Hot People Remember the Important Things

Ok - so I may have to take something back I said in my last post. I've had some fun in New Brunswick.

But here's the thing - I have the capacity to drink like a sailor. This does not mean that I drink like a sailor every day (because I do not). Nor does it mean that I should exercise that capacity every time the opportunity presents itself (although I do perhaps a little too frequently). It's amazing, though, what a little liquid courage will do for you (or in Saturday's case, at least a bottle and a half of wine's worth).

As we all know, I have issues with meeting people. When sober, the idea is enough to make me stay home and watch chick flicks. However, recent reports suggest that drunk Miss T was dancing up a storm with half of everyone at Le Club (I'm being French again...can you tell?). Obviously, meeting people was not an issue for me last Saturday. Some girls from work that we happened to meet there even commented on it. They suggested they didn't know I had it in me. I didn't know I did either. In fact, I didn't know I had it in me until my roommate informed me sometime midway through Sunday afternoon (post-four hour nap).

It is very important to note, though, that I distinctly remember most things about the night - the IMPORTANT things, I should say. I have no idea how we got from my roommate's sister's hotel room to the bar, but I definitely remember dancing with this man.

I have no idea when or why we left this bar to go to another bar (actually I do - it had to do with a med student my roommate met and wanted to introduce to her sister), but this remedy to a garden-variety high heel problem (see, I'm not the only one who can't hack it!) was imprinted in my memory long before I turned on my camera midway through breakfast as a means of not falling asleep in my Banana Blast pancakes.

I do not remember that the band was awful, but I do remember that some creepo followed us from the second bar back to the first in the hopes of winning the affections of one of the twins..."whichever one was single". Charmant. Good hair, though.

And I do not remember how long it was between when I wedged myself between two men at the bar (very proud of myself for this courageous move) in an effort to make new friends, and when one of them found me on the dance floor. But I do remember that I felt pretty effing awesome to know that he was looking for me, and I felt really retarded every time I asked him what he did for a living...I think by the end of the night we had reached a total of seven times.
Do you think it affects my chances at a coffee date later? Hope not.

***Also Happy Birthday to my cousin, who may not be reading this, but turns 19 today and gets to enjoy all that night life has to offer.

Hot People Don't Get Lost in Potholes

I'm moving next week to a city I've never been to before. Therefore, my soon-to-be roommate and I thought it would be a good idea to take a little roadtrip up there to get the lay of the land. I'm sure you can imagine what kind of hijynx I could get into on this kind of caper.

The first snafu happened before we'd even left home. I got a call the night before from my soon-to-be roommate saying that her car had stalled in the middle of the road and we couldn't take it the next day. Because my roommate's mother gets a corporate discount, she booked a car in my name, necessitating that my credit card information be used for the most convoluted game of telephone ever (if I see that she's gone to Costa Rica on my credit card - unlikely, since it's maxed out anyway....). I was told we'd be driving a Chevy Cobalt or a Ford Focus, or something of the like...which was fine. Those are run-of-the-mill domestic cars, both of which I've driven before. When I got there, they gave me a Mitsubishi Galant. Hmmm. Instead of a $16000 car that didn't belong to me, I'd be driving at $28000 car that didn't belong to me. That's not the least bit stressful.

I took it on the road and it was a nice drive. You can tell by how excited I am.
The ride to our destination city was pretty uneventful. We checked out our apartment, got directions from our building manager in the smokiest rental office I've ever been in (seriously, we couldn't see each other from two feet away...our airways closed up in disgust!), and then headed to the gas station to fill up. That's when things got...funky. I pulled up to the pump, got out, and then realized I couldn't open the gas cap because there was no little pull-spot on the door. I got back into the car to look for a release in the driver's console...nada. I looked again on the door. I looked again at the console. I pulled away from the pump because, at this point, there was a small line-up of angry-looking motorists awaiting their fill-up while I was fannying about between the trunk and the driver's seat. Then I got the manual out - a trick I'd seen before during an hilarious "Are the lights on, or aren't they?" situation on a previous road trip. While I'm perusing the manual (I'm sucking my finger here because I bent my fingernail back trying to close the door of the car)...my roommate checks out the front console, then heads back to the gas tank to see what's up. She figures it out by accident. Apparently, you push on the wrong side, and the right side of the door opens. Genius. So intuitive.

Once we were filled up, we headed into the greater city to set up our power bill, tenant's insurance and figure out where a couple other essentials were (the gym, the grocery store, Cora's Breakfast and Lunch). Despite having a map and a small arsenal of Google Maps print-offs, we got lost like, a zillion times. To illustrate, we drove over the same toll-bridge twice. Once on purpose, but I thought we were getting on the bridge to cross the river back to our original point, and as it turned out, we had already crossed without my noticing (concerning, when you consider that I was the one driving). It did allow me some practice at tossing my quarters in the bin, though...which I'd never done before and it made me more nervous than driving in a strange city.

After a number of 87-point turns in strangers' driveways, we were headed back to our happy homeland (and we were happy to be headed back...we're moving to a dirty, dirty city...it's going to be a long summer). While I thought the worst was over, driving-wise, Mother Nature had something else in store for me. It had been threatening rain all day, but after a few hours in our destination city, it had seemed to clear up. However, once we were on the highway, we were met with torrential rains the likes of which would decimate a divinely-protected ark (our ark, which only had two of one animal in it, was obviously doomed). My roommate is a nervous driver, and moans with extreme urgency when she's worried we're going to hydroplane (also when she sees dead animals on the road, and when she's excited to see live ponies in the fields next to the road). The moaning surprised me every time, which meant I jumped to alertness every time, which meant I did a small fishtail every time, which meant she would moan again...it was a vicious circle made worse by vicious rains.

Even when the rain cleared, though, we weren't quite safe. Our next trial was to endure the giant potholes of Eastern Canada. Most of them were of reasonable size and depth, but since they're EVERYWHERE, it's useless to swerve to avoid them (otherwise, you'll end up in the ditch or the median). At one point, I decided to put my tires on the shoulder to straddle them - which frightened my roommate because she thought I was driving off the road. "No, I'm doing this on purpose!" I cried, just before a large-ish crater came into view. Totally unable to avoid it, I braced for impact, my roommate screamed - the car dipped - I prepared to be lost forever because surely THIS pothole was a portal to another dimension - but soon we were driving on solid ground again. We had conquered it! We braved the pothole and lived to tell the tale. All other potholes seem like pockmarks in the road in comparison!

I'm home now, safe and sound, despite the rains, the potholes, and the gale-force winds that met me at the Tantramar marsh (some of them nearly pushed me into the other lane on the highway...good thing it's twinned). I'm pretty sure my roommate will never drive with me again, or go out in the rain. And I'm definitely not looking forward to the move in a week.