Mexanese Mumbo Jumbo

I'm not a pack rat. Thankfully a skill I did not inherit from my Grandmother or I wouldn't be able to live in the small abode I currently reside in. Since opting out of the married club and rejoining all my single ladies, I've been trying to figure out what to do with the box containing a massive 8-layer, strapless princess dress I wore eons ago on my wedding day. I reviewed my options:

- sell it
- keep it
- burn it a la Jennifer Aniston
- donate it

Finally an option presented itself - massacre it!

This year's company Christmas party theme was a Masquerade Ball and I soon realized the princess dress was perfect for the occasion, but perhaps with less tulle. It took almost 3.5 hrs of removing unneeded layers of tulle, cutting off the train, sewing on black tulle to the top part of the dress and a beer whilst contemplating - how the hell did I ever walk around in that sucka?!

After all that work, I started chickening out on wearing the dress. Sure, there's a few amazon women left in Agency that I could probably count on to show up at the party with fancy dresses, but would they be full length ones? Plus there was also that tiny, itty bitty, teensy problem regarding the snugness of the dress (Apparently I've gained a few in the last 6 yrs).

So, as per a co-worker's suggestion, I started drinking more water than usual in hopes that it would slim me down a couple of pounds for the night in question. It did not. In fact, it did the opposite, and it took 3 gals to zip me into the dress. I managed to survive most of the night, to a large extent by taking small breaths, until the dancing began and it became a breathe or dance situation. I chose dancing. Thankfully, I had brought a backup dress and shoes, so, with Streefy's help, I pull a Celebrity Award Host move and did a wardrobe change half way through the night which allowed me to dance until I couldn't feel my feet. Although I'm happy to report, I didn't have to walk home bare foot this time.

The next morning was very reminiscent of the Riptown days, and revolved primarily around me not hurling my guts out on the bus, large bouts of nausae once I got into the office, one very mistaken berry drink and sitting at Starbucks for 45 mins while waiting for the manager of Pop Opera to appear so Narcis and I could get in and retrieve our posters.

Note to self, next time, maybe don't offer to be on the party organizing committee so that having to be functional the day after the Christmas party is not necessary.

Most people have lazy moments. I am the opposite and have productive moments. If I don't have to, I will gladly spend the weekends in my pj's without leaving my house. However the depths of my laziness reached an all time low the other night as I hunkered down with the felines to watch some TV.

The batteries in my remotes have been dying slow and painful deaths of late. Every night I think to myself "I have to remember to get new batteries". And every day I get home, having completely forgotten about the batteries.

The reason this simple and common household occurrence has caused me to reach an all-time low, is the fact that I literally live above a London Drugs and an IGA. You'd think it'd be a simple trip down 6 floors, in an elevator nonetheless, and a 5 min purchase. But no, apparently that's too much effort and instead I would rather get up from the couch and go to manually turn on the surround sound or TV whenever the batteries in my remotes fail because that apparently doesn't smack of effort - go figure.

Check it out - decision finally made!!! Feeling pretty good about it...hoping this decision lasts. Although as some of you know - I'm constantly changing things in my life (finally made a decision about the colours of my bathroom - only took me a year to decide). Fingers crossed I stick with this one for a while.

Will eventually replace the picture above but am going to either need to bone up the photoshop skills or try to bribe one of my artistically inclined friends to help me (hint hint, nudge nudge)

Ah Montreal. The one place in Canada I hadn't been to and actually wanted to go to. Since Santos moved there in July, I decided I should take advantage of the free accommodations and head east to check it out. Plus, it seems to be my traveling theme for the year to hit up the major east coast cities on separate occasions because I'm just not that organized to plan them all together.

I had originally planned to go in October, before it got too cold or snowy, but the horrid tonsillitis derailed said plans. So I ended up re-scheduling my trip for November and spent the rest of October shaking my toush in my version of a weather dance hoping that Mother Nature would appreciate the effort and hold off on the snow until after my visit.

I arrived in the early evening in Montreal and after a questionable cab ride during which the cabbie pretended he was going to charge me $200 for using my credit card to pay, then couldn't believe that Vancouver gets as much traffic as Montreal or Toronto and getting slightly lost, I managed to arrive at Santos' place in one piece. First order of business was food, beer and a good old fashioned catchup session.

The next morning Santos went out to grab coffee and the absolute best croissant I've ever had in my life. Seriously - I'm ruined for life now. I later met him for lunch at a little place called Cafe Local where they had an amazing pulled pork poutine. This was the beginning of the end...the photos of every meal started, the posting to facebook and twitter and the torturing of those back home who know how good the food I was having was. Not gonna lie, I secretly loved the torturing.

The other night, after a very long day at work where I just about lost the plot on several occasions due to external forces trying to derail my project that was already on an insane timeline, I ended up meeting Justin for drinks. He too had had a tough day and we decided it was going to be a bit of a drinking contest - not for bragging rights but more for memory loss.

Unsure I was going to be able to keep up to the Drinking King himself - self proclaimed during a recent Vegas trip for Halloween and hereby forever known as - I arrived to find a lovely and welcoming Vodka martini waiting for me at V Lounge - I have such great friends! I also arrived to find some ex-coworkers from the degenerate gambling company (as Streefy calls it) who are, well...let's just say they are fine examples of douchebagery when drunk.

Between ignoring them as much as possible, watching them hit on all the girls in our area of the bar, and trying to get them to stop talking to us, we competed for who had the worst day. I have to admit - I lost this round. Justin's win was primarily due to a story from an ex-employee who was recently let go and who, for some reason, decided to send one last parting gift to the company and his co-workers. I would've guessed anything from a lawsuit, to a surprise visit, to a very angry letter/email littered with foul language. But no, this particular ex-employee decided to send a cake. That's right - a cake, accompanied by a Bible quote, Ecclesiastes 2:24, that says one should find satisfaction in one's work. Not really sure what that's supposed to mean, but if i were them, I'd start wearing bulletproof vests and stay away from the windows...just saying.

The other day I headed out for a friend's bday. It's one of those friends who has like 500 facebook friends and seems to know everyone. Sure, the fact that he's probably related to at least half of them in some way is of little or no consequence, but I was basically expecting to only know about 5 people. Usually I bail on these types of events but for some reason I decided to go.

I arrived a bit late, thanks to a last minute hair styling decision, and found about 30 of our crew already in the restaurant, 3 waitresses looking like they might loose their noodle and various other patrons throwing nasty glares at us. Evidently they weren't given the memo about how we usually take over a restaurant.

Since there were so many of us, tables of 6 were lined up against one wall of the restaurant with very little space in between to walk. If you were the sad soul stuck sitting by the wall, you better have the bladder of a camel because you weren't gonna move any time soon. Not knowing many people, I joined the few friends I did know at a table, and unfortunately blocked in one of the out of towner guests for the better part of 3 hours, forcing him to listen to my badly told stories, awkward jokes and slurry conversation. Good times were had, to be sure.

After dinner was mostly done and people were starting to mingle a bit more, one of the guys at our table turned to me and asked if I'm single. After confirming said status, he promptly asked, "Are you high maintenance?". Now how are you supposed to answer that? Besides, it's a completely subjective topic. What is considered "high maintenance"? A friend of mine takes 1 1/2 hrs to get ready, does that make him high maintenance? (yes that's right, it's a guy).

So not knowing exactly how to answer, I said "No, not really". Next thing you know, he starts talking up his brother. His brother, I might add, who's current opening line when hitting on a girl is: "Hey". Something I reminded this fine young lad of, and advised him that, though I'm not high maintenance, I am gonna need him to say something other than "Hey". His brother then magically appeared and was promptly introduced. I was informed that anything Windows 7 related - he was my man. I'm a Mac girl. Our match just wasn't in the cards. Such a shame.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for being set up by friends, but between the mother wanting to set me up with her son, the next door neighbour who might want a threesome and being introduced to a brother who's best line is "Hey", I think I'm in need of an imaginary (rich and uber hot) boyfriend. Streefy - does Consuelo have any brothers?