I wouldn’t survive in the wild

I live in a basement suite. It’s bitterly cold in winter. It’s blissfully cold in summer, but that’s a-ways away, so I’m going to focus on what I’m going through now instead.

I’ve lived here for several years and since I don’t have control over the heat, I purchased a shitty heater a few years ago. Since I purchased a shitty heater, it didn’t heat very well and I was really afraid of it burning my house down. Even when in the presence of a responsible adult. Or, at the very least, me.

Back in December, I bought an un-shitty heater. I reveled in the warmth. I looked forward to returning to my house because I knew it would warm up soon after turning my new heater on. Or it would already be warm, if I inadvertently left it on that morning. I became so used to the magic of heat, that I forgot what it was like to be cold.

The other night, after having a few (dozen) wobbly pops, I was sleeping (it off) but was over-heating so much that I opened my window a crack so I didn’t sweat through my bed.

A few days later, I came home from work, turned the knob on my heater and it didn’t turn on. I’ve been devastated ever since. I didn’t realize I’d become so spoiled, but it turns out that I’ve become the biggest pussy on the face of the planet because it’s not even that cold now (a balmy 8`C; 46F).

The first night I went to bed, in my cold house, and tried to sleep, in my cold bed, my feet were so frozen it took almost an hour of breathing into my blanket to warm up enough to fall asleep. I was convinced I left my window open from my drunken slumber several night’s prior. Alas, no. I was just that cold.

Since then, every morning, I lie in bed as long as possible just so I don’t have to expose my body to the cold air. I immediately jump in the shower and as soon as I get out, I jump back into bed. I dress in record time and sometimes, pre-heat my clothes in my bed with me so that they’re warm when I put them on. Sometimes I dress under my blankets so that my skin never feels anything but warm air and warm clothes.

And as I type this, I have blankets on my lap (and up to my chest) and have decided that a Snuggie isn’t such a bad thing. Because my arms are fricken freezing!

I don’t have the creative juice (a.k.a. blood flow to the brain) to come up with picture ideas, let alone draw them.

But, I do have 90 days to return the heater AND I still have the receipt, so I’ll be taking that bad boy back for an exchange.

Pop quiz, hot shot!

There are a couple pubs near my house. I’ve been known to walk into them once or twice. I may or may not know some of the bartenders/waitresses. They may or may not know me by name and/or drink of choice.

I like to think it’s because I’m memorable not because of my rate of attendance. It might be both.

Friday night, I left the salsa club and decided to stop in for a drink at one of the pubs. I was cutting it close, I knew they wouldn’t serve me past 1am and it was 12:55. I convinced myself that it was okay. The last time I was this close, I knew the bartender and he served me, albeit reluctantly, because “Oh. It’s you…”. If it was anyone else, he probably would have told them to screw off. But he didn’t; he served me. The other patrons found it amusing.

So anyway, I walked in the place Friday night and didn’t see a familiar face behind the bar. Shit. I thought for sure that I wasn’t going to get served. Once I got her attention, I politely asked if I’d missed last call; she checked the clock and said “You got two minutes!”.  Success!

Two days later, I walked into place and once again didn’t see a familiar face behind the bar.

He was a new guy… apparently this was his second shift. I guess that happens. Shortly after my arrival, my favourite bartender, Mikey, came in.

This bartender is the best. First of all, he’s cute as a button.  Seriously, I could just put him in my pocket and carry him around all day. But also, he’s just a really nice guy. A real genuine sweetheart.

One night, I started asking him questions to get to know him a bit. I don’t know why. I don’t normally do this; I’m usually perfectly satisfied with not knowing much about my bartenders, even though they know me. For some reason, that wasn’t good enough with this one. I asked him how long he’d worked there and if he had any other bartending jobs before this place. He told me that he worked at this other bar a-ways-out in CloverHole.

It’s the same bar that The Beanstalk worked at. Small world. I asked him if he knew Jack and explained how I knew him. Since I know Jack from Thailand’s bar, I haven’t seen him for awhile (and probably won’t for even longer), so I asked Mikey to say hi for me.

The next time I came in, I asked him if he’d seen Jack. He hadn’t. I wanted to make sure that he had the story straight (it’s not like Jack and I are such good friends that he would know exactly who Mikey was talking about if he gave my name). In order to make sure he had the story straight, I asked him three questions.

1. What’s my name?
2. Where do I know Jack from?
3. What kind of dancing do I do?

If he had those pieces of information, Jack should know who I am.

Mikey got some of the questions wrong. Not acceptable. The next time I went in, I asked him another three questions.

1. Who do we both know?
2. What kind of dancing do I do?
3. What’s my drink of choice?

Again, he got some wrong, so the next time I went in, I had to ask another three questions.

I didn’t realize what I had started. Problem is, after while, he started ace-ing the quiz; I had to get creative. Now, months after the fact, he has since stopped working with Jack, but I still keep on. 

The first time I got creative, I asked him what his favourite colour is. He was shocked.

But he played along. Even when I asked him if he was old enough to drink in the States, he just laughed and said “I see what you did there! And yes I am!!” (He’s a baby face… no wonder I’ve got a soft spot for him). I appreciated it, even though I had a nagging thought…

But I keep on keeping on. But still… I often wonder what he thinks about quiz time.

This last time I was there (yes, it was a Sunday night), I informed him it was quiz time, he said he needed “three minutes”, he was training the new guy. It took much longer than three minutes. While I sat there trying to come up with my three questions, I couldn’t help but think he was delaying it because he hates it. I became self-conscious.

He came up to me and apologized for it taking so long. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I asked him two questions. My third question was (taking a page from the book of JY):

TWG: On a scale of 1.5 to 7.3, how much do you hate quiz time?

M: On a scale of 1.5 to 7.3?!??!? *incredulous*

TWG: Yes. *not incredulous* 1.5 being that you love quiz time and look forward to it; 7.3 being that you hate quiz time and shudder when you see me walk in the door.

M: Oh… *laughs* Well… 1.5 of course!

I figured he was humoring me, but when I was leaving, I told him “good to see you again, see ya next time”.

I won’t. Aw shucks…

Music Day feat. Gorm

I’ve mentioned a few times that Gorm & I often get together and have music day. Well, just in case you didn’t believe me, now we have proof.

We had music day this past weekend and recorded a few songs for evidence that it actually happens and we don’t suck… as bad as we used to anyway. A lot can happen after years of practice.

Gorm posted the videos on YouTube for the world to see. Show him some love and check out his channel here.

I think this one turned out the best (ironically enough, out of the songs posted it’s the newest song in our repertoire). Enjoy!

Gorm & ThatWhiteGirl’s Music Day!

There are a couple other songs posted on his channel from this session, but there are even more featuring his solo act.

Games are fun!!

I went to a games event the other day. It’s exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of people get together and play a bunch of games. I’ve been to a few of these now, the type of games vary; this time it was mostly trivia because there were so many people playing.

Since there were so many people, that may or may not know each other, the hosts started us off with “Mingle Bingo”. Basically you have a bingo card and you have to make a pattern. The squares have questions, like “Who drives a 2-door vehicle” and “Name a single child”. In order to try and be one of the winners, you have to go around and ask people questions. It was surprisingly fun.

One of the questions was “Who rents property”. It started out that I was volunteering this information; I’d be talking with someone, looking at what they needed on their card and see that square empty. I’d say “I rent” and they’d fill it in. Soon enough, people are seeking me out to ask me if I rent. I didn’t think much of it until this guy, that I’ve met a few times, came up to me:

C: Hey, Heather, do you rent?

TWG: Yeah, I do.

C: I thought so…

TWG: What?!

C: You seem like someone that would rent…

TWG: What the fuck is that supposed to mean??!

C: I dunno… *looks around and then lowers his voice* It’s just that, you know, white people get kicked out of home when they're adults.

I was pleased he was going by stereotypes, for a minute there, I thought I wore my “inappropriate” t-shirt.

I guess I should mention that the friend hosting this party is Asian. There were 50 people there by the end of the event, I was one of three white people. The other two whiteys were a couple, with kids in tow. No wonder everyone was going up to the single white chick to fill this square.

My hosts had a number of snacks available for guests, one of these snacks was a cup of instant noodles. I walked into the kitchen to grab a drink when the other white girl stopped me and asked if I knew how to operate, what I can only describe as, the hot water maker.

No, it’s not a kettle. It’s a contraption I’ve never seen before. I uselessly mashed buttons and when I realized that I (still) had no idea, I said the first thing that came to mind.

I turned around and found an Asian girl standing nearby. I asked her if she knew how to operate the hot water maker. She did it without blinking an eye and made it look like second nature. I turned to the other white girl and said “See? You just asked the wrong person”.

She politely smiled and went about making her cup of noodle, all the while avoiding eye contact. Fuck. I made an ass of myself. Again. When I turned around, this guy I never met before was looking at me with a funny look on his face.

I was afraid I was going to be reprimanded.

I was really glad he was amused.

Like I said, most of the games were trivia and, for some reason, I tend to do fairly well at these. We had a “battle of the sexes” round, where all the girls go in a room and are asked questions that most guys would know the answers to and vice versa.

The girls had no idea. The last two questions were being asked, we hadn’t gotten one right and the pressure was mounting. We had to get at least one!

Q1: What does RAM stand for? I didn’t hesitate: “Random Access Memory!”. One point for the girls. We learned that the guys also had one point. Tie game. We had to get the next one.

Q2: Which movie involves a diamond heist where the men involved use nicknames based on colours? Again, I didn’t hesitate “Reservoir Dogs!!”. Because, ironically enough, having not seen that movie for years, I started watching it the night before. I didn’t make it through the entire movie, but I watched enough to learn the characters “nicknames” (Mr. White!) and that diamonds were involved.

So… we won! Suddenly I had a reputation; I carried my team.

The winning team got to pick an envelope; inside the envelope was “money”; the money could be used for purchasing something in an auction at the end. I raked in $222.

During the auction, people were out-bidding each other over $100-$150. I didn’t seem to care; I wasn’t even participating. Then the 5th prize came out – all the prizes were in gift bags so you didn’t know what you were going to get. I had a feeling about Bag E, so I bid $50; someone upped it to $60; I said $75; they said $80. Enough of this… $222!!

I got the prize. When I opened the gift bag I nearly peed myself from containing my laughter.

Most appropriate prize ever.

Adventures in Real Life Dating–part 3 (?)

I’ve brought you installments on real life dating stories in the past. Like NutJob & Cruper (who, incidentally, texted me on Boxing Day wishing me a Merry Christmas. Nearly 16 months since our one and only date. Nearly 16 months since I stopped responding to his texts. Nearly 16 months since I told him to leave me alone. Not that I’m keeping track or anything).

Well, I have a few more for you. (Just when you thought that I wouldn’t have any new stories because I quit POF).

First up:

This one isn’t really a dating story, but it could have been, so I’m going with it. I met him at a skytrain station well over a year ago (you meet all the “good ones” on public transit). He approached me and said “I just want to say that I think you’re cute and you have a really nice smile.”. I thanked him and we chatted a bit. I wasn’t sure if he was kind of drunk, or mildly retarded. He asked for my phone number. I didn’t have the heart to say no, so I gave him a fake number (not entirely fake, just the last few digits mixed around). Not one of my finer moments, but that’s what I did.

Two weeks later, I have a voicemail on my phone. It was from a guy that sounded either kind of drunk, or mildly retarded. I kid you not.

I shared this story with a friend at work, and he coined a nickname for the guy: my Autistic Stalker.

Fast forward a year. I was at the Salsa club a few months back when this guy approached me with a big old grin on his face. I didn’t think much of it; he looked familiar, so I figured he was going to ask me to dance. I just didn’t realize how I knew him. As soon as he opened his mouth I knew. He didn’t even have to finish his sentence. “I just want to say that I think you’re cute and you have a really nice smile.”. So it was his line…

Next up:

I met him at dance several months ago. I “affectionately” call him El Retardo. But don’t let the name fool you; he’s not Latino.

I met him, we danced, he hit on me and asked for my number. I gave it to him.  We ended up agreeing to meet the Sunday before I went to Thailand. It was the most annoying build up to a date ever.

We were supposed to meet at a coffee shop in the mall. The mall closed at 6pm, we were meeting at 8pm; when I told him and suggested another location, he dismissed it and said we would “figure it out”. I was a few minutes late and rolled into the parking lot he said he was in around 8:05; he was nowhere to be seen. He rolled in at least 20 minutes after I did. I was annoyed. Then we started driving around the mall parking lot trying to find some place to go. They were all closed. Didn’t see that one coming.

I decided to let it go and continued trying to find time to connect. I say “trying” because it would take weeks for us to be able to make plans. He was a flake at best. We would make plans for “tomorrow” and then he’d ask what day we were getting together. When I told him tomorrow, he’d ask for another day because he was confused and busy tomorrow.

Other times, he’d ask if I was available to meet on a Wednesday around 10am, even though I repeatedly told him I work Mon-Fri dayshift. Then there were the times he’d ask me to meet him that night; I wouldn’t respond right away because I was at work and hadn’t gotten the text. When I would respond saying “Sure, when and where?”, I would get a response saying that I took too long to respond so he made other plans, accepted a shift at work, or went swimming and is tired now.

I had put him into the friend zone weeks earlier because I was tired of dealing with that bullshit, yet, he kept trying to make plans with me so that we could “figure us out”.

Eventually, we had plans to meet to figure us out; he indicated that he made plans before we were supposed to meet (like the quality gentleman he is) and was going to be a little late. Like at least an hour late. I’d already made plans for after and told him that being an hour late was too late. I never heard from him again. Really looking forward to that awkward moment when we’re both at the Salsa club at the same time.

Last up:

Shorty. You might remember him from my last post. He repeatedly told me that he liked dancing with me and wanted to “be my friend”. He gave me his business card because he happens to be a mechanic and told me that he’d help me if I ever had car trouble. Not a bad friend to have, so when he asked for my number, I gave it to him, even though I knew I’d be having the “friend talk” sooner rather than later.

The night after we met, he texted me and asked if I was going to go dancing. I said maybe and asked where he was going. He was going to dance at a hotel in Surrey (ironically, Thailand’s hotel). Between not wanting to give Shorty the wrong idea, being tired and also not wanting to face the awkwardness of running into Thailand (especially with a little munchkin following me around); I declined his invitation.

The next day, Shorty texted me and asked how I was doing. I asked him how dancing was on Saturday night. He said “All good. But I missed you…”

Seriously? You miss the girl that you met two days ago?? Looks like I’ve got another one on my hands. The only silver-lining to this one is the fact that he doesn’t speak much English. How is that a plus? Purely from an entertainment stand-point; getting texts like these ESL gems:

“Has dance classes is good”

“Salsa has an inquiry to please as we dance”

“You do on the job”

“And who did you do today?”

Your Mama!!! … … oh wait… that doesn’t really work as ThatWhiteGirl’s response.

A post about dancing, because you can never have too many of those!

I’ve been out of the salsa game for awhile now. I stopped lessons back in April because of my course load at school, and I got out of the routine of going to the clubs when I put my back out in summer. My presence at the clubs has been sporadic at best for the past 4 months.

Two weeks ago, I went to my first lesson since April; I was embarrassingly rusty. My teacher, the one who taught me back in April, is doing a “teach at the level of my students” kind of lesson plan instead of just beginner, intermediate or advanced kind of structure. Of the four people in my class, I’m definitely the noob and he was teaching above my skillset. So it’s not all my fault. Regardless, it has prompted me to get back in the game and have an outlet for practicing.

As a result, I went dancing Friday night for the first time in quite some time. When I got there, the lesson was still going on even though it should have been finished. I grabbed a drink and waited for it to wrap up. When it did, I wandered down to the dance floor to look for a partner, but there wasn’t many people there and all of the guys were dancing with the girls they had the lesson with. I stood there for three or four songs before I ended up ‘circle dancing’ with a bunch of girls.

I was convinced that it was going to be an early night at the club and that I’d end up stopping in at my neighbourhood pub for a couple drinks before heading home. Then one of the guys asked me to dance, and then another, and then another. Before I knew it, I was getting pulled back onto the dance floor before I even had a chance to leave it.

Being a Latin dance, quite a few of the patrons are of Latin descent, naturally. Latinos are not usually particularly tall. I am fairly tall for a girl, so I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I am usually taller than my dance partner, especially when you consider that I also dance in heels. I don’t mind, they don’t mind, so it’s all good. Except that there are certain styles of dance that require you to be at the same level as your partner. Since they can’t get up to mine, I have to get down to theirs.

It’s basically like doing squats for 5 minutes straight, without the relief of being able to stand upright in between squats.

One of my partners the other night was particularly short. I mean, he is probably 5’3” at best. I’m 5’8” and I was wearing 2” heels. I towered over him. Doing the squat dance was particularly painful. Between the pain in my knees and my thirst, I decided to go to the bar to grab a drink and have a sit down. The bartender saw me and asked “The same?”; I said “No – could I have a glass of water, please?”. As he’s pouring my glass of water, the other bartender starts measuring out a shot of vodka; there isn’t anyone else at the bar.

I was confused, so I started slowly walking away; as I am, the bartender started saying “Wait, wait, don’t walk away!”. I was thinking “But I didn’t order a drink…”. She finished mixing the drink and said “This one is on-the-house; it’s from one of the clients”. Oh. Okay. Weird. That hasn’t happened here before. I had no idea who it was from.

I was sitting there, drinking my free drink and who walked up? Slick. Except he cut his hair off, so now he’s more like Spike. I barely recognized him. We chatted for a bit before he walked off to grab another beer. Then I was approached by two guys. One was young, kind of shy, and was basically hovering in the background while the other one talked to me. Chatty asked if I’d be willing to teach his nephew to dance. I did and he was super keen to learn.

When we made our way back to my table, Chatty asked how Nephew did; he thanked me for teaching him and said, as a thank-you, next time, he’ll dance with me all night. He made me shake on it. I’m not sure who will benefit the most from this arrangement. I guess I’ll find out next time when I discover how good of a dancer he is.

Today, I go back for lessons. Wish me luck!!

A Day in the Life…

Sometimes I find the thoughts that run through my mind thoroughly entertaining. Tonight was no exception. Here’s a glimpse into my everyday life.

I got off work late and drove home. As I walked in my front door, I noticed that it was particularly warm in my place. I live in a basement suite. It’s January and it just snowed. This is abnormal. I checked the heater that I recently bought (and works like a charm, I might add):

Even though this particular heater is supposed to be super safe, I’m still massively paranoid of burning my house down, so I tend to turn it off when I leave, even though that means my house is less than toasty when I get home from work.

I started preparing dinner, while my chicken cutlet was frying over medium heat, I sat down to check my email. Shortly after, I heard the tell-tale noises of a hot pan. I went to check on my dinner, flipped over the cutlet and found that side nearly completely charred.

Funny how I was more concerned about my heater being a fire hazard when left unattended, but I had no problem leaving oil in a hot pan unattended. The irony was not lost on me.

I then had to open my front door (no hood fan on my stove) so I could get all the smoke out of my place. While simultaneously removing all of the heat that had built up by my first fire hazard.

As I was cooking, I decided that I wanted a cup of tea, but since it was 8pm, I couldn’t very well have the tea I wanted. I typically drink black tea, which is caffeinated, which will keep me up all night if I drink it at 8pm. So I brewed a cup of this “fruit infusion” “tea”. It was ready around the time I was plating up my charred cutlet. I added a bit of sugar and milk (how I normally drink my tea) to this hot beverage.

A quick glance in my cup and all seemed well. I thought to myself “Well, it didn’t curdle so it should be good”, just as I watched the tea turn from milky tea to tea with milk chunks.