OK Go!

Feliz Cumple, David!

Yet another birthday salute to a good friend. David is an erstwhile co-worker and New Yorker who has flown south to Miami for the foreseeable future. He may be even more fascinated with (and knowledgeable about) music and all things cultural than me or Bri. With David, I even have to look up a vocabulary word now and then (like 'anodyne'). It's quite refreshing. Today he turns 28 - that was a most special age for me, when I began to travel, and I fell in love with Andres (the lovely person seated next to David, in the yellow shirt, during David's recent visit to Argentina for a wedding. Andres and I were together for four years, way back when, and are still very close).

As you can see pictured left, David adapts well to local customs. That silvery cup in his hands with the silver straw is what Argentines and Paraguayans call 'yerba mate' (pronounced YER-ba MAH-tay), an odd, bitter, green tea that fills the silver cup and into which one pours boiling water. Some Latin Americans pour sugar into the mate, accounting for the high cavity rate along the River Paraná. David has seen and done much for a 28-year old. Just last year he visited six countries for the first time, five of them on business: Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, and Trinidad. That same year, he worked at three different jobs, moved back and forth 1,200 miles, and never missed a beat. It's hard not to admire his creativity, gumption, and overall good, open-minded vibe. Happy Birthday, David.... (this is our friend Sergio Bungs's loft, btw, in the charming, tree-lined, cobblestoned, colored-cement laden wonder that is the Palermo Chico area of Buenos Aires)

Coming soon: Andres' pictures from his visit to Montevideo, Uruguay, the charming, sleepy, socialist, intellectual city on the other side of the Rio de la Plata gulf/sea arm from Buenos Aires.