Thank you for the memories Chicago

I'm sitting in my living room, with movers milling around, boxing up our belongings. I'm amazed at how much stuff we've managed to accumulate over our four years here, especially since we live in a two bedroom apartment where space has always been at a premium. I'm also surprised at how sad I am as I see my apartment get emptier by the minute. Perhaps it's the depressing white of the walls as they slowly reveal themselves, or perhaps it's the echo of my voice as it bounces around empty rooms.

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with my friend Savyon, in which I was expressing frustration at having to start all over again in a new place. Savyon, who is not from the US, remarked at how this nomadic existence was such a quintessentially American experience. In this country individuals are solitary beings with loose ties to community and family, always in search of their fortune. By its very nature, this search constantly takes these residents to new geographies.

On the other hand, in places like the Middle East and Asia (home for me and Savyon), centuries old culture places different demands on an individual, who is never solitary but instead a part of a much larger social whole. Here, familial and cultural ties inhibit movement, and cause entire generations to live out their lives in spacial stasis.

I do not know which is better. Personally, I've lived a nomadic existence, never having spent more than seven years in any one place. But despite the emotional wrenching that occurs with every move, I know that I've found personal enrichment with each new home. And trust me, leaving Chicago has come with its own emotional costs.

After all, this is where my wife and I fell in love with an unparalleled lakefront lapping at the feet of stunning skyscrapers. This is where the midwestern winter made a man out of me. This is where my daughter first opened her eyes. This is also where I was taken kicking and screaming through a master's education at the University of Chicago, to emerge on the other side someone more appreciative of the workings of the world. This is where I watched my nephews born and grow up. This is where I watched Obama stand a field away from me, breaking historic barriers with his accomplishments. This is where I shook Blagoevich's hand, and have since wondered what the hell I was thinking. This is where I entered the world of healthcare, and met mentors against whom I will measure all future business leaders I work for. But probably most importantly, this is where I have met individuals whose kindness and support I will never forget, and whose friendships I will treasure for a lifetime.

If being a nomad is what I have to be ... well then, so be it. Life is only a set of memories, and I leave Chicago knowing that I have amassed some of my most precious memories in this city.

For that, thank you Chicago.

Visa, what visa?

Man what a whirlwind stay it's been . I came with high hopes of exploring two great, summer, European destinations, and instead just saw the inside of the hotel room, and of the office. The work was interesting though, and since medical devices is a field that I know little about, I'm looking forward to the new learning experience in the coming year.


But the regret I feel at not having taken advantage of this travel opportunity has far been overshadowed by the joys of having an American passport. This was my first trip abroad as a US citizen, and the difference in treatment I received from the days when I had to travel with a Pakistani passport has been indescribable. But old habits are seared into my brain – before I left home I went into a panic attack when I wasn't able to find copies of my German visa, as well as a letter from Abbott verifying employment, and a letter from my bank verifying the presence of funds, and a letter (lots of letters) from my manager stating the purpose of my travel, and a copy of my wife’s passport, and a copy my previous US visas (H1-B, student, etc.), and a copy of my travel documents containing numbers and addresses where I could be reached at all times, and a urine sample (ok, not that last, but you get the idea). Then Saeeda would step in when she would see things were getting out of hand, and remind me that I had a US passport, and I would start to calm down.

Still, during this trip I was nervous when I approached German immigration on flight into Europe, and US immigration on flight into Chicago. In both cases I handed over my passport knowing the drill – the harsh questions that would follow, the convincing job that I would have to do, the skeptical looks that I would receive. But these did not come, as the officer just gave a cursory glance at my passport. Nevermind, I told myself. The secret red button under the desk had been pressed, “Code Red” was probably flashing silently across computer screens in a control room somewhere, and Chuck Norris and the Delta Squadron were already en route to ferret me away.

But none of this happened. Instead, I looked like a complete idiot as I stood staring at the immigration officer, while the officer stared back at me with a “what else do you want?” look. The next person in line behind me coughed politely, and I realized that I really truly was being allowed to go through. I clumsily shuffled my way through, mumbling to myself in a daze of confusion, not sure how my world had changed so drastically.

But I wasn’t complaining.

German dining

I met up with the rest of my coworkers yesterday at the car rental counter in Stuttgart airport. Even car renting is an exciting experience in Germany - walking down the garage aisles all you pass are BMWs, Audis and Mercs. Meanwhile, back in the US I'm usually told that I'll be squeezing into a "sporty compact", usually built for a midget and with all the horsepower of a mule-drawn carriage.
From the airport it was off to the small town of Ragindingen, where the hotel was a small, cosy building just off the town river. The hotel is something that I would describe as having "character", but Saeeda would describe as "old." And old it was, since there was no central air conditioning and an elevator straight out of the 60s. Still, I liked the ambience - no two rooms were the same, and all the furnishings had an Old World feel to them.
Our first meal in Germany? Italian food. Excellent Italian food. Which left me really confused at the end of the night, because I had yet to try to typical German food, which in my mind consisted of high calory, saucy, beef/pork boiled in various ways. Why didn't I expect there to be a thriving dining scene in German cities? Ignorance.

To Germany, in style

Although I’ve traveled a lot, and in doing so have racked up airline miles galore, I haven’t had much of an opportunity to fly business class, which is an experience unto itself. I finally got the opportunity to do so for work this week, when I was asked to attend a set of meetings in Germany and Switzerland. Given the distances involved, I was eligible for business class, and so booked my travel with glee. So much glee, in fact, that I think I was more excited about the flight than the fact that I was going to visit two spectacular European vacation destinations.

The experience did not disappoint. I flew Lufthansa, and knew that I was in for some special treatment the moment I sat down in the comfy leather chair. This thing needed its own on-screen instruction manual – with a push of a button I could move it in any direction I wanted, change lumbar support, tilt into “relax” mode, or go fully flat into “sleep” mode. I was served gourmet snacks throughout, provided newspapers and reading material, and practically waited on hand and foot by a flight attendant assigned specifically to me. My only slight disappointment was dinner – appetizers and dessert were delicious, but I was forced to eat my pre-ordered Muslim meal, which was nothing more than a spicy, greasy chicken dish, tasting like it had come straight from a bad desi wedding. Meanwhile, my fellow business class passengers got to dine on steak and fish. The price I pay for eternal salvation, I guess.

The travel was so pleasant, in fact, that it never felt like the long flight that it truly was. Part of me felt guilty. What right had I to such luxury, when my fellow passengers were squeezed into cattle class a few feet behind me? Ordinarily, my 6’ 3’’ frame would be scrunched into a tiny seat with my surgically repaired knees pushing into the seat in front of me, praying fervently that the passenger in front would not tilt their seat too far back. Sleeping would be out of the question, and even going to the bathroom would require asking permission of the five passengers seated between me and the aisle.

But I bet airlines do this on purpose. They give you a taste of what air travel should be like (and was, at one point in time), then warn you by saying that you better continue to buy the more expensive ticket, otherwise look what could happen to you. Nefarious, I tell you.

Nuha turns 1

The party was grand, and held true to the LA tradition of big productions. We had a theme (an Enchanted Garden), delicious food (Persian catering), specialty ballons (in the shape of butterflies and dragonflies), grooving music (a desi-Western mix), a candy buffet (all in pink and green colors – the colors of the theme), a specialty cake (in the shape of a towering garden), and entertainment for the kids (Tinkerbell showed up to play games, tell stories, and paint faces).

However, our daughter wasn’t very interested in the hard work that her mother and father (mostly her mother – father isn’t so creative), put in to organize everything. Instead, she was happiest crawling around on all fours, alternating between picking up things to eat from the floor and trying to eat the flowers embossed on her dress. It was only after the party was over, when I had a brief moment to sit and observe my wired daughter - she had just had taken her first ever bite of cake frosting that evening and was zooming from end of the party room to another - that I marveled at how quickly time had flown by.

First, I had not screwed up. I had made it to Nuha’s first birthday without making major mistakes that would scar the girl for life. Much of the credit for that goes to my patient wife, who has made sure to gently but forcefully set me straight when I start acting irresponsibly around my daughter. As in when I let Nuha run around the house without a diaper on because she should be allowed to “air out” all body parts.

Second, seeing how quickly Nuha has progressed from a helpless baby that fit in the crook of my elbow to a toddler who knows how to aggressively demand what she wants – this makes me marvel at the mysteries of God and my intellect’s puny inability to comprehend the magnitude of what is occurring right before my eyes.

My evolution as a father continues, and so does my gratitude towards my own parents and the sacrifices they made to ensure the successes that I enjoy today. In this evolution I also gain increasing confidence in my abilities as a parent, and I wryly think back to pre-Nuha days, which I spent reading parenting books and browsing websites, all in the quest to try to be a good father. Although I stopped that practice a long time ago, Saeeda has not, and occasionally encourages me to read postings by hyperactive mothers who worry about the smallest development needs of their precocious babies. One mother posts on her blog about how important it is that we position babies facing us while they lie in their strollers - studies show they develop faster when they are able to observe a parent’s facial expressions. Or my favorite, this same mother encourages parents to point out landmarks in descriptive, adult language to our babies when we walk around with them: “Look baby, a big, black building. Look there – a red stop sign. A yellow bus moving by.” And so on. Meanwhile my drooly baby is more interested in her pacifier than anything. I imagine showing this "advice" to those of my parent's generation, and imagine how long it would take before they laugh me out of the room.

Nope, Nuha is turning one, and so far I think we’ve done a decent job. We’re watching her grow, and in her own way, she’s making us grow as well. I’m excited about the years ahead and the adventures they promise to bring. More immediately, I'm excited about tonight, when I get to take care of the baby while my wife runs errands. I sense another opportunity to let Nuha "air herself out” ...

How I lost faith in humanity … and my short term memory

It took me 10 months after the birth of my daughter, but I’ve finally managed to return to a weekly workout regimen, albeit to a limited extent. There’s a great gym at work, which is small but functional, and one which I try to visit twice a week during my lunch break. This gym has free weights, treadmills, machines, showers – the works. So to take advantage of this facility, and free up time in the evenings, I’ve taken to bringing gym clothes, a towel, and miscellaneous toiletries with me in the mornings. Except that I keep forgetting the gym bag that contains these items on the train into work.

Apparently there is a Lost and Found process in place to recover items left behind by passengers, but I have yet to see it work. First, you have to rely on the honesty of fellow passengers and the train conductors to not make off with whatever you’ve left behind. Second, you have to wait a day before misplaced items are collected together and sent back to downtown Chicago for storage in the Lost and Found office. Finally, you have to navigate the world’s most arcane office hours to contact someone at this office to figure out if your article has been located. Below is a picture of the hours that the Lost and Found office is actually open:

Of interest is the fact that the office is not open before 8am and after 5pm, and is not open on weekends or holidays. 90% of the passengers on the train have to be office workers, some of whom are leaving the city to get to far-flung suburbs for work (i.e., yours truly). How we are expected to make it back to the city before the office closes is beyond me, unless I have the gall to walk into my boss’s office and say I need to leave work over an hour early because I need to find a missing gym bag.

Of even greater interest is the set of random times that the office remains closed: 9am- 9:30am, 11am-11:15am, 1pm-2pm, and then 3:15-3:55pm. What the hell are these? Bathroom breaks? Union mandated smoking breaks? Why do you randomly need a 30 minute break, then a 15 minute break, then an hour break, and then, bizarrely, a 40 minute break at the end of the day? WTF?! Every time I’m between meetings at work, or have 5 minutes to myself, I’ll reach for the phone to see if I can call the Lost and Found office … until I realize that the office is not open.

The rare instances where I’ve gotten through to someone, I’ve been told that nothing matching my description has showed up. Why? Who wants my old gym clothes? This is the second time I’ve lost a gym bag – the first time I lost the shoes in which I ran the Chicago marathon. They were old, but nice. The second time I lost the second pair of shoes I bought to replace the first pair. These were not old at all, and were nice. Who looks inside a gym bag and says, “Cool – size 12 ½ Mizuno shoes for medium pronators with a large toe box. Just what I needed!” And both times the gym bag was nice – the second time it happened to be a bag I had received as part of a recognition award at IBM. Why people, why?! Why are you walking away with my stuff and not turning it in? I’d understand if I’d misplaced an iPhone. I’d know better than to expect a return of something like that. But gym bags with sweaty clothes and used shoes? Really?

I’m losing faith in my short term memory, and fast. But I’m losing faith in humanity faster. Give me back my gym clothes!

Soft hands

I suffer from a frustrating inability to get my hair cut regularly. My work hours and long commute mean that most places are closed by the time I get home on weekdays, and weekends are so busy that I just try to find the closest, cheapest hair salon to where I’m running errands. So it was a pleasant surprise to receive a coupon in the mail for Halo for Men, billed as a “hip and relaxing environment where men could comfortably enjoy salon and spa services.” The salon and spa services weren’t what I cared for - it was the fact that they had just opened a location in the very train station that I use daily, and that this location offered hours that worked for me.

The coupon itself was for a set of services called “the Man”, which included a “Signature Haircut & style, Shampoo & conditioning treatment, Scalp massage, Paraffin hand wax, Hand massage, Hot towel & facial toner, Cleanup shampoo after the man, Free touch-up within two weeks of previous appointment, and Complimentary beverage.” [the crazy capitalization is all theirs]. Although I needed only the haircut, the coupon was $25 for $45 worth of services. Nice.

However, this statement on their website troubled me – the salon was designed to be a “sophisticated yet modest environment where men could go to comfortably enjoy luxurious salon services without worrying about feeling out of place or being gawked at, like at other female-dominated salons and spas." Not sure about you men out there, but the only time I get gawked at when I go get a haircut is when I’ve gone two months without trimming things, and I look like a Chia Pet Head on steroids. And how could you be “manly” in a salon? I had trouble reconciling this – I pictured a place where macho men laughed loudly at lewd jokes and downed beverages in one gulp and watched an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on flat screen TVs, while … getting pedicures?

But I made my appointment anyway and showed up at the place last Friday. I received a friendly greeting and was ushered inside to a room with an industrial design. There was music playing over speakers – music that had a lot of guitar riffs in it, so I figured that made it manly. And there were flat screen TVs on every wall, but instead of playing Ultimate Fighting, they were playing “Goodwill Hunting.” Hmm, I thought. This isn’t too bad.

I was offered a beverage, and chose a simple bottle of water. Appropriately hydrated, I was led over to a small tub at waist level, asked to roll up my sleeves and then dip my hands in hot paraffin. “Umm, what is this for?” I asked meekly. “To moisturize and soften up your hands,” came the answer. Duh.

Gloves were quickly slipped on, and with the paraffin slowly congealing, I was led into my chair. On the TV, Matt Damon was solving crazy math equations while MIT professors looked on in awe. Suddenly, my vision was obscured – a hot towel had appeared out of nowhere and was firmly wrapped around my face. I started to resist, but lost my resolve as the warmth from the scented towel caused my facial muscles to relax. Mmm, this is good, I thought.

Gloves were taken off my hands, and the paraffin peeled away. Are my hands softer? I wondered. I had no time to answer, because a hand massage immediately ensued. Mmm. This is REALLY good. 
With the massage done, the towel off my face, and Matt Damon on screen again, the haircut finally commenced.

“How much hair would you like taken off?”

I was confused. The people at Supercuts usually just slapped a guard onto a clipper and buzzed the same amount off from all over my head.
My hairdresser sighed knowingly, and proceeded to go to work. Snips here, there, everywhere. Locks of hair fell from my head in small bunches. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon got into an argument. Then my hairdresser paused.

“Who cuts your hair?” she asked.
I had no answer. Lots of people cut my hair. A different person cut my hair each time. I believed in presenting an equal opportunity head of hair for everyone.

“They’ve got your hair at all different lengths,” she said when I didn’t respond.

Huh, I thought. Interesting.
And so it went. She would ask me a question, or make a statement, and I would have no answer for her, and she would go about fixing things. And fix she did, because by the time we were done, I looked good. That’s right, I looked Matt Damon good. And I felt bad-ass. Jason Bourne bad-ass. Because my hair looked good and my hands were soft and my facial muscles were all relaxed.

I walked out of Halo for Men thinking that I would have to find a way in my budget to make this happen again soon. The train station was crowded, it being Friday, but I walked confidently through, daring anyone to get in my way or threaten me in any way. Because with my new haircut I had gained the ability to pull Jason Bourne moves on my assailants and leave them broken on the floor.

And as they lay there defeated they would think, “Damn that guy kicked my ass. But he had the softest hands…”