GrigioGirl

I’ve never been one to date for money. In fact, while other girls are digging gold, I’m digging fool’s gold.

About two years ago I decided to travel— a lot. This year I really embraced this decision and I am just about to finish off a month of weekend travels with a trip to Manhattan, the Hamptons, Paris and Switzerland.

I was discussing my travels with a coworker and he said, “You must have a sugar daddy.” “No,” I replied, “Just a sugar self and a credit card company that is happy to have of my business.”

A few minutes later another coworker introduced me to his girlfriend who he met on match.com. “Maybe you should look for a sugar daddy on match.com,” said the other coworker. “No, I’d rather date what I’m used to so I think I’ll stick with mismatch.com.”

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As of late it seems I am starting a lot of sentences with, “Let me preface this with ‘I’m an asshole.’” I did this during a meeting and, after sharing my opinion, one of the committee members quipped, “You didn’t need to preface that, it came through loud and clear.”

Though that might be true, I still like the preface factor – its like having an exclamation point at the beginning of the sentence. And, the truth is, I am an asshole. Not because I’m rude or insincere; because I speak my mind and say, often times, what everyone else wishes they could say.

So let me preface this with, “I’m an asshole…….”

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Last night gambling, tonight, theater. Little Man treated Prize Winner and I to “Crazy for You” at an incredible outdoor theater.  As we were making our way to our seats he shared some outdoor theater wisdom with me, “All of the old people sit up here – in these upper rows – that’s their thing. It’s the misters, they do it for the misters.” I took a quick look around and he was right – all old, all being misted. Once we got our seats I took another look around and realized the audience was primarily grey toppers. “Little Man,” I said, “Look at all of this grey, I can’t believe it. I guess you’re used to seeing this many seniors living out here.” He confirmed they were the majority in the town. I was still a bit shocked. I haven’t seen that much grey since the night I watched Calendar Girls and Cocoon back-to-back.

As we were leaving the theater we saw a row of tour buses waiting for the grey toppers. I thought it might be fun to pretend we were with the bus group – Prize Winner agreed. We then thought better of it and made our way for the next closest thing: my silver car with grey intererior.  Driving home we were talking about various life experiences when Prize Winner said, “I told you I win prizes, right?” Uh, no, she did not. She went on to tell Little Man and I about the various contests (writing jingles, making commercials, etc.) that she has won. Her winnings have included all-expense paid vacations, money, makeovers, the works. One of her favorite contests was for a product popular among those who suffer from irregularity, like the grey toppers (way to segway Prize Winner). She and her kids made several videos for a laxative with the prize winning line being, “If you take it, you will go.”

Catchy. More importantly, I’ve now determined the tell-tale signs of aging: grey hair (given), misters, bus tours and laxatives.  Currently, I’m 0-4, but I did once ride a double-decker bus on holiday and misters are on sale right now……

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Having just returned from Chicago, I had decided it might be a good idea to stay in one night – relax, read a book, think about life. Dr. BJ also thought this might be wise. So, even though I was again heading out of town, I had resigned to the idea of staying in. Until, a few hours away from my destination, I got a call from Blackjack and Prime Rib wanting to know if I would be joining them for an evening of discount dining and gambling – I caved. Over the weekend, She’s A Hard One and I had discussed my ongoings, “I think you don’t know how to say ‘no,’” she said. “It’s not entirely that,” I replied. “I just have a horribly hard time declining when something sounds fun.” Case in point: discount dining and gambling.

After enjoying a spectacular meal, we hit the tables. Well, Blackjack and Prime Rib hit the $2 tables and I made my way to the penny slots. I enjoyed the slots at the amazing price of approximately $3/minute. I decided my money wouldn’t last much longer if I stayed at the slots so I cut my losses and headed over to the $2 table. Blackjack was doing great – he was winning one hand after another. Prime Rib wasn’t doing too bad himself – although he was doing a much better job having Blackjack order his drinks. I finally joined in the mix and was doing pretty well – my cost to gamble actually went from $3/minute to $3/hour. We were discussing whether winning was a result of luck, talent or good living. Blackjack glanced up from his cards, gave a sly nod and said, “Cardma.”

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One of the great places I got to visit in Chicago was the Art Institute. While in the Van Gogh section I literally LOLed (and was very close to. ROFLing – had it not been so crowded) because I was reminded of something YummYummy said in Toronto. We were checking out the goodies in the hotel room and noticed the snooze kit contained one eye mask and one, not two, earplug. YummYummy was quick with an explanation, “They must have thought Van Gogh was staying in this room.”

After several hours in the museum and tooling around the city, I met up with She’s A Hard One and Her Man. We were all rather hungry and trying to decide on a restaurant. “We could do something specific to Chicago. Maybe pizza,” said She’s A Hard One. “We could do French,” Her Man suggested. “Of course, that’s not Chicagoan – that’s just French.”

We ended up picking Korean BBQ and they suggested we change into Korean BBQ clothes. “It is really smelly,” said She’s A Hard One. “Ah,” I replied, “one of those smells that is only good when you’re in the moment.” She’s A Hard One and I quickly changed and then waited for Her Man. “He takes longer to get ready than I do,” She’s A Hard One whispered to me.

The restaurant was not in walking or easy train distance, so we decided to take a zipcar (hourly inner city car rental). Her Man was at the wheel, She’s A Hard One was in charge of navigation and I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. As we were nearing our destination we got stuck behind a very slow driver – this was extremely frustrating to Her Man, “Obviously they’re not paying for their car by the hour.”

Once we got inside the restaurant we ravenously ate our food – barely waiting for She’s A Hard One to finish cooking the meat. One of the side items, which we quite liked, was jicama. We waited some time for the waitress to return and then ordered another dish of it. She returned with cucumber and took off before we could tell her that was not what we had requested. A while later – good thing we weren’t paying her by the hour – we again requested jicama. After a lengthy exchange of verbal and visual communication she said, “Ah, you want white colored radish. You should just say.” Very Chicagoan.

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Lately all of my adventures begin in the middle of the night and require a pit stop in New York.

As has become the routine, I take my window seat and prepare to sleep a wee bit. A young blonde in a track suit is sat next to me and, next to her, a man in his 60s with a camera. As he starts chatting it up with her and showing her pictures I close my eyes and ears in an attempt to sleep.

Throughout the flight I would wake to find they were still chatting and viewing pictures. At one point, they were discussing how it actually felt like a Friday night. “I’m retired, so every night is Friday night,” he told her. “I’m a writer, so every night is Friday night,” she replied. Hmmmm. I’d like to be retired and a do a lot of posting (aka ‘writing’ on facebook). As The Leaver would ask, “What does it mean?”

We arrived in New York and, as everyone was getting ready to deplane, track suit told the man, “Now you can go home and tell your family you spent the night with a young, hot blonde.” He responded with the look we all have when we realize we spent the night with the wrong person – like your cousin. Don’t judge, keep reading.

Joining me on the flight to Chicago was the St. John’s soccer team. As they were taking their seats one of the players was telling his mates about an exchange he had with another mate. “I was like, ‘hey dude -what’s up’, I went all Spumoni on him.” Spumoni, Spicoli. What’s the difference?

As the flight progressed, Spumoni started talking about his cousin. “She is so hot. I can’t wait to see her,” he gave a good Spicoli laugh and then finished it off with, “Anything goes in the South.” Cousin, girlfriend, girl in the track suit. What’s the difference?

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Alice and I are always looking to learn new things and, as of late, language has been our passion. We decided to look into learning French at the local high school, however opted out when we learned the instructor is Chinese. Je ne comprends pas. We realize we could be making a mistake, assuming a Chinese person cannot teach us French, when- in fact- this may be the best way to learn. Let’s not forget we took Italian from an Italian and learned nothing other ‘hoha hola’ and ‘vaffanculo’.

I was speaking (conversational English) with Alice and suggested we learn the Official 10-Code with, of course, the assistance of Google. Alice agreed and then advised me my neighbors had stopped by her house because they’re interested in having chickens and a chicken coop — in my yard. “Are they 10-96?” I asked. “I’m kidding. I don’t care if they do that. I just don’t want rats.”

“You know,” said Alice, “Hot Mustard just sits out on the porch with a BB gun and waits for rats. Those were good times, when we shot rats.” Those were good times – shooting rats. ‘Learning’ Italian – 10-74.

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With tonight being the season two premiere of Glee, Dr. BJ and MiniMe could hardly contain themselves. In addition to it being Glee night, it was  -aoke night, which meant I needed to come up with a theme for the evening. In honor of the ever popular, high school based, musical comedy (Glee), I decided we would do Prom-aoke and start the night off at my house - watching Glee and eating pizza.

As is often the case, Sleepless and I are usually the people in the group to respect the theme concept. I had stopped by a second-hand store and purchased us some fine prom gowns for the event. Sleepless was thrilled to don her gown and so was I – primarily because mine was a store sample and had “SAMPLE” stamped across the ass. “Is that verb form?” asked Sleepless, referring to ‘sample’. “It may be,” I told her, “it just depends how the night goes.”

We arrived at our bar to find we must have had a credit from the last time we went and paid for the private party because we were, again, the only patrons in the bar.  D-Dog arrived shortly after and, as promised, we had a bag full of prom dresses for her. She was in heaven and alternated between two black gowns throughout the evening.

The Leaver and QuQueen had been there about 30 minutes when The Leaver noticed the karaoke stage was empty. “Why aren’t we singing? I have to get a cavity filled in the morning.” OregganO looked my way and quipped, “Says the girl with the cream cheese cake in her mouth.” “The Leaver is right,” said Sleepless, “Someone should be singing.” Right Glove looked at me and asked, “Aren’t you going to sing?” “Yes, yes, of course I am. I am always one song away from the mic.”

The bartender, Norm, took the stage and, in typical Sleepless fashion, Sleepless provided him a private dance on a chair positioned in his direct line of sight, in the middle of the dance floor. QuQueen had given Sleepless, D-Dog and I updos, which 1) made us look fantastic and 2) cooled us down. QuQueen had placed a beautiful flower in Sleepless’ hair for an accent and, somewhere between “Once Bitten Twice Shy” and “Paradise City,” the flower went missing.

We looked around for a minute and then continued on with the dancing and singing. OregganO and I got up to sing “Knock Three Times” and Sleepless used this fine song to teach D-Dog how to chair dance. At one point they were facing us and Sleepless showed her one of her finer moves – at which time OregganO and I got to see “the money shot.” “I can tell you why you can’t find your flower Sleepless,” OregganO said into the mic during an instrumental break, “with moves like that, you’ve most likely been deflowered!” About 30 minutes later, Sleepless found her flower exactly where she left it – in her hair.

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Due to my recent dates with JB, Dr. BJ has had the house to himself lately.  He enjoys his time here, listening to French music, sitting on the stoop, sipping wine and sharing the house with my ghost.

I’ve lived here for several years and there have been times I’ve noticed what some may describe as paranormal activity, but once I review all of the photos the next morning, I have a better understanding of why and when certain events took place.

My house is old, not B.C. old., but old still. As a result, it makes a lot of noises. On Sunday morning, Dr. BJ was sleeping in his room when he heard footsteps upstairs. He jumped out of bed and ran upstairs to find that he had jumped out of bed and ran upstairs for no reason at all – no one was there. He was telling me about this later in the day and we decided perhaps we have, yet, another houseguest. The hostess with the mostess should always have a ghostess.

I told Dr. BJ we did, in fact, have a ghost (evidenced by all of the orbs in the aforementioned photos) and her name is Agnes. “Agnes? How do you know she’s a girl?” “He’s got a point there. I guess I figure this because I haven’t noticed a lot of things one might experience with a male ghost – cabinets and drawers left open, toilet seat left up, the basics.

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