Serendipity on 5th
Errands, bills, and people we know
On 5th Ave, north of the park above NYU, Kouka and I ran into a friend from college I hadn’t seen in 12 years. She texted me after “Was that you on 5th”, which confirmed it. But I wasn’t sure at the time. Kouka was nearly in tears seeing Christmas come to life in the city which reminded her of her Mom, and we felt tired from errands, and I hadn’t seen this friend in years and didn’t want to explain it all. We found time later that week before work for a coffee. I told her what we were up to. It surprised me how thrilled she was for us. “You have such an exciting life,” and “How do you have such discipline?” (in response to my cycling?), and more things and behaviors that truly conveyed she meant it. “And happily married." Well, yeah.
See, when I think about our life here my head goes to the mundane. I asked Kouka this morning for some exciting news I can add here, she says “tell them about the sweet Jewish man who carves me spoons.” How could I forget! There are about 16 of them in our drawers. Kouka met this man moonlighting for another woman’s private practice but he preferred Kouka and if she ever started her own he would follow her. I am intuiting this, of course, because he hand-carved and sent her a full cutlery set.
I said what else is exciting dear. She said, “Tell them about the green card process.” Great idea! Yes, we’ve paid an immigration lawyer lots of money to keep Kouka here. There are do-it-yourself sites online that cost less, but we tried self-motivation and it didn’t materialize. People said this is good money spent, like lasik or invisalign. We’re two for three (I unfortunately have to Invisalign in January).
Guess we’ll soon find out.
Thanks for reading.
:))