One thing leads to another
I rarely write about my personal life on this blog, but this story is interesting enough to warrant the diversion.
This Christmas, I had carefully planned a trip home to Phoenix to visit my family. I was to fly out Friday evening, and return Wednesday morning. Then, I planned to spend a few days relaxing in NYC before going back to work. I have gifts for all my family members, and my grandparents who were in town for the warm Arizona winter season from icy Canada. A few of my friends from high school also wanted to see me.
Then something new, exciting, and amazing came up.
The girl I had started seriously dating offered to host me with her family in Shanghai. Wow. I was touched by the invitation, but at first I thought it was just a politeness. I checked it out anyway and found that I could buy a ticket from Phoenix to Shanghai on Tuesday, and returning to NYC the next Monday. I thought that if it were possible it would be the best week spent anywhere of my life–something I’d remember forever. When I came to understand that she really wanted me to come, I purchased those tickets and looked forward to the most lovely Christmas of my life!
Then, a minor mishap tumbled up all my plans.
I had to get a rush L tourist visa to visit China, so I went to the embassy in NYC, documents in hand, Friday. I was there when it opened, and they told me to come back at 2 PM. I didn’t realize that they closed there are 2:30 PM, because their website led me to believe something else, and because I was very tired at the time. When I came back they were closed. I couldn’t take the same flight home, and when I got back to Queens, I found by calling airlines and online that there were no tickets to Phoenix, and then back to NYC Monday night / Tuesday morning.
Calling Expedia I found that my Shanghai tickets were not actually issued yet, and that I could have them canceled and buy NYC to Shanghai tickets. So the new plan is to pick up my visa at 9 AM Tuesday, take a cab to JFK, and arrive in Shanghai later (much later, it’s a 16 hour flight) to spend the remainder of Christmas with my girlfriend and her family. I will visit my own family sometime later in February, since I still want to hand-deliver their presents. In spite of this trouble, I am determined to everything possible to make the trip to Wendy work.
At the end of it all, the experience is a jumbled mix of love, disappointment, excitement, my own incompetence, sacrifice, planning, fate, disruption, tranquility, and happiness. I lose the dollar amount of the flight to Phoenix, but I have a chance to see them soon to make it up. I lose the chance to spend Christmas with my family, but I gain the chance to have a wonderful time with Wendy.
Serendipity Disguised
I went out with some friends to a bar near k-town that seemed heavily frequented by Koreans. My friends were quickly intoxicated by a lemon drop, margarita, water, and a glass of red wine, but my shot of patron silver and riesling didn’t go far enough since I’d just eaten dinner.
It’s not often that I write about my personal life on this blog, but my actions and this experience are incomprehensible even to me. Perhaps my readers will find something in the telling of the story.
My friends and I had a good time chatting away mindlessly until it was around 11:30 and then decided to settle up and leave. I took the responsibility of the tab, since it was small and half mine anyway. Here is where the strangeness begins, for I decided to accumulate more debt onto my tab.
There was a group of three young Korean women eating dinner in the corner of the lounge not far away. As they seemed to be enjoying their meal, I figured it would be fantastic to surreptitiously pay for it, imagining their simultaneous perplexity and delight. If I’d done it as an introduction, there would be a good explanation and no reason to write this post. At the time however, the sheer idiosyncrasy of the situation was compensation enough.
To the ladies whose dinner I purchased, I hope you enjoyed the rest of your night. To myself, why do you delight in the paradox?
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