That Name Thing

Still no corrected work visa. Supposed to leave in 4 days.

Plan B: employer purchases a roundtrip ticket the day before my scheduled departure out of the country and I enter under a tourist visa. Nimble - that will no doubt be the mideast version of me.

Further vexing the name thing ...my mother left a message for me warmly congratulating me for the saint's feast day of my namesake observed this week on the Catholic calendar - a name we used to share before I changed mine to my nickname.

And then there's my brother's 25th high school reunion I just attended. I have shamefully/lessly skipped all of mine despite occasional proximity to the area. He drove up from Miami specifically to attend so I went along. At the name tag desk, I confronted the name thing again ... had to write the name that's currently on the work visa that I can't use as no one would know me with my legal name, which may have had some upside but I went with the historical.

It's going to be 106 degrees when I land and clear as a tourist, a pejorative I used repeatedly in NYC.

شکرآ