Between the lines

Sometimes I just don’t know what attracts some people in a movie! The other night I had the misfortune to go and see “Kung fu Panda”. All along I waited for that magic moment which will make me laugh or feel amused. No, it was a boring, childish cartoon.

You’ll ask why did I chose this film in the first place? Well, I didn’t. I was kind of obliged to go to the cinema that night. A friend of a friend was visiting, and she wanted me to meet this girl and I agreed. I thought, we will just meet for a drink and basta. But then they called and said “Hey, we have a movie plan for us, 10 pm, Kung fu Panda, or if you find anything better”. Well, I am sure I could have found many things better, but, I didn’t know the person’s taste and my friend has an incompatible taste with me in movies. So, as I don’t like to impose my choices on others, I gave in and we went to see this “funny” film. Worst part that I found out later was that the visitor had already seen it once in Germany, in German and she had found that it was “hilarious”. Maybe I am missing the “SoH*” gene.

Anyways, it could be worst, it could be a horror movie or a stupid action movie, I don’t know, there are plenty of rubbish productions out there.

But, on the bright side, I saw “la Science des reves” last week on DVD. The DVD itself is already magnificent, it has a cool cover and it comes with a nice booklet with a little short story in it. The movie was dreamlike and so was Gabriel Garcia Bernal.

As I am talking about DVDs, I will say this too. One day about a month ago, I found an ad in Craigslist about someone selling the whole first season of Brothers and Sisters for 10 Euros. The bizarre thing was that it was all on a single CD. I called the lady who was selling it and I made an appointment to go and pick it up. She was literally living 2 minutes from Sacré Coeure church. I get there, I see a bizarre, one-eyed dog who comes to greet me. Then the woman comes and tells me that the DVD might not work on a DVD player, so she will give it to me for 5 Euros. Fine. I get the DVD and come home. I had no idea what the story was all about, just that Calista Flockhart was in it.

The series itself is not bad, but it had NOTHING to do with Ally MacBeal. Calista Flockhart is playing a Republican activist (shame on her)! Her mother, who is played by Sally Field is a Democrat as are some of her brothers and sisters and there is constant beakering between them. And the whole message (that I get, but I can be over sensitive) is that Republicans are good guys, “this special government” is bad. After a while, the cliché lines become quite tiring and upsetting. But, I nonetheless watched it to the end, cause there are parallel nice stories if you filter out the political message.

Few days ago, I received another email from my seller saying that if the DVD hasn’t worked on my player, she is willing to give me back the 5 Euros. If she taught that I would go to Montmartre juts to get 5 euros, she is crazy! But then she told me that she is finishing up the second season and she will sell it to me for the same price if I like. Cool! We can become DVD buddies now.

* Sense of Humor

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

I am quite pro when it comes to sell stuff online, be it on eBay or Craigslist. The funny thing about Craigslist is that from time to time, you get some scam replies, people who want to buy your “item” and send it to Africa. Once, an alleged father wanted to buy my ice skates to send to his daughter in Nigeria. This one, a brand new scam that I received today, wants to buy a silk Kenzo scraf for her son! Here it is:

Thanks for the information, actually, i am buying this Item for my Son and he based in West Africa due to his profession, he has been living in West Africa for the past 3years and he needs a good thing to fulfilled his dream, and his birthday is coming closer, so i prefer to buy this item for him and i have made every possibility of the shipment and payment ready, and i’m alright with the price and i love to see more picture , so the issue is that, i will be travelling to Finland on a business assignment on Tuesday night and i will be glad to make all the arragement solid on ground before i travelled, so therefore, i want you to get back to me with:
FULL NAMES:……………………….
ADDRESS:…………………………….
CITY:…………………………………..
STATE:………………………………..
POSTAL CODE:……………………..
COUNTRY:……………………………
CONTACT HOME PHONE:………..
MOBILE PHONE NUMBER:………..
so that i can send you a bankers cashier check on Wednesday morning and within  3-4days you will recieve it and once the payment has been deposited and clearded into your account, my shipping company will come for the inspection, pick up and clearance of the document, but CAN I TRUST YOU WITH THE MONEY?
I need to read from you soon.”

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

part 1

The weekend arrived. Before leaving, I had a last coffee with one of my friends. She was worried that I am getting into an unclear an potentially dangerous situation. I assured her that my gut feeling is good. I gave her my hotel name in case she doesn’t hear from me. I decided to drive down to NYC, feeling more at home and in control having my little car with me.

We had decided that I will pick him up from JFK airport. We finally met. I looked at him and in a fraction of a second the trill faded away. I don’t like to remember this moment at all. It was not so much the way he looked but it was his manners that turned me off completely. He actually was not bad looking, but there was something that brought me down to absolute zero. Nonetheless, I was happy to see him. He was a good guy and I liked to spend some time with him.

In the crazy streets of NY, I managed to find our hotel, a chic prestigious hotel that I had booked through Priceline! I had spent some time bidding on this hoetl and in the end we were going to pay less than an ordinary 3 star hotel (which in NY means a piece of junk), but there was a drawback. The drawback was that, a priori, we didn’t know what kind of room we will get. Based on availability, we might get a double, king or separate twins. I didn’t worry too much about this, I thought it was nice to have some suspense (as if there was not enough already). Murphy’s law says, when things should go wrong, they will. We got a king bed and I was not happy about it. The thing is, if you are in separate beds and wish to be in one bed, you can but not vice versa!

That evening was quite nice. We went out, had a nice dinner, walked in the central park, planned our next day and came home to sleep. That was when the challenge started. It was funny and extremely annoying at the same time. This guy, in his head, had come there to be with me. In his head, we were so much in love that we were going to jump in bed and make love until dawn. In my head, that was a possibility until I met him. I am not going to lie, at moments I just thought why not? I will have some fun and go back home and take things from there. But the problem was that this person was serious about us. He was talking about the future:  my future, his future and our future together. I couldn’t play with his feelings. From the other side I still loved my boyfriend of the time quite a bit and I could not imagine having someone else get close to me.

Somehow, without words, I made him understand that I am not interested. It was not easy specially that our next door neighbors were having the time of their life. We were sitting there, watching TV and listening to the annoying background, waiting for them to finish. If we could measure the emotions in that room, good and bad, the probe would probably explode.

Then came the time to actually go to bed. I got refuge in one corner and pretended to sleep before he came to bed. Since my childhood, I am very good in pretending to be asleep. Thank heavens for the ultra-large king bed that we had. Probably two more people could sleep between us and we would still be comfortable.

The following days we had quite bit of fun. I showed him around with the pride of an “east coaster” and he bitched about NY as a typical “west-coaster”: “The streets are dirty”, “People drive like crazy”, “Why is everybody so mean?”, and so on. We visited the Mets, saw a play, a movie, a jazz concert, shopped at the Sunday market and had a nice cruise around Manhattan. It was only when we would come back to our room that the climate was heavy and unpleasant. He was hurt that I didn’t want him. I was hurt that he was so pushy. One night, he put this song and looked at me for a reaction. If we were in a romantic comedy, things would have taken from there, but there we were in real life and it was really hard to be in that darned room!

Anyways, the vacation ended. I took him back to JFK, driving like one of those crazy New Yorkers to make it on time. We hugged, a long hug, and said goodbye. I knew from my side, it was finished. On my return, my boyfriend asked me how it went and I just said “He had poor manners”! I didn’t tell him that I missed him and I didn’t want to be with anybody else. He caught that on the fly.

As for the Californian adventure, we kept in touch for another month or two and then the relationship lost its meaning. I stopped taking his phone calls.

The end.

Filed under: Life, memories | No Comments »

They said in average Germans were 10 cm taller and 10 kilos heaver than the Spanish! Spain was fast and accurate.

I am so very happy that Spain won. It was a wonderful wonderful game.

Felicitaciones …

Filed under: fun | No Comments »

I am talking on the phone with a guy in California, we are planning our weekend in New York City. While flirting with him, I smear the fessenjan on the stove. I have friends over for dinner and they can arrive at any time.

I hung up the phone and finished the final touches on the table. It’s a hot summer night and my little fan is not cooling enough. Couple of hours later, we are all having a good time around the table, eating and drinking and telling jokes when my doorbell rings. Who could that be?

I open the door and froze in situ. My boyfriend was standing on my door steps. My “boy-friend”. My friend with whom I had kept a romantic relationship over the phone for four years. He and I, we had been separated for four years in different continents. When I opened the door, I hadn’t seen him for three years. He was the same. The same smily and friendly face. The feeling was un-explicable.

The rest is vague. My friends were more in caos than I was, and more demanding as well. “How long are you going to be here?”, “Just three days! Why?”, “When are you going back to UK?”, they were worried that I am going to be hurt again. And I, I sat there watching him and missing him already.

The following days, we had a great time together. I didn’t know what to make of this visit, it was too good to be true. That was the last time I saw him.

All along, he knew about my new adventure and made a difficult choice. He decided to let me free to find my happiness elsewhere, given that he couldn’t be with me at the time. For the first time, I decided just to ride the waves and not question.

Few days after his departure, I retook my phone calls with the Californian guy.

He had found me through one of the social networks six months earlier and sent me an email. In his email, he had suggested some music that I should listen and tell him what I think. At the time, I smirked at the email, and forgot about it.

Few months later I bought that music, listened to it and sent him an email. Hence we started our email communication. I must say, as much as I suck in face-to-face conversations, I am charming in my online correspondence. Very soon, emails turned to couple of hour long phone calls. He was the type of a person that I adore, he had great taste in movies, music, and he was politically well informed and interesting to talk to. The problem was that we didn’t see things the same way!

After few months of chatting and talking on the phone, we decided to meet. I suggested New York City. He booked his tickets.

To be continued…

Filed under: Life, memories | 1 Comment »