Mexanese Mumbo Jumbo

As previously posted, I've recently joined the land of the online dater.

I met a few nice guys, along with some creepy guys and of course, my fair share of weird guys. Here's some of the highlights:

The Love of my Life:
I had one guy email me 3 times actually, each with a different story. His last email was comprised of a list character traits that I think were meant to show me how committed/emotionally stable/affectionate/lovable/etc he is. Except he sort of missed the mark when he said that the love of his life is his mother and that he still lived with her. Sentiment is great, just failed on the communication of it and came across as a mamma's boy with issues.

The Kinda Maybe Sorta:
I went out with this one guy who seemed nice, but the guy wouldn't stop sweating or fidgeting. Granted it was warm in the restaurant, and while I'd like to think I made him nervous (what girl doesn't like to think that?), I really think the guy just needs to grow a set.

I came to this conclusion shortly after I discovered his affinity to "..." in text message, when he asked if I ever wanted to meet up again.... When I suggested perhaps a movie (hoping this would help reduce his fidgeting) his prompt reply was "only if you want to... I don't want you to waste your time/energy...."

I get that we all have insecurities, but I'm sorry - if I've said yes to your lame ass implication of a second date, just go with it instead of playing the "only if you want to" game. Needless to say, the movie never happened.

The Booty Call:
I got various emails of this nature. Some were subtle and simply implied the idea. Some were fairly overt. But I think the one that stands out the most was one guy who asked me which body part I liked most about myself, a new variation of the "what are you wearing" approach. Sure, he could've been sincere and expected a "I really like my hair" type of response, but somehow, I just don't think that was the case.

As you may know, I've sold my car and become a full time transit commuter. I've had many adventures on transit, and this week was no exception.

An elder gentleman, let's call him Lawrence, boarded the bus and proceeded to negotiate a free ride from the bus driver by claiming he was trying to get to his church on the other side of the bridge. Nothing overly exciting as negotiating for a free bus ride appears to be a common occurrence in Vancouver. He sat next to me, wearing a lovely cologne mixture of stale beer, mud and B-O while sporting a silly grin on his face.

He then proceeded to annoy the bus driver by trying to talk to her. Like a responsible public transit employee, she politely asked him to shut it while she was driving. At the next stop, a slow moving, elderly woman boarded the bus and Lawrence immediately got up and offered her his seat. He even assisted her as she sat down. A short while later, at the elderly woman's stop, he helped her get up from her seat and practically walked her off the bus.

I have to admit, I was pretty shocked. Not only was that not expected from one of Vancouver's drunkards, it was extremely chivalrous of him. Goes to prove that while there are a lot of stereotypical homeless folks in Vancouver, not everyone has forgotten their manners or social graces.

The other day, Dana and I headed out at our lunch break to take some pictures around our office.

Despite the lack inspiring shots (seriously, could it have been any greener?), I did manage to get a few decent shots.

Where would it be?

Easy peasy if you've won the lottery or suddenly became part of the "Nouveau Riche" club thanks to an ancient cousin, 3 times removed, that finally kicked the bucket. But sans either of the above, I image it'd be tough to move to a new city, especially considering some of my choices.

Top of the List:

• New York. In a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat actually - in a millisecond.

Tied for Second:

• Montreal
• Boston
• Paris
• London

Ironic that for someone who loves the heat, sun and warmth, more than half of my top 2 choices are on the east coast where winters are famously cold.

Third

• San Diego
• Cannes or Nice
• Anywhere in Ireland (in case you missed it, I have a small Irish obsession)

While I continue to dream, and believe, I will one day live in one of these great cities, I'm pretty happy to stick around Vancouver and explore the rest of the world from the comforts of my own home.

I'm a guy's gal. I'm a beer girl. I go dancing with the boys instead of the girls. Meeting potential dates is kinda hard in my life. Throw in the Vancouver cliquishness and you're bound to find yourself home alone with the cats and a chick flick on date night.

So I decided to delve into the world of online dating for a month to see what it's all about, possibly meet the new man in my life and in hopes of some refreshing blog material.

After struggling with writing my own profile, I finally handed over the reigns to Ali who produced a short and sweet paragraph that summed me up to a tee.

First thing I noticed, it's incredibly time consuming! For someone who spends all day on the computer, the last thing I really want to do is sit at the computer at home for any great length of time.

Anyhoo, I'll be sure to share some of the adventures soon...stay tuned!

It never fails to amaze me what people put in their guacamole.

I was perusing a blog I frequently read and came across a recipe for "Guiltless Guacamole", that included garlic in it's list of ingredients and suggested adding coconut oil if it's too thick, or ground almonds if it's too thin.

Ok, I know I'm very biased. And I know I prefer simple foods (rotini pasta with a little butter, salt, pepper and a bit of parmesan cheese is heaven!), but really?! Coconut oil?? Ground almonds?? In guacamole??!! There's so much wrong with that suggestion, I don't even know where to start!

Why would your guacamole be too thin? You don't need to douse it in lime juice, it's meant to flavour it and keep the avocado green. Why would it be too thick? Don't you want to be able to scoop the sucker??

I really think sometimes people get so caught up in trying to make things different for the sake of making something different, they forget that on occasion, simple is better. To be fair, I'm not saying adding coconut oil or ground almonds wouldn't taste good and add a new exotic twist, but classics are classics.

For those of you who enjoy the simpler things in life like I do, here's my guacamole recipe, just enough for two, or in my case, just enough for me:

1 ripe avocado, peeled and mashed
1 hot house tomato, diced
A couple slices of medium white or red onion, chopped
A jalapeno, finely chopped added in small increments to taste
1/2 - 1 bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped added to taste
lime juice
salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Serve immediately or refrigerate in an air tight container for 15-30mins then serve.

And just as a bonus, if you remove the avocado from the recipe above, you have yourself homemade salsa. Oh snap!

Gone are the days of 2 beer lunches with the boys. My life has since taken a significant turn towards the tamer, and I now need to be in bed at a reasonable hour on a school night.

This past weekend I decided I needed a throwback to the good old days, and I devoted a large chunk of my Sunday to drinking. I fully blame Mother Nature. Thanks to the downpour that happened just as we sat down for lunch, we ended up spending the better part of 3 hours sharing 2 bottles of wine amongst 3 of us.

Once the rain let up, we headed out to explore Italian Day on the Drive. Tilly and I had enough liquid courage to ask complete strangers if we could take their pictures, and I accidentally called a cute 1 yr old a boy when she was actually a girl. Awkward!

Shortly after our paparazzi excursion, we popped into the local watering hole for a few more bevvies. This was probably my downfall, as I proceeded to mix red wine with Guinness and forgot to eat dinner.

Monday was obviously a little rough, however my sleeping pattern from the night before didn't help either:

Pass out at 10:30pm
Woken up due to a nauseous feeling around 1am
Prop myself up with pillows and sip water for another 30mins - 1 hour
Woken up by the cats around 4/5am
Woken up by the alarm at 7:30am

I texted Tilly the next day to keep her apprised of my current status, only to be replied with "I feel good, even got up for a 6am run this morning". I realized then, exactly how old I am.

Here's some random food for thought. I was on the bus the other day, sans the quiet sanctity of my headphones and forced to listen to the mundane, occasionally loud, conversations happening around me.

I inadvertently tuned into a couple of women having a conversation behind me about the use of "Honey" and "Hun" in the work place. From what I could gather, they worked with the elderly and both were appalled at another co-worker for calling them "Hun".

In fact, one of them was so offended she got into an argument with said co-worker, stating that in all her years of schooling, the first thing they always told students is to NOT call an elderly "Hun", "Dear", etc as it is extremely condescending, belittling and is treating them like children.

It got me thinking about whether I offend anyone in my life for using such terms of endearment. I know I will occasionally call the women I work with "Lady", but I've been called that too. I will call certain girlfriends "Sweetie", "Hun", "Honey" or even "Babe" (come to think of it, I call my friend Gord all those too, but he's a lovely dovey mushy type of guy) but to my knowledge, I have yet to offend anyone.

The alarm went off at 6:05am today. 6:05. AM. That's frigging early. I proceeded to snooze the horrid robot iPhone alarm that seems to be the only sound that will scare me awake at that hour.

10 minutes later, I reluctantly rolled out of bed and started throwing on some running gear. As I made my way to the elevator while tying my runners, I thought to myself "Hmm...that toe right next to my big toe kinda hurts...meh".

I met up with Wayne for our usual 5km morning run, mostly in silence. It's before 9am. It's usually best if I don't speak. Over the years, Wayne has learned not to take it personally if I don't respond when spoken to.

Post-run, as I was getting ready, I noticed what looked like a splinter in my toe, the one that was hurting. Upon further inspection, turns out I actually sliced my toe open last night at beach vball and there was sand stuck in it.

Kinda gross, I know. Nothing life threatening and thankfully (for Wayne's sake) not annoying enough to whinge about at 6:30am. Now to put the band-aid on when you have ticklish feet...