Love

Since I've recently become single, I find myself going places and doing things that I normally wouldn't do all in the name of meeting women. This usually means after a long tiring day of work I'll force myself to visit a bar or a party that I normally wouldn't go to. The most recent of these events was when my work hosted a networking event called "Girls in Tech." As you might have guessed, it's for women in the tech industry.

When I first heard we were hosting this event my first thought was "Oh God, am I going to have to help set it up?" Then, I decided that I wasn't going to go until I found out two things. The first was the promise of free alcohol and the second was that there would be many girls, in tech. Now I'm in the tech industry so I figured this would be a gold mine to use my newly realized skills of seduction.  I could say things like "so, um, are you in the tech industry?" and "sooo, what's the deal with dialup? Am I right?"

The night came and after about 15 minutes they ran out of alcohol... This should never happen at a networking event. Liquor is the key that opens the door to networking. After talking to a few women – I was really happy because I got all their numbers and they seemed interested in me. Then it dawned on me that, of course, they were friendly and gave me their numbers, this is a networking event. After realizing this sad truth I was ready to leave but then a co-worker ran inside and said, "There's a taco truck outside bringing in food!"

Today we had another fantastic day here in East Africa. We spent the day at our first distribution for one of the new parishes for the Carpenter's Kids. The village we visited was called Mzologe, and they are not yet linked back to a parish in New York. It was the first time that the children of this community received their school clothes, shoes, and mosquito nets.

Once again the community welcomed us with open arms, and we were greeted by virtually the whole community. Today's trek took us a couple of hours deep into the interior land along the Rift Valley. Upon arrival, we again were greeted by joyous song and dance. Everyone wanted to shake our hands and we happily took the time to meet each one. Young and old, the village excitedly swept us up into their music and dancing.

We later took a tour of the community including a giant windmill just outside of the boundaries. Unfortunately, it was a sad symbol of a government program in failure. The complete machinery was still almost entirely in place, but the long rods that extended down to the well below were broken. What had at one point brought water to the village, sadly lay broken and in disrepair, casting a sad shadow on the tiny country village.

I am not a social butterfly.  I can dress, dazzle, chat, and spin with the best of them, but by nature, I am a loner; it’s who I am and I embrace that label.  I relish my solo evenings.

I work, I write, I visit E-bay checking in on the gold and white pottery auctions, tearing pages from magazines, cataloguing the furniture I will buy in my next life. I eat pasta doused with weird combinations of toppings I dig out of the pantry and eat it in front of the TV watching back-to-back episodes of any Law and Orders I have tivoed. I like to hang alone, finding peace in the quiet, finding my voice in the empty air of my house. Even after J-date, after tapas and wine and a dance that never slowed and still hasn’t with the man I now love, I still longed for time away. Even when everything became more entertaining with him there, and the funny things I saw and did had weight because I finally had someone to share them with, I needed my time alone. While the kisses on the Ferris wheel, the late night phone calls from LA to Idaho, the electricity when we touched excited me and made me happy, I still needed to lack, to be without. 

A few weeks after I met my future husband, he invited me to a fancy dinner party for some very dear friends of his from Milan – Neil and Maria Empson, exporters of great Italian wines. It was the early 80’s, Northern Italian cuisine and wines were just catching on and many of the ingredients he wanted for the dinner, including the wines, were hard to find. We spent almost a week shopping for the food and a variety of their wines to serve that Saturday evening.