Signed, Sealed, Delivered: the Pictures

J. Riley, click to enlarge the photos, of course.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, the Story

I arrived in Lima on Saturday morning with my flight delayed thanks to a Customs issue in the USA (whatever that means!). I slept decently well on my overnight flight down there, which was a requirement because the first two days in Lima were going to be crazy because I was going to be attending her family reunion party that starts that night at 9:00pm and ends sometime around sunrise and involves large amounts of cerveza consumption!

I had a wide variety of options available for a proposal. Since we're going to visit one of the seven wonders of the world, Machu Picchu, it would pretty awesome to do it there. Or I could do it when we celebrate our 13 month's "anniversary" this week. Or I could do it AT the family reunion. Or, as I chose, I could do it in the hours before the family reunion, and I had two options there. With a lot of time between when I arrived and the party, I could do it at the beach when we were alone together, which is a little scary if you know what the beaches are like here and how crowded they are. There was also the issue of transporting it to the beach, where I could hide it, etc. Then, at the last minute, I found out that her friends were going to pick us up and take us to the beach with them, so the solidarity became an issue with that plan.

My final option that I thought of a few days ago involved the fact that her parents are very "traditional" and Erika had told me that they wanted me to ask them for permission for her to stay with me in the apartment I'm renting in Lima for the week (which is awesome, by the way). I had asked my friend Russ to translate both this request and my proposal asking them for permission to marry her, which actually occurs AFTER you ask the girl in Peru. So I thought, wouldn't it be funny if I asked for permission for her to stay with me, which Erika expected, and then continue on to ask permission for her to marry me, which she didn't expect? I liked the idea but the fact that her dad wouldn't be there because he was busy organizing the party all day and from what I'd heard about Peruvian proposals, we were supposed to all be together with a nice dinner together, champagne, celebration, etc.

So we were sitting in her living room with her mom and waiting for her friends to pick us up and somehow the subject came up about the fact that we had always called each other "novio" and "novia", which I originally thought meant girlfriend and boyfriend, but I learned later that it actually means "fiancee" :-X ! Oops. She never had a problem with me using it and she always referred to me as her "novio" too. So the three of us were talking about this and laughing a little bit about the fact that "she can't be your 'novia' because she doesn't have a ring on her finger yet, ha ha ha!" Ha ha ha, indeed. Without saying a word, I decided to strike while the iron was hot and went to my room, got out my cheat sheet with my proposal(s) and came back in to read it.

They were both touched by me asking permission about her staying with me and I left a significant pause there for that to sink in before diving into the short proposal, which said to the effect that I was very happy to be a part of the family reunion that would happen that night and I wanted to know if we could celebrate another thing as well. Bling! The only thing I remembered was Erika covering her mouth and her eyes looking huge and her shaking her head. I thought to myself "Is she saying no, not right now, it's not appropriate, this isn't how they do it in Peru"? But I was half way done and wasn't about to stop there to find out! When I finished my translation, she said she didn't understand the last line, which was when I asked for the permission. She didn't understand it until I took the ring and rock out of my sunglasses case :o)

J. Riley, the party story comes next!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

The deal is done. More on this later,

J. Riley, engaged :-X !

Classic NYC School Night

Paul called me on Sunday and said "Hey, Morgan Spurlock (from
"Supersize Me" fame) has a new movie coming out and they're having a
free screening Wednesday, you want to go?" Since Wednesday is not a
spin-class night and the movie was reasonably early, I was totally in.

So, we met up at 6:45 in the East Village to watch and review "Where
in the World is Osama Bin Laden?" - an obvious pun on the
inspirational computer game that I spent countless hours playing as a
child (is that why I've been obsessed with geography and travel all
these years?). Anyway, the movie is about him going around the Muslim
countries in Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia asking people about
how to find Osama and about how people feel about the US foreign
policy and the American people, and about Muslim extremism in general.
I really enjoyed seeing normal, day-to-day people talking about these
issues from this human perspective and it was refreshing not just see
carnage and drama that people watch everyday on Fox News or CNN. Why
is our media so messed up and makes us fear traveling to places like
this? Anyway, look for it in the next few month at a theater near you
- or wait for it to appear on DVD, as Paul suggested at our focus
group session following the show (after which we got to shake hands
with Morgan himself!).

Having missed dinner, we walked down the street to S'Mac, an ingenious
take out/restaurant/cafe that serves only one item.....Mac and Cheese!
They have numerous mac & cheese styles with a variety of cheeses and
additional ingredients like bacon, mushrooms, peppers, etc. I want for
the Parisienne (with brie cheese, plums, and rosemary - yum) while
Paul dug into a Cajun and Cathy went for the basic four-cheese.

To cap the night off, while we were dining on our heart-attacks, Cathy
noticed one of the cooks sprinkle some powder on a little mirror and
snort it up. Ahhh, that's what's in the secret sauce!

J. Riley, isn't New York the greatest for story-telling?

Global Warming

Quotable

Quote of the day from one of my Indian coworkers, when I mentioned
that I'm going to get a haircut today:

"Why don't you grow your hair longer, like Donald Trump, and then you
can comb it to the side like I do."

Sigh.

J. Riley, this is the same coworker who asked if I ever considered
hair transplants. Thank goodness I am not as vain as some people :)

Anti-Valentine's Day, Year 2

Last night I celebrated the second annual Anti-Valentine's Day with
Paul, Cathy, D, and Melissa. Although we knew that nothing would
compare to <a
href="http://flashbank.blogspot.com/2007/02/anti-valentines-day-carneval-and.html">last year's event</a>, we figured we'd try to create a new story for our memoirs. We started off by having a meze-style dinner at Turkish Kitchen with a plethora of Mediterranean appetizers due fully ordered up by Paul, who utilized his experience of living for six months in Cyprus and ordering many-a-meze. The food was okay, nothing out of this world though. And the service was very strange with stiff, rather unfriendly hosts, random waiters stopping by and asking D if she needed something, when ordering a drink being asked how many we wanted (uhh, just one???), and a waiter who kept trying to steal our food and drink
menus.

Following the Turkish Kitchen, we wandered around Murray Hill looking
for somewhere to have dessert and we stumbled across Penelope, a place
that looked like a midwestern shack, but in a trendy kind of way. For
some reason, cupcakes are all the rage in New York these days, and
this place was no exception. Cathy and I opted for the couple's
cupcake & two rose wine option as well as a peanut butter blondie
dessert to share with all the other desserts we ordered. The wine was
freakishly BAD but the desserts were pretty good. We'll add that to
the list of places to try for brunch though.

The last couple of weeks have been really busy. First we had the Super
Bowl two weeks back which was a pretty crazy game here in the city. I
went with my Euro friends and one's Dominican girlfriend (yes, I can
claim "matchmaker" status now!) to a sports bar in town and ate way
too much fried food and drank too many Coronas to be healthy. The next
day my gut was just rotten and acid from all the fried food. I can't
be doing this stuff anymore!

Last weekend I went out to see Andrea and Alan and their new baby - in
Jersey! While the trip out there wasn't bad (a meager 2 hours or so
from the Bronx), the trip home was horrible! I left late that night
and was going straight to SOB's (Brazilian disco) to meet up with more
Dominicans and my Euro friends, but public transit and the weather
didn't cooperate so it was pouring rain outside when I arrived in the
city dazed and bewildered with all the drunk Jersey bridge-and-tunnel
crowd. As if I'm not one of them now!! But it was fun to see Alan and
Andrea's new baby, who looks completely Asian and not much like Andrea
at all! They are very excited to have their first child and it was fun
hanging out with them.

During the week, I've been focused on learning my Spanish and trying
to go to the gym several times per week for spin classes and doing
some upper body work - although that's pretty limited now that I'm in
the spin routine. My Spanish has improved immensely and I'm looking
forward to putting it to good use next week, when I head to Peru for
two weeks! While there, I am going to be attending the annual Salazar
family reunion/drink-a-thon, which I completely expect to be
outrageous and fun, despite being in an area of Lima described by
Erika as "a little dangerous" :-| . Being a relative term, and
referring to to Lima, I don't plan on going outside the building for
much "fresh air". The interesting part will be my endurance, since it
will go on all night until the next day and that will be the day I
arrive in Peru, fresh from a direct, overnight seven-hour flight from
NYC. I think that I'm going to be totally dead by the time Sunday
comes around and I probably won't do much other than sleep-for two days.

J. Riley, tomorrow I go take capoeira lessons with a bunch of kids!

Sick!

Tossing and Turning...errrr, Shooting

Earlier this week, the big boss of my group of geeks decided that, in
the spirit of this weekend's Super Bowl and the fact that the New York
Giants were playing in it, today would be "Jersey Day". When I first
quickly scanned the email, I reacted in horror seeing the word
"Jersey" in the body, figuring that he was scheduling something social
in New Jersey. But, thankfully, I took the time to read the full two
sentences and realized that he wanted people to wear their favorite
jersey to work today. In typical fashion, I dusted off my Liverpool
jersey (dusting wasn't really required), laid it on my new pair of
jeans so as not to forget that it was Jersey Day on Friday (and, thus,
our self-declared Jeans Day), and was pumped up for today. I was
acting out a little Euro-arrogance skit in my head when I laid in bed
last night thinking about Jersey Day, imagining one of the
golf-club-swinging, jock-type managers saying "That's not a football
jersey!" and then me pulling out a soap-box, standing on it, and then
launching into my typical tirade about the difference between
"football" and "American football", feeling smug and comforted about
having won that illustrious battle ;o).

J. Riley, I didn't sleep well last night. I kept waking up thinking
"Don't forget to wear your jersey! Don't forget to wear your jersey!"
Well, that and the fact I couldn't breathe thanks to my congestion :-?
!!

Visiting an Institution

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I continued my geographic traversals by flying out to San Diego to meet my new nephew Ryder and visit my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and Faryn, who drove down from Los Angeles. It was a classical San Diego weekend with time spent playing with my niece at the playground and briefly at the beach, sunny, warm weather, lots of eating - including an awesome Peruvian lunch in Encinitas and a Thai dish that we made at home that I take credit for....picking out ;o), plenty of Pike's coffee, breakfast burritos, and fish tacos - and a case of bronchitis for my poor niece, and therefore my poor brother and sister-in-law. The house was a pool of germs by the time I left and it seems as though I contracted something myself that has caught up to me now, hence the reason for me sitting at home blogging when I should be at the gym :o) !! I still had a great time, as it's always fun to sit around and chit chat or watch TV with my siblings. And my nephew? He is very cute and has Graham's perma-scowl :) !

This weekend I woke up with a scratchy throat on Saturday, but endeavored to go bowling with my volunteer group and a bunch of kids regardless. I must say that I am working on my form and I'm making some serious progress on my curve-ball - when it's not in the gutter :o) . Since I was bowling with kids, I went ahead and used bumpers once. I have no doubt that the Upper East Side volunteers thought much less of their leader once they saw me bouncing off those a few times!

Sunday, after brunch at amazingly (geographically and demographically) local Uptown near Paul and Cathy's with their friends Alicia and Erika, I hit the town on a mission: to find new jeans! I'm of the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that bootcut jeans are on their way out but that seems to be the only thing I can find these days in the chain stores that I hit on the way to Macy's, the holy grail of jeans shopping. It's very hard to find slim-cut jeans with regular legs that are not ultra-low rise. That is, until I found them at Macy's, of course the very last pair that I tried on! They fit me like a glove!

On my way home, it was dinner time so I wanted to find a place in the area to eat before heading back to the restaurant-dry neighborhood that I live in. I settled on a place of New York folklore, an institution standing alone amongst the modern buildings in Murray Hill - the Second Avenue Deli, which was recently, and controversially, shuttered in it's original location in the East Village and relocated uptown a bit. This place is a famous deli serving up gynormous pastrami sandwiches and a million other traditional Jewish dishes.

When I sat down to eat at the counter, I found myself in the middle of two worlds - quite literally. To my left were two recently-graduated college kids with their Blackberries and their voracious post-hangover appetities ordering many a thing from the gentleman behind the counter taking our orders. To my right, a cranky old Jewish couple with the man with a serious scowl on his face, thrusting his bowl of soup at the waiter because he didn't like it and the woman complaining about the fact she didn't get her fries immediately after she ordered them. It was a great experience to sit and observe these two pairs while eating my meatloaf (which they both looked at rather jealously).

After they left and I was alone with the waiter behind the counter, who's service was awesome despite the hectic nature of the place. I asked him frankly "Do you just get numb to the number of people that you churn through here?" He told me that sometimes you get customers like the ones to my right who want to be served immediately despite the crowds and aren't happy with anything, but you just have to take it and do your best to smile. It was a great New York moment, but you just had to be there to experience it :o) !

J. Riley, back to my wheezing and sniffling