SPilled MArtini's

10 years ago, i could walk through my favorite nightspot with a full martini glass without spilling a drop-i could move from roomtoroom without soo much a blink. i was raised in a formal european family where toasts could last 30 minutes and then errupt into political debate depending on which uncle was visiting.

we had formal dinners in my grandfather's grand dining room where the curtains where drawn to preserve the furniture and the piano was always in-tune. it was classy and old fashioned with a sitting section on one side and the dining room table on the other. it had several picture windows that faced an old field and the neighbors down the street. i spent most of my childhood, learning how to eat without putting my elbows near the table, to only drink when no one was making a toast and to swallow the moose meat no matter how hard it was to chew.

my grandfather was a man ahead of his time, looking back he was more direct than a majority of tri-state men i have known and perfected the slam of the telephone receiver. he worked for the state of forestry and hated beavers to the point that he could have tirades about them for hours. as a joke my cousin and i both did papers years apart on them; i was later told he took as an insult. he lived in decades past, when my sister i would be sent to spend a few weeks with him we would be woken somewhere between 6&7am for hot oatmeal so congealed in the bowl it hit our stomachs like lead.

my sister& i rose diligently as he would always have a box of imported cereal stashed in the kitchen-and ice cream he claimed he accidently bought. i was able to spend a few weeks with him before he died one summer. i would wake to eat oatmeal with him knowing that his death was close by, in his tiny apartment his anger still rose like the new york stock exchange on non-pc topics that churned my twenty year old stomach.

i still remember the smell of his yellow bathroom--how he lived for his job and not much else. doors slammed shut as voices hit angry pitches, usually over beavers, and other rodents that was eliminating the tree's my grandfather had just planted. moose that the hunters he paid every year to gather for our family that didn't get enough meat although the deep freezer would usually be packed to capacity.

if you saw me in my winter slip-ons and my bus pass, my non-descript commuter bag you would not guess that my family has stature in a country sixthousandmiles away. i am not impressed with well drinks and men who wear logo shirts in nightclubs &bars; drinking watered down anything is what you do when you're in high school not in your 30's.

i am not impressed with bank statement and the next exotic place people will take their vacation. i rarely tell people that i come from europe that i can speak and understand other languages, that i read newspapers from other countries. as a european my skills are not unique it's expected.

as a european with the family heritage my sister and i will come into is not something that i consider grand;it's has always been there for her and i. i'd like to meet someone that wants to see old europe through the eyes of proper toasts and announcements; sun shining through the old growth where my family owns land not in a bank account. riches isn't labels, although our society has made everyone into a walking sign-and people are now auctioning their bodies off to pay for college.

money to me has never been important, it doesn't signify anything, it doesn't impress me. when someone extends a hand for an old woman on the bus, help people without expecting anything in return that's when i take notice. this selflessness is what we have lost sight of-this ability to reach out to others unless disasters happen.

relationships are destroyed by greed as it comes in many shapes and sizes. it's being able to openly love and accept the present moments- like the early morning walk i took-watching the fog hanging over the olympics& seals fighting. the simplicity of hugs. that is what makes us rich, like congealed moments of oatmeal my sister and i ate as kids. complaining about how early it was-sitting around the table with my grandfather; like the family dinners where my elbow could never touch the table.