture that is so prevalent here.

Old meets new.

The obelisk in the Plaza de la Republica at dusk.

Old meets new, again. This strip of light was a news ticker screen wrapped around a fantastic old building.

A cafe at night.

The colors of these buildings (below and above) were intense.

The walls surrounding Recoleta Cemetery.

Checking out wares at the artisan fair.

A hippie practicing her moves near the artisan fair.

My favorite mime.

Beautiful disaster

Written on Sunday, July 10: 

So where do I start? *cracks knuckles*

I got into the Buenos Aires airport today and waited patiently for my sister and mom's flight to get in (they were connecting through Santiago, Chile.) My flight got in three hours before theirs, so I staked out a seat near the arrivals screens and hung out people watching to Paul McCartney (I'm having a Wings moment) to pass time.

Around the time they were supposed to land, half the flights on the arrivals screens began flashing red. I leaned closer and saw that all flights out of Santiago were suddenly "canceled." God damn it. In a foreign country by myself? Totes not a big deal. In a foreign country minus the rent money my mom was supposed to give our apartment's owner, Tomas, when we signed our rental contract that night? Slightly unnerving. (Here you pay all cash for the big things, and so my mom was traveling with a couple Gs for our place.)

Apparently the volcanic ash from that Chilean volcano was blowing past Santiago at the moment and all flights were grounded until the ash cleared and it was safe to fly. When I talked to the customer service desk, which was not really a desk, just a lone room off the back of the luggage conveyor belt that I had to climb over to enter, an impatient Argentine man sat behind a sparse desk inside and told me had no answers, just that all flights out of Santiago were canceled until further notice. 

Unfortunately I had no way of getting a hold of anyone since wifi seemed nonexistent throughout the airport (nothing makes you look more American than wandering around with your smartphone, sniffing for wifi in every corner and orifice of a building), and all of Tomas' contact info was sitting in an email in my inbox.

Finally, five hours after I'd been in the airport, I found wifi and checked my email. Hello six messages from my sister telling me they were stuck and that United was putting them up in a Hilton that night. Sigh. The grease on my face from traveling for 15+ hours felt palpable. All I could think of was taking a shower. I needed Tomas' number, stat.

Thankfully he happened to be online when I signed on, and he told me to leave right away since he'd been waiting for us for hours, and gave me the apartment's address. He stressed he needed the payment up front in full when I arrived, just as the rules stated, but I stressed this was impossible since the half of our entourage with the money was still en route to Buenos Aires. He said this was going to be problem; I said I could look for a hotel if it was. Thankfully something about this statement made him relent, and he said come anyway.

I jumped in a cab driven by a guy named Julio and chatted with him during the 30-minute ride from the airport into the city. Julio was a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, so when he found out I was from Estados Unidos, he put on his "favorite cd" (Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits) and we talked nonstop until he pulled up to the curb of my building on Sanchez de Bustamente in the Recoleta district. He asked if I wanted to go out later that night with him and his friends, but I told him I was exhausted and needed to decompress, which he acknowledged along with his cell phone number if I changed my mind. Oh, Julio.

Tomas was a very kind, older Argentine who empathized with the whole situation. Instead of telling me to find a hotel for the night, he allowed me to stay, unpaid, but asked for my passport that first night as collateral to make sure I wouldn't up and leave without paying. I laughed at even the thought of doing this, but he said he's had it happen before with an American woman and her child. They'd stayed for a week, promising payment every day and on the seventh day they left without a trace or payment. Obviously after hearing this I understood Tomas' plight. 

After showering and fluffing my feathers, I went out for a stroll around Recoleta, grabbed food at a corner restaurant and ate the yummiest tart for dessert at this confiteria called "La Porteña." Most people here don't speak any English, and I barely speak any Spanish, but somehow communication still flowed well through hand gestures and broken phrases. After I got home with a second tart for the road...I realized that my main credit/atm card was gone. 

In the words of Lindsay Lohan, I felt like my heart was going to fall out my butt. I tore through both purses I'd brought flinging receipts and crumpled napkins everywhere, searching in vain for my card until I realized I'd lost it back at the airport where I last used it. Shit. So much for taking it easy. I signed online and emailed J 40 times, telling him it was urgent and that he needed to call the bank asap to put a stop on the card. Which he did, but not before noticing that four charges totaling $700 were made on the card in the last hour. Ughhhhhh. The claims department was closed for the night, but J said he'd call in the morning and report the fraud. 

Flash forward to five days later and THANKFULLY the claims department reimbursed all the money that was stolen, pending our signature on an affidavit swearing I didn't make those charges. While I could barely sleep that evening with the money issue overshadowing my first night in the city, everything was taken care of the following morning and I've been having a great time so far. Lots of shopping and eating with my mom and sis, who eventually caught a flight out. I'll post pics soon!

Argentina-bound

The time has come to bon voyage. As much as I love hearing my next door neighbor play acoustic renditions of Extreme's More Than Words through our paper-thin walls every day around dinnertime, this apartment is getting too small for me, a husband and three animals -- especially during a long, hot summer. (No intermittent guitar taps -- which Anonymous Neighbor is currently practicing -- will change that.)

I'm off to Buenos Aires tomorrow and won't be back in the states till mid-August-ish. I'm taking my laptop down to do some freelancing from the Southern Hemisphere, but I probs mcgobbs won't be blogging that much (can you blame me?) I'll be posting pictures throughout the next four weeks, though, so stay tuned!

What not to do to earn my business

The other day an acquaintance (let's call her "Helene") from my high school graduating class emailed me through Facebook. 

I use the word acquaintance loosely. Back then Helene, like her friends, rarely acknowledged my presence whenever our paths crossed in hallway or classroom. Helene, though average-looking, was one of those popular girls who hung out with the "mean" crowd and did things like somehow garner enough of a vote to get nominated for homecoming queen and ride on the homecoming football float, all with a Vaseline-lined smile and a painstakingly practiced wave that made most of us want throw tomatoes at her. But that was 11 years ago and people change, or so popular theory states. 

"Hi Crystal!" the subject line read. I saw it in my inbox, along with her name. My first reaction was 1.) Why does this name sound familiar, and 2.) Ohh yes. Helene from high school. This is random.

After extending the obligatory formalities such as "How are you" and "Hope you've been well," she mentioned she had talked to my friend Laurel recently (the one I grabbed lunch with a few months ago) and "She said you live in ----- -------- now. How do you like it?" Insert various generic questions about why I moved here. "I lived there for five years cause I went to college at ----- -----, but now I live in --- -------- with my husband and our new baby girl..."

Okay, why all the chit-chat and background info? I did not know her 11 years ago, and to be completely honest I didn't care to get to know her now. And then the next line made it obnoxiously clear why she was reaching out to me:

"I work for J. Rockcliff Realtors as a real estate agent, so if you or anyone you know are looking to buy a house, please keep me in mind."

My audible reaction was a loud groan, followed with "You've got to be kidding me." Not only do J and I already have a realtor we are working with, but the fact that someone who just happened to walk the same halls as I did 11+ years ago thinks that's reason enough to give me a sales pitch and secure my business really irritates me. Probably because it's so blatant and contrived and desperate. It'd be one thing if it was an old friend of mine who I'd lost contact with, but for an essentially complete stranger who acts like they aren't a stranger to try and make commission off me feels tacky and in bad taste. Like a flagrant exploitation of the past.

Helene was not my past, though the people I occasionally wonder about were. Those who were good friends of mine, who I lost to either time or disagreement, rarely seek me out. Those were the people that knew me. They knew what I looked like at 9am on a Sunday after staying up all night watching the first three Texas Chainsaw Massacre films consecutively. They knew what boy broke my heart freshman year simply because he preferred blondes. They knew what my favorite type of pizza was at our preferred pizzeria by the beach, and that at 17 one of my favorite past times was cruising around listening to Third Eye Blind in my Miata. Helene was never one of these people. To her I'm just another face in her yearbook, some person she might recognize in "real life" now if our paths crossed again.

A very small number of old friends have reached out to me. I am just as guilty as not reaching out to them. Perhaps it's because those that matter and are lost in time would rather be content with the memories of who we were. Back when our biggest problems weren't mortgages and calorie counting and breast cancer, but rather which movie we'd see that weekend, or whether that cute guy from fifth period would be at a nearby house party. Our futures were ripe with possibility, and this excited us. But the lightness that comes with youth vanishes with age. Maybe its easier to cope with the passage of time by allowing your past to be exactly that -- the past.

And those, like Helene, who didn't know you before, back when you were a walking personification of invincibility, vulnerability, bravery, cowardice and contradiction? 

Well, they'll be there to sell you a house.

That one time I realized my friend was a jackass

The other night J and I went to see Terence Malick's The Tree of Life. I've been looking forward to seeing the movie since rumors of it started circling last year, and against my better judgment (but at the urging of J) I invited a friend of mine and his new fiance to join us. Let's call this friend George, and his fiance, Abigail (because that is essentially what they look like to me).

I first met George in grad school in Boston. George is the typical overachiever with a severe case of ADHD, has collected various degrees, ranging from humanities masters to MBA's across this great big ol' country of ours, and has obvious commitment problems when it comes to relinquishing himself to one profession. (He's currently the CEO of a start-up medical IT company that actually seems to be experiencing modest success in its infancy. This after he made multiple appearances on CNBC and CNN talk shows discussing his "first ever virtual magazine" that he launched about three years ago before virtual mags were the norm.) Well, George recently moved to my town (of all places) with his newly minted fiance he met for the first time last year in line at an Auntie Anne's Pretzels in a mall in Los Angeles. Since I am one of only a handful of people he knows in the area, he's been incessantly calling to hang out with J and I. Which is cool, since I love a good cocktail hour, but it can get a little much when you do it for days in a row. I can only handle so much ADHD.

ANYHOO, after (politely) rejecting his invitations for weeks, J suggested we invite them along to see The Tree of Life...just to show we weren't opposed to hanging out or anything. I was on the fence about extending an invitation since the last time I saw a movie with George was when the two of us went to see Walk the Line opening night in Boston. Let's just say it was a disaster, in every sense of the word. And it all culminated with his cell phone ringing on LOUD during one of the most pivotal moments in the film when Joaquin Phoenix undergoes his home detox with Reese Witherspoon. Not only did George's phone ring in the silent, packed theater, he then proceeded to answer it and have a conversation with the person who called as people yelled at us to be quiet. It was mortifying, and visions of the night resurfaced as I hesitantly extended an invite to Tree of Life.

And what do you know? History has a funny way of repeating itself, in not-an-altogether identical way, yet close enough. We met up with George and Abigail outside of the theater, along with their two friends they decided to invite along and not tell us about till the last minute. No biggie, that I don't mind. But after we took our seats and the theater lights dimmed, George proceeded to talk during the entire first 45 minutes of the movie. No joke. I felt like I had entered Hell, since one of the fléaux de mon existence is when people chatter through movies. Granted he wasn't speaking at a normal volume, but it was still above a whisper and that, combined with Abigail's obnoxious giggling every 20 seconds at whatever he was saying, made me want to throw my tub of popcorn in their direction, douse them with my Diet Coke, anything to make them shut up. It only added to the charm of the situation when George kept standing up and walking over to his friends across the aisle to hold actual conversations with them while he was on bended knee. All while the movie played in a semi-packed, darkened theater. Was this really happening?

About an hour into the movie Abigail, who was seated to my immediate left, leaned over to me and said "George says this movie is so depressing that it makes him want to kill himself. We're going to see Midnight in Paris next door..." She followed this with one of her annoying and expectant giggles, as though perhaps I shared the same sentiment. I shot her a straight-faced look that meant "You've got to be kidding me" and simply said "Fine, go." (No giggles from my end, since the movie, though slow in its start, was actually quite good but would have been better if the charming couple seated to my left would have just shut up and tried to understand it.)

A second later George leaned toward me over Abigail's lap. "Are you annoyed that we're leaving to see the other movie?" he asked.

"No," I whispered, turning back to the movie.

"You look annoyed..." he prodded. I quickly turned back to him.

"I'm annoyed because you've been talking through the entire goddamn movie. This is a theater -- STOP TALKING!!!" I hissed. He gave me a look as though it suddenly dawned on him that movie theaters weren't meant to be socialized in like pool halls. Five minutes later he, Abigail, and his charming friends stood up and lurked out the theater doors.

Of course during the rest of the movie he texted me incessantly from next door, asking if J and I would wait outside of their theater for them when we were finished since we had all planned to grab drinks afterward. But when The Tree of Life was over, the last thing I felt like doing was getting a drink with them. I passed their theater  en route to our car and texted that we were just going to head home. His response?

"Sorry for having left....I feel awful."

I snickered at the cow poo I was actually reading on my cell screen. Really, guy? Do you really feel that awful? Because if you did you probably wouldn't have done it in the first place, but since you are one of the most inconsiderate people I have ever met I seriously doubt you even care. And I think that's what pissed me off the most about the whole situation. It wasn't just the fact that getting up and leaving in the middle of a movie you were invited to is what I would call pretty rude, it's also the fact that you had to talk the entire time you stayed. As if the whole world revolves around George and Abigail and everyone else must be expected to laugh along with their thoughtlessness. 

On the way home I questioned why I even bother returning his calls anymore. Not over just what happened that night, but for every similar inconsiderate thing he's done leading up to it.  I don't really want to associate with people who think it's okay to be rude or disrespectful under the guise of of "having fun" or being "funny." The older I get, the more I just find it classless and irritating.

A few days went by and George called again. His message was upbeat yet vague, requesting that I call him back. (I am 99% sure it was to invite J and I out to Mojito Mondays.) As much as I love my mint-flavored cocktails, I can think of 3,000 other people I'd rather grab mojitos with. (Okay, 3,000 is an exaggeration, more like 20 -- 55 if we're counting celebrities and deceased novelists.) So though I'm pretty good about calling people back, I decided he was no longer worth my time and deleted his message without returning the call. 

My life is too short to deal with bullshit.