- As you review this blog, at some point you will ask yourself what does this have to do with Switzerland...?
- And no the visas DID NOT arrive...or shall I say, the email from our relocation coordinator in Belgium did not come telling us we could pick up our Swiss visas at the Swiss Consulate located in Chicago, IL, USA. More on that later.
- Thanks for reading our blog, it means a great deal to us as we put almost no time into it, and for some not on facebook, this could be the only communication you have with us in the next 12 months
- OK, so there's a fourth, sue me...This will be long so set aside some nice quiet time to review
Keeping with our usual schedule, my wife and I set aside some time to watch the Chicago Bears/New York Giants football game. Typically this game would just mean the two of us rooting for the Bears, me complaining about how we have no running game, our offensive (double meaning here) line is worthless, and then wondering aloud how the heck we managed to pull out a victory. But this Sunday Night was different for so very many reasons.
My wife matriculates from New Jersey which depending on where you live, North or South, is either a suburb of New York or Philadelphia. I'm not too good with maps but what I do know is that she's a Die Hard Yankees and Giants fan. Me, on the other hand, I'm a White Sox, Bears, Blackhawks, and Bulls fan. Most times it works out and then some other times it kind of works out and then other times it's just ridiculously uncivil. (I was going to use Civil War but that has too many bad undertones for this blog). Well this time it was just disgusting.
At halftime the score was 3-0 with the Giants leading. My Bears had allowed 10 sacks in the first half and the Giants managed only kick a field goal. We NEVER quit on our teams and usually our teams never quit on us but we'd rather watch DVR'd Rubicon, Brothers and Sisters and, yes, Gossip Girl than deal with this nonsense.
Then it hit me. I need to look at this from a different, wait for it, wait for it, PERSPECTIVE. No denying that the game just stunk. It's still stinky but hold on a second, this was the Bears first loss, we sit atop the Central Division and own the tie-breaker with the hated yet respected Green Bay Packers. The Giants are in a three way tie with Philadelphia and Washington. The same Philadelphia that has two injured QB's, one with 3 broken ribs and another one that is concussed. Washington lost to the St Louis "2 and 30 the last two years" Rams. I have no clue what it feels like to have three broken ribs but my wife does and she says that every breath you take is painful and sleeping is virtually impossible.
What does this have to do with Switzerland? Everything and nothing.
As I mentioned the visas have not arrived. Timeout...from now on, visas will be "#$%@&". So the #$%@& have not arrived and it pretty much has consumed my wife. Which means it has consumed our life. Oh and my life too. It's debilitating. My wife is amazing, pretty much the smartest, sharpest, wittiest, cutest, most beautifulest person that I know. Yep, I'm making a few love deposits into the love bank there but it's all true. On the other hand she has two, count them, two flaws (Thanks Mom, Thanks Dad). One is impatience and the other is uncertainty and guess what #$%@& has managed to do, you got it, combine her impatience with a cold side of uncertainty. Jay Cutler's concussion was the answer. One man's concussion was this man's treasure. As the main support system and resident Teddy Bear, I had to step in and say something.
The #$%@& situation should not be we're stuck at home trying to get to Switzerland but we have a free trip and time to explore one of the greatest cities in the world.
Frank Sinatra wrote a song about it, Sweetness (Walter Payton) showed us class and humility while running for a lot of yards, we have a museum district, a theatre District, a comedy district, windy politics not weather, two baseball teams and a variety of neighborhoods with rich history and even richer foods. The place where you say Jordan and nobody thinks about the land mass between Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria. The City flag has 3 white stripes, 2 blue stripes and 4 red 6-pointed stars that each symbolically mean something. Starts with a "C", ends in "O" and in the middle is "HICAC". That's right, "CHICAGO!" We just need to change our perspective a bit and allow ourselves to enjoy it.
And so we did. My wife stumbled upon some free spinning classes at a new gym opening in our soon to be old neighborhood and after she assured me that it didn't involve Ghosts, Whoopi Goldberg, and Patrick Swayze I agreed that it was a good idea. I finally stopped reading about Central Banks and Monetary Policy on the Internet and decided to play 9 holes of golf at the park district course. And guess what happened, all good things. The new gym owner picked my wife's brain about marketing and getting the word out about the new business and I was randomly paired with a restauranteur who invited my wife and me to dinner. Later in the evening he would even serve us our dessert and tell my wife in his Italian accent "Your husband's such a nice young man", in which I embarrassingly smiled, "but he's not so good a golfer" which I embarrassingly frowned.
At this stage, I was going to compare our #$%@& situation to a couple constantly being asked by friends and family if they were pregnant yet and ramble about our friend Rosesa and her 10 amazing and awesome things to do in Europe and the many recommendations we got from our friends but my wife and senior editor (the same person) will already be alarmed by this novella that I have just jumbled together.
I'll have to tell you all about how we received our #$%@& after we visited the Museum of Science and Industry and took a walk along Lake Shore Drive in this wonderful fall weather.
We hope that we can share our new perspective with you for many weeks to come because, well, it's our new reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment