She Flies through the Air, with the Greatest of Ease...

It happened on a Sunday.  We were living short-term in a corporate apartment, the kind that comes with all the furnishings, including pots and pans.  (We were renovating our condo, and all of our worldly goods were in storage.)

We were getting ready for a matinee performance of Cirque du Soleil.  Our daughter Renee was home from college, and our son Rod's friend Jamie was going with us.  First on the agenda, however, was pizza, and I walked out to the parking lot to meet the delivery boy.

At last I spied the car with the pizza sign on top, and waved it over.  I gave the pizza delivery boy money and he gave me two large, warm pizza boxes, and I hurried back to the apartment.

Walking with the pizza boxes in front of me, I didn't see the concrete bar on the ground--what a friend calls a "car-stopper."

I had easily stepped over it a short while earlier, but this time --  WHAM!  I tripped and took flight.

I held tight to the pizza boxes, holding them up and away from danger, while my head aimed straight for the parking lot curb.

My first thought after I hit -- I saved the pizza!   Then I noticed big drops of bright red blood appearing on the pavement. 

And I heard "Ma'am?  Ma'am?"  Luckily, the delivery boy had seen what happened, and ran over to help.  I directed him to our apartment door to ask for paper towels, the most sanitary thing I could think of to stop the bleeding.

The delivery boy returned quickly, bringing my horrified daughter.  The two of them helped me to my feet, and we staggered back toward the apartment.

"Don't forget the pizza," I said and the pizza delivery boy turned back for it.  I'm glad I tipped him well, I thought.  I would be so embarassed if I hadn't.

Once in the apartment, I easily slipped by Rod and Jamie on my way to the bathroom, as Renee distracted them with the pizza.  I sat on the toilet, and Eduardo pressed wet paper towel after wet paper towel against the cut.

My next thought was, we can't let those tickets go to waste.  God as my witness, I would make it to the circus.  I concocted a plan, and talked Eduardo into it.  

Here's how it worked out: 

1. Eduardo dropped me off at Piedmont Hospital's emergency room.
2. Eduardo drove Renee and the boys up I-75 to the circus in Cobb County.
3. He returned to Piedmont Hospital just as my head was stitched up.

We drove back to Cobb County and the circus, but we'd missed the intermission and I didn't feel up to fighting my way down the row to our seats for the last third of the show.  Oh well, I thought, at least we tried.  Eduardo and I sat in the car and waited for the kids.

Then I got an idea. "Follow me," I told Eduardo, with my foot already out the car door.

Heaven only knows what the woman thought when I appeared on the other side of the glass at her ticket booth, big white bandage on my head, dried blood in my hair.

But Eduardo and I ended up with two free replacement tickets for Tuesday night's performance.  Jamie's parents kept the boys that night, since Renee was back at her dorm, and Eduardo and I had a blast.

And the accident left me with something else--something I could hold over Eduardo's head.  "Be nice, or I will tell all our friends that you did this to me."

It worked, at least until the swelling went down.

It's a Gift, and a Curse

It's like color blindness, except in my case, you could call it detail-blindness. I see well enough to function in the world, but I don't notice details, sometimes even when they are large ones.

The first time I became aware of this affliction was at my first real job out of college.  I worked at a non-profit that brought free architecture and planning services to other non-profits.  We sometimes stored donated building supplies here and there in the Victorian house that served as our office, until the current project was ready to use them. 

That morning I was just diving into the stacks of ledger books on my desk when there was a sudden CRASH in the hall.  I heard a burst of PG-rated profanity, and then my office-mate Darla appeared at our door.  

"I almost fell," she said.  She looked unhurt, just irritated.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was stepping over that stinking roof vent, and the heel of my shoe caught on it."  Her voice rose a little at the end.

"What roof vent?" I asked.

She gave me an exasperated look, then led me out our office door and pointed to a large silver object around the corner, lying on the floor of the back hallway.

"How long has that been there?" I asked.

"Two weeks," and another odd look, was her answer. 

I understand that odd look.  I had been stepping over that stinking roof vent at least twice a day, entering and leaving the building.

That was just the beginning.  Through the years, detail-blindness has permeated all aspects of my life.  It leaves me fashion challenged on the best of days, and wearing shoes that don't match on the worst ones.  At least I haven't left home without my pants--yet.

It has led to another condition, one I once heard described as reverse anorexia--no matter how much my weight goes up and down, the person in the mirror looks just fine to me.

So I be-bop along in my own little world, where nothing big and silver lies in my path waiting to trip me, and my perfectly-sized body is always impeccably dressed.

Life is good in my world.

One Presidential Pardon, To Go

Eduardo and I were debating whether to buy grilled or fried chicken from Pollo Campero, the fast-food chicken chain that started in Guatemala and now has three locations in the greater Atlanta area.

You can't believe how good that chicken is.  Friends of mine who are flight attendants tell of trips to the U.S. from Guatemala and El Salvador in which every passenger has a big to-go order on his or her lap for homesick relatives.  The whole plane smells like fried chicken.

And when Pollo Campero opened its first U.S. store in Los Angeles in 2002, people waited up to 9 hours for a taste of home.   The following year, people started lining up as early as 3 a.m. at the first Washington DC location.

Pollo Campero is a rare treat for us, too, since the nearest store is 45 minutes away.  The kids and I wanted to abandon the pretense of trying to be healthier, and order only the fried chicken that made Pollo Campero famous. 

Eduardo held out for one whole chicken grilled, one whole chicken fried. 

"Otherwise," he said, "We might as well eat JFK."

Our apologies to the Kennedy family, and Colonel Sanders.

Eduardo Contreras, Man of Mystery

Eduardo has the ethnic look that every actor wants--non-specific.

Because he often designs houses in a French country style, many potential clients have asked if he's from France.  Spanish speakers frequently think he's Colombian because of his accent.

In Italy, he aggravated the local people, who thought he was Italian.  They believed that Eduardo understood what they were saying, but had chosen to ignore them.  The locals got closer and closer and talked louder and louder, but to no avail.  His bewildered look didn't change, and neither did his answer, "Non parlo italiano."

In the south of France, Eduardo left us in the car as he dashed into a small grocery for that night's wine.  He picked out two bottles and stood near the ancient cash register at the front of the store while the owner carried on a dynamic conversation with a group of regular customers back by the fruit.  Finally the owner noticed him and came straight over with a torrent of French words that Eduardo interpreted as "why didn't you say something, you idiot?" 

Eduardo dug deep into memories of high school French and managed, "Je..ne...parle..pas...francais."  At which point the cluster of customers laughed long and loud at the owner, and clapped Eduardo on the back for giving them a story to carry home that night.

But Eduardo didn't foster ethnic confusion only on vacation.  He caused plenty of trouble back home in Atlanta as well.

One day, Eduardo went for a haircut at the barber shop next to his office, but his regular barber wasn't working.  Rather than come back later, Eduardo sat in the chair of the woman filling in for the barber.  She smiled and snapped the cape around Eduardo's neck efficiently, but didn't respond to his attempts at small talk.  Not until Eduardo asked where she had lived before coming to the United States.   

Even then, her answer was short.  "Mexico."  

Eduardo decided to give it one more try.  "Then we were practically neighbors," he said.  "I grew up in El Salvador."

"No," she said, "I thought you were Iranian." ---which sort of made sense, because Eduardo's regular barber was from Iran.

And then Aura had plenty to say as her scissors flew.  Her first husband was Salvadoreño.  Her second husband was Salvadoreño.  And both of them were lying, cheating Salvadoreños, and suddenly Aura couldn't stop talking.  She unleashed a flood of Spanish abusing Eduardo's countrymen while first her scissors and then her razor moved closer and closer to Eduardo's carotid artery. 

Eduardo escaped unscathed that day, but he had learned his lesson.  Eduardo always makes sure that his regular barber is on duty each time he makes an appointment.

And then there is my favorite case of Eduardo's mistaken identity, which came when I worked at the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce.  DeKalb County is just east of Atlanta, and home to recent immigrants from every continent except Antarctica.  That year the staff holiday dinner was held at a restaurant in the International Village, an area near Chamblee in which several immigrant communities had sprung up in the early waves of Atlanta's globalization. 

Eduardo and I had a great time at the Oriental Pearl Seafood Restaurant that night.  Exotic dishes--bean curd rolls, fried shrimp balls, pan fried pork dumplings--circled our tables on little carts for hours. 

At the end of the evening, Carol (the wife of a co-worker) made her way across the restaurant floor to where we stood talking with the Chamber of Commerce's president.  Carol waited beside Eduardo until there was a break in the conversation.  

"We enjoyed our dinner tonight,"  Carol said as she took Eduardo's hand.  "Thank you so much for inviting us to your restaurant."

No, Carol, thank you.

Now Eduardo can add 'Asian' to his actor's resume.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head....

It was the music that had filled the air as we fell in love. I followed the sound through our condo to find Eduardo with remote in hand, his march through the channels stayed by an infomercial for Romancing the 70's, a 9-CD set "devoted solely to the romantic hits and classic love songs of the seventies."

The years rolled away as we watched host Tony Orlando introduce artist after artist. All of the songs were familiar and brought back good memories.

Neil Sedaka sang "Laughter in the Rain" and I remembered an October evening at Ezell Park under an umbrella, four years pre-Eduardo (don't tell him). It was the night when Troy Butterworth kissed me for the first time.

I heard Anne Murray's beautiful voice singing "Danny's Song," with the line "even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you honey, everything will bring a chain of love." Who could resist those words? Not me. There were the Captain and Tenille singing "Muskrat Love," and Starland Vocal Band singing about "Afternoon Delight."

I turned to Eduardo. "We should buy this and play it all the time. It will drive the kids crazy!" He agreed that it was a good idea.

But then the reality of the march of time intruded. John Denver appeared, singing "Sunshine on my Shoulders," and the picture that came to my mind was an image of the 5 p.m. sun over the Pacific Ocean as his small plane crashed into the water. Dan Fogelberg sang "Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you." I had loved him, too, and he was dead from prostate cancer.

Eduardo and I decided not to order the CDs after all.

Daniel Grayling Fogelberg
August 13, 1951 ~ December 16, 2007

"There is no darkness in this place that we're bound
Love is the only thing that matters."
~ Dan Fogelberg, "Icarus Ascending"

By a Hair

I hated my fine, straight hair for most of my life. I wanted my blonde hair to be thick, tousled curls that fell halfway down my back, sending out a siren call to men. In my daydreams, this cascade topped a slender, yet curvy, body, covered with a white cotton, off-the-shoulder blouse paired with a full skirt that hit mid-calf. My toes would peep from delicate, flat, leather sandals, flashing a hint of pale pink polish as I sauntered along the vineyard down the road to my home in the Tuscan countryside.

In my mind, I was Isabella Celani in the 1985 movie Room with a View.  She's the gorgeous blonde sitting with the hot Italian man who's driving the British tourists out to the countryside in a carriage. When the camera shows her from the back as she begins the long walk home, my sole focus is her beautiful hair, tumbling down her back. Her hair, I decided, was the perfect hair.

The hair that Botticelli painted for Venus was my second choice.

But there were no vineyards in my part of Alabama as I was growing up.  H - E - double hockey sticks, my home county was "dry" -- no sales of demon alcohol allowed until I went away to college.  The closest I got to a hot Italian man in my youth was our occasional family dinners at Pasquale's, the only local pizzeria.

After years of hot rollers and hair spray and curling irons and mousse, I gave up my dream. Those curls were not for me, not here on earth. Maybe, one day, in heaven.

Then I went off to college and met Eduardo, who is hot and can pass for Italian. And I learned to love the straight, fine hair, blunt-cut just below the ears that Eduardo has always preferred. (I have to admit, he's right, it is a becoming look for me--see below left.)

I kept my tresses like that for years, until last summer, when the Atlanta heat and humidity became too much and I started pulling my hair straight back and up in a ponytail.  I let it grow longer so it would stay there, up and off my neck.

It felt much better, and I thought all was well, until one morning just out of bed, after I'd brushed my hair, but before I'd put it up in the daily ponytail. That's when Eduardo said it. "I don't like your hair long.  You look like a president."

"......?" 

My mind was blank.  After years of intuitive leaps that allowed me to make sense of Eduardo's warped English when no one else could, I was stumped. I adjusted my spectacles to watch his mouth more closely, in case that would help.

He tried again. "Your hair...long like that...you look like a president. You know, Ben Franklin."

I was speechless, which probably was a good thing.

By the end of that day, I had accomplished two things.

I had cut my hair.

And Eduardo now understood that Ben Franklin was never a U.S. president.

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident...

Eduardo and I watched the John Adams mini-series together last winter after I received the DVD set for Christmas. We piled into bed, popped in the first of three discs, and watched the opening shots of John Adams, late at night, on his horse as it walked him back to the muddy mess called Boston. Snow blew hard across the screen, and Eduardo and I burrowed deeper into the covers.

The story continued. Here was the Boston Massacre, much messier and more chaotic than the image I'd gotten in school.  I'd never understood before how hard life was in the Massachusetts colony -- disease, bitter cold, and doctors who drained your blood to make you better. In the middle of so many personal struggles, men and women still risked the little they had in a gamble for more basic rights as human beings. I was deeply touched.

I glanced at Eduardo, born and raised in El Salvador, where independence from Spain was declared 50 years after the U.S. Declaration of Independence. What must he make of this? I lightly touched his hand at the end of Part One, and asked, "What are you thinking?"

"I've learned a lot," he answered.

I felt a twinge of guilt.  Maybe I'm too hard on Eduardo, I thought.  I give him a lot of grief about caring too much about appearances, not caring enough about substance.  In the houses he designs, every doorknob tells a story.  If I hear the philosophy of "progressive omission" one more time, I won't be responsible for what happens. 

I've been wrong, I told myself, and vowed to be a more supportive wife.

Then Eduardo continued.  "I always thought those early American houses weren't cluttered because they had a more clean design aesthetic. But it was because they couldn't afford anything."

He smiled the smile of the enlightened.

And, after a minute, so did I.