Crazy Ladies, Non-Gay Bars and Big Texans

Well I am nearing the end of my trip to Houston for two-fun filled weeks for work. During my stay, I resided mostly at the Holiday Inn Express in West Houston. Let me tell you...DO NOT STAY THERE! Why you ask? WHY? Because they have taken crap-hole hotel to the next level. Well to be fair, the hotel was fine last week but this week has been the week from hell.

First, on Monday night, at 1am, I awoke to a loud beeping sound. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out that no, I did not cause this sound. I was so confused that I spent about 2 minutes trying to turn off my alarm (which I finally figured out was set for 6:30am) and then about 2 minutes trying to figure out that my heater wasn't making that sound (yes I have great deductioning logic at 1am). So I poke my head out of the door and I see smoke. I am like oh my god I am going to die. So I do what any logical person would do, I grabbed my pair of Citizen of Humanity Jeans and put them on and ensured that all my new clothes that I just bought were in a bag. Then I placed my work computer as close I could to the door (I wanted that son of a bitch to burn, burn, burn, so I would have an excuse to stop working). I then made sure that I had my camera and other important items like my passport. This took me about 5 minutes. Then I was out the door. It turned out it was the heater in the hall (closest to my room) that apparently hadn't been turned on for months that had started to smoke. I learnt an important lesson about myself...apparently I value clothes more than my own life. I am so sad. In ten minutes, with the proximity of that heater to my room, I would have surely perished, had it actually caught on fire. But damn I would be one hot charred body (my new Citizen jeans and all).

But no the Holiday Inn fun does not stop there! On Tuesday night, the hot water stopped working. So they get someone in to fix it on Wednesday. On Wednesday night I get a letter under my door that apologizes but the valve that needs to be replaced for the hot water to work needs to be flown in and will be there in the morning. This is an exact quote from the letter: "The good news is that the cold water is still working." Wow thanks holiday inn, I am so happy that we have not reverted to third world status, sans running water, as one expects when paying $125 US a night for a crappy room.

So, you ask, what else could go wrong. Well I come back to my room last night (Thursday) and I get a another note under my door that says that, hoorah, the hot water is back, but that the only way to know for sure is to test it out. I'm like....oh thank god a hot shower. Then I scan to the bottom of the letter and there is a lovely post script. It says: Oh by the way our T-1 phone lines are not working and that they have been working on it all day. This normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I had just left the client site at 8pm (even though I had like 2 more hours of work to do) in hopes that I could just curl up in my pajamas and do some work back at the hotel because I had spent 12-13 hours a day sitting in the same office out at the client site that week. But alas, I needed internet access for the work I needed to do. At this point I just said "Meh" I guess that is what is to be expected. So this morning, when I went to check out of my hotel, I complained and they offered me 25% off of my room. How does that help me though? My company pays for my hotel...so thanks for putting some more money in the partners pockets. So I made them give me some extra hotel points. Maybe I can get enough to stay at another crappy Holiday Inn. One can only hope.

Well the rest of the trip was decent (other than the long-ass days of work). We (as in me and my co-worker) spent the weekend in downtown Houston and stayed at the cutest little boutique hotel called the Hotel Derek that was right by the Houston Galleria mall. Let me tell you that mall was the highlight of my trip. I love it! So many nice stores. I didn't bother going in the Coach, Versace, etc because the sales people didn't appreciate my $15 Target-bought shoes. So I stuck to the Nordstroms, Macy's, Fossils, etc. I managed to buy a new watch, some new Citizen of Humanity jeans (which I am currently in love with) and some shirts. We also ate at this wicked restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory and at the best freakin cheesecake and appetizers I have ever had. I had a chocolate chip cookie dough-peanut-butter cheeescake and fried macaroni and cheese balls (yumm!) I had all these brilliant plans to eat at all these amazing places downtown but after that massive lunch, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything for like 24 hours.

(This is a picture of me and my new boyfriend....just kidding, he was an Abercrombie and Fitch model that was at the Galleria)

That night we went to a bar called Rich's. We went there because my co-worker is gay and I was up for going to a gay bar (hey why not!) I can play the "Fag Hag" as he put it! We got there and the place was completely empty. I kept looking around the bar and noting that there seemed to be an awful lot of girls dancing with guys at that bar. So in a couple of hours, people start showing up and my co-worker saw some cute guys who turned out to be twins so he went and spoke to them. So I came over and spoke to them too and my co-worker thought they were cute. I had to break the news to him that I think that they weren't gay because they kept coming up and talking to me first and then him. One of the twins explained that the bar used to be a gay bar but now it has turned into an after-hours club. But since we had taken a $20 cab ride to the bar, we decided to stay.

We ended up meeting these two girls and dancing with them all night. Some highlights of the night is when I danced with this 6'5 drag queen and when I went up to this guy, who had just finished this wicked break dancing set in a circle, that had formed on the dancefloor, and I challenged him to a robot-off (FYI in case you have ever seen my robot....it's probably the worst robot in existence). My robot looks like if Elaine from Seinfeld attempted to do the robot. Jerky movements, not so robot-like. Needless to say "He got SERVED!"

(This is a pic of me, the co-worker and one of the random gals we met at Rich's).

Other than that, the trip was pretty uneventful. I ate alot of food and learnt to ask for half-portions (explaining why there are alot of "glandurally-challenged" people in Houston"). Also, the weather was nice up until the day we got to Houston (it rained so much and there was even frost one day) and then got nice the day we left. So that kind of was a bummer!

So last story to leave you with is the lovely surprise when I checked my voicemail last night. I had 3 messages from a crazy East-Indian lady who claimed that I am shacked up with her ex-husband. She kept saying that all she wanted to do was talk to her son and kept telling me that her ex-husband is crap in bed. She left her phone number and I am debating calling her and telling her that she has the wrong number but she seemed pretty loco. I am scared she make think that I am lying and that I am in fact sleeping with her ex-husband. A conundrum. I'm heading home though people and I can't wait (there's someone there I miss alot!!!)

No Actually I am Alive!!!

Well it's been a long-ass time since I last posted. Sorry bout that. I was really busy. What have I been up to? Well work has gotten pretty busy, I wrote my 5th (and last module) exam of my Chartered Accounting schooling and passed, I did alot of climbing and alot of snowboarding. Although I've had lots to say, I haven't had time to say it. I met a couple of boys in the last while and finally found one that I think I'll stick with for a while.

(Me climbing).

So for Xmas I spent some time in Canmore (a beautiful mountain town by Banff, where my parents are planning to retire). There wasn't much eventful that happened other than my mom exclaiming (while looking at our ridiculously large free-range turkey) "This turkey has large breasts just like us" (we Cowtowngal's have a decent sized bosom). But atleast my parents didn't get pleasantly plastered and tell me to what album I was conceived this year circa Xmas 2005(by the way it was apparently Led Zepplin's physical graffiti). If I ever forget how I became so blunt and inappropriate, I need only to look as far as my immediate family. For xmas I got a new camera, perfume (Vanille de Apricot), and some silver necklaces.

I went snowboarding quite a big over the holiday which was sweet until I hit a tree and busted my bindings. I proceeded to take in my binding strap to try and get a new one and they informed me that they no longer replace 10 year old bindings and then asked me how the hell my bindings lasted that long in the first place. Well I got a new pair of white Burton Custom bindings with some bling (gold buckles) and they are awesome. I can't wait to get out some more and use them.

I also ended up going to Invemere which is a lake town close to Panorama (a sweet ass ski hill) with a bunch of friends. My sister was there with her boyfriend, some other friends and some of the cabin owner's brother's friends. I loved the brother's friends. So much fun. They showed me this fun-ass dice game, which I proceeded to kick ass at and then began losing miserably. But all weekend we were out with the "your momma" jokes. And man were they bad. They were horrible. Anything we heard that we could make into a your momma joke was made into one. We were also making up some stupid handshakes like the rainbow (punch your knuckles together, than make a rainbow motion with your hands and say Awwwwwwwwwww!), the sparkle (punch knuckles together, than wave your fingers and spout out a campy "Sparkle!", and last but not least the semi truck (punch knuckles together, pretend to shift into reverse, and back your knuckles away from the other person going "Beep, beep, beep"). We tried to take these to the local bar in invemere and let me tell you the locals were not impressed. Oh well, we had some fun none the less.

I drove the pipeliner up with me to the cabin and shared a couch with him. But I couldn't bring myself to even kiss him anymore because he was annoying me so much. Also, I kept thinking about my friend at home that I had been hanging out with lately (only supposedly as friends). So needless to say when I got home, I told the pipeliner that we should just be friends because we were better that way. He proceeded to ask me if it was because I had met someone else, and I didn't respond.

Well immediately when I got home, I phoned my friend (the one I was thinking about while hanging out with the pipeliner) and asked what he was doing. He came out with me and I met some his friends and then we met up with some of our friends. I tried to set up my one friend with my friend that I didn't realize I liked but to no avail. So, I went back to my friend's house to hang out and all of the sudden, I found myself cuddling with him on the couch. Seriously had no idea where it came from. It was like, one minute we are friends, and the next minute, we are more than friends. Hmmmm...WTF? Oh well works with me. He's a really good guy. He used to work with me but ended up leaving our company and going to a different auditing firm. So he's cute, doesn't work with me and is super fun to hang out with.

(Me and the guys on new year's eve. The new man is to the right of me).

I spent new years with him and ended up getting wayyyy to drunk but that's okay. I bought a new dress and we went to a club with my new man, his roommate and his roommate's brother. It was pretty fun. I'm pretty sure I was creeping some people out with my sweet sweet drunkin' dance moves, but whatever, I'm sure they liked it. Haha! Not a whole lot worth talking about happened because I was too tipsy to remember what happened. But I had fun. So now and the new man are officially dating (I think that means we are exclusive) so I hope this goes well. We shall see!