Sol Part 1

I have a neighbor, he is not your average neighbor.  He is 80yrs old, short, Jewish, is balding, and has a bit of a 'tude.  I can't exactly remember when or how we started to talk but when we did it then turned into a unique friendship.  Most Tuesday nights I spend hanging out with Sol watching movies, going for (short) walks, looking at old photos, or drinking wine.  Some of my friends who know about my relationship with him think it's strange, but it truly isn't. I don't really feel like he is that old.  I was able to convince him to take a painting class, take a cooking class with me and ask a woman in our building out on a date.  He has such a young spirit and comments that come out of his mouth crack me up.  Here are some his all time best statements:

My fortune cookie read "An interesting musical opportunity is in your near future."  His response was "You can't really sing so I think that means this food is going to give you gas!"

His thoughts on the men in Bucktown "All these guys look like idiots their pants are too tight and most of them have nothing to be proud about."

Advice in dating "Be home by 9 that is when respectable girls come home.  Don't chew gum, only street walkers chew gum.  Don't kiss on the first date he'll think you're easy.  You'll never meet a nice Jewish man if you don't lower your height requirement."

When I thought someone broke into my apartment "You're gonna give me a heart attack.  I think God brought you into my life to kill me." 

Religious Beliefs "You need to convert to Judaism, because the men are better.  You will have to get used to someone less than 7feet tall."

When I was going to pass up dessert he said  "Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, "No, thank you," to dessert that night. And for what!"

The reason I bring Sol up is because I read him my blogs and tell him about my dates.  He's become part of my life and a part of my story.

Two months ago I told him I was going to NYC, Scottsdale, and DC all in the Month of May.  He said that he wished he traveled more when he was younger, and now that he is old he cannot do it.  I dislike the word can't, it shouldn't be in people's vocabularies.  So I went into pep talk mode and told him that he was not too old and it was not too late for him to travel around.  He told me I was crazy and that he would maybe go next year.  So I said to him "Isn't your favorite quote "What if you died tomorrow?  Wouldn't you have wished you lived it up?"

We sat there in silence and I realized that I can say this to my friends to get them to do stay longer and keep dancing but telling an 80yr old man who really might die tomorrow was pretty insensitive.  Just when I though I might have upset him he said "Where should I go?"  I decided to help him research places and he decided on a trip to San Diego and Temecula Valley.  He asked me if I knew any good travel agents which prompted me to laugh at him.  I told him that I would book his trip for him.  I booked his return flight for May 16th so that he and I could share a cab back into the city.

When May 16th rolled around he never showed up.  I waited by his gate and he never got off the flight.  Sol also thinks that I received a degree in technology because I understand how to operate an iPhone, I have a "faceplace", and I can walk to and from our apartments and my internet still works.  It's a miracle!  Since I had no idea how to contact a guy with no cell phone I just had to wait patiently.  Patience isn't my strong suit.  The gate agents had no information and could not tell me if he boarded his flight without a police warrant.  I was tempted to file a missing persons report but decided to just wait one day.  He probably missed his flight and would come home later.  On my cab ride home my vivid imagination kicked into high gear.  Somehow I came to 1 of 4 conclusions each ending with his death due to awful driving, being hard of hearing, or just being old.

After 4hrs of coming to my worst conclusions I called his hotel, the hospitals in the surrounding area, and the airline to see if he changed his flight.  No such luck.  He had checked out but did not tell anyone where he had gone.  About 4 days later his son came around asking where he was and I had to fess up that I had booked him and Barb (the woman he went on a date with) on a trip to California and they had not returned.  After my verbal lashing from his late 50's son I felt guilty and awful that something had happened to him.  It wasn't until exactly one week later that I got a post card the same day he showed back up to our apartment building.  He said he was "living it up" and had decided to take a ride on Highway 1 up along the coast and would be flying back from San Francisco.  The guy who didn't want to go anywhere was now taking road trips.  When we finished discussing his trip I said "Well now it's my turn to tell you that you almost gave me a heart attack!"  His response "Don't worry about me.  Worry about finding a boyfriend...did you meet anyone while I was gone?"

Click it or Ticket!

I went back home to Texas for my Step-Sister Meri's wedding.  We had a great time, but while I was down there I was pulled over. 

I did not get my nails done prior to coming to Texas so I had to stop by the nail salon.  It took them forever but we finally got the color right and I was able to walk out a happy customer.  As my nails were drying I realized I had spent almost 2 1/2 hours there so I needed to get home.  I jumped in the car and as I was backing out I saw a police officer.  I assumed he was going to pass me but he didn't.  As I was pulling onto the main road his lights went on.  I thought to myself this is ridiculous I used my blinker, I turned on green, and I had not even reached 10mph.  I decided I would pull into the Whataburger because if you're going to get a ticket you might as well get fries to go with it. 

I rolled down the window and said "Hi there."  The officer said "Ma'am do you know why I pulled you over?"
Do officers only ask this question because they would like you to incriminate yourself? 
I stared blankly going over what I had done and said "No Sir...I do know that I wasn't speeding."  I smiled and chuckled a little bit.  Ok maybe too much, I need to control the making myself laugh sometimes. 

The officer took my licence after reviewing it he gruffly said "Well down here in Texas we have a law about wearing your seat belt."  I said "Oh I know I'm from here, I went to school down at UTSA for 4yrs.  I've only lived in IL for 5yrs...I just couldn't put it on."

He looked a bit perterbed and interrupted my rambling "Everyone has to put it on.  Why couldn't you put yours on?"

As sweetly as I could I said "My nails are still wet."  I held up my hands for him to see.  I gave him my sad eyes and puffed out bottom lip and said "I always obey the law my brother is a police officer, I just didn't want to ruin my nails for my sister's wedding.  I already smudged one rolling down the window." 
He took a step back and I think I saw a bit of a smile behind the 'I'm not sure what to say next' look on his face.  He stood and I sat in silence.  It was his move.  Then he said "Well umm ok let me just get that for you then."  He opened the door, grabbed the seat belt and then reached over me to click it.  I blurted out THANK YOU before he could get his entire body out of the car and he turned bright red and just nodded and put one hand up and walked back to his cruiser.  Whew! 

Ladies if you get pulled over in Texas...be nice and maybe a bit helpless.  You never want to mess with Texas, unless of course you have a really good reason.  

Hold the Mayo

About two weeks ago I was having a rough week. (More stories to follow)  I was asked to host a meeting with 12hrs notice for some pretty important people visiting Chicago.  No big deal.  After allowing myself a minute to use a few expletives and stomping my feet I got it together and started to organize at 3:02pm on a Monday.  There were two vegetarians so I made sure to order their meals properly and ask for my meal to be made without mayo.  I said three times "no mayo".  I find mayonnaise and miracle whip amazing, in the sense that I am amazed people want to put liquid fat with a bland flavor on their food.  There is no miracle about it, the texture and the taste gross me out.  I'm actually gagging right now as I think about writing descriptive words for it.  Ugh.


When our afternoon lunch came I walked the delivery guy back downstairs and paid him.  I walked the delivery guy downstairs thinking I had enough time to head back upstairs to alert people of which meals belonged to who.  Unfortunately as soon as I walked out the chow down started so my no mayo sandwich went to the President of the organization we were meeting with that day.  He wasn't holding back his appetite so I had no opportunity to stop him and make a trade.  In fact he was half way done with his meal by the time I got back up to the 16th floor.

The meeting went well despite the minor food setbacks of the day.  When I was on my way out I realized there was some extra food left.  There is sometimes a homeless man in Lincoln Park which is near my apartment, and I figured I would give him the left over sandwiches.  (I sometimes give him my breakfast as an excuse to go to Starbucks).  It was a particularly humid and an uncomfortably steamy 92 degree day.  When I got on the bus I found out that the air condition was not working on this bus.  It felt like a cheap sauna in Peru (Em you know the Sauna I'm talking about).  I was wearing a dress so I deduced I could handle it for 25minutes.  I found a seat next to a friendly looking face who looked like Jerry Seinfeld but with a smaller nose, blue eyes, and blond hair.  As per usual I somehow began chatting with this friendly guy sitting next to me.  We talked about a few things before the heat began to bother me and my stomach started making gurgling noises.

Guy:  "Is that your stomach?"
Me:  "Yeah, I think it's because it's so hot and sweaty on this bus."
Guy:  "Oh umm ok.  So what's with all the food you're carrying?"

As soon as he said that I looked down at the food and saw a vision of the sandwich I ate for lunch.  Both sides of the bread was coated in mayo.  I took one of the pieces off and tried to scrape the mayo off but it was all over the meat, cheese, and lettuce too.  When the President of the organization saw what I was doing he said "Why didn't you just order yours without mayo?"  In my head I said If you hadn't eaten through the plastic you might have seen that it said CLARA - NO MAYO on the sandwich you inhaled!  What I really said was "Yeah next time I'll do that.  Good idea."  I ate a few bites which was enough for me to realize that my stomach was angry at the mayo.  I decided to discard the rest of the sandwich and eat the tiny fist sized salad instead.

On the bus the sound of my stomach fighting with the white creamy condiment combined with the heat was adding to my vision of it putrefying in my stomach.  I instantly felt like throwing up.  As soon as the bus jerked into the next stop it was as if an electric shock ran up my backside I stood straight up and bolted to the rear exit, shoving people, and dropping one of the bags of sandwiches.  Much like a sandwich Cinderella the blond Jerry grabbed the left over bag and followed me off the bus.  At this point I had dropped my laptop bag and handbag in the grass and was sitting up on my knees ripping off my cherry red cardigan.  He stood there in silence as I began to swing the cardigan around my face as some type of limp fan.  He took out a notebook and fanned me then asked if I was alright.  I felt that at any minute I was going to explode and probably all over his leather bound notebook if he didn't get it out of my face.  I kept my mouth sealed shut which looked like a straight line on my now flushed face.  He knelled down beside me and rubbed my back just as I turned onto all fours groaning "Oh mylanta!  Oh.Good.God.  I feel awful."  I faced downward towards the grass, just in case.  I was feeling dizzy and according to Blond Jerry I was now a greenish color.  He asked again "Are you OK?  Can I go get you something?"  I groaned "It was the maaaayo! Uuuuuugh"  I'm fairly nice and helpful but even I would have left me at this point.  What guy thinks to himself "It's cool, I'll just waste 30min of my day with a crazy girl who has a stomach ache on La Salle."  I'm sure he was really thinking "Why did I follow this crazy girl off the bus?  I could have eaten her sandwiches too."  I rolled from all fours onto my rear end and hiked up my dress a little above my knees and shoved my head between my legs. 

After what seemed like an eternity the queasy feeling subsided and I started to feel better.  It was only then that I realized the strangeness of the situation.  A complete stranger that I spoke to for maybe 10minutes was rubbing my back and softly telling me that I would be alright.  I came to my senses and felt utterly embarrassed.  Both hands flew up to my face in an attempt to shield myself from the look of confusion and caution that was beaming at me from Blond Jerry's eyes.  He asked to walk me back to my apartment and I told him I would be just fine.  He walked me to my apartment anyway and carried my heavy laptop bag.  It was an awkward goodbye but I tried my best to express my gratitude for sitting next to me on the middle of one of the busiest streets while I had a "personal moment" as he so politely called it.

It turns out that there are nice guys out there and if Blond Jerry happens to be running in God's Sainthood contest he has my vote!

The Italian...

It was 10am on a Monday and I was engaged in a serious conversation with Josh about the idiots managing LBJ when my BBM (Blackberry Messenger) started chiming so frequently it sounded like it was broken.  He asked me who was blowing me up and I told him "oh it's an Italian."  Josh asked me how I knew and I said "I just do."  Twelve more chimes and I decided to check out what was going on.  Turns out I was being invited to the Greek Isles, Vienna, Prague, Thailand, Japan, or beaches I had to google.  All expenses paid for of course and a perfect gentleman to accompany me.  This is what it is like to be friends with a persistent Italian who believes you are the most amazing thing since the invention of the Bellini.  Luckily this has not been my first encounter with Italian men, or my last.

I first experienced Italian men when I was in Italy with Megan the summer of 2001.  Italian men can be summed up in one word:  Intense.  Anywhere we walked it was "Ciao Bella" or "venga con me, bellisima" and grabbing then kissing of the hands commenced.  I knew enough of Spanish to translate what those two phrases meant and I was irritated, annoyed, and a bit freaked.  They even behaved this way at the Vatican.  Holy freak out!  As a girl who is very conservative when it comes to affection (the rest of my family does not have this problem which I believe exacerbated my issues) I was in a state of annoyance and irritation at least once a day.  We found ourselves running away when we walked down the main piazza, couldn't stand in lines more than 2minutes, and were bombarded if we were at an outdoor restaurant.  I think Megan was flattered and enamored by all the accented attention but I was getting headaches from all my eye rolling and grimacing.  I spoke with several people about my wanting to throat punch people who infiltrated my personal bubble but none gave as good of advice as the Chef at our hostel.  The Chef taught us to use the word "basta", which literally translates to "enough" but when said with force it means business.  After a few more lessons from Chef we learned to carry ourselves in a way that didn't attract attention which just meant staring down and looking aggressively into the eyes of these men before they could open their mouths.  As I re-read through my journal while writing this I found the day he taught us this phrase.  After all my ranting about the Pantheon, Catacombs, and Vatican this is what I wrote about my new found powerful word "I finally got to use the "basta" word that our Chef told us about.  I think it literally means fuck off because these guys were upset and completely freaked out.  Doubtful that they will be shouting dirty Italian comments tomorrow.  I might need to use this new found yelling at jerks when I get back to the states." 

 

Cut to 2007 when I was at a "Meet New People" party and I was approached in very Italian fashion by a guy I'll call FF.  Picture an Italian accent attached to a 6'0 guy with an athletic body, the attire of casual James Bond, and the hair of Robert Pattinson.  Then picture him telling you that you look very exotic and telling you he would like to "kissa your face."  I'm sure my reaction was not like anything you're imagining because I laughed.  I was dating someone at the time which allowed me to use the excuse that I was taken and could not be kissed.  I tried to walk away.  He laughed and said he hoped I was dating a "real man."  Who is this guy?  We ended up talking and he convinced me that I was not married and could give out a phone number to go to brunch.  My response, "Absolutely not."  As our group was departing for the next location he grabbed my hand and as he kissed it then he slyly put his card into my hand.  "For when you get the courage...." and he winked.  I was more irritated than anything.  Hello?!  Did he not gather from our 30min conversation that I have iron clad resolve!  I shoved the card into my clutch and walked off to catch up with my friends.  A year later I found myself suddenly single.

 

As I was getting dressed to go out I grabbed the long forgotten clutch.  That night while searching around for a lip gloss I found the card.  I dismissed the card but it caused an itch in my dialing finger.  It was a year and some months later but I decided to call him.  As soon as I told him "It's Clara fro..." he interrupted and said "Ahhhh Ciao Bella Clara from the party last year.  I knew you would call!  It took you forever che bella.  When are we going on a date?"  I hardly got a word in edgewise but he decided we were going for brunch.  He is an international consultant and at the time he was overseas but decided to make a trip back to take me to brunch, plus he had to do his expenses anyway.  The first of traveling no big deals from him.  He took me to a great little brunch spot and we spent 3hrs talking about his journey to the US, my dreams, my plans, his travels, where I should travel, and finally business school.  The tide turned in his favor when he said "I will help you get into business school in any way possible.  I am on your team!" 

 

Side Note:  That phrase got me because 1.  I love team activities and I'm super competitive and 2.  Because my Dad Gary always referred to our family as a team.  Everything was an individual effort that helped the team.  So that's where my love of "teams" comes from.

 

He left back to the U.A.E. a few days later for a business deal and we set a 2nd date upon his return.  Then a few weeks later my plans to meet back up with him were derailed when the ex-boyfriend who broke my heart came back.  As you have probably gathered from this blog I am a sucker for 2nd chances so I said yes to the ex and let FF and White Sox guy in on the news.  They were not excited but appreciated my honesty and respected my decision.  As soon as I got off the phone with FF he sent me a message "Call me when you are single again."  Who does this guy think he is?!  I was so upset with his comment that I deleted his number.

 

In the summer of 2009 I found myself single again and at the same Meet New People Party that Billie had hosted in 2007.  And guess who was there?  We caught up and Andrea my date informed him I was single.  We had a great time and set a date for the following week since he would be in Chicago for a few weeks.  I had a fantastic time with him.  We went to many of my current favorite restaurants and just had a good time.  My most memorable date was at Avec where they have shared tables.  As we were meeting the groups around us FF introduces me as a very famous restaurant critic.  Before we knew it I was giving advice on restaurants and what to order.  The people around us ended up ordering the exact same items we chose.  I felt a bit bad but only until the food came.  Still makes my mouth water just thinking about the peaches and prosciutto.  Most of our dates had a bit of fun to them, and I honestly had no clue what FF was going to do at our next meal.  It made it fun and still does.  He's quite the character and like myself he loves to meet new people.  After about two weeks of dating I was having a great time but there was just something missing.  When we hung out there was a part of me that was withdrawn, I could feel myself not really letting down that one last drawbridge so he could cross over to boyfriend territory.  The more I withdrew the more he advanced and the intensity was revealed.  He wanted to take me to Dubai, he wanted to have 2 different wedding receptions, and he wanted to buy me everything.  Immediately I felt exactly what every man probably feels when a girl reveals her 5,10, and 20yr plans for their life together.  I felt suffocated even though all he was doing was telling me things that every girl (supposedly) wants to hear.  I had gotten my wish.  An intelligent, handsome, well dressed, chivalrous man, who wants to take me all over the world and buy me houses and jewelry and I didn't want it.  I guess not all girls can be gold diggers.  Damn it! 




He had to leave back to Dubai and I felt a sense of sadness and relief all at once.  There would be space and I was glad, but my friend was leaving.  I told him about my trip in October to visit my friend Katie in Madrid and he flew more than 36hrs round trip to join us for 24hrs in Mallorca and he even paid for our hotel rooms.  Although Katie and I were asked which one of us was Mrs. FF when we checked in.  It was a great time until he was upset I did not want to spend all my time with him.  That evening I made friends with some people at the bar and stayed late chatting it up and drinking wine.  Even though I had informed him it was a Katie & Clara trip prior to him coming it wasn't good enough.  I ended up getting irritated that I couldn't be free to do what I wanted and also that I was upsetting him.  The trip ended on a weird note and he went back to Dubai and we went back to Madrid.




After he left Katie helped me realize that it was OK that I didn't return the intense feelings he felt for me.  However, I didn't want to tell him that because I was afraid of losing our friendship but I couldn't keep pretending his verbal displays for affection were meant for the lady I was sitting next to.  When people say lovey dovey things to me it is like my vision is hovering over me and I'm watching myself smile and squirm like a 5yr old given a hug by their grandpa who smells like werther's originals.  Since I figured it would probably be awkward if he asked me to marry him and I happened to respond by asking if we could "talk about it later" I told him how I felt.  I said to him that he was a great friend and we would probably be friends for life but marrying me was not going to happen.  He did not speak to me for a month.  This is horrible to say but I hardly noticed which made me realize my decision was correct.  When he did contact me again we were able to pick up where we left off.  Literally.  He still has our weddings in Texas & Italy planned out.  I'm not sure if the History Channel is correct on how the Roman Empire became so large.  I have a feeling the Romans just kept asking other regions to join until they eventually gave in and decided joining the Romans would not be as bad as getting asked again the following day if they would date join them.

Lesson Learned:  It's safe to say that Italians never give up.