On Sunday night, my friend Angela came into town from the Bay Area via Philadelphia. Being from the Bay Area, she has that semi-punk, I’m cooler than you San Francisco vibe thing going on. Angela is truly a citizen of the world having lived in Colombia, Spain, and England to name a few. She claimed that title years before Angelina Jolie borrowed the phrase as her own. Every time I hear her say it, my immediate thought is “Nope, Angela claimed that title years ago and you can’t have it!” Once Angela adopts a few kids and lives in Africa, I’ll try to copyright the moniker “Citizen of World” for her. Until then, she may have some stiff competition. But I digress. Yesterday, our friend Bert from Belgium came into town. My place is essentially their jet lag recovery home away from home before they venture south to Florida. Bert from Belgium brought over waffles, four kinds actually. And no these are not your standard waffle iron waffles either. These are amazing cookie-life, waffle-shaped yumminess in different flavors and different sizes. They will completely change your American point of view about what a waffle is and isn’t and you’ll realize that American waffles just have not reached their full potential. The so-called Belgian waffles we eat here have nothing on the real thing, baby.

Bert also brought over amazing bitter dark chocolate infused with whiskey, cigar smoke and who knows what else. Angela and I proceeded to eat our way through an entire box, pausing on occasion to make sure that we were sharing nicely. Today, I returned the favor by taking Bert to an Einstein’s Bagel, a 7-Eleven, a smoothie shop and a Jerry’s Subs whereupon he purchased and consumed some good ol’ American crap food. To each their own, right?

Hanging out and talking with Bert and Angela makes me realize how dispersed many of the people I really enjoy being around are and that I don’t take enough time to get out there and see them. Yes, yes, I know. One must work for a living and all. But I cannot help but wonder if there is a way to literally have my cake and eat it too. Surely there is a job where I can use my project management, organizational OCD kung fu and manage to be at home enough to be with and properly parent Drue while cultivating the friendships I have in this area and yet also travel the world for work while making enough to travel for pleasure both with Drue and on my own.

I know. I don’t ask for much.

On a separate, although not all together unrelated note, I’ve signed up to participate in and identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money). You can sign up yourself and create your own list at the 43 things website. I think it is a good mind exercise that will help me continue this more positive way of thinking. Originally I thought this would be a fast and easy exercise but it is harder than it seems, at least for me. My goal is to have my list up before heading down to Atlanta on Sunday to see Nikki and Clint and their beautiful little boy. Needless to say, my friends are definitely on my list of things that make me happy. I could cheat and name each of my friends, each one getting their own line on the list, but I decided that friends could and should get grouped together even though I appreciate each and every one of you individually. Otherwise, it’s not much of an exercise.