Tuesday 19 July 2011

Shocks and Balls

When illness befalls us, we ask - what did I do to deserve this? Or rather, what is the cause of this cold, flu, or other dismal state in which we have found ourselves?

The following is a causal explanation for why I am home sick today (yes, am always home these days Mom but never sick).


Musician boyfriend and I love to entertain. This is a very fortunate thing, as being a couple with an apartment in downtown TO, we are a destination for two (very) different sets of friends. We welcome this. We get to share a bit of our new lives with our friends from home and hopefully are deemed hospitable, fun friends in return. We get hosting gifts. The latest was a shower curtain liner with built-in pockets for extra storage of your misc. shower products. I had been coveting it for months.

I have had the pleasure of hosting two friends of mine, separately. Dear Sarah (Shazaam!) and Tall Megan. They come. I get to wake up to live-in outfit advice and spend my days doing girly things all over this grand city. Musician boyfriend gets the apartment to himself, for once. It's wonderful for all.

We don't have a spare room, which is a downside, but we do have a new couch that folds down. Note - new. As in, our guests need not fear popcorn kernels from 1996 lurking in the cracks and crevices of the old chesterfield. We (I) keep a set of bedding in the coffeetable that MB built to include storage space (I know, he's brilliant). We (I) offer our guests sleeping masks (for the bit of sun that escapes past the blinds) and suggest earplugs (traffic). We make do. Dear Sarah and Tall Megan make a point of tidying up their sleeping space, daily, so that our living space is ...well...liveable again. I bask in the thoughtfulness of other women. For them - my heart warms.

Dear Sarah.
Pictured to the right is Dear Sarah, snug as a bug in a rug in the little sleeping alcove our living room becomes on 'guest weekends'. Please note that MB has since declared the guest duvet cover in the image to be ours. (Reference Chronicles of a Duvet Debacle.I have to hand it to him for replacing the old one for even LESS than $10. He's quick. He's very quick. (I am now on the hunt for a guest duvet cover.)


This past Thursday was MB's turn to host. Not one, but two male friends of his were coming to Toronto to party.
"It's going to be a stinky boy fest in here," he warns me.

"That's fine," I say. Thinking, how bad could it really be? I like boys. Always have, always will (regrettably.) I think I get along great with them. I'm dating one, am I not?

So naive. So, so naive I was last Wednesday in full health. Fortunately, in a spectacular display of timely friendship, my good friend Emma lent me keys to her air conditioned bachelorette pad before she left town.

On Friday, her apartment was a godsend. While our big sweaty guests farted in their sleep in what was formerly known as our living room (it's still somewhere under there whispers my internal voice as I sneak out the door)
I got to spend the day writing in a cool, clean, beautiful place. A place fit for a girl. A place I might go when I die.

On Saturday I am invited to a Jay's game. They have an extra ticket. They could have sold it, but they are offering it to me. I had plans to head down to St. Lawrence market. Pick up some local fruit, veggies and meat, maybe a bouquet of flowers. Eat at the raw food cafe. Treat myself to a wheat-free sugar-free dairy-free muffin or two. Walk along the harbourfront.

Go, urges that same internal voice. This is your hostess gift. You can go to the market anytime.

And so I venture down, with them, in a cab (they refuse to take the subway), into the valley of drunk jocks and ponytails in baseball caps. Where delicious hot dogs and beer taunt me at every corner. You can't eat me, they say. You can't drink me. Why are you wearing heels?

Nearly five years ago I went to a local baseball game with my girlfriends. It was one of those "why not?" afternoons. The air was chilly. I was wearing a scarf hot skinny blonde had bought me for my birthday.

"I should have brought a hoodie," I say, leading up to my hilarious joke. "All I brought was this ugly, ugly scarf."

Sometimes my sarcastic tone sounds identical to my everyday tone. Hot skinny blonde thought I was serious.

"I hope you get smoked with a fly ball!" She wished, vengefully.

Not forty minutes later, I did. In the neck. People brought ice. I shed tears in public. We left out of spite when they wouldn't refund my (all of our) ticket(s) and proceeded instead to pick up boys  in a trailer in the RBC parking lot. That's just what we did, back then.

I learned one of two things that day:
a) Hot skinny blonde is a witch.
b) The baseball gods (read - Babe Ruth) hate sarcasm.

This past Saturday I chose to believe a) hot skinny blonde is a witch.

Five minutes into the game I grab MB's hand. He looks at me. 

"What's up?" He asks.
I stare back at him, softly, intently. My eyes are like shining saucers.
"Are you going to propose to me?" I ask in a half-whisper.


Sitting in the outfield.
I laugh my head off for about a minute. Then I spend the next 280 minutes thinking up baseball puns, wincing and ducking for my life every time a batter hits a fly ball, checking the hits on my non blog via iphone and puzzling over why this particular breed of athletes get paid so much. They are not even in shape.

To fit in, I make a point of  talking
 about 'pop flies' and 'grounders.' I learn that the Yankees don't put names on the back of their uniform due to the EPIC nature of the Yankee legacy (pretentious bastards.) 
"Do you think Derek Jeter will play for the Yankees until he retires at age 65?" I ask, sipping on the gin & soda MB so kindly waited 20 minutes in line for. No response.
"They're good, they're really good!" I declare as the Yankees get another run.
"Didn't John MacDonald have a farm?" I pose the question as MacDonald goes up to bat. Guest #1 is wearing his jersey. He would know, right?
I ask MB if I am his angel in the outfield. He says he'll never take me to a baseball game again. (For the record, he doesn't even like baseball. This is a meaningless threat.)


I have no photo evidence of the weekend and I don't feel it appropriate to share anymore details. But I am certain that my current cold is a direct result of short fitful sleeps. Of inhaling the poisonous fumes seeping into the hall from the bathroom. Of finding banana peels in my herb pots. Of hearing the word vagina ten too many times.



Sunday:
"I'll be there in a minute guys, I'm just going to wash my [dirty, sweaty] sandals in the sink [where they wash all of their dishes,]" says Guest #2.

"If you do, that will kill me," I tell him. "I will die."


He used the bathtub. I escaped to the antique market. But it was too little too late. Today I am wiser, yes, but home sick with a cold during a heat warning. And now, please excuse me, but I am going back to bed. All because of my weekend 'hosting' (giving up) in my apartment. An entirely different animal from Dear Sarah and Tall Megan's visits. My weekend full of shocks and balls. And I ain't referring to the Jay's game.

6 comments:

lizzabele said...

boys.

ewwwwww.

Bri said...

hahahaha. Oh, I miss you Lisa.

Caitlin Rose said...

connor's friend came over today and started picking the dead skin off of his feet.

Bri said...

Lovely.

Alana said...

a)I love that I am now "hot skinny blonde"
b)I am not a witch. How dare you.
c)I forgot about that story and almost peed my bed laughing
d)I love you. and your BLOG. It's definately not a "non" anymore.

Bri said...

a) What's your real name again?
b) if the tiny pointed lace-up boot fits!!
c) Oh, hilarious that you have evil powers to use against your friends. Hilarious.
d) I love you too :) But this is the furthest thing from a blog.