when life gives you lemons…
you’ve got to set up the lemonade stand and make some damn good lemonade. i was too lazy and incapacitated to do that so instead i decided to write about it. it all started the weekend of february 22nd as i was planning a work trip to a conference in toronto. i had grand plans of world domination. slam dunk at the conference as a business developer. slam dunk with my weekly training plan as a marathoner. slam dunk as a friend as i unwinded at a pre-planned ski trip right after the conference.
expectations vs. reality. how beautifully this is captured 🎥 by director marc webb in his hipster chick flick 500 days of summer. i’m not cool enough to be a hollywood connoisseur. i don’t know the names of actors (except for you Emma Watson, my love). but for some reason, webb’s scene stuck in my mind like krazy glue. it stuck because it is an archetype¹: on the surface it is exes, gift, ring, heartbreak. trite hollywood chick flick. deep down the well of meaning, however, it touches on the fundamental human conflict between expectations and reality. our minds being able to concoct anything at the edge of what is known versus reality sticking muuuch closer to home. a conflict that causes deep frustration throughout our lifetimes. people identify with archetypes. and so, i can’t help but compare webb’s scene to some in my own drama from time to time.
disclaimer before i dive into describing my expectations and what really happened with painstaking detail: i’m about to tell you about a first world problem of a privileged young mexican. i am well aware of the bigger problems of the world (like this, this, this, and this). in this post i thus publicly commit to take a stab at writing about a real problem when the time is right and inspiration strikes. but today, i’ll tell you about the woes that the privileged mexican this mind is imprisoned in faced during his work trip to toronto. also, shit like this happens to me quite often. it’s only that this time around the lemons came in cases. and they kept coming and coming, and so i had enough to become the 🍋 lemonade capo 🍋 for the day. all the other kids on the block were scared of my empire.
enjoy! refresh!
expectations
go back to the bay area after being away for a few weeks. sync up with coworkers on monday (feb-24). tie a knot on the few open loops related to conference prep. go home. pack for toronto. factor in the weather and the fact that you have to get 3 runs in as part of marathon training: 7.5 mi easy (tues.), 10 mi interval workout (wed.), 7.5 mi easy again (thurs.). pack ahead for the weekend ski trip, since you arrive from toronto late at night thurs. and have to wake up at 4am on fri. (feb-28) for a 6am flight.
wake up at 5am on tuesday. do sun salutations regardless of whether the sun of a gun won’t rise until an hour and a half later. go through airport security 6am at the latest. coffee️, quick bite, and board the 7am flight to toronto. blissful, non-stop cruising that lands you in toronto at 3pm, time zone change factored in and all. thanks to air canada’s strong wifi, you got a ton of work done during the flight. you feel accomplished by the time you land. disembark. crack your back. right side, then left.
~4pm check-in at the hotel. you got 2.5 hours before the welcome reception. enough time to get that 7.5 mi run in and stockpile on dopamine. that ‘feel good’ hormone that suppresses the social anxiety of meeting strangers and ‘talking shop’. that neurotransmitter that suppresses that restless colt 🎠inside you and allows you to listen to potential customers empathetically and connect deeply.
shower. louis armstrong radio 🎷. sets the mood to dress up and conduct yourself like a gentleman. brings out the old soul beneath your skin. times of top hats, bow ties, and flapper girls.
now go! network! shake hands, kiss babies 😘👶. memorize important details to dis/qualify the opportunity. excuse yourself to the restroom. dump your notes into iNotes or your pocket notebook. your brain is not meant to be a hard drive, but rather a central processing unit (cpu). your senses are the usb ports to which the hard drives (iPhone, notebook) connect to when analysis and synthesis are needed. repeat that whole process, from handshake to data capture, at least ten more times. say goodbye to all your new friends. make your way to the exit. crack your back. right side, then left. you feel accomplished by the time you go to bed.
wake up on wednesday, replenish on dopamine with that 10 mi workout, and do the business development dance over and over again from 7:30am to 8pm. meet your friend at ~9pm to wrap up the day with a beer, a bite, great company, and great conversation. celebrate a day of hard work. c’mon, you can’t go to toronto and not swing by downtown after 12 hours at the marriot that looks like every other marriott. work travel: very little travel, loads of workᵀᴹ (let’s just pretend i did get it trademarked).
same drill on thursday. swap out workout for easy run. swap out hitting downtown for heading to the airport. board your 7pm direct flight back to SF. crack your back. right side, then left. you feel accomplished by the time the bird takes off. sayonara toronto.
land at 9pm. home by 10pm. ski trip is pre-packed so your only errand reads ‘sleep six hours’. shweet. alarm goes off at 4am (fri. feb-28). downward dog 👇🐶 to stretch.
“hi señor soOoOoOl !!!”
“fuck off dude, it’s even earlier than the other day you tried to wake me up.” 🌞
“woah, attitude. haven’t made love to the moon in a while, huh?” 🌞❤🌘
through security by 5:15am. you’re flying delta. that means extra legroom, outlets, and wifi. you’ve got a productive remote day ahead of you. there’s also something about airports that gets you in. the. Z O N E. ambient adderall. wrap up work by 6pm. high five your friends who are also working remotely. crack your back…you know the drill.
kick back at dinner. celebrate a month and a week of hard work on all fronts of life. wake up without an alarm.
eat. 🍕
snowboard. 🏂
coexist. 👬
repeat. ♻️
that’s your life for a full, wholesome saturday. and sunday. the four verses strung together by a chorus of amazing company, conversations, and laughter. slowly make your way back to the bay area on monday (mar-02). plan the workweek ahead and start march feeling replenished.
reality
everything was going according to plan up until my nighttime ritual of sipping on valerian tea to fall asleep and letting the thoughts run wild on sunday feb-23. the apocalyptical thought bubbled up innocently inside my head in three strokes:
“you’re mexican” [“true dat” said my consciousness]
“toronto is not in the united states” [“two out of two, smartass”]
“do you need a visa?” 🛂 [“oooh shiiiiit”]
a well plotted apocalypse (take note, satan) plays with its victims’ emotions by giving them hints of hell and hints of hope interchangeably. it’s this uncertain dance that’s deadly. thus, i was fed a spoonful of hope: i called my friend in toronto and she said that i didn’t need a visa but rather an electronic travel authorization (eTA), and that its electronic nature meant that i could apply for it online and get the approval via email in 10 minutes. i was scheduled to fly out tuesday morning; i had a wholesome monday for it to be approved. and so i applied. i left for work that monday morning and monitored the status of my application throughout the day. at some point, i worried so i re-applied.
many of these ‘automatic’ processes depend on a human making a few clicks and keystrokes, i’ve come to learn. especially when the data you input spells out s-k-e-t-c-h-y: mexican born in germany living in the united states trying to escape to canada. that day, the sweetest lady at citizenship and immigration canada was done with a large sip of her ginger tea out of a winnie the pooh-shaped mug when i entered her life on her screen and made her go “oh shit winnie! mr. fuentes has applied twice today and the notes section says this is urgent!” to which she proceeded not to grant me the eTA but rather request a letter stating my reasons for travel and scans of every. freakin’. page in my passport. all of them. even the empty, boring ones. on the other side of the continent, i got the memo from greta (let’s call her that). i kept my cool and decided to play ball.
it’s 10:15pm, and greta’s website is telling me it’ll undergo routine maintenance at 11:30pm PST for three hours. my office has a scanner, and i forgot my laptop charger there anyways. so i decide to make my way back there and scan like there was no tomorrow. once letter and scans are ready to be fired off, i log into this secure canadian customs website. it’s like double backflip 4-factor authorization with the flips being through a ring on fire. security was just iiiin-sane. i wish my online bank protected my account like that. jk capital one, you keep things loose baby.
when i’m finally done jumping through all the hoops, oh surprise! i’m greeted by a pretty sparse page that reads “the server is currently undergoing routine maintenance”. i look at my watch . just kidding, no one wears those anymore. except for athletes, frat boys, and you, self-conscious reader that fits neither of those profiles. jk again! i❤u, leave claps 👏 at the bottom. anyhow, i look at my iPhone for the time: 11:32pm PST. not the first time in history one hundred and twenty seconds f* things up. at this point, i’ve internalized the fact that it’s going to be a wild ride so i think stoically “alright greta, looks like you and i are in for a third set. better change the grip on that racket of yours.” as i drive back home, i modify the plan in my mind: “ok so i wake up at 2:30am PST/5:30am EST to log in at the end of the server maintenance period and upload my docs. then back to my date with morpheus. back up at 4:30. airport by 5am. i need two hours of wiggle room to sort this out in person with the airline reps. everything is just quicker in person. they can pull strings one can’t even think of. everything will be alright, right? i mean people usually get this eTA in minutes!”
i wake up at 2:30am PST and try to log in, only to be greeted again by the ‘scheduled server maintenance page’. “let’s give it a few minutes” — i think to myself. and then i try again, again, and again over the course of the next 30 minutes. at that point, canadian customs is directing people to its twitter page for updates. so i sign up for a twitter account. 0 followers. following 1. canadian…friggin’…customs.
given the urgency, i decide to stay up. you’ll sleep when you’re dead. every 15 minutes an alarm goes off and i refresh their site and their twitter page. i just work in between every alarm. all hours are business hours at a startup. 4:30am comes around, and their site is still down.
“sin llorar” (no crying allowed) i tell myself. lil’ motto i picked up from some friends in mexico. we got lots of reasons to use it down there. quick shower and off to the airport. i stand in front of the air canada rep at the airport at around 5am. both of us would much rather be laying horizontally and snoring, but we act civilized.
“my system is telling me that your passport is not associated with an eTA number, sir.” i explain the situation to her. one that i explained a dozen more times throughout the course of that day and that i should’ve just recorded that first time around. “oh ok mr. fuentes. let me call them and see what i can do.” she jumps on the phone with someone. i stare awkwardly and alternatively at the floor, the counter, and space behind her head. she puts her phone conversation on hold as per the universal signal of her resting the phone on her shoulder, facing down. “their server is down mr. fuentes” “no shit, sherlock!” — i think to myself. “can you ask her for an ETA on when they’ll be back up?” she plays messenger. “she says she doesn’t know.” well, i guess no party tricks this time around 😐 “please wait for the servers to come back online mr. fuentes and come back when you have a travel authorization number. otherwise i won’t be able to issue a ticket for you.” fuuuck me.
i knew there were two more direct flights to toronto that day with air canada. she also said that she could put me on them at no cost. one at noon; one at 3pm. light at the end of the tunnel. tbd how long i was going to be in that tunnel. so i went to Starbucks Coffee for some fuel and to camp out there — their banana bread is my guilty pleasure. less depressing than awkwardly sitting in front of ms. air canada and seeing customers that don’t need an eTA happily check-in. plus, starbuck’s jazz music cheers me up 🎵
15-min alarm → twitter → refresh site routine re-instituted. only this time with a twist: every hour, i’d go up to ms. air canada and ask her to call the eTA gods again, see if there was any new intel on their end. cover all my bases, i figured. it took three of my visits to annoy her and deny my request to place yet another phone call. three and not two because i offered to buy her and her colleague a starbucks. three and not four because i asked for her name but then proved to be too sleep deprived to remember. in any case, i don’t think the poor woman on the other side of the line knew any better. last we heard from her was that their IT contractor was trying to sort things out. aaand to be honest, the twitter feed was more entertaining to follow. likes, retweets, and comments piling up. @CitImmCanada was becoming world (in)famous, and i had first row seats to witness it all. jokes aside, other commenters on there had way more to lose than a work conference if the server didn’t come back up soon. some heartwarming stories made their way to the feed, greta and i weeping on opposite sides of the continent.
9am came around and i was still at SFO. i had missed the 7am flight and caught myself dozing off while standing in line to get a breakfast burrito. at that point i decided a nap 😴 was probably the next best move. ok, so where do i nap?
- the airport jungle? too much light and noise. too exposed. plus, at most airports they deter from napping by putting fixed arm rests to every seat. genius. prohibition by design.
- home? at least two hour round-trip to get there, nap, and come back. note that sans traffic, ma maison is 20 minutes away. where are those flying Ubers, bay area? where’s hyperloop, elon?
- ‘freshen up’, this airport store i was told about? $80 for two hours. are you freakin’ kidding me? my stay in toronto is $61 a night you greedy motha foca. foca = seal in spanish.
at the risk of perpetual judgement, i’ll confess where i ended up napping. not without first sharing some ass-covering disclaimers: #1 | i was desperate and sleep deprived, so my judgement was impaired. #2 | based on the time of the day, i estimated the likelihood of someone needing the space i stole to be very, very low. #3 | i was desperate and sleep deprived.
alright now, drumroll
i napped in a MAMAVA (!) right across from the ‘freshen up’. “in a what?” you say. to which i copy-pasta from their website: “MAMAVA designs lactation suites for breastfeeding moms on the go, making the world a better place”
c e r t a i n l y made my world a better place.
oh man. hopefully this post doesn’t spiral into an online boxing match with ‘mom activists of america / mexico / the world’. i respect the women in my life. go ahead, call them. references available upon request.
i’m not gonna lie, the lactation room was everything i ever wished for a nap pod. even better, i’d say. soothing music and cushioning all around so mom (or delinquent) are comfortable no matter what position she (he) decides to take. i went for ‘fetus after 27 weeks of gestation’ if you were wondering.
after telling you that, my job here is done. i can pack up and leave. life after the mamava is not that exciting. just kidding! feel free to take a bio break (or finish the current one) and join me for part 2 of ‘when life gives you lemons’. hell, take a day or ten. but please, baby come back! climax coming up. mamava wasn’t it!
