Tudo Certinho: Random thoughts on a rainy Saturday morning

Over the past week I’ve seen the high highs and low lows of life’s miniscule things. First the bad. One of the biggest crimes in America is being charged $3 for a luggage cart at the airport. I have seen this travesty in action several times this past week and half on my flights with layovers in the US. Sure, you can probably get a freebie at the airport in Billings, Montana or Sioux City, Iowa. But in the northeast, it’s three dolla dolla bills please. Earlier this year you could have owned a piece of CitiGroup or Bank of America for less than $3 but you could not get a luggage cart from Newark International Airport. To me, access to a free luggage cart upon arrival at the airport is as basic a right as universal health care, clean drinkable tap water, and Saturday afternoon naps. So it really bothers me whenever I get hit up for a luggage cart.

On the other hand, few things in life make me feel as happy as stepping into a supermarket does. This is a fairly recent phenomenon that has been magnified since living overseas. Several factors play into this. One, the toughest decision that I face day in and day out is what I am going to eat that day. Be it a sign of a banal existence scant with real issues or just a gluttonous obsession with food, each day I want to make to make sure I strike the right balance between hunger satisfaction and bang for my buck (or euro, ruble, or peso). The option of going to a grocery store to pick and choose my own cuisine gives me the best possible chance of maximizing those two requisites. Second, it’s a great lesson in the local culture. You learn tons of new words (albeit only 10% of which are retained) for food, household items, and any random things you see in a supermarket. It’s also a really useful insight into the pricing of local agricultural products and you even get your daily dose of mathematics work it when you convert kilos to pounds, pounds to kilos and then multiply or divide by the respective exchange rate. But above all, a trip to a grocery store in a foreign country always paints a smile on my face because I have the full, unconstrained option of eating whatever the hell I want using the local resources. I’m both fully in control of satisfying me demand of what I want to eat and how I want to eat it, yet also fully immersed in all the offerings and delicacies of the local supply.

But alas, I am no longer in a foreign country for the time being. I always say that as much as life takes me around the world, all roads ALWAYS lead back to Manalapan, NJ. I’m home for the holidays for the first time in 2 years. My route here was circuitous to say the least. Originally thinking that I was going to be in Europe for several months, I booked my holiday travel from Paris to NJ on December 23 and then NJ back to Paris on January 3 to attend my company’s annual meeting. So I go to Colombia and as previously blogged, stopped in Newark, NJ on my way to South America. I’m in Colombia for a week with a ticket for Bogota back to Paris on December 21. However, again, that trip has a layover in Newark, NJ. In my ideal world I would have just walked out of the airport once in Newark on the 21^st and not fly back to Paris. But the airlines said that if I do that and no-show for the Paris-NJ leg on the 23^rd then they will cancel the return leg from NJ to Paris on January 3. As they say in Tagalog – “putang ina!” – which I’m sure you can figure out what it might mean. So basically on December 21 I flew from Bogota to Newark, then Newark to Paris, stayed in Paris for less than 24 hours, and the next day flew from Paris back to NJ. I flew to Europe in order to fly back to the US. Does that make sense? It shouldn’t because it doesn’t. Upon arriving in NJ I couldn’t even complain about jetlag since I wasn’t in a different time zone long enough to be hit by jetlag.

So the end result is that I am back home for the holidays. Picking up with an earlier theme of this entry, as great as international grocery shopping is, one of the real true joys in life is being home for the holidays and/or spending it with family and close friends. My family hosted a big get-together this year. Three of my dad’s siblings and their families came over and it has been the biggest Christmas party that casa Mendoza at 223 Union Hill Road has hosted in….oh….18 years??? The stars of the show were a toss-up between my cousin John-John’s dog and the roasted pig (lechon in Tagalog) that I killed with my bare hands…messing, we ordered it from Tropical Hut down the road in Old Bridge. Highlights included a Taboo spinoff game to reveal everyone’s Secret Santa; mahjong; trays and trays of pancit, pinakbet, honey roasted ham, and chicharron; watching the Hangover for the second time and getting just as much a kick out of it as the first; teaching my sisters and aunt the famous Cow Trade card game that my buddy taught me; and in about 4 hours going to PENANG in Edison, NJ (the greatest Asian Cuisine east of Asia) followed by my aunt hopefully treating us all to watch Sherlock Holmes; ho-ho-ho!! I hope all of you are having as great a time with your loved ones. I wish everyone the best this holiday season and pray for your success, prosperity, and good health in the coming year. 2010’s gonna be a good year. I can feel it.