Birra Romantica

I met a boy when I was in Belgium.  He was Italian, had been living there for three years and offered to show me around.  He was cute, maybe an inch or two shorter than me, but I was on my own and not about to say no to a host showing me around.  We were walking around Brussels, winding around the cobblestone alleys when a waiter at a cafe says his spiel in German, and it ends with, "...birra romantica?"

My new friend's response was pretty quick, this made me like for him go from a six to an eight.  We went and had a non romantic beer at another place...and, well, it's me, so, yeah, I ended up sleeping with him.  

Complisult #72

Silly Sausage

While at my friend's wedding reception I found myself conversing with another of the bride's friends and the minister who performed the ceremony.  There were trays of super yummy hor d'oeuvres, which included some bacon wrapped sausages.  As we were all chatting the ministers eyes began roaming as he was keeping an eye out for the plate of sausages.

Soon after this verbal slip up the minister went to chat with some other members of his congregation. My new wedding friend and I laughed and fretted over the innuendo that was accidentially spewed onto this man of the cloth.  We were discussing whether or not he got the subtleties of what was said or if he was too sausage hungry to notice when we came back over to us to introduce us to his partner...which happened to be a man...so the minster was in fact sausage hungry...in more ways than one...making the prior comment more than appropriate...crisis averted! 

HOLIDAY VIDEO 2014

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE!!!!

I am very happy to unveil my annual holiday video.  I hope you all enjoy, I upped my production quality, but not my dance skills or lip sync abilities...take what you can get...I do :)

http://youtu.be/YTVwq3Y4UqE

British Gentleman

I was travelling from England to Belgium a couple months ago, and I had a connecting bus.  The first bus dropped me off at this little bus stop with no people or lights, but my next bus went on a ferry, and I could see signs indicating the ferry terminal was nearby.  When I got off the bus, I asked the driver if this is where I waited for the bus going on the ferry to Belgium and she told me yes.  So, I'm waiting and waiting...being very patient, which is not in my nature, except when I'm on holiday, I suppose.  No other people show up, and then I start to see some buses drive by on a highway a good 100 yards from where this bus stop is.  I finally see a guy walk by with a reflective vest, and assume he works for the ferry terminal. 

This is the angriest I've ever made a stranger.  Except there was this youth in the park the day before who wanted 3 pounds 50 for chicken and chips.  He had a friend with him, and I felt uncomfortable, so I said no and then he called me a "horrible bitch" not shouty, just in a quiet storm kind of way.  The next girl he walked up to and asked gave him the money, so I guess he got his chicken and chips.  Anyway, this ferry terminal guy was vocally upset with me.  So upset, in fact, that he threw his hat on the ground.  Here is a re-dramatization. 

After he picked his hat up, and properly chastised me, making me feel quite small and stupid he told me to get in his car and we chased the bus towards the ferry.  When we got in the car, he was sniffling a bit from being outside all day.  He apologized for the sniffles, but no mention was made of the hat outburst.  He had to flash his badge to get us through some checkpoints and we found my bus just as it was about to go through immigration.  It was a german bus driver who was not impressed with my shenanigans at all, but at least I made it.

Things in my Handbag

four un-cashed checks...who even still writes checks?!?
mittens
quick trip gift card
Christmas themed head bands (yes, that is plural)
Three scented markers (among the flavours is pepperoni pizza)
travel toothbrush and toothpaste (missed that one TSA)
one green apple
ukulele tuner
two slices of pizza in a Ziploc

#BeautifulDisaster

I finally found a weekend to go to Chicago to visit my university roommate, Rach.  I was super stoked, things at home have been tense at home and I was ready for a weekend of fun escapism.  I work half days on Saturday and have Mondays off, so I booked on a new economy airline and got a round-trip ticket for under a hungee.  Then the Tuesday before my departure my boss surprised me by giving me Saturday off as a birthday present.  I looked into changing my flight, but it was more than twice my original price, and I could still only leave earlier Saturday morning, so I found an overnight bus so I could leave late Friday evening and get in Saturday morning.  I didn't cancel my flight there because it was so cheap it seemed pointless.  Plus the flight was so cheap, what's another 40 dollar bus ride, it was still cheap travel.

The scene was set, my friend would meet me at 8am Saturday morning in Grand Central Station, brunch, ice skating in matching sweaters, Friendsgiving, the usual.

We met up as planned and Rach told me the brunch place she picked out did not have booze.  I was appalled.  Rach was a good sport and knew another place off the top of her head that did serve booze.  Game on.  We ordered a jug of mimosas...by this time I'm sure it was 10am, so a reasonable time to start drinking on a Saturday.  We continued drinking wine as we did our best impressions of Chicago tourists.  At one point we were balancing bottles on a trashcan to pour the wine from the conspicuous wine bottle into a coffee tumbler and plastic bottle, because we are classy grown up ladies...I mean we aren't still in university.

We couldn't find desirable matching sweaters and H & M, although they did have a DJ spinning in the store, so we scrapped the ice skating idea and instead went to the Hancock Building that has an amazing observation deck, and these windows you plaster your body against that tilt out over the city. We got to the top and took a million pictures, bought their signature drink (aptly names sky high).  When we got to the ticket man for the Tilt! I realized I didn't have my wallet.  I retraced my steps and had left it in a bathroom stall (like I said before...classy).  With the wallet recovered nothing was stopping us from tilting.

Afterwards we got a couple more bottles of wine for the train ride back to Rach's suburb.  We made friends with the train conductor, posed for some pictures with him and his CB...this is where I blacked out...it was around 4pm.  This is a week after my 31st birthday.  When will I have my shit together.  Spoiler alert:  not this weekend.

The rest of this night is as told to me by Rach.

We are walking home from the train station, and I stop to pee...outside a gas station...in a sparse patch of trees...I insist this is the woods.  I take my coat off to pee.  When we get back to Rach's place I don't have my coat.  Rach goes to look for it and finds it thrown in a heap on a street.  When she gets back I realize I have lost my phone.  I insist on going out and looking for it.  I get lost.  I go to a restaurant and ask if Rach and her husband are there, the hostess has no idea what I'm talking about.  By some stroke of dumb luck I'm able to find my way back to Rach's place, 45 minutes later.  We go to Rach and Hubby's usual pub hangout and order two pizzas, a pitcher of beer, and some lunchbox shots.  Rach's Hubby and I get in a pizza fight (when Rach tells me this the next morning, I immediately ask if I ate pizza off the floor or anywhere else weird...we all look at each other shrug and decide I most likely had...I'm not surprised).  Rach was obsessed with our waitress who shared her name, we got her a shot too.  Rach liked her way more than she liked us.  And as a testament to what a good friend Rach is, she kept trying to download the tinder app on her phone for me to be on the prowl.  She made sure to set ground rules with me saying I wasn't allowed to bring any guys back to their place, to which I responded, "Of course I would go back to his place."  But because she was on her phone it kept linking through her facebook account and her profile was a picture of her and the Hubby kissing at their wedding...so she quickly uninstalled tinder, and I accepted my single status for the weekend.  We go back home, the Hubby passes out, we draw a mustache on his face.  Then Rach makes me watch a documentary about her favourite performance artist, because she can never get anyone to watch it with her.  I am super in to it and Rach is happy to share his biography with me.  We have a two hour heart to heart (H2H) which involves lots of talk about feelings and both end up sobbing.  I pass out.  The Hubby wakes up and comes back into the living room ready to hang out since he has had his nap, Rach says absolutely not and takes him to bed.  End scene.

The next morning, Sunday, Rach fills me in on all the happenings the night before, we don't have a lot of time to dwell on it because we have lots of errands to do for Friendsgiving, plus I have to go buy a new phone now.  We got a turkey centerpiece, a gingerbread house for crafternoon and a set of gravy boats then head home to start cooking.  I'm useless so my only job was peeling potatoes, I used the rest of the time to set up my new phone.  It was an HTC, I hated it.  I was busy downloading apps, when I heard a commotion from the kitchen.  The next thing I knew Rach was on her hands and knees sobbing cleaning up the floor.  It was a real family fight!!  This Friendsgiving was super authentic.  I consoled my friend, told the Hubby he had to apologize, boom, crisis averted.  Sometimes I'm not useless.  We have a lovely Friendsgiving meal, seriously the most delicious food ever, and everyone was happy despite earlier events.  We start making the gingerbread house and it quickly collapses.  Instead we each decorate a wall, I take a bite out of mine.  I try to take a picture of the gingerbread walls and then I realize my HTC has no camera flash.  It's 2014...how am I supposed to instagram without a flash!!  I'm going to have to buy another new phone.

Monday morning comes and I go to work with my friend.  I find a phone on amazon and order it while she is doing registration for an event she is practically running...she is kind of a bad-ass.  I get her coffee and tell her she can yell and me in a demeaning manner like I'm a lowly assistant if she wants to.  She doesn't.  I head to the airport to catch my flight.  When I get there they tell me they automatically cancelled my reservation because I didn't take the flight out there.  I have to buy a whole new ticket to get back home.  I call the airline to complain and they leave me on hold for so long my stupid worthless HTC battery dies.  When I get home I message Rach and tell her what happened.  She replies she is so sorry, the weekend was a disaster.  I respond it was a beautiful disaster, and I have no regrets...besides, if I did, I wouldn't be able to remember them.