GrigioGirl

Tomorrow I leave for Amsterdam and Paris. This was a bit of an impromptu trip, which is A-OK with me. I had every intention to spend tonight preparing for the trip, however, as is usually the case with me, I did nothing to prepare. Instead, I fell prey to OregganO’s simple and sexy text to stop by and see her new blinds. The girl is a tease. She knows I am a complete sucker for interior design. Oh, and she offered up some ‘coffee’ to boot.

We decided to walk to the store near her home so I could purchase some travel accessories – universal adapters and the like. I always enjoy a walk in OregganO’s hood. She is proper city living so the observations are both odd and endless.

I was telling OregganO about my luggage angst. I do not pack light, ever. My goal is to pack light this trip. Not one to disappoint easily, I won’t mind if I don’t reach this goal. OregganO offered me a lovely and packable shirt. I left her home to head to mine so I could pack and clean. In doing so, I left the shirt. So me. I did, however, remember the electrical tape. You see, the bleed line on my swamp cooler has a few holes and OregganO thought the electrical tape may be the elixir. I thanked her for sharing and told her I would wrap it around my hose in the morning.

MiniMe was anxiously awaiting my arrival. I told her I had some otter pops for her to take home. While trying to retrieve the otters from my car I realized the keys I had did not belong to me. I was perplexed. After ruling out several possibilities, none of which ended in a saucy hunk showing up at my pad to retrieve them, I figured out they probably belonged to OregganO. So, MiniMe gave me a ride to OregganO’s and we dropped them off to her. Did I retrieve the shirt? No.

MiniMe then dropped me off and headed to her house. About fifteen minutes later she returned with my bag full of travel accessories that OregganO and I braved the rain to retrieve. Apparently, I gave her the bag of accessories instead of the otter pops. If I make it to Europe in one piece, and with my luggage, it will be a complete miracle.

That said, I may be on a bit of hiatus. I think there will be internet in the places I will be staying, but I truly have no idea where I’m staying. I do know I’m staying with ‘friends.’ Doesn’t matter much to me. I’m easy like Sunday morning.

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For several weeks Sleepless has invited me to experience “Love with Joe,” with her. Italian classes with Alice, which I dearly miss -  mi manchi Alice – initially prevented me from being able to join in the festivities. More recently, work was the preventive factor.

Last Tuesday, I promised Sleepless I would go to work early so I could meet up with her and Joe at six. When I arrived, Sleepless was ready to go. I hurried back to change into something more appropriate. By the time I had changed, Sleepless, Joe and another woman were already going at it. Initially, Joe wanted to put me in the middle, but quickly changed his mind and had me on the side of the other woman.

It became clear that doing an ergo with Risk John at work was simply nowhere near what I needed. As Joe so eloquently put it, “You need to be realigned – your core is all messed up.” I asked Joe if he thought I should go to a chiropractor. “You don’t need a chiropractor. You’ve got Joropractor, Joga, Joaerobic, Jo-It-All.”

As we were leaving, I told Sleepless she needed to change the name of this class to Asskicking with Joe. He literally kicked my ass and reminded me of something my mother told me years ago, “I took you out of dance for your own good, you have no coordination.” Joordinator believes this is fixable with some simple core exercises. I hope so. I’m looking forward to the day when I really think of this as Love with Joe – “message” free. I can make my own happy ending. With a few proper squats I’ll have a rear-end that will make me and many others very happy to see.

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About six weeks ago a female Carpodacus Mexicanus (House Finch) decided to make the star shaped tealight holder on my porch her home. She made a lovely nest and immediately laid five eggs. This is one smart mama bird. She didn’t do like all of the other finches and make a nest in a vent or on a ledge – she is way too classy. She went all out with the star shaped, all glass, penthouse.

Once I discovered this little treasure I started working on my birdumentary – a video and photo collection showing the little birdies progress. It is just a matter of time before I get a call from BBC Planet Earth for the footage.

I’ve been enamored by this activity on my porch. In fact, birdwatching has caused me to be late to more than one function. I just can’t stop filming them. MiniMe thinks I’ve taken more footage of the birds than I did of her. She may be on to something.

The babies were born some time around the last week of May and they were so cute! I decided to give them proper names: Winger, Beak, Bill, Chirpa, Webster and Pepe. Later I found out there were only five, so I decided to drop Webster from the list.

As the weeks have passed the birds have gotten very noisy and I had concerns about having to evict them – they are rather gregarious! I noticed another little bird hanging around the penthouse and my initial thought was, “What a tramp. She just had these birds, is rarely home, and now she’s got a new beau?!?” Turns out, he’s the babies daddy and he loves bringing them food – the red chest and his frequent regurgitating gave it away.

Last Saturday, BeCuz stopped by and we started watching the birds. We noticed one of them, Beak I think, got stuck, ass backwards, in one of the star’s pointers. BeCuz and I spent a lot of time (approximately 51 seconds according to the footage) saving Beak from this near death experience. Within seconds he was back in the pointer. Thus, he got renamed: DAB, Dumb Ass Bird.

I came home today and it appears DAB and Pepe are the last two to leave the nest. DAB was in the pointer, as usual. Winger, Bill and Chirpa have long gone. I’m not sure where they are headed and I can pretty much guarantee they will not be getting the deposit back – they left the nest a complete mess, shit everywhere.

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Today is the three year anniversary for buying my house and second year anniversary for living in it. Tonight, as I sit on my stoop with the rain, thunder and lightning surrounding me, I can honestly say I’ve had a good couple of years here. Luckily, I’ve got a great ‘holiday’ to always remind me of this date: Gay Pride weekend.

The Leaver, QuQueen and I had plans to start early with breakfast  and then go to the parade – always a good time. Unfortunately, none of us woke up in time for the parade, or breakfast for that matter. Instead, we decided to have hermosas at their place. Yes, hermosa is the term The Leaver uses instead of mimosa. “The thing is,” she said, “I make up words because the English language is boring.” QuQueen opted for vodka and orange juice instead of champagne, so we dubbed her drink a hermoso.

Prior to heading to the festival, we played a few games of Boggle. This is quite a treat when playing with The Leaver – remember, she makes up words. When questioned on her creations she quips, “Yes, as in……oh, you know what, you guys are killing me.” A little later, when getting ready to head to the festival, QuQueen and The Leaver were discussing a few challenging moments (to include the Boggle game) in The Leaver’s day thus far. “I can’t win,” The Leaver told QuQueen. “Thats because you’re playing the wrong game,” chimed QuQueen.

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The last few days have been like Xmas. I’ve had the privilege of hanging out with a ton of my favorite people, met great new people, booked and rebooked a trip to Amsterdam and Paris, learned new phrases, found $20 that I lost several months ago, hit but didn’t really hit a car, discovered some amazing new artists, and made a really delicious guacamole.

They say good things come in threes and that was definitely true for me this week. Sleepless and I have spent the past three days together, working and what not. Yesterday, we met at our favorite Italian eatery, which is way more than just a ‘C’ in a box, and were talking business with one of the owners. He was telling us about his high school days and how, because he became very tan in the sun, a lot of people thought he was black. He had always admired black people, especially those with great athletic ability. So, he decided to do his best to be like them and started playing football. Within no time at all, he was a pro. “I was like a Benetton ad – good at what I did.” Unfortunately, his coach wasn’t too keen on him because, in addition to throwing the ball around, Benetton enjoyed throwing ‘f bombs’ around. His coach instructed him, “F bombs are unacceptable. If you think you need to say it, say ‘frozen soup’ instead.” Frozen soup that!

Scot-tea and Venn met up with us for a short time and, to Scot-tea’s disappointment, there was no white rose tea or cute little teapot to comfort him. Word up. We started reminiscing about the last few nights we’ve shared together and higher education again made the discussion. None of the boys have PhDs, however, Venn and Scot-tea have a JD. We’re not yet sure of the true meaning behind that. Jacked or Junior Dick, perhaps. Being an advocate of higher education, I encouraged all of them to start working on a PhD.

OregganO stopped by last night and stated she fully agrees with me on this concept; she stands firm on several matters and this is one of them. After sharing stories with her about Sleepless, The Scotts and others, I updated her on some of the ongoings at my office. Yesterday, my boss called an emergency meeting to inform us she was being replaced. One of my favorite coworkers, Calendar Boy, tried to change the mood of the meeting with this comment, “On a happy note, I had a positive observation in the restroom today.” This is exactly why he is one of my favorite coworkers – because the stuff that comes out of his month is completely frozen souped up. He didn’t share his observation, but  I’m guessing he found out someone else in the office has a PhD.

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Like a slug, it took me a bit of time to get to work today. The fact that I ran into the back of a car going nowhere probably didn’t help. Truth is out. I am the reason I cannot have nice things.

Luckily, Sleepless saved me from my day and invited me to join her and The Scotts for drinks. The Scotts are a band of brothers who were supposed to join us last night, however, did not.

Scot-tea was a good time -  for sure. A while back he was given a company phone. He was at home, watching the Haiti Relief special, and was compelled to donate $10 because a child appeared to have lost her legs in the earthquake. Later, he realized he made the donation on his company phone. He immediately contacted the fiscal office at his agency and, within no time, was written up for misappropriating company funds for Haitian relief. That’ll teach him.

Eventually, Venn met up with us. Venn was set on telling us about set/venn diagrams. I had pulled out my notebook and he asked if I was taking minutes. I replied, “Why do you need minutes when you can have seconds.” Nothing. He gave me no response. Not even a Venn diagram. Sleepless and Scot-tea had been drinking pear cider, however, Scot-tea wasn’t “really feeling it.” He saw the waitress walk by with another table’s order and decided to order tea – white rose tea. I was chatting with Sleepless about something raunchy and Scot-tea was pouring tea into his cup while listening to our convo. Out of the blue, again, while pouring tea, he looked at us and said, “Justified. Word Up.” We replied with “Holla!” and then told him we found it funny that he was word uppin’ with tea. His response, “White Rose, Bitch.” Nice.

After gorging ourselves with shots and deep fried desserts, we made our way to pick up Tree. Venn stated he wanted to join us, however, preferred to take his own vehicle. He asked for my mobile number and Sleepless and I decided he really hadn’t earned it. I gave him the area code and told him he might get the suffix later.

On the way to pick up Tree, Sleepless and I were cozied up in the back. A blue and red light kept flashing in the back seat. After a few weird perimeter checks, we realized it was the paddle ball toy in the car. Sleepless had been very concerned that it might be lights and sirens. Luckily, Scot-tea was driving, so we were in good hands. With or without lights and siren.

Met up with Tree and then made our way to the karaoke bar.  Scot-Tea opted to bail after a bad mixed drink. Tree, Venn, Sleepless and I opted to stay until we were on the mic: Wanna be by Spice Girls. A total tearjerker. Although we gave it our best, no one was really interested. So, we wrapped it up with, “We won’t be here next week,” and “Justified. Holla. Word up!” The karaoke manager shouted back, “Whatever, you’ll be here again next week.” True dat.

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Sleepless invited me to join her Tuesday night group at a little Italian lounge. I have a feeling my Italian lessons had something to do with this invitation. Which is fine with me, ho sete.

I got the privilege of meeting Tile, BeauD, FrothOff and Message. The Scotts, unfortunately, could not come. Very sad – for them.

We started talking about dating and Tile seemed to have all of us topped, literally. Several months ago, she got a bid for tile work. Turns out, the tile guy lays more than tile. To this day, he is constantly checking her grout. Prior to that, she had some roofing done. Nice guy; just has a preference for being on top. Then there were the brothers and the cousins, none of which were from the same family reunion. Phew. During the discussions, Tile received a text from Grout. He was just checking in with her but couldn’t come by tonight due to Shingles (girlfriend). Aha. Tile sent him a text back asking if he would be stopping by in the morning. Unfortunately, the text didn’t go to Grout. Tile accidentally sent it to the wrong guy. Tomorrow morning should be interesting for her. BeauD, concerned for Tile’s welfare, had some words of advice for her, “Watch out for structural steel erectors and, don’t forget, the good guys lay pipe.” The only thing missing from this conversation was Dionne Warwick playing in the background.

I told them about a recent barbecue I attended at The Leaver’s house and how QuQueen (formerly known as Karaoke Queen) outted my heterosexuality. With the exception of QuQueen’s mother, I was the only “straight” girl in the mix. QuQueen continued with questions: “Why don’t you date girls? Have you ever dated girls? Why do you like guys?” And, for her mother, “Mom, you’ve been with a women, haven’t you?” Nothing says BBQ like steak, corn, Double Stuf Oreos and a couple of hard pressing questions about your sexuality. One of the other girls piped up and asked me, “Let me guess, you want a guy with a PhD, right?” “No, not really. I don’t get too caught up in credentials,” I responsibly replied. “You know what I mean,” she said, “You want a guy with a Pretty huge Dick.” Sleepless quite liked this story and we spent the rest of the evening asking the men in the bar if they had a PhD – BeauD and FrothOff included.

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