Finally getting to know you...coming home.

Tuesday night an after work meeting was canceled. I could have run home to take my car in to get a new tire (I pinched it on a curb and poof, it was flat) but instead I headed off to a thanyouwinereception at a local hotel who receives a lot of my company's business. I went with a colleague (diagnosed her car with needing new brakes and not a new timing belt.) Her friend met us there and so did many of our other colleagues. The food was fine and the wine was poured by a bartender who had broken a vertebrae in his neck from a "high dive into a shallow pool", luckily he wasn't in worse shape. Luckily, a friend told him about a hospital that would treat him on a sliding fee scale and set up a payment schedule because he was an actor and bartender and consequently without insurance.

Other colleagues from my office were there and it was great to finally get to know them better. One gal had been a lawyer in South America before coming to the US 7 years ago. She even plans to obtain her US law degree and practice here. Another woman was Native American and had just had her car rammed into by another woman who tried to give her $50 so she wouldn't call the police and get her in trouble for not having insurance or a legal license for that matter. Another had moved from Chicago 15 years ago and didn't miss the Midwest humidity at all. And seeing each other in the work room on Wednesday, one with a hangover, but a face, a smile and a story to the strangers I had been interacting with for so long.

And this week a flight home was confirmed landing myself in Cleveland for 1.5 days essentially before heading down to Cincinnati for the birthday of the World Famous PEANUTS (my nieces) who turn one in April. Trying to set up a few appointments to see a few friends throughout the Friday I'm going to be in town, I know that patience will have to prevail and I'll have to see everyone in the summer, when I come home around the Fourth of July, to the humidity of the great Midwest.