La Vida Con Deby

Change Partners...

Last week when I was in a shoe store there was a nicely dressed man talking to the owner.  We were all talking.  He was not a tango dancer, he was someone who was there to do business with the owner.  I had things to do so I left.

I was surprised when he ran two blocks to catch up with me. "Wait." he said to me.  "Where are you going?" It was flattering to have this attractive man run after me, especially since this was not one of my better days.  It was raining.  I had no umbrella, I didn't use much makeup, and my dress was sort of bohemian. "Back to Palermo" I said to him.  He asked how I was going and said that he would take the bus with me. Hmmmm.

In any event, in a small conversation he managed to tell me he was an artist and his paintings were in a cafe, and he wanted to show them to me. Uh huh..well a cafe is not an apartment.  I was charmed. So I agreed to go. 

The cafe was beautiful and his paintings were magnificent. He said he is a partner with the owner in several ventures.  He supplies all the designs and art.  How could one not be charmed.  We chatted for two hours about many things.  I met the other partner.  Another charmer.  They asked me, perhaps I had another blond friend I could introduce to the partner.  Maybe we could all go out together. Me have another blond friend? Oh indeed.

So I call my "other blond friend."  I tell her what happened and she finds the whole thing pretty interesting.  "A double date. Not only that.  A blind date."  She says.  I tell her not to think of it that way.  I think it is more like getting together with two guys who are different.  She and I are always up for different.  Like when we went to Rumy.  But then that is another story.

We show up at the cafe around 9.  First the artist comes to greet us.  We sit down and chat.  He is still charming and sweet.  He talks about being an artist and how sensitive he is.  Then the other partner comes. He winks at me.  He says why don't we go to a table. It will be easier to talk.

For more than 3 hours they ply us with food and drink. Whatever we want.  I have champagne.  They order different plates for us.  We talk about food.  The other partner and I discover we have many common interests.  My friend discovers that the artist and she like miga sandwiches slathered with butter and apples. Yeech.  Many questions go round and round the table.  We are foreigners and somewhat exotic.  They are men recently separated. Hee, hee.

The people who work in the cafe are getting ready to leave.  They suggest we move back to the couches. OK, I know this is going to be a problem.  Maybe we should leave too.  So here we are we TVs blaring music videos.  I begin to feel a migraine coming on.

The artist moves in.  "I want to bite your lips off."  he says to me. I throw my hand to my mouth in horror. "No!" I say to him.  "Don't act stupid." he says to me. "I want to kiss you. I want you." Oh how seductive, I think.  I telll him "No."  He is rather surprised.  "Why not?"  I personally cannot believe we are having this conversation. "I don't feel comfortable."  I nod towards the other couple on the other couch. "We can go into the kitchen." he says. "No quiero." "Somos grandes." he says to me. "Obvio." I say back.

I have played this game before.  When I was 15 years old.  Now I get to play it again.  I cannot believe at this age, men use guilt to get women to go to bed with them.  It must work.  Not with me.  How seductive.  He moves away.  "I won't bother you anymore.  I won't call you.."  "OK."  I say to him. "If that is what you want."  Now he is backed into a corner.  When I was 15 I would beg them.  At this age, I don't care.

He looks at me.  "Is this what you want?"  I tell him "I want to get to know you.  I think  you are a nice person.  I think you are interesting.  I do not want to be pressured.  If what you want is to pressure me into something, then I don't care if you call me again.  If you want to know me as a person then this is something else."  He thinks about it.  "OK, but you will talk to me, you won't be angry?"  "No,why would I be angry?"  He doesn't know what to say.  I think about someone else who I like much better. Why do I do this to myself?  I must like it I suppose.

I glance over at the other couch. They are talking.  I think the same thing is happening over there. I ask my friend if she wants to leave, she says yes.  We are trying to extricate ourselves.  She ends up back in conversation.  My headache begins to get worse.  I take a pill for it.  I want to leave.

The artist is making conversation with me.  He is talking about something.  He tells me that he thinks my friend is more open minded than me.  I tell him that if he likes her better then maybe he should go out with her.  He is shocked.  "You want me to go out with your friend?"  "Well, I hardly know you and if you think she is better for you than me, maybe you should go out with her.  It is OK.  Not a big deal."  American women, we are so weird.

Finally we get them to understand we need to leave. They walk us to the bus stop. Of course not the close bus stop.  We miss two buses in the processes.  While we wait for the bus, the artist is still trying to kiss me.  I give him a little peck, but I am not about to have a make out session on Callao with him. I say to him "Why can't you be a gentleman like your friend?  Look at him."  For the moment, It appears the two of them are deep in conversation, but then I see my friend veer off to the side as the charmer moves in for the kiss.

I immediately move over take her arm push her over to where I was and go "Change partners." She starts to giggle. Of course they have no idea what we are talking about. She starts to explain to the artist and I to the charmer, but the bus is coming.  We get on and call good bye.

"What did you think?"  I ask.  "They were nice."  she said.  And then we both started to laugh.  Which one did you like? We start to laugh again. "Both of them." we say. "Change Partners." and we continue laughing.

In group tango classes people start out dancing in one couple, and then the teachers always call out "Change partners."

Best Friends Never Say Good Bye

Today is my last full day in Seattle.  I have the rest of my shopping to do.  The big event is that I am going to see my high school friend Judy.  She and I met at Birney Junior High School when we were 12 years old.  Can you imagine?  We were friends until we graduated from Southfield-Lathrup High School.  Then we went our separate ways.  She to Michigan State and eventually married and moved to Florida. Me, well, you know that story.  We saw each other briefly at the 20 year reunion, this would be the first time since then.

I want everyone to go to dinner together.  I know they all think it is weird.  In Argentina it would be a normal thing.  I am tired of trying to act in a way that is not me anymore.  I want to share my time with all my friends.  To me this sounds normal.  I insist everyone come and join me in my last night.  I am looking forward to it.

Jeff makes reservations at Ray's Boat House.  We go to pick up Judy and her husband Robert.  I wait for them in the lobby.  I go to give them my Buenos Aires hugs and kisses. I am still not used to not doing this. I will never stop.  I think this is a wonderful thing to do.  Touching people.  North Americans are so weird about this.  Don't touch, don't look.  What kind of society is this they have?

"You look like you could be my daughter!" she squeals.  "You are crazy!" I laugh at her.  She is beautiful. "You look great!"  She does.  She always did.  She was beautiful in high school.  She introduces me to Robert, her husband.  He is a very sweet man. It is a good thing Jeff and Mary Lynne are here, because Judy and I are gabbing away.

The restaurant is on the water.  We sit upstairs where we have a beautiful view. Judy and sit next to each other.  She says to me "Do you remember when we kissed that boy in your bedroom closet?" That sends us off into peals of laughter.  We had our first kiss with Clifford Dunn in my bedroom closet.  We were probably 13 and took turns with him.  Another one of those things my parents never knew about. (I am sure the vacuum cleaners  are revving their engines now.)

"I love your hair."  I tell her.  In hair school I remembered her with long straight dark hair. "I gave up ironing it." she tells me. I am shocked.  "You ironed your hair?"  I didn't remember.  I tell her I straighten mine.  I show her my California Drivers License.  She is shocked.  My transformation.  Hair was the bain of our existence in high school.  It made us miserable.  Our mothers never understood.

We want to take a picture of ourselves.  We go outside the restaurant to the deck. "Oh great," I tell her, when I touch the door."Now we are locked out."  We look at each other and laugh.  It is like another one of our great adventures.  We take some pictures and then a guy with a "real" camera appears.  We ask him to take our pictures with our cameras.

We stay and talk outside awhile.  We talked about people we knew.  Where they were, what they were doing now.  How some people who had been so rebellious were now the straightest, most conservative of our class.  I told her how now and then people find me from my blog and write me.  Of course most are surprised I ended up in Buenos Aires.  It is a little far from Southfield Michigan.

When we want to go back in I tap the window near the door.  There are 6 young men dinning there. They grunt at me and look back at their food.  In BsAs they would have opened the door.  Jeff is about ready to cross the room when one of the grunts finally opens the door.  I thank him. 

Our dinner is nice.  I am ready for my Argentine food.  All these foods with sauces or crusts or something.  I just want my plain food.  It is nice having access to fish and I do like it.  I even have dessert tonight.  This is my last night to indulge. I miss cortados.  Capuchinos are nice, but they are not cortados.

"I was so bad." Judy tells me.  "I used to sneak out my bedroom window. "Me too!"  I laughed. "Dave Alfond would be waiting with his car.  I would go with Laurel, Gary, and Nora, and whatever boyfriend I was with."  I guess we all did that at one time or another.  I would do it when my parents had parties and I had to stay in my room for some stupid reason or another. (I think it is good I live in Argentina, vacuum cleaners don't fly this far)

She told me about her family, her lovely children, and of course now her grandchild.  It is weird to have a friend I went to high school with that is a grandmother.  But there you go.  I guess we are not eternally young.  We always thought we would be.  

We could talk forever, but the rest of our group is ready to go.  I do not want the evening to end.  I make her promise that she and Robert will come visit me in Buenos Aires.  She is excited to visit.  I do not want to say good bye to her.  I hug her and Robert and tell them I will see them soon in Buenos AIres.  So just like in high school.  I didn't say good bye.

Back to Seattle

My feet touch the ground and I leave the Amtrak train.  I see Jeff as I leave the station.  Mary Lynne is in the car.  Jeff as usual has a plan.  We are going to a Japanese market.  Jeff lived in Japan when he was in the Navy.  He learned to speak some Japanese.  He should meet Gigi.  She lived there too. 

The area we go to is like a small Japan town.  The market is beautiful.  I want wasabi chips.  Jeff insists I first walk the market.  He points out many things to me.  Some were things I knew, but others were new to me.  He told me about a tea that becomes a beautiful flower when you put it in water.  He and Mary Lynne had experienced it on one of their trips.  They have it in this market and he shows me the tin.  He secretly buys one for me.

I decide to buy real green tea as it is very expensive in Buenos AIres.  Except when I see the prices here, I am astounded!  $17 or more!  The prices in Buenos Aires really are not that bad.  I convert everything to pesos.  I know that this sounds funny.  But sometimes something that might be a good price in dollars is not that good a price in pesos.  I can buy it cheaper in Argentina.

Jeff points out some less expensive brands of tea.  We go to find my wasabi chips.  I go overboard.  I love wasabi chips.  I but several different types.  Why am I buying so much junk food?  I never eat like this.  We go up and down the isles looking at all the different things.  Japanese packaging is pretty cool you have to admit. It screams "Buy me I am so cute."

After our brief tour of the Japanese market we go to some other shopping areas. Tonight I am having dinner with my fiend Ken.  We are going to go dance in Seattle at China Harbor.  I am excited.  I have never actually met Ken.  He is one of my blog readers and a friend of many of my friends.  Jeff and Mary Lynne are a little rattled that I go out with men from the Internet this way.  It is hard to explain "El Mundo del Tango."

When I get home I ask Jeff what he did with my suitcase.  He looks at me blankly. "Don't you remember I gave it to you?"  I tell him.  He goes out to check the car.  We think about it.  I actually have him convinced that I gave it to him.  The fact is that I left it on the Amtrak train.  Visions of Federal Express stream through my brain with my suitcase ending up in Peoria or Tallahassee.

We call Amtrak.  I brace for the worse after my Federal Express experience.  The woman asks for the ticket locator number and then apologizes as she puts me on hold.  She comes back, tells me my suitcase is on the train in Portland, they will put it on the train to Seattle and I will have that night at 9:45. My, Federal Express, take a lesson in Customer Service.  Hopefully it will be there.  Jeff says he will go get it while I am at the milonga.

Then reality hits. I HAVE NO MAKE UP or PLANCHEADOR: (I don't know what you call it in English) What am I going to do?  In a way it is sort of funny.  It would be horrifying if I was in Buenos AIres.  But here in the states it almost makes no difference.  Jeff offers me some of Mary Lynne's makeup.  I make due with what I have.  The fresh look I suppose.  Not my normal vamp look.

It is nice to finally meet Ken.  I love meeting my blog readers.  We have mutual friends.  It is sort of funny.  He comes on time like an American and ends up in the living room with Jeff, who acts like my dad and gets to approve.  I like an Argentine am late and come in well, like I do, talking.

Ken thought we would go to dinner at Ivar's but it was a long wait.  So we set off to find a restaurant close to the milonga.  On our hunt we pass a mysterious looking building.  Ken decides we should go there and check it out.  The place is called Pasta Freska . 

We walked in.  It looked OK.  People were eating.   A slim Indian woman in jeans was running around dishing out food with a spatula.  She smiled at us and waved us to a table.  "The chef will be with you in a moment." she said.  "The chef?"  I thought.  "OK".  We watched as the woman continued to dish out food from bowls and plates at each of the tables.  It was a little strange.  Ken and I watched.

In a few minutes came The Chef, Mike.  He asked us what we didn't like to eat.  I told him no beef or pork,  Ken told him no anchovies.  He asked a few more questions.  He told us that the menu was a surprise.  That it would be 6 courses.

A surprise it was!  We were never allowed to ask what was coming.  The food was incredible.  I ate everything.  More bad great food.  I had a wonderful tortellini in hot pepper cream sauce. Ken had penne pasta with meatballs, I had a halibut baked with spices and vegetables, Ken had a seared shark, there was chicken marsala stuffed, the food was amazing, and it didn't stop coming.  The chef Mike and the young woman were very attentive.  While it was a very strange dining experience it was well worth it and fun.

Now overly full it was time to go dance.  I had heard great things about this milonga.  It is in the banquet room of a Chinese restaurant overlooking the lake.  I sit and watch.  I am content to do this. Most people dance the same pattern.  They dance it well, but the same.  I listen to the music. 

A young Mexican man asks me to dance.  He is a beginner.  It is a disaster.  I am kind.  I sit him down after the first song.  He wants to talk.  I am kind.  He wants lessons.  I tell him I am leaving on Wednesday.  Mostly I watch.  I am not used to asking men to dance or being forward.  I am used to using the cabaceo.  They do not do that here.

I use it on one man.  He is very nice.  He wants to come to Buenos AIres.  I tell him about my Bed and Breakfast.  He is sorry I am leaving on Wednesday.  I meet several very nice men when I am dancing. I find the dancers in Seattle to be very nice.  I dance with my friend "Arturo" who spends half the year in Buenos Aires. 

A woman comes up to me.  "Are you Howard Bisgeir's cousin?" she asks me.  I am a little shocked.  I laugh, "Yes,"  I tell her, "How did you know, we don't exactly look alike."  She laughs and says "You are on his Facebook."  Ahhh if it isn't on Facebook, it doesn't exist.  She tells me she used to work with my cousin and what a sweet guy he is.  I think I know this.  He is my cousin.  What a small world. Facebook and Tango.

I dance a few more tandas.  I like Seattle. The people are nice here.  It is not Buenos Aires, but it is nice.  I wish I could have stayed a little longer, but my "dad and mom" are waiting for me outside in the car, hopefully with my suitcase.