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2 months, 29 days - the final countdown

by Cat on June 14, 2007

This morning, I  finally realized the pregnancy hormones were in full effect when I got all choked up over Judy Collins’ rendition of Both Sides Now playing on the sound system at the Itaewon Starbucks.

You know, because I never really knew clouds … at all.

It’s not like I have any kind of youthful memories attached to the song. It came out in 1967, four years before I was born. I still went through a Judy Collins phase in junior high, wearing out my parents’ old copy of Hard Times for Lovers, which is probably what left me near tears.

The things I put them through.

I had a truly bizarre taste in music until at least late high school.  In addition to the Judy phase, and my previously confessed dalliance with Loretta and Conway, the number of afternoons I spent playing ABBA’s Greatest Hits over and over probably drove my parents to secretly pray I’d fall in with the “wrong crowd” and take up some normal teenage activities, like illegal drag racing and underground tattoo art.  At least it would have gotten me out of the house.

Fortunately, I proved to just be a late bloomer. My senior year, I started listening to REM, Sonic Youth, and the Smiths,  mixing it up with a little Bon Jovi, on the side. (Hey, change doesn’t happen overnight! I still think “You Give Love a Bad Name” is a great song.)

 That spring, my friends and I also discovered that the honor roll didn’t rate at all compared to the pleasures of skipping school to smoke and drink beer and amaretto sours out by the lake.

I’m gonna try to keep that in mind if this kid wants to spend hours in her room listening to nothing but Chris Isaak or the Miami Sound Machine.

Banner paper year

by Cat on May 6, 2007

If you told me a year ago that Id one day insist on keeping a ready supply of kimchi in my refrigerator (one we’d have that was specifically designed for the purpose, in fact) or that I’d develop a once-a-week kimbap habit, I’m not sure what I would have said.

But in a year of pleasant surprises, these were actually some of the least surprising.

More surprising, I think, is how well David and I’ve adapted to both a new country and a new life at the same time. It’s sometimes hard to separate in my mind what adjustments we’ve made as newlyweds getting used to being married, and those that we made as Americans getting used to Korea, both life changes having happened almost simultaneously.

Not that it’s all been smooth sailing.

I’m sure he was surprised to have me go from someone who had no problem with rush hour traffic in Atlanta during a rain storm to a woman who would freak out at the prospect of driving five blocks in Seoul. It can’t be exactly comforting to move halfway around the world to discover that, among other things, your formerly independent-minded wife no longer wants to go the grocery store by herself. (The cold weather actually took care of that particular phobia. After February, I’d have driven a scooter through hell to avoid lugging bags from Kim’s Club out to the taxi stand. But, I still won’t drive north of Namsan.)

David at Gimpap Cheongguk

As for me, I wasn’t exactly thrilled at his newly proficient use of what I like to call the “Korean ‘maybe.’” Here, it is considered socially uncomfortable to refuse to do something someone asks you to do, even if you don’t want to do it, and sometimes even if doing it may be physically or otherwise impossible. To any newcomers out there, be advised, if someone in Korea says to you it is “maybe difficult” to do something, it usually means “it ain’t gonna happen.”

This took some getting used to.

Me (at 6 p.m.): Hey, instead of cooking, do you want to go to that new Italian place for dinner tonight?
Dave: Maybe . . .
Me: Well, do you want to think about it and let me know?
Dave: Maybe…
Me: !@%@@#?!

But, overall, the year has been very good to us. And not just because we are expecting to add a third person to our interesting adventure.

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