How many Spaniards does it take to...

It's been quite some time since I've written.  My more successful excuse is family, and not in a bad way.  We've had nearly two months of people visiting us with little time in between to do much of anything.  Not a complaint.  We had a good time and traveled a bunch.  We crossed off quite a few cities that were on our list.  But we had to set aside many of our day-to-day stuffs.

We recently hit our 6-month anniversary in Spain.  Many of my main goals (sabbatical, start a business, learn to adapt to another culture, improve my Spanish, travel) have been met.  It's hasn't been hard to be honest.  I do feel a kinship with Spaniards and I guess that's to be expected.  I came in with near-fluent language dominance.  I have family here already.  Thinking about it out loud, it's no surprise that I haven't really felt any culture shock.

Not everything has been rose petals and morning dew (think about that one for a while).  Annie quickly determined that Spain would be a great place to bring an American idea and an American mindset to start a business here.  She's a foodie and therefore some form of eatery was a natural fit for her.

How does a foreigner (or two for that matter) turn an idea like this into reality in Spain?  We've already done quite a bit of work on the idea (logo, menu, area of town, business model), we're still a ways away from posting an open sign.  It's a slow process in any country, but especially here.  I've found it's quite difficult to avoid frustration.  The best advice is to concede to the Spanish ways.  Know that this system is not nearly as well established and thought-through (from a business perspective) as the US.  Even though Spain is a much older country, in the small business world, they are a newborn in comparison, a fetus maybe :).  Franco, their last dictator and a much maligned world leader through much of his life, died in 1975 and took with him a system that didn't really support entrepreneurship (some people that know claim that the Franco era put Spain back almost half a century).

We still don't fully understand the system or why it was designed the way it was.  Earlier this week, Annie and I were talking (after a meeting with the license office), and she made an observation that I think really captures the essence of the Spanish system.  She said "the Spanish government is in the business of employing people".  That may seem like a innocuous comment, but it really is telling.  Said a better way, their goal is in making sure people are employed.  In Spain, this takes the form of extreme inefficiency.  The Tenets of the Spanish Government: (1) Give employees a narrow job description, (2) ensure there is minimal overlap in their tasks, and (3) require appointments to meet with them.  I think it really is that simple.  Oh, and write into law that all small businesses require a long laundry list of licenses, certifications, and inspections.  Imagine for a second how many people would be required to run a system like that.

Our latest struggle.  We found a location that we really like.  It's on a busy street, is within our budget, within walking distance of our house, and laid out in a way that we can envision our dream.  First step, find out if the license papers are in order.  Like in the US, you need a specific license to sell food and drink.  It's called a "Cafe / Bar" license.  The current owner is willing to sell us his license (apparently getting one from scratch is quite near impossible).  Logically, we want to make sure the license is real, current, and will allow us to do what we want.

Mind you, this information is not available online or by calling some number.  The only way we would get this is to talk to someone face-to-face.  After making the appointment, waiting a week, we show up for our appointment.  We spent a few minutes explaining what we were looking for.  First problem hits us.  She can't find the license.  We had the full physical address, the owners full name, and the name of the bar.  What we were missing was the exact name that was on the license, which could be anything.  It was a little surprising that she could not do a search using the other information we had, especially when this is the service they supposedly offer, namely to give information about existing licenses.  "We'll give you all the information you want about any license, but we can't promise we can find them."  So we agreed to get that name and come back, after we make another appointment of course.  Another week or two delay.

We also want some form of written proof that the licenses are in place, current, and updated.  For that, we were told, we needed to go to another office, with a ridiculously long name, across town, to request it in writing, and wait at least a week to get the paper.  Guess what, another appointment with delays.

Our third request was if we needed another type of license to deliver food.  One of Annie's ideas is to do a form of take-out where we deliver lunches to offices in the area.  It would seem logical that the license office could answer that.  Yep...you guessed it.  We needed to call and make an appointment with some technician or technical person (at least that's what I understood).  Am I nuts or is this really basic stuff that one office should be able to get for us?

The final request was to see if there were or are any fines tied to the license.  I won't bore you.  We got another number to call to make the appointment.  There's more and it's much more comical (ok, I lied, I will bore you).  The room was empty except for two ladies in a medium-sized room with no more than 9 open desks.  There was no one waiting in line (it was 9 am, which is extremely early for Spaniards...only the crazies try to get stuff done this early).  We were talking to one of the two while the other lady seemingly was without work.  Our lady turns to her right, towards this other woman, and confirms that we need an appointment to get our question (the one about the fines) answered.  The part that barely kept me from falling completely out of my chair was that this other lady is the person that we needed to meet with and I cannot imagine it would take more than a few minutes to look it up.  Just be glad I'm avoiding cynicism.  She gave us a number to call to get an appointment.

True to form, after calling that day for an appointment, returning a week later, we sit down at a desk in the exact same room as before, and talk the attending lady.  We came prepared this time though.  We had gone by the bar and I wrote down every last detail of the license.  Before sitting down, I told Annie, "if she tells us we need to go see someone else, I'm going to punch her in the face."  After telling her the address, she told us there were no fines (after being seated for less than 60 seconds).  I slowly explained to her that the last time, you guys couldn't find the license, even with the address.  She confidently told me that she didn't need anymore information from me and that there was nothing attached to the license.  Then she hit me with the kidney punch.  That office only has this information up to the middle of 2010.  The work was transferred to another office.

No Spanish government workers were harmed during the making of this story.

Oh! The Places You'll Go (Or Not)!

As I get older, I am surprised by how few things endure the test of time, and equally surprised by those that still seem relevant 20 (?!?) years later. For example, although it's probably a cliché, every time I return to “When Harry Met Sally”, I find there is something different that speaks to me. When I was going through my divorce, it was the scene in which Billy Crystal is relaying his wife's departure to his best friend Bruno Kirby at the baseball game (in between doing The Wave every few seconds). Billy reveals that, after his wife tells him that she wants a divorce, he asks her if she doesn't love him anymore, to which her response is “I don't know if I ever loved you”. I had always understood that scene as as I was probably meant to- Billy Crystal is the good guy, and his wife is a calculating, deceitful, cold bitch (as further evidenced by the fact that Mr. Zero knew she was out the door before poor Billy). However, after 6 years of my own largely unhappy marriage and some serious soul-searching at the end, I understood why Billy's wife might say that. Perhaps she was, for the first time, being honest.

Another rare example of something which still resonates with me is the Dr. Seuss poem “Oh, The Places You'll Go”. I originally received an illustrated copy of the poem when I graduated from high school. I am not sure I even read it then, dismissing it as a cheesy, overreaching attempt by an adult to relate to a graduating senior whose path to success was assured, and missing the mark by about 15 years. Maybe I ran across another copy at some point, but it probably wasn't until I moved to Houston and my mom forced me to clear all my childhood debris out of her garage (she had downsized and was limited on space) that I picked up that same graduate gift book and finally really read it. Perhaps I had not yet been through enough Bang-ups and Hang-ups (culminating in a Lurch, leading to a Slump and, eventually the Waiting Place or possibly Alone) to appreciate it at age 17. However, I now return to it for reassurance whenever I hit a rough patch, knowing that if Dr. Seuss had survived enough Slumps to map out the subsequent, inevitable Waiting Place, then my experience is not unique and I will eventually end up in Great Places where Boom Bands are Playing.

I did almost a 2-year stint in the Waiting Place recently. Miserable in my job and suffering in my personal life (see aforementioned divorce), I considered how I would prefer my life to be. I had a great night out with a friend in which we brainstormed alternative dream careers. The short list was comprised of Anthony Bourdain's job (eating my way across the globe but instead of TV, I would prefer radio- I have this thing about confronting the disconnect between the mental image, versus the reality, of my physical self, and a radio version of “No Reservations” would not strain that fragile co-existence between the two); work as a writer on Law and Order (how could anyone possibly be expected to do anything other than lie on the couch during the oh-so-rare Sunday Law and Order Criminal Intent marathon) or move to Paris with my standard poodle Max and write a book. As it turned out, my current life most resembles option #3. While not Paris, I am living abroad, trying to write something worthwhile, in addition to doing other things with my time.

I had reason to revisit Dr. Seuss the other day- a friend of mine is in a Slump at the moment. A Spaniard, he was unfamiliar with the great literary works of Dr. Seuss, and I pulled up “Oh, The Places You'll Go” on the iPhone and, after explaining that Dr. Seuss takes certain literary liberties (much like his exalted counterpart, e.e. cummings and the greatest of lyricist poets, Woody Guthrie), began reading Dr. Seuss's roadmap to and out of a Slump. My friend also found relief in knowing that his journey was not only one not unknown to others, but so often traveled that its directions have been put to rhyme.

In revisiting OTPYG with my friend, I realized that I too am in a bit of a Slump. For me, indecisiveness and fear are the telltale signs of a Slump (“You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. . . . Do you dare to go in? . . .And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?”). As Dr. Seuss so elegantly puts it, a Slump is a place where “simple it's not . . .for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind”.

Usually so decisive, even fearless to the point of lunacy, I have been in retreat for the past few months. I try to avoid eye contact on the street and walk around with my headphones on to avoid conversation. I dread making even the simplest of phone calls. I freeze when asked the most basic of questions. This all stems from my lack of fluency in Castellaño (believe me, as I have learned, it is different from Spanish, requiring a certain lisp and an elitist disposition). For me, so far Spain has proven to be a very hard culture to break into. I say this in the context of having lived in Germany while learning to apply a rudimentary, sterilized classroom sort of German (the first time I went to a bakery in Germany, I walked out with 10 bags of sweets and 100 Deutsche Marks poorer- I was waiting for the very formal and polite wrap-up question I had memorized in German class of “Und moechten Sie noch etwas, Fraulein” and instead got the curt Berlin abbreviation of “eh- wa' noch damit?”). I also moved to Ecuador, not having even the limited benefit of classroom Spanish instruction (my flight into Quito had to be re-routed to Guayaquil and I only realized the change of plans after I had been waiting at the luggage carousel for four hours). It's been a while since I haven't been master of the spoken and written word (even to the point of obnoxious-as a lawyer, I was trained in little else other than wordsmithing) and perhaps I have become more timid and complacent as I have grown older, but this mind-maker-upper finds herself as beaten down as the good Christian wife who strangely keeps running into doors and falling down stairs.

Without unfairly generalizing too much, I find Spain (or at least, Madrid) to be a very closed, unfriendly, unwelcoming culture (and again, this is with the experience of having lived in Germany). The generally friendly attitude of Americans, while perhaps largely contrived, offers a certain amount of pleasantness around even the most menial of social interactions. This is in stark juxtaposition to the Spanish attitude, which regards every social interaction as an opportunity to criticize (or, on a good day, merely correct) the obvious non-Spaniard (which, as best as I can tell, equates to sub-human or, more accurately, sub-Spanish). Don't have Spanish pedigree as evidenced by your South American accent, unusual vocabulary choice or maybe just the shape of your head (as it was once, ever so politely, pointed out to me- apparently I could pass for French, for whatever that's worth)? Then expect to immediately be “rescued” by the most broken of English that apparently trumps your Spanish, which at one point you would have described as highly conversant and functional in the legal setting. I think my Spanish has actually gotten worse as my usually ever-present-and-excess-reserves confidence has flown the coop after each of these increasingly unsatisfactory and disheartening interactions.

Dr. Seuss wisely notes that un-Slumping oneself is not easily done. Hopefully this written acknowledgment and release proves to be cathartic and I am back on my way to Great Places.

¿¿¿ Como se dice Fiesta de Sushi ???

Certainly there are countries we could have chosen to move to that would have inspired a much greater degree of culture shock (Somalia comes immediately to mind). Sure, the language is different (Mexican Spanish ain't no Castellano), but Spain is an established, stable and developed country (or at least as much so as the U.S., never mind its recent AA downgrade) and countries that fall within this category tend to look more and more alike as the global economy matures. For example, when traveling, I now struggle to find locally-made souvenirs meant to invoke a little of the vacation-destination flavor; even if the tchotchke may look “ethnic”, I have learned to check for the now all-too-ubiquitous “made in China” stamp.

However, food items still seem to have difficulty crossing borders (I know from experience that the at-first-blush logistically simple act of carrying a cured pig leg into the U.S. in one's hand luggage is quite impossible) and of all the things S. and I might pine for, certain gastronomic delicacies top the list. Through both importation and immigration restrictions, Madrid just does not have the gastronomic offerings and diversity of most U.S. cities (hell, even of Florence, Texas, with 1 blinking stoplight and a population of 1,148).

I don't mean to belittle Spanish fare- this is, after all, the land of 24-month-cured, black-hoofed, acorn-fed and mountain-grazed jamón; Ferran Adriá, the gastronomic deconstructivist chef genuis whom Anthony Bordain refers to as “the most important and controversial chef on the planet”; and gulas, tiny, translucent, linguine-thin baby eels that swim from the Sargasso Sea, north of Spain, for just a few precious weeks a year, considered a delicacy and valued at more than $750/pound.

I relish the simple deliciousness of a plate of Spanish olives, a crusty bread dunked in olive oil, accompanied by a manchego cheese and a razor-thin sliced jamón, not to say anything about the delight of living in a country where you can buy a complex Spanish red wine, aged in oak and bottled over 3 years ago, for a mere $3 a bottle in the grocery store.

But, as they say, variety is the proverbial spice of life, and my spice shelf has been a bit bare lately- proverbially and literally. Our request list for the first care package from the States included Salt Lick BBQ sauce (Lauren's Spicy, Habanero and the Original), crushed red pepper and vanilla extract. While it is understandable that the first of the three would not be available here, crushed red pepper was a bit surprising (aren't pizzas made to go with crushed red pepper?!?) and, while vanilla can be sporadically found on store shelves, it literally costs more than saffron.

Having come from Houston, S. and I have enjoyed the diversity that the Houston restaurant scene has to offer- from buttery bone marrow served on English toast (Feast), to crispy fried Gulf oysters on fried wantons (Max's Wine Dive), to a complex campechana topped with fresh jalapeños (Goode Company Seafood) to the most amazing Flamin' Hot Cheeto Roll (Crave Sushi). I have been doing my best to recreate these tastes of my Texas in the kitchen, but sushi, at least for me, was something that I always kind of assumed was better left to the experts. However, with limited sushi options available on the Madrid restaurant scene, all of which would have exhausted our daily budget at least 3 times over and none of which would have satisfied our ever-growing craving for the Flamin' Hot Cheeto Roll, I forced myself over this mental hurdle (it's really only the blowfish that can kill you, right?) and began planning a sushi party.

I know that there are sushi snobs out there that react to the concept of fusion sushi as if someone had the audacity to break wind at the dinner table, but I am not one of them. Deep fried rolls? Love it! Ingredients that could have come from a Top Chef Quickfire Challenge? Sign me up! Texas meets Spain meets sushi? Well, that would be my sushi fusion brainchild!

I began by brainstorming my favorite flavors I associate with Texas (the aforementioned BBQ sauces, jalapeños, cilantro, guacamole, Tabasco), my new country of residence (paella, fake gulas, fresh figs, jamón, chorizo) and the more typical sushi rolls (tempura shrimp, roe, cream cheese, salmon, tuna, sesame seeds). Based on these varied flavor profiles, I paired ingredients for some authentic fusion sushi. Long story short, after a busy day including multiple trips to grocery markets, about 5 hours of assembling in the kitchen and a fun foray into sake cocktail making, our dinner party was a success by all metrics- no one got sick, the sushi was demolished and we finally got our fill of the Cheeto Roll. I am including below a list of lessons worth passing on.

1. Sushi is relatively easy and inexpensive- and super fun- to make. It's like pizza- once you know how easy and cheap it is to make a delicious pizza, you will wonder why you ever paid a premium for someone else to make you a mediocre pizza.
2. There really is no such thing as sushi grade or sashimi grade- at least as denoted by the FDA. It all comes down to whether the little parasitic f*ckers that can make you sick (and die) have been killed off by appropriate treatment and handling, typically by flash freezing. I went to a trusted store here in Madrid (read: the preferred grocery store of “millos”- as my future Cuban steptmother-in-law would say, referring to the Richie Riches of the world) and asked them whether I could serve the fish without cooking it, to which they answered in the affirmative. While this approach was good enough for me, feel free to research on the internet local providers or the treatment process in order to get comfortable.
3. Don't overbuy your fillings- you will be surprised how far a little of 1 ingredient goes. For example, I bought 2 salmon steak for use in enough rolls to fill up 10 people (we calculated 12 rolls, and that seemed to be the perfect amount), and we only ended up using 1 salmon steak. This is because it doesn't take much to make a roll, and also because we were also making rolls with tempura shrimp, tuna, chorizo, etc.
4. Because it doesn't take much, I would splurge on real crab (as opposed to “k”rab). I know S. would disagree, but I found myself trying to disguise the texture of the krab with fillers like tabasco mayo.
5. Come up with just a few rolls you want to make and stick to those rolls, making cards that indicate the ingredients.
6. Don't be afraid make unconventional rolls! The most popular rolls we served were the Cheeto Roll, a roll with goat cheese and chorizo, rolled in crushed roasted pumpkin seeds and topped with a fig reduction and a roll made with paella rice and topped with fake baby eels.
7. Roll the rolls in something. After applying the rice to the seaweed paper (see any youtube video for instruction), flip the paper, rice side down, on a plastic or aluminum foil covered rolling mat. After filling and rolling the sushi roll, lay down something to roll the outside of the roll in- crushed red pepper, roasted and crushed pumpkin seeds, pulverized Cheetos and black and white sesame seeds worked well for us.
8. Make sure to use sushi rice (shorter grain so it gets stickier) but feel free to play with seasoning it! For our Spanish-influenced rolls, we used sushi rice boiled in chicken consomme and flavored with saffron (same treatment for making a paella). It worked out wonderfully.

Our Favorite Sushi Roll Recipes:

Crave Flamin' Cheetos Sushi Roll: http://www.houstontexasfood.com/?tag=cheetos

Viva España Roll: paella rice (see tip #8 above), tempura fried shrimp, chorizo and cream cheese rolled in teeny baby shrimp

Texas Glutton Roll: deep-fried and cormeal-breaded oysters, guacamole, jalapeño, and cream cheese, rolled in chopped cilantro and topped with Salt Lick BBQ sauce

The Ryan Roll: goat cheese, salmon and cucumber, rolled in crushed and roasted pumpkin seeds topped with a fig reduction

The Cuchiraptor Roll: tuna, cilantro, cream cheese and jalapeño, rolled in white and black sesame seeds and topped with a mango reduction

I'm Hungry!

It is 5 AM and I don't know whether my insomnia is attributable to the rumblings in my belly or something totally unrelated, but the fact is that I am hungry. I am currently living in a regime of self-imposed starvation. This isn't something I have chosen to do in nearly 15 years, and frankly, something I didn't think I was capable of carrying out any longer.

My relationship with food is intense. It is one of the few things that consistently gives me pleasure. I love cooking, and more importantly, I love eating. I mean, I really love eating. There is very little I am unenthusiastic about putting into my mouth (and not like that, gutter minds!). Spicy, sweet, salty, crunchy, slurpy, chewy, veggie-based, liver-loaded- there is very little I won't try and come back for seconds for.

Food is and represents so much, almost all of it with positive connotations. At its most literal, it is sustenance, a key component to a healthy (and in my case happy) life (which reminds me of a time when I returned to Ecuador after having been gone for a few years and everyone there commented, with a collective smile, how “gordita” I was. That led to this little fatty's last self-imposed hunger strike). When done well, or even with just a lot of butter, food for me is the most pleasurable indulgence of my all-time favorite sense of taste. It is the open door to any culture, ignorant of any traveler's inability to converse in the local tongue and forgiving of her slaughtering of it. It is communal, the literal “breaking of bread” that occurs on first dates, business meetings, arms agreement negotiations- basically in almost any setting and under almost any circumstances.

Unfortunately, in my case at least, food can also mean unhappy sideways glances in full length mirrors, the appearance of dimples on my thighs, an uncomfortable tightening of my pants, a growing roundness in my face and, currently, numbers that, when measuring myself for my wedding dress, signal that, Houston, we have a problem.

About four years ago, I did Atkins and looking back on it, I am not sure if it was more the combination of diet and exercise or those pre-FDA-aproved pills that made my BMs look like the Gulf of Mexico after the latest BP debacle, but I did lose weight- probably 20 or so pounds. While Atkins does take a lot of discipline, I was, up until recently, pretty much the pro of self-denial.

In my 20's, I even came up with my own eating disorder- Annierexia. Unlike its famed sister, anorexia, rather than going through all the effort of swallowing and then upchucking (not to mention stinky breathe, aching throat and acidic taste of stomach bile in the mouth), Annierexia offered the much simpler and, dare I say, healthier, eating disorder of simply spitting the food out once all pleasure was extracted after chewing and before ingesting. To be sure, it wasn't perfect- I am sure some calories seeped in through the tongue and make their way into the tummy with inadvertent swallows, and forcing oneself to consistently spit out food that is primed to go down the gullet is hard, but it does have its obvious upside.

This past January, having indulged a little to much in the holiday festivities and happy in love (which for me, means cooking lots of love/butter-filled meals to express my feelings), I got strict with myself- back to Atkins. After 2 months of induction, I still didn't see any measurable results. Since then, I have been trying my versions of different diets promoting moderation. The problem is that I am simply not a moderate kind of girl. If I do anything, it is usually all the way. Go big or go home!, I say. And with all the constant temptations in Spain, none of which are collectively permitted in any diet I have found, I have managed to put on another few pounds. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Though I am not resorting to Annierexia quite yet, I am severely limiting my caloric intake resulting in my sitting here on the couch at what is now 5:53 AM, my tummy in turmoil.

Have I mentioned that I am hungry?

To-Do: Write Blog Entry

I am a list person. I write to-do lists for the pleasure of crossing items off (preferably with a black sharpie) once they are completed. The sense of accomplishment that I derive from the simple act of taking that black marker through a chore that, on at least some level, I have been dreading, provides enough motivation to complete these tasks. In fact, sometimes I include chores that I have already suffered through (preferably, but not necessarily, within the immediate past) just so I can have some tangible recording of the accomplished task (and the thrill of blacking it out into oblivion with my sharpie).

I am finding that, as of late, I am unable to motivate to do anything that, on its face, is less than obviously pure pleasure, without the aid of my motivational crutch of the to-do list. I suppose this is a natural outcome of the absence of few real obligations dictating the parameters of my day. This is a “problem” (if that is even the right word) born from a lifestyle of true indulgence. There is no job to wake up for (too often before my body was ready), no social commitments that come from having a well-established social life (mostly a pleasure, but occasionally a burden), no one relying on me to take care of their needs (with the exception of at least 2 daily bathroom trips outside for the dogs and a nightly watering of the herb garden).

There is only the ridiculous self-indulgence of my immediate desires and the occasional feeling of obligation to make the most of this borrowed leisurely lifestyle (for it will inevitably have to end at some point). The whole point of this break, was, after all, to try and figure out a better way to live, i.e. enjoy life while managing to generate enough income to reliably pay the bills.

I would get an A for mastering the good living part of the equation, but am discovering some ugly truths about myself with regard to my ability to motivate. I have been marching through life constantly up-selling my abilities, to myself and others, believing that I am capable of doing pretty much anything (though I gave up on the idea of being an Olympic figure skater in my mid-20's and am resigned to the fact that I probably will never serve as a member of Congress), if only given the opportunity. I believed that I possess a limitless amount of energy and enthusiasm and that that alone could compensate for a lack of experience, education, fluency in the local language, etc. I am not sure whether this attitude was always misguided but, in any event, I now feel like I am missing that crucial variable in the equation- my endless supply of energy.

For example, as much as I would like to believe that I am equally gifted at executing my plethora of ideas (S. calls me an idea machine) as I am at generating them, I find myself unable to put into motion all the steps that are required for realizing my dream job. I am a master of procrastination and find myself too often content to wile away my day on the couch, watching reruns of the Office, as my to-do list grows stagnant. And here I am, living a life of opportunity, no excuses for not making my dreams come true, and yet I don't. Perhaps it is the other side of the adage “necessity is the mother of invention”- absence of necessity is the father of inertia, or something like that. 

 Anyway, writing this blog was on my to-do list for the last week- at least I can now check it off.

She Said

Not that S. didn't do a wonderful job of telling the story of our engagement, but I thought that it would be fun to give my perspective- if not just for entertainment value, then also for (our) posterity.

Background

As S. noted, he had not once, not even a single time, told me, in the course of our five-hundred-forty-seven day courtship (not that I was counting), that he loved me. While I understood his perspective and appreciated the seriousness he placed on the concept and the meaning of love, it did make for some stressful conversations and the occasional dark-humor moment (One time, when we were mid-flight on our way home to Houston, we hit some serious turbulence and, thinking that this could be the end and taking advantage of our possible last moment on earth, I tried to squeeze it out of him. It didn't work.).

I agree that everyone conceives of love in their own way and the word and concept are diminished when used without reflection. But at the same time, without that touchstone in a relationship, that easy way to affirm the health and happiness of a partnership, conversations analyzing feelings, emotions and the blah blah blah that most guys avoid at all costs become necessary about every 2 months or so, judging from our experience. We relied on analogies to convey our feelings for one another- forget being on the same page - are we in the same chapter? same book? same series? We were forced to deconstruct our ideas of love, identifying aspects of feelings and actions associated with our conceptions of love and figuring out whether they applied to our relationship in its then-current state. I needed progress reports to figure out whether we were getting closer to what had become the holy grail of our relationship or whether this absence of the “l” word was a serious red flag that my thirty-six-year-old, never-been-married, salsa-dancing, game-loving, free-spirit, live-in-the-present boyfriend was waving in my face, signaling unresolved and unresolvable commitment issues.

The flip side of the coin was that, since about a year ago, I had been telling S. fairly regularly that I love him. Not only when I was a little drunk, but pretty much on a daily or bi-daily basis. Occasionally I would try to hold out, rationalizing that telling him applied unnecessary pressure or that I wasn't telling him for him but for me, which is kind of antithetical to my concept of love, etc., but I rarely was able to enforce the moratorium for more than a week. Once tipsy, the dam would break and S. would be deluged in a proverbial love flood. 

My professions of love were usually met with a warm hug or squeeze or an occasional expression of lesser affection (though those usually didn't go over so well, just underscoring our different feelings for each other). Other times, I would try and get creative, expressing my feelings for S. sans the “l” word. I would try to put it in his lingo- “you mean so much to me”, “you are my very best friend and favorite person in the whole world”, “I respect you immensely”, and these were met in kind and were reassuring, but it still didn't disguise the fact that I was further out on the love limb than S. I would play mind games with myself, arguing that he really did feel the same way about me that I felt about him, but that he just called it something else. That carried me through some hard moments, but I don't know if that was always the case, especially earlier in our relationship. I would similarly take heart in casual, toss-away remarks he would make, like referring to me as “Mama” in relation to his dog Luke or the “Mrs.” when talking to his friends, but I learned that that did not necessarily equate with the assurance of a lifelong commitment.

Aside from this complication, our relationship was (and is) the healthiest, happiest and most fulfilling that not only I have been in but, in all honesty, than I could have ever dreamed of. I am flabbergasted that I got so lucky as to find someone that I think is the cat's pajamas. Other than a lack of faith in people in general and this refusal to tell me he loved me, I had no reason to think that we were anything less than wonderful.

I tell you all this to underscore the significance and magnitude of hearing those words from S. the first time, when he just happened to be putting a ring on my finger.

The Proposal.

As S. noted, my actual birthday is on June 30^th and S. planned a getaway vacation to Portugal to top off the month-long celebration. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the birth-month concept, it is not a means to load up on gifts, but rather a way to spread the fun and offer an opportunity to reflect on the year you are closing out and identify goals for the upcoming  year of your life. Also, it entitles the celebrant to extra kisses.) He was overly generous this year- opening strong with a jamonera (a device to hold a cured pig leg) and a cured pig leg, following up throughout the month with extra professions of strong affection, a thing to put my laptop on so that it doesn't overheat and some earphones. I had been forewarned to stay away from all packages but couldn't help but noting their arrival and one day in particular when S. disappeared for an entire afternoon. Immediately before we left for Portugal, I calculated that there was one outstanding gift, and I assumed that S. was planning on giving it to me in Portugal.

My friend Cathy and I evaluated whether the missing gift was likely to be a ring, but this was a futile exercise we had been engaging in for all major holidays for the last 6 months. I had gotten my hopes up now multiple times (Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, the random romantic weekend escape) and I wasn't going to be holding my breathe. Besides, S. loves giving surprises and I thought it more his M.O. to pop the question on some otherwise insignificant day when we were out on a run or doing something equally mundane during which I would never expect one of the most significant events of my life to occur. For these reasons, I did not necessarily think that the MIA gift was a ring.

S. did all the legwork for the trip to Portugal, taking a random comment I made about wanting to visit a Portuguese fishing village (I had pictured a town similar to the setting for that scene in Love Actually when Colin Firth goes to Portugal to propose to his cleaning lady after knowing ridiculously little about her) and turned it into a reality. He booked a room with a balcony overlooking this wonderful little Atlantic-facing cove in the town of Sesimbra and handled all the logistics on getting us there. It was wonderful- picturesque, relaxing, intimate- and to top it off, S. had done his research and identified a great restaurant for dinner on my birthday. We left for dinner but before we could get far from the hotel, S. ran back upstairs to drop something off. After a fabulous dinner followed by some spontaneous street salsa dancing, we made our way back to the hotel. As we were going up in the elevator, I remembered that, last year for my birthday, S. had taken me out to dinner (The Rainbow Lodge, another amazing meal) and had arranged for his brother to leave several gifts on the table for our return. I deduced that his return to the hotel room had been a ruse and raced off to the room to see. When I got there, it did not immediately appear that a gift had been lovingly laid out, so I began rooting around in drawers, luggage, dirty laundry for my surprise, thoroughly convinced at this point that I had figured it out. Only after S. readily agreed to let me go through his backpack did I realize that I had miscalculated. Embarrassed and not wanting to seem ungrateful for all that he done for my birth month, I quickly dropped it.

So when we got home on Saturday, July 2nd, I had all but forgotten about the missing package and was focused on getting into some comfy clothes and doing some work for a charity auction that I had organized and which was to take place the next day. Freshly showered and ready to log on to the computer, S. called to me from the couch, looking very serious. The look on his face was so foreign to me- worried, serious, nervous- that I too immediately began feeling those same feelings. I ran to the couch and asked him if something was wrong, afraid of the answer but also faintly hoping but not quite believing that this could be what I had hoped for for so long. He said that I had been right in my math- there was a missing package- and then silently handed me a small black-velvet wrapped package. I pulled back the piece of velvet and saw the ring- the same ring I had first seen in December of 2009 when I was visiting my girlfriend Megan in Durham and S. and I had just begun seriously talking and the same ring that, a little over a year later, S. and I looked at together as we made our way up the East coast before flying out of NY to Spain. The thing is, we looked at a fair number of rings (actually, if truth be told, I stopped at every sparkly bauble and told S. at every opportunity that any ring would do- it was about what it symbolized, not its street value) and this one, while my first choice, doesn't look like your typical engagement ring, which is what I love about it, but which is what added to the confusion. 

 Just to clarify, I asked him whether this was a present or something more, at which point he told me for the first time that he loved me. The ring all but forgotten, I asked him for the next 5 minutes to please repeat those wonderful 3 words that I had so longed to hear for so long. The engagement is icing on the cake- for me, the fact that S. loves me, and knowing what that means to him, is everything.

Take Me Off the List

Another one bites the dust

And then there were

What took you so long

I could go on and on.  This post, if it were not already obvious, is about one of the single most important days of my short life.  It's been a while since I last posted and you will soon know the reason if you don't already.

The short short version is that Annie and I are engaged.  I proposed to Annie on our year and a half anniversary, July 2.  After Annie got over the shock she said yes.

Below is a bit longer version.

I have a different (I was going to call it weird but we're all weird in our own way) aspect of my personality that I think is important to describe to you before going into much else.  It relates to the word love.  In my past relationships, I oftentimes used the word loosely.  In hindsight I never really meant it.  It became something that was expected of me (or at least I interpreted it as such) and something that I felt I needed convey to be considered normal.

Love would have to be one of the trickiest words and emotions in the English language.  I'm sure other languages deal with it better.  I think Spanish does a better job, but not much.  My sister made a revealing comment to me recently.  "Love really means different things to different people."  Obvious though it is, it had not really occurred to me.  We, myself included, have tried to create a general, end-all-be-all, definition for love that applies to everyone.  What does the question "do you love me?" really mean?  Are we using your definition or mine?  Or something from a movie?  Maybe a poem or song?  My head is spinning just thinking about it.

I do like the word though.  Chiefly because it is THE word.  No other word in the English language tends to convey such an ultimate and final emotion.  There is no other word you say after that means more.  At least that 's how I look at it.  I'm sure a poet or master wordsmith could concoct something that blows me away, brings me to tears, and has be pointing at the air uttering "that's it."  We all use it.  It's big.

I'll keep my soapbox to a bare minimum.  Telling someone you love them and then choosing not to be with that person, to me, is a contradiction.  As with nearly all I write here, I need to qualify it by saying that this is my perspective.  Again, love is different for each person.  Annie and I have different definitions of love and she'll be the first to disagree with this.  And that's ok.  It's hard not to sound like I'm judging so I'll not try to lead you down that path.

Circling around to my story, in a year and a half, I did not once tell Annie I loved her.  I cared about her and did so deeply and I constantly told her as much.  She was my best friend and companion.  We lived together.  We moved to a foreign country together.  We'd talked about marriage and kids.  This one point was tough.  I was not going to use the "l" word until I felt it.  When would that happen?  I couldn't know.  But I had to do this to be fair to myself, her, and us.

I once mentioned to her that when I told her I loved her, I'd put a ring on her finger.

I need to bring you into two stories that will help bring the full story together.

First, Annie celebrates birthday months (not days).  Her birthday is June 30.  Keep in mind that I proposed on July 2.  All month long, I'd been telling her not to open packages.  Not to even get them at the door if possible.  Getting time alone was tricky since it was out of the norm (we do most everything together) and it was suspicious (birthday month and all).  It could not be avoided though.  I forced time alone and used the birthday month as the excuse.  I ordered stuff online and, again, used the handy explanation.  Annie's a smart and observant girl.  She naturally kept a loose track of gifts that came in and gifts that she received.  And not because she was greedy.  Far from it.  It was just natural.

Second, there was THIS ring.  THE ring.  She loved this ring.  When we first started seeing each other, she went to visit a friend in North Carolina.  She saw it then for the first time.  I'll attach a pic later.  Two white gold bands, one overlaid on top of the other, but offset a bit.  In the gaps were diamonds of various sizes.  It was unique and quite beautiful.  Even I had to admit that.  Not your typical engagement ring.  On our road trip to NY (see previous post), we stopped in NC and she took me to the store where she first saw it.  We saw it there and sized it.  Trust me, I could not get out of there fast enough.  Talk of marriage after only a little more than a year??  Sarah Hill, from Hamilton Hill Jewelry, had seen this all before.  Shortly after our visit, she sent me a simple email with all the details of the ring, including size, "just in case."

On July 2, after having returned from a romantic trip in Portugal, as she was sitting down to do some work, I asked her to come over to the couch and have a talk.  She thought something was wrong since I was serious. I then reached into my pocket, told her that there was one more gift I wanted to give her.  Her gift count had yielded a gap in her mind of one gift and this was it (and she was right).  She folded open the cloth covering a foam box and saw the very familiar ring.  With eyes wide open, she asked what this ring meant.  Was it a birthday gift or something else.

I told her I loved her and I slipped the ring on her finger.