Pole Dating

This is not a confessional about how I can’t meet the right man (paging Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy!), but a query about food and culture.  Let me say though that immigrant dating is a fraught venture.  I am too American for Poles and too Polish for Americans.  No wait!  Poles are too Polish for me and Americans are not Polish enough.  No wait!  Poles are not American enough and Americans are too American.  No wait!  I am too American for Poles, and too Polish for Americans.  It’s a predicament.  Add to that equation my “wet blanket/I can’t live without you—I don’t need you/get a life” personality and you’ve got yourself what my fellow Poles ever-so-endearingly refer to as an old maid. [*Bicultural digression: I was not aware of any words to describe unattached women in Polish except for panna (maiden—ugh!) or stara panna (old maid) until the arrival of democracy and capitalism when Poles began to adapt the English word “single” as a noun.  If you’re a single woman, the hip crowd refers to you as a singielka.  My rather large extended family is not hip.*]

A few months ago, I went on a rather strange date.  Not strange enough for abadcaseofthedates.com, but strange enough for me.  We made plans to meet for dinner.  Date said something rather strange over the phone as we agreed to meet at a local Chinese restaurant, but I dismissed it.  He said something about “hitting up” an Asian grocery store before dinner.  I dismissed it because who goes to the grocery store on a date and, more importantly, who goes to the grocery store when they don’t need to?  But I get so nervous during these initial date exchanges that I quickly chalked up his suggestion to my own Polish-inflected hearing.  

Immigrant or not, I’m no idiot and was not about to have a guy I’ve never met pick me up at home.  We agreed to meet at the restaurant of my choosing.  I arrived a couple of minutes before my date and the place was dead.  There were two people there and one of them was working.  When my date arrived, I proposed that we drive down to another restaurant, just minutes away.  He told me to follow him.  I did.  I knew the other restaurant and was surprised when he made a left turn blocks before we arrived at our destination.  God help me, I followed (it's not like it was a dark alley, so I kept going).  I quickly saw, however, that it was, CRAP, a local Asian supermarket.  We got out of our cars and he suggested that we check the place out.  Let me emphasize, I am waaaaaay too nice to people I’ve just met.  My friends will tell you that I am waaaaay nicer to strangers than I am to them.  This is true.  I am working on it, but may need professional help for it.  But I digress.  We walked into the store.  I had been to that store before and had no idea why he wanted to “check it out.”  Check it out he did.  I followed him up one aisle and then decided that I was A/ embarrassed and B/ needed some groceries.  We separated for a few minutes and met up in the market’s impressive seafood department.  “Mmmm,” he said, “it smells horrible.”  What the hell?  “That’s what fish smells like,” I responded.  By now, I was both hungry and embarrassed, so I said “I’m starving, can we get dinner now?”  Why I didn’t just leave him there, I don’t know. “This doesn’t gross you out?” he asked.  I’m not a vegetarian and having grown up in a small town/farming community, I harbor no illusions about the source of my dinner.  “Nope,” I said, “can we go now?”  I had a few items and needed to pay.  I did and, to my relief, we left and drove to the restaurant.  Again, why I didn’t just leave, I really don’t know.  Perhaps, despite my Polish upbringing, I am an optimist?

At dinner, my date disappointed further.  For one, he was one of those thigh-slapping jokesters who make inappropriate comments to the servers (if you have ever worked as a waiter/waitress as I have, you know who I’m talking about).  For another, though he professed to be a liberal, he told me that he was “conservative on some issues.”  When I asked which ones, he told me “like immigration.”  Ouch!  To make a long story short, in order to avoid a full on conflagration (which I can handle with friends, but not strangers), I called him Archie Bunker and he ended up calling me “Ms. Ellen DeGeneres Stalin.”  Except for the genocidal maniac part of it, I felt vindicated.  

All of this to say: how is it that we live in one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world and yet feel that a trip to the local supermarket is an adventure into the realm of the unknown?  To be fair, my date may have been an exception to the rule.  He did tell me that he doesn’t read the newspaper or listen to the news.  No need.  All he needs to do is walk down the street to know what’s going on in the world.  CRAP!

Dogs

Found Grover a nice place complete with a lovely couple and a dog named Buster.  I call him Uncle Buster since, at thirteen, he’s Grover’s senior (for easy comparison, in human years Uncle Buster is 91 and Grover 35).  Even if slightly smaller than Grover, it’s clear that Buster’s in charge.  That’s a good thing because my dog has me wrapped around his little paw and needs someone to tell him what’s what.  Uncle Buster’s begun to do so.  He even tried to hump Grover, just to reassert the hierarchy, but the hump didn’t quite work out.  Though he’s in great shape, especially for his age, it took Uncle Buster just a bit too long to get both of his paws on Grover’s behind.  By the time he lifted his other paw and was getting ready to make his move, Grover slipped away diplomatically.  Uncle Buster then made it clear that a concerted effort was beneath him by nonchalantly scratching his ear.

When I adopted Grover, he was a year old and afraid of his own shadow.  For a long while, I had to avoid sudden moves or he’d scurry under the nearest table.  I felt bad for the little pooch.  So bad, in fact, that I did everything he wanted and spoiled him rotten.  By the second year, Grover’s hold on me was obvious.  So much so, that a couple of friends decided that a Cesar Millan intervention was in order.  They sat me down in front of a TV and got me to watch episodes of the Dog Whisperer by telling me that I would learn all about doggy behavior.  Ha!  By the time the first episode ended, I felt like I had been on a therapist’s couch for half an hour.  Cesar trains people not dogs.

I don’t think I can be trained, however, even with Cesar’s expert advice.  I really gave it my best, a real sportsman's try, but since that therapeutic afternoon in Ohio, Grover has made a lot of progress in the “she’s my bitch” department, while I've made none (one could say I've regressed) in the "I'm gonna train your ass" department.  Grover learned, for instance, that when he wants something, all he needs to do is to bark at me (sit in front of me, stare me down, and bark).  He wants to go outside, he barks.  He wants to play, he barks.  He wants a treat, he barks.  I take complete responsibility, of course.  After all, I am the one who first goes for the door and asks if he wants to go out.  If not, I go for the toy and ask if he wants to play.  If not, I go for the treat.  It’s always one of the three so, in the end, Grover gets what he wants.  I’ve tried to alleviate the situation.  I have let him bark and bark, hoping he’d wear himself out, but the little dude has staying power and I have neighbors.  I think I'm in an abusive relationship with my dog.  I wonder if there is a support group for that. 

In my defense, though, just look at this face!  How do you discipline that?  You're my only hope, Uncle Buster!

Aliens

My memories of Taxi got me thinking about TV immigrants.  There was Latka, of course, and then a direct Latka-derivative, Balki Bartokomous, from a made-up Greek-like island, on a show called Perfect Strangers.  

It ran for 8 seasons and generated a spin-off (Family Matters).

I did not enjoy Balki as much as Latka.  By the time Perfect Strangers aired, my English was a bit better and I was unimpressed (seriously, “the dance of joy”?!).  Latka though was cool.  He was funny and he had a multiple personality disorder (which immigrant doesn’t?) so in addition to his regular shtick, Kaufman occasionally became Vic Ferrari, turning shy Latka into a womanizer, or Alex (one of the cabbies), turning Latka into a fountain of wisdom.  

Does Alf count as an immigrant?  He emigrated from another planet.  He was illegal too (never was processed by the INS/now Homeland Security).  So was Mork from Mork & Mindy.  Both of them were quite literally illegal aliens.  More so than any human being I’ve ever known.  Mork even met the Fonz of Happy Days to learn about women on earth, and by that I mean in America; it’s not like the Fonz was acclimating Mork to Polish dating rituals.

I don’t care for the labeling of people as aliens—if you’re here illegally, you’re an illegal alien and once you get a green card (which is rather pink), you’re a resident/legal alien (Sting’s song immediately pops into my head “I’m an alien.  I’m a legal alien.  I’m an Englishman in New York”).  Immigrants experience alienation, but that hardly makes them aliens.  I am, however, happy to report that, since I took my citizenship a few years back, I’m no longer an alien of any kind (nothing to see here, Homeland Security).

Aliens on sitcoms are an excellent way to show American culture from an outside perspective without alienating (hahahaha) the anti-immigrant crowd.  

On a related note, I came across a trailer for a new film starring Demián Bichir (loved him on Weeds!  He’s super hot and can act, too).  It's called A Better Life and it’s about an undocumented Mexican immigrant who's trying to make it in California so that his son can have a better life.  I’m looking forward to seeing it and hope that, unlike Spanglish, it portrays immigrants as multi-dimensional human beings (although the mother-daughter relationship  in Spanglish made me weep.  That relationship makes the movie.  The love story part of it blows.  I mean who wouldn't totally fall for Paz Vega?). 

The Mexican immigrant experience has always been close to my heart.  I identified with it, especially when I lived in California (natives there often assumed I was Mexican anyway), probably because we were Catholic aliens landed on a Protestant planet.