greetings and salutations

speaking of uncomfortable, it certainly was an uncomfortable moment at the promenade mall yesterday when i bumped into an old friend from university - a female one - and i was forced to make a quick decision as to the appropriate mode of greeting. what to do? what to do? go with the traditional handshake? (shaking hands with a woman always seems a little, uh, strange to me.) maybe props or a high five? (wait a minute. this is a forty-year-old woman we're talking about. i can't give props to a forty-year-old woman.) perhaps an abbreviated hug? (too much physical contact. too many body parts intertwined.) or do i take a chance and go in for a kiss? after all, we were fairly close back in the day. and i know there are parts of the globe where greeting with a kiss is fairly common, for example, in latin america and southern europe and stretches of the middle east. and if i did make the call for some lip action, what type of kiss should i be looking at? i'm not ostentatious enough to deliver a credible air kiss. i suppose a quick peck on the cheek seems reasonable. but then the question becomes: how many pecks? one? two? three even? i should mention that my friend is of colombian descent. and i know there are rules spelling out the acceptable number of cheek kisses depending on the country of origin. colombia? colombia? what the hell was the rule again for colombia? and which cheek do i start on? the right or the left? questions. so many questions.

in the end, i settled on a single peck to the left cheek. cautious but not cowardly. poignant yet not overbearing. simple yet not overstated.

methinks the original caped crusader was the best caped crusader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMD2TwRvuoU&a=V1ODldkrXZg&playnext_from=ML

"good morning, and in case i don't see you again, good afternoon, good evening, and good night." - the truman show (1998)