Up Too Late: An Endless Search for Mr.Right & Other Important Things in Life

If it were for some of my friends, they would be saying "stop right now, thank you very much...", but right now, I feel like "i'll tell you what i want, what i really, really want"... and my wish has been granted! The girls are back togetha!!! :)

Mind you, Posh Spice looks like her breasts are about to pop...and she must have some sort of a dominatrix complex...

Mel B still looks pissed at Ginger Spice and Baby Spice looks like a mom...Sporty Spice looks so cute, she is nothing like the butch men she used to make me think of with her muscles and ugly Adidas tracksuits...and may i add, tall sports shoes...nightmares are coming back...

But still I can't wait to see the girls together!

Labels: favourite music, funny, pop music, spice girls

Some of the discussions this afternoon with the lady that ended up at emergency last night include these excerpts: ...

"My son was taken away by the police at the age of 17 because they were afraid he'd join the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army]" ...

"I was afraid to speak to my nephew because he had joined the Serbian police forces...fearing other people seeing us together, I asked him not to talk to me in public....he was shot six months after he started working...Six months before his death, he was sent 50 kgs of flour, 10 kgs of sugar, 20 kgs of beans, potatoes and other vegetables...they told him that he would die when the last of these foods was consumed, unless he resisted the Serbian occupation."....

"I haven't seen my sister in twelve years...She has turned blind ever since...She will never see me, even if I see her."

"Don't tell anyone, but the reason my remaining son in Bosnia was booted out of the refugee camp he was staying in is because he fought with a knife the man that ran away with my 19-year-old granddaughter"

"I think my heart problems started when we landed in Saranda [she means Toronto]"

"Because one of my sons was beaten so badly by the Serbian police, the neighbours killed a sheep and wrapped him in the bloody sheep skin, so as to stop the swelling all over his body...It worked."

Thanks to Gina and Angelica [a colleague at work], I am enriching my non-existent Portuguese vocab.

Labels: albanian, hospital stories, integration, Kosova, Kosovo, Serbia, St.John's, work

Thursday afternoon at work was a rather unpleasant surprise for the Roma family that had just been told the day before that no charges would be laid against the father and the mother for uttering deadly threats. The police officer of the night before had canceled the complaint, but the frightened translator [see three entries earlier] decided to approach another officer and ask that a summons be issued to the family for a court appearance on the 6th of July.

This means I can't go to Ottawa on July 6th, as I will be at the court, translating for the harmless, five-foot-tall mother and her even funnier six-foot, twirly-moustache-wearing husband who looks like he just stepped out of the set of a Bollywood movie...or maybe an italian mafia documentary [this latter one is less convincing of his innocence].

On Friday, just before I headed out to Ottawa, I was almost late to the airport, as my coworker just left the organization we work in, so I applied for her job and got it. It's a great upgrade, as I will be earning 1.5 times more than I earned earlier. I didn't get a chance to learn much about the responsibilities of the new upgrade, but it can't be anything too hard to learn. I imagine it will be a transition step.

Two and a half hours of leafing through Air Canada's travel mag and a reading of "Can You Keep A Secret?" later, I found myself in Ottawa, excited that I was finally seeing Adam. The night before coming to town, I had received an e-mail from him asking if I still wanted to meet him, as I had, as he said, not been in touch as much as I perhaps should have been. This was slightly strange for me, as I had thought that he had been avoiding me...I was already pissed off as it was, as I hadn't really heard from him in a while. So I wrote a one-liner and said that yes, I still want to see him.

Coming down the escalator of the Ottawa airport arrivals was strange. I was looking for Adam in the crowd, hoping to see the familiar face somewhere in the crowds of anxious Ottawans waiting for their friends, husbands, fathers, brothers. As I noticed him in the crowd, it was almost as if I had done something wrong, something unmentionable. Adam looked tired, exhausted even, and not in the least happy. I smiled, but as I did, my smile filled me with regret, unexplainable actions peering out of me. I wasn't in the least surprised that he would act this way, but I was hurt somehow.

I asked immediately if everything was ok, only to be met with a strange response that required further explanations. As we waited for my luggage piece, I looked at him and how much I had missed him. His new haircut, new reading glasses, the evident loss of weight made me think of how much he had changed and with time, so did our interactions. We found his green Aztek Pontiac [I was impressed with the choice of colour for the car] in the giant parking lot. As we drove, he gave me a box of things he had collected for me in the last few months, including a Turkish, Anatolian-style pillow that he had bought after he returned from Montreal, where he and I had been shopping for a winter scarf for me. My choice of colours for the scarf had reminded him of me when he came across the pillow.

In the box, a dictaphone, which he had bought after coming back from Montreal the first time we had met, after finding out my dead iPod had stopped working [so I couldn't do any voice recording for an interview, a requirement for my Sociology course], a book he had told me about, a few buttons in different languages saying "I am loved", some toys, meeting distractions, etc. I was surprised, moved by this caring gesture, unable to say much. The truth was, I was moved by the fact that Adam had taken the time to collect all these small pieces of conversations we'd had, artifacts of our friendship.

We had a long discussion on Friday night. It was mainly my objections to Adam's values, his work ethic, the distance between us that triggered his reactions. We went to Dunn's for a later dinner, where I had a burnt steak and fries. Adam had French toast breakfast. Ottawa was warm at 11 pm.

We went back to the B&B I was staying in and, as we entered the door, were met by Brian [the owner]'s dog Chelsea and, immediately after that, Brian himself, who was curious to meet Adam. He concluded Adam and I were boyfriends and I didn't say much, but rather agreed to go with the story. I didn't feel like clarifying. We went up and spent our last night together.

The next morning, after breakfast, I met up with Denis and his friend Mauricio. We soon thereafter headed to the city two hours away. Mauricio was quiet while we drove, giving off the impression of someone who either 1/is hungover or 2/is antisocial, or 3/doesn't know me well, thus keeps quiet. This only lasted for a couple of hours and the shyness disappeared as the day wore off and as we visited three gay strip bars in an attempt to expose M to as much gayness as possible...

We also went on a bus tour of Montreal. We met up with Bee and said hi to la Patronne which was one of the highlights of the day. We had desserts and nachos, updated each other on the last two months, walked around the block and finally headed back to Ottawa at around 11:30 pm, only to get lost on the highway. Finally, M saved the day and we were on our way to la capitale...I fell asleep in the back on Denis's lap. As we approached my bed & breakfast, I dreaded having to say goodbye...

I came into my room, headed for the bed and put the pillow next to me...the rough, thorny fabric softened shortly after i laid my cheek on it...

The rest of the weekend involved pizza dinnfer outing and chat with Renee and her friend Juanita. I was impressed with Renee's apartment. I was amused by the fact that she likes Asian decor, but not necessarily visiting Asia. I shared the stories of my clients and the stories of misunderstanding and plain silliness with her.

Gina, who was slightly distressed about the food we had at an Asian resto, spent all of Monday with me. We did our traditional Chapters book-shopping and book review stories, had cheesecake brownie and coffee cake at a cute coffee shop we usually meet at, and lastly, we shopped at the Giant Tiger on Monday for something I was told is sold there. We said our goodbyes, but on my way to getting a taxi at the office, I thought about our friendship and how close we had become...I don't remember how we met, but even if I tried, I could never forget her...

Tuesday night reminded me that I need to keep away from St.John's...I had to translate for someone who ended up at emergency...I spent 11 pm to 6 am at the hospital, went home for a short nap and got up at 10 for work...wonderful

Labels: AdamX, Canada, flying, friends, Montreal, ottawa

When it comes to the issue of conflict, the US is determined with its foreign policy agenda: To hell with all of you enemies, we'll inject you with some "gay hormone". This CBS article says it all. Thanks to Ophelia, the cat lover for this rather strange newspiece.

To Gina, who has been in pain because I haven't mentioned her in my post on Kelowna, my apologies. The best co-presenter I've ever presented with, so good in fact, she makes me jealous of her speaking style. It's always good to karaoke "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" with you, my R-lover. ;)

Going out with the ex tomorrow night...Deep breath and everything will be fine...

It was 5:25 pm tonight when I received a call from a local police officer asking if I would be interested in translating for a woman who had been charged with uttering threats after a problem last night at the Waterford Hospital.

This sounded familiar, so I said I could certainly help with this.

Half an hour later, a new-style, Police PT Cruiser was parked in front of my house. This neighbourhood rarely gets police visits, so I could see the neighbours' drapes and curtains shaking as a rather attractive, built-up officer came toward me to get the idea of what had happened the night before, during my interpreting trip...

We headed towards the charged woman's house in the new PT Cruiser [wow, I was in a police car!]

As we approached the woman's house, the officer said that he had been told that the woman's husband is driving around town with no insurance on his car, which I found funny. He said he wouldn't go into that tonight, as that would lenghten the whole night, so he preferred to keep it to last night's incident.

We went to the woman's house and had a nice chat, her asking every five minutes if she was
going to prison. I told he what the charge was. She said it was all a misunderstanding and that she had in fact said "You are killing me by bringing my daughter to the hospital. I will have a heart attack by tomorrow if you don't help me get my daughter out tonight" to the translator.

This was quite a different version of what had been alleged she had said. The officer bought it and so did I. I think it was all a misunderstanding/something said in the heat of the moment. The charges were dropped.

I had a rather interesting chat with the policeman, as I got dropped off at my house, again, in a police car. It was impressive to see someone who was really sensitive to the differences between the two cultures [Albanian and Romani], as, sadly, with reason, I have grown to develop a very stereotypical and prejudicial view of the police force. He had a sociology and history degree and three years of police studies. Though his wife is a police officer, he doesn't "love" his job, saying it's not challenging enough and how local fraudsters and thieves are too easy to get. He is considering going back to school and studying law because he wants to defend people...

We called it a night and he promised he wouldn't charge me if he stopped me on the highway for driving too fast. Well, that's the least he can do. Otherwise, I'll just challenge him...in court. ;)

Labels: funny, law, newcomer, police, St.John's

Monday afternoon would have been a regular 9 to 5 day, except that it had to end at 5:30 pm, since I had to be in a webconference for three hours with a volunteer who is participating in a project I am supervising.

He brought timbits and I brought cake, so while we listened to lame "warm-up" jokes, we had something to "snack" on. We kept rolling our eyes while the presenters discovered the Powerpoint hi-liter. They presented materials on the web using Dialogue Conferencing, so the discovery of the hi-liter and the Post it! arrows was a big hit...while we snacked on our chocolate mocha cake and drank mango juice.

At 5:31 pm, I found myself answering the phone at the office, curious why anyone would call so late. It was a call from the director of the organization, asking that I go to the local mental hospital and translate for someone who tried to commit suicide.

I was at the hospital five minutes later, happy that finally, something more exciting than sitting in front of a computer screen and watching oddly matched Powerpoint backgrounds and fonts had happened.

The clients, a Romani family from Kosovo, were a young girl in her late teens and her parents. Next to them was a family friend, a hijab-wearing woman in her thirties.

Seemingly upset, the three jumped on me, happy that someone had finally come to help them. The matter had started much earlier in the day, when the daughter had called the local settlement agency and told them she was depressed because two of her uncles had died in the last month, due to health reasons. She told the interpreter [from Albania] that if she couldn't bring her uncle to Canada, she would kill herself. She added that she had problems with her family.

The interpreter, obviously shaken by what was said, immediately called the social worker and told her what was just said. The social worker decided that they would go to the girl's house and get her, take her to the local mental hospital, to protect her from harming herself.

This they did, except that they didn't have in mind the events that would follow their decision.

The girl's parents showed up at the hospital and, following the traditional Romani passion they are known for, splurted their anger at the interpreter, threatening that they would kill her the next day she would come to work. They accused her of trying to get their daughter declared crazy. The poor woman called for someone else to come translate while the doctor interviews the young girl.

This is where I got in. The girl begged me to do whatever I could to not leave her in the hospital. The parents kept talking at me at the same time, saying how wrong the interpreter was, how in fact, their daughter had no suicide plans and how she had said that she had problems bringing her uncle to Canada and not problems with her family IN Canada.

The doctor came. He decided nothing was wrong, that it was all a matter of misunderstanding due to the differing dialects of Albanian in Kosova and Albania. I mentioned to the mother that she should not put herself in trouble by threatening others. She said she would continue doing it because if she didn't, this same thing would repeat itself.

The family friend who now decided to get involved, asked the father and mother to be more understanding of their daughter. The mother said, "I gave birth to 11 children. I know better than you how to raise children". The poor single woman didn't have anything to add to that, so she turned to the father, who said, as he laughed: "My daughter's twenty already! she's too old to stay home! In our Romani tradition, I will find her a husband and get money for her wedding from her husband's family!" The woman, suddenly realizing how little she knows about the family, looked around to see if she could find the daughter.

The daughter was outside, speaking with one of the patients of the hospital. The woman she spoke with had had a child with a Bulgarian man. This brought the two together. The pseudo-suicidal girl insisted that the woman's son, who, by the way, was four, had been in the same refugee camp in Bosnia as the girl's family. The mother of the child looked at her and said "Well, you know, I AM crazy, but I do know where my son lived in the last four years...Where's Bosnia?"

Labels: Canada, funny, newcomer, St.John's

St.John's is at 5 degrees Celsius today, ten days before summer. Not a bad thing. Now I can at least showcase some of the stuff I bought in Montreal during the last winter there.

It's cold and windy, yet there's something about the grey sky, the vivid colours of houses, the empty streets that's made me want to come back here.

I have become someone I used to despise, someone who appreciates the quiet, the nature, the sharp lines of sadness and survival that drift from the sky into this rocky land, the land of those who have disappeared a century ago, those who have survived centuries here and those who want to survive centuries.

It's a strange love-hate relationship. I am melancholic thanks to St.John's and in my eyes, St.John's is melancholic because of me.

I am in my semi-empty, minimalist office, looking out at a blood-red painted house. The wind is shaking the blooming flowers on an apple tree and the petals are spreading out everywhere, like snowflakes in the winter.