My date with Ivan J. Krizan

When we moved onto this block in Hastings almost 2 years ago now, I discovered I had the cutest neighbor in the WORLD! His name is Ivan. He and his wife Mary, live right next door. He is so cute that he calls my dog Nells, "Lars!"

He is 76 and very hard of hearing; he lost good hearing in both ears in the war. He has 10% in one ear, and 20% in another. He said he doesn't want to use hearing aids because aside from the fact that they help with hearing, they also amplify everything. And he says he doesn't want to hear EVERYTHING better! SO, we all have to speak, slow and steady-not high pitched, and then be a translator between him and a worker if we are in public like I had to today at Caribou Coffee-there is where we had our first date!

I became friends with them at a block party last summer and really hit it off with them. They are world travelers, and them like me (and my Husband Kevin), love Europe. So we all connected in that aspect a lot. They are also spiritual people, and philosophers sort of, so we also hit it off with that too! 

Since that block party, (and before of course), I've been pretty sick- they know my health story, and they knew about my most recent excursion to Oregon to "get fixed". Anyway, during my recovery, they brought me a lot of the lunches that they ate and didn't finish. They would be over promptly around 12:35 pm with it. Their visits were priceless. I love having that generation in my life. I love to learn from them, and they always seem so fascinated by me (which I have to admit I love)! 

Aside from Ivan loving my dogs-he is always saying what an angel I am, and always telling me he better be careful around me or Mary will get jealous!  Well anyway, while I was recovering he always said he wanted to pick me up (even though we live right next door)- and go out for coffee one morning when I was feeling up to it. Well it finally happened! We arranged the plans a couple days ago and he showed up at my door promptly at 9:30am this morning! He opened my car door for me and everything! 

We went to Caribou and even in the car on the way, we started chatting away, there was never a dull or silent moment-no awkward silences, or pauses! Just pure conversational bliss!

When we got to Caribou, (it was his first time there)-I introduced him to all girls I use to work with there-and he said to them "Isn't Gina an angel?" Well, on with the story-I had to translate what he couldn't hear when they took our order. Then when we got done ordering, he couldn't figure out why we didn't get our drinks. I explained to him that we had to go down now to the end of the counter "bar", near the big fake white coffee cup was, to pick up our drinks. He ordered the "plainest coffee they have with cream." I ordered a half caf Latte'. 

We found a cozy area near the window, and didn't stop talking until he dropped me off at my door step 2 and a half hours later! I learned about his family, he learned about mine. We talked about traveling, and where we'd still like to travel to. We talked about God, and Jesus. We talked about work (he was a Teacher at Hastings High School for 25 years), children, spouses, health, politics, faith, hope, forgiveness, the elderly, food and art.

He was so considerate saying, "Now look how rude I'm being talking about me and my life, now how about you and your life, that's what we need to talk about."

I was so blessed today with this time-what a gift from the Almighty! I encourage everyone reading this to reach out to people-especially "older" people. They need us! We need them-Ivan had his spirit fed and I did too-both in different ways. Make time to befriend people, and see what God will do with it. 

Thank you for listening to my story of my date with Ivan. OH, and he smelled good too!