So, I`m at my friend Michelle`s place this morning. Last night she made me dinner and a cake. And when I say `she made it` I mean she made the money to buy the pre-made lasanga and key lime dessert.

It was tasty and she was so tolerant. I demanded Chinese hor douvers (I don`t know how you spell that), an Italian main course and two bottles of wine. We stayed up late and talked until the wee small hours of the morning. Ok, we`ve both had stressful weeks, so we talked until about 12:45 then we passed out. Good times.

However, at about 11:30, it was the moment I have been waiting for since my friend Toni`s 30th birthday. She presented me with the panties. My friends and I have a tradition that when one of us turns 30, we get panties for our birthday. It started with Toni because that girl needed a panty intervention. So it was kind of a joke. But, it caught steam, and I love it.

I love my new panties. I`m gonna put on a pair right now. Not that I`m not wearing panties as I write this. I`m just wearing yesterday`s panties, that`s all. I mean I am also wearing other clothes, I`m fully clothed, in fact. I just have to put on fresh under ware. Ok, I`ll stop now.
- posted by Debbie @ 1:08 PM |

 
So, today is my special day. The office is going for a special picnic in my honour. The fact that we will be leaving the office at 2:00 PM and drinking wine at the foot of Mount Royal probably has nothing to do with everyone’s excitement.

I just got back from an office jaunt and for some reason a childhood memory flashed through my brain. Growing up, I didn’t often see my parents enjoy each other’s company. But, my favourite memory is of the two of them kissing after a party. As is the Caribbean tradition, my parents would have these big parties and all their friends would bring their kids. My parent’s bedroom would fill up with about 50 random children – well, in my memory there are about 50, in reality, there was probably less. We’d all sit around watching the Thriller video and the older kids who liked to make up stories would tell us about the time Kool and the Gang went to their house for dinner. Sure they did, Simone.

Anyway, the morning after one party my sister, Mandy, and I got up first and went down to the kitchen looking for some chocolate milk. My mom must have heard us because she soon followed with my dad. I’m pretty sure they were hung over.

For some reason the kitchen table was either taken to the basement or dismantled. Maybe it wasn’t but I distinctly remember us having our breakfast on the floor, Mandy and I sitting on either side of mom and dad. Mom cooked up eggs and toast and bacon. As we were eating, while I was talking about Michael Jackson, while Mandy, giggling, stole my mom’s bacon, my dad kissed my mom. On the lips. For three seconds. I just stared at them. I had never seen them kiss before. I never saw it again.

I could say that perhaps everyone gets nostalgic when they turn 30. However, I think about that all the time.
- posted by Debbie @ 12:52 PM |

 
So, last night I went to a co-worker’s BBQ for some fun and food. The rain didn’t stop us for spending time outside and grilling various cuts of meat. Well, the rain didn’t stop us mainly because the rain stopped by 7:30 pm.

Anyway, early on in the evening, I was sitting with two people discussing my up-coming birthday (and when I say up-coming I mean tomorrow). Yes folks, I will be 30 on August 12 and I have nothing remarkable or profound to say about it. Don’t get me wrong, the whole three decades thing is cool, but other than that, I have nothing to say. I was never one of these people who made a plan for things that I wanted to be done by the time I hit 30. I think it is because I have always had a hard time imagining myself at any age other than the age I am at. But this isn’t the point of my story.

As I was telling these two people that most of the people I know and consider peers are in their 30s and they are all having a great time, I look forward to the fun I will continue to have. Then I said, “I think I am still sewing my wild oats.”

Sewing my wild oats. One of the party’s drunker poets complained that “Sewing her wild oats” is not a metaphor appropriate for a woman, because it physically doesn’t make any sense. Well into the wine ourselves, we agreed and the hunt began for a more appropriate metaphor.

I came up with “slutting around,” but that doesn’t work in-so-much-as it is more description than metaphor. Here is a list of suggested metaphors:

She’s sharing her fruit
She’s breaking her bread
She’s riding her wild horses
She’s splitting her peach
She’s sharing her wealth
She’s spreading her wealth
She’s Patricking her Swazye (ok, so we were having some fun)
She’s Tomming her Cruise
She’s Russelling her Crowe
She’s tilling her soil
She’s trying it on
She’s seeing if it fits

Your mission, blog readers, is to choose one of the above metaphors or suggest one of your own. Come on, let’s all get together on this one. Lets come up with something good and then do our best to introduce it into the vernacular. Come-on, people put your thinking caps on.
- posted by Debbie @ 11:23 AM |

 
So, last night I got home just in time to see my favourite soap, Terra Sperenza. Yes folks, Quebecers all over the province can watch Terra Sperenza at 6:00 pm weeknights. You can imagine my bliss when I first found the Italian dubbed Portuguese soap that chronicles the building of Sao Paulo Brazil. Oh, intrigue, passion, drama, and Italian as a second language all rolled into one glorious hour of television set in 1900.

The film language of soap operas breaks down any and all linguistic barriers. I may not know exactly why Paulo was on trial, but I know that the verdict really matters to the older woman clutching her purse (his mother) and to the younger woman clutching her chest (his wife). I know that there is a deep dark secret in Annabella’s past that is keeping she and Marco apart. I know that Dominico’s wealthy family expects him to marry Maria but he secretly loves the maid, Antonia.

Whether it is Terra Sperenza, Mujeres Apaxionadas, or The Days of Our Lives, I think that these soaps have really done a number on my generation and what we expect from relationships. So many of us see the drama and intrigue on screen and expect that in our own lives. Combine that with your regular fear of commitment/intimacy and we are done.

How many people confuse drama for romance? I know I do. I’ve seen people create a drama that exists totally in their head so that their personal lives and more closely resemble something out of The Young and the Restless. Are we ever going to stop this madness? I hope so, because I’m tired.
- posted by Debbie @ 11:45 AM |

 
So, Montreal took these two days to heat right up. Needling our skin with heat, the sun is blasting us. The morning is especially nice. When I wake up, I look down toward my bare feet and notice the way the sun illuminates my flesh. Due to groggy morning vision, my naked skin looks luminous. I look like the pages of a glossy magazine. If only I could look like that all day long. How inviting would that be?
- posted by Debbie @ 3:50 PM |

 
So, I’m a little tired from the weekend as I write this. I’d like to be face down in bed right now. Alas, I am at work and have to make it through the day before I can have another lie down.

I’m not sorry I had to come into work, I have had an extremely productive morning – I think that I am genetically coded to be in the office before 9:00am. I swear, I would love to be able to just go to work at 10:00am rather than 9 if I need the extra sleep, but some sort of obsessive gene secretes it’s juice in my brain and I MUST get out of my apartment by 8:20am. Now that I have seen The Aviator, I worry that my brain’s irrational obsession with time will get out of control and I will end up running my vast financial empire from a home movie theatre with jars of pee and milk lining the walls. OK, I may be overstating.

On the metro this morning I saw the same guy I have seen a few times. He has, what must be, the most perfect set of lips I have ever seen. It’s ridiculous. They are lovely. His girlfriend probably reaches out to touch them when they are together. Exerting a moderate amount of self-control, I refrained from reaching up to feel them against my fingertips. The pattern of his facial hair – just stubble – actually accentuated their shape. He must know what he’s doing.

Today he stood right beside me as I sat near the train door. When I looked up, there they were. He wasn’t smiling or frowning. Holding his natural expression, he just looked through the glass of the door, sometimes seeing a platform of faces speed by, sometimes just seeing his own face which, I assume, does not move him the way it moves me.

I assume he works in the arts or something. I base this assumption on his faux-hawk. Although, we are in Montreal so he could just as well be an investment banker. Anyway, he is on the train before I get on and he gets off at the same stop I do. Who is this mystery man?
- posted by Debbie @ 11:23 AM |