Adventures with Mr. Urban

This afternoon, while the UrbanToddler was napping in her car seat, we drove to Mayfield, where we could sit right in front of the car on their patio and share a panini and cappuccinos.

While we were enjoying the delicious afternoon snack, a lady walked by us, facing Mr. Urban. After she got far enough, Mr. Urban mouthed CON- DO - LEEZZA....

As you know Ms. Rice has been back at Stanford, which is across the street from the Town and Country Village, which houses Mayfield.

I wasn't too impressed with Mr. Urban to tell you the truth, for alerting me too late. He seems to always want to come in the way of fame and me... and only because he has the notion that I get too excited when I meet a famous person.

And what is wrong with a genuine emotion like excitement (well aside from a time when I cut-off Goldie Hawn mid-sentence, when she was talking to us as a guest of Mr. Urban's friend at an event we were all attending, to ask her if I could take her picture... I loved her until that point in time and I was excited to see her... but in my reply, she gave us a big smile, mid-sentence mind you, and yelled out a shrill "GURU", to a Monk walking into the event.) And to this day, Mr. Urban has secretly lost faith in my ability to schmooze with celebrity...

But before we knew it, Ms. Rice, with her toned slim figure,in capri pants and a white shirt, her hair neatly pulled back showing off beautiful pearl earrings, started walking towards me. I told Mr. Urban in Farsi and playfully "SHE is coming baaaack", giving him a big smile and a wink! To which Mr. Urban replied, "that isn't even her". But just then she removed her sun glasses, and I noticed 20 or so freckles on her cheeks.. it was her all right!

"Ooh, what should I say to her?" I asked him.

"NOTHING. PLEASE LEAVE HER ALONE", said Mr. Urban, with pleading eyes. I looked around for some secret service men, but I didn't see any.

By then she had entered Mayfield and was talking to a woman that looked a lot like her, her sister I told Mr. Urban.

"I will go up to her and say, excuse me, where do I know you from" thinking hard about something wonderful to say to Ms. Rice...

"Why don't we just pretend that you said that to her and call it a day" said Mr. Urban.

And just then, the UrbanToddler awoke and we both ran to get her from the car, before I got a chance to strike up an easy going Saturday afternoon conversation with Condi Rice (to Mr. Urban's great relief).

Comments

FORTY THREE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND FORTY DAYS

My life and the life of every Iranian I know, is bookended by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It doesn't matter that I was barely old enough to remember this historic event or that I spent the decades that followed it, far far away from Iran, the Revolution of 1979 is a heavy, tacky, cruel bookend that defines who we used to be, who we are and the recurring nightmares and dreams we’ve had for 43 years. I can pinpoint with certainty the exact month after which a general feeling of displacement settled like sticky dust all over me, my family, my classroom, my teachers, our closest friends, our home, our city… In the years and decades that followed, I never experienced another event that brought such a magnitude of change to the nucleus of life. Not in Iran, and definitely not after a whole life lived outside of Iran. Perhaps only recently, the experience of the Trump years and the Covid-19 pandemic, the significant fear, change and frustration that both events brought to our col

On Donald Trump, Crunchy Bananas and our Children... A "How To" on keeping up Spirits and Sanity

The other morning at breakfast, my four year old looked, yet again somberly, at the breakfast before her. Despite having enthusiastically selected a hodgepodge of liberally salted hard boiled egg whites on the side of toasted hamburger buns, strawberries and vanilla yogurt and a cup of milk, she still could not bring herself to enjoy her breakfast. Her face was wrinkled, as was mine with exasperation from yet another failed attempt at assembling a palatable breakfast for my picky eater. This one, she is quite the philosopher. And before I could ask her why she wasn't eating, she said: "Two Things!" Holding up two tiny fingers. "The smells of these foods I picked, don't go with each other! And I wish Donald Trump would magically become Hillary Clinton, and the word (world) would be GREAT again". Despite our best efforts to protect our children from the anxiety of these times, they are alert and picking up on the mood (and the lingo) in the wor

Safa

I have always loved words. The way some people love shiny new objects. As soon as I heard a new word, a word that captured my imagination, my energy, my hundreds of unnamed inner thoughts and feelings, I would latch on to it with fearceness, joy and curiosity. I have also always been intrigued by how regular old words can be used in an unexpected context and evoke bursts of unexpected feelings in the listener, such as laughter, anticipation or tears. I would search for those words coming out of the mouths of everyone around me, and mentally catalog them like a dutiful librarian, and await the opportunity to say the words with my own mouth out loud to an audience, or better yet use it in an essay where the teacher could grade it, get a kick out of it, or read it to the whole class. As a child I always loved the Persian word Safa . For one thing the word sounds so simple, yet sophisticated and beautiful, and for another, each of my memories of hearing this word is stored in th

An Urban Girl

Search This Blog