The next morning, I woke up to walk downstairs to find Melissa passed out face-first on the couch, wine glasses everywhere, and Alice still in bed. I crawled into bed with her, debriefing her on the night's game of GOTT, which she was dissapointed she missed. After a few minutes, Melissa and Mon climbed into bed with us too, and then we realized that the day was waiting for us! And more importantly, we were hungry, so we went for breakfast.
We wandered around in the market for a while.
Alice tried to chalk the weekend up to being a "Canadian cultural experience."
"I love gourds!" Alice gushed.
Somehow I don't think of tigers, let alone GIANT tigers, as "all Canadian." Does anyone else find this odd?
Modelling the latest fashions at Giant Tiger.
Alice beside the most pitiful fountain known to man. "It makes me sad to look at," she said. We both felt really bad for the fountain.
After poking around in some boutiques (including one called Trustfund- I have exceptionally good taste in clothes, and I know this because I always seem to like the most expensive clothes known to man) we went home to make the cheapest possible contribution for Jo's potluck- homemade hummous. (And when I say "we" made it, what I actually mean is that Monique made it, and Alice and I were there for moral support.)
It was
Jo's 23rd birthday this week, as well as Jewish new year this weekend. In celebration, we mixed up some kava and made everyone try it.
And then we made them play a drinking game we learned in Australia called Eat My Box. Alice was somewhat appalled when she had the rules explained to her. "This is an Australian game?" she asked skeptically. But then she turned out to be awesome at it.
She gave Jo, the reigning champ, a run for her money.
Basically, what you have to do is pick up the box with your mouth. Nothing except the soles of your feet are allowed to touch the ground. If you put up the box successfully, you rip off as much or as little of the box as you want to. If you don't pick up the box successfully you have to drink. (But not before you do a face plant into the ground, which seems to be my speciality. However, I truly believe that the only drinking games worth playing are the ones where you can incur some sort of injury.)
Much like Get Off That Thing!, everyone has a different technique when it comes to Eat My Box. Monique's technique was quickly named the "pigeon-toed fold."
Alice tried to do the half leg bent stretch.
I have no technique.
I just suck at the game altogether.
This guy did the classic spread eagle technique.
But Monique's pigeon trumped the eagle, and she dominated the game. "We have to play this more often!" she said, delighted. (Isn't it strange how you like games more when you are good at them? That's probably why I like jigsaw puzzles and hula-hooping so much. Why can't more drinking games involve jigsaw puzzles? I'm sure there has to be some sort of a drinking game out there that involves jigsaw puzzles AND there's still the possibility you could incur some sort of an injury from it!)
"That cat is not white," I said to Jo's roomate about Jo's new cat.
"Uh, what do you mean?" she asked, very confused. "Do you mean it's a tabby?"
"No, I mean it's clearly not a Caucasian cat. It's obviously an ethnic cat."
Jo's friends and roomate stared at me blankly, and humourless.
"Um, I don't think you can say that about a cat."
"Why not?" I asked, confused.
One of the girls piped up. "Actually, he's mixed with a Siamese."
"Well, there you go!" I said triumphant at recognizing that the cat had unusual facial features.
"We can tell why you and Jo got along in Australia so well," her friends told me, weirded out.
And then, we pulled out the island dresses!
Jo had enough to go around for everyone. I mean, who doesn't want to look like a giant chicken?
Celia and Monique.
Jo and Dylan, the ethnically diverse cat.
Jo and I.
Apparently we can't survive two full hours without dancing.
Leaving Jo's house to walk to the bar, Alice and I spotted another house party. For the second time this weekend, we wandered into a stranger's house, totally uninvited. But when we got inside, no one was there.
So we looked around, walked around a bit, and took this picture.
"Alice, seriously, what is wrong with us?!"
When we got out of the house, the rest of our group was missing, so decided to wander in what we assumed was the correct direction. Alice, disappointed that she had missed out on the previous night's game, borrowed a blow-up doll for a quickie GOTT.
And then we found Monique and Celia, who wanted to play too.
And finally we found the rest of our group.
We ended up at the Honest Lawyer, which was your typical Top 40 super bar.
Janel, a friend from high school, came out to see me. I haven't seen Janel since we graduated in June of 2002, or more accurately, since I had pink hair. We found each other fairly quickly at the bar. "I was just looking for a camera flash," she told me, "that's how I knew where to find you."
When we were talking, I came to a weird realization. "So, are you in your last year of university now?" I asked her. "No, I graduated last year."
Weird. I could be done university by now, too.
Anyways, it was great to see you Janel, thanks for coming out!
How is it, that on any given night, in any given city, in any given Top 40 bar, there will be a bachelor party?
And then we danced, like no one has probably every danced before inside the Honest Lawyer. The guy in the striped shirt was apparently a professional dancer.
He told us he was glad we could actually dance.
Leaving the bar, minus Celia and Monique (who had left earlier), Alice I decided we needed to atone ourselves for our karmic misdeeds. So when we saw this rosebush laying on the side of the road, having been ripped out of its safe home by drunken ruffians, we decided to replant it. However, we kept forgetting it was a rosebush, and kept stabbing ourselves on the thorns. We're awesome like that.
We went to a busy pizza place, and Alice said, "If we could get a picture behind the counter, that would make an awesome GOTT. But I'm pretty sure the guy working her might punch us in the face if we did it."
Overhearing our conversation, the pizza guy said, "Hell, do whatever you want!" He encouraged me to jump on the counter, which disgusted the other patrons. "Get Off!" they said, annoyed. I love it when people play the game and they don't even know it.
Not knowing where Monique's house was exactly, we started wandering around, when we spotted yet another house party. We had already been to two uninvited, what was a third?
It looked like it had been quite the party, but it had winded down earlier. Nonetheless, the guys welcomed us in, and handed us each a beer.
The party itself turned out to the largest gathering of heterosexual college-aged boys I have ever been to in my life. It involved two houses, across the back alley from one another. "How many guys live between the two houses?" I asked one of the guys. "Twelve," I was told. Alice and I looked at each other in shock and bewilderment. The whole situation was incredibly out of context for us.
We didn't really know how to talk to any of the guys.
In this picture are 13 guys and one girl. And that was just outside.
This guy was cool though. His name was Sasha. We want him to be our friend in real life. Apparently he lives in Toronto. Does anybody out there know him?
After Sasha left, Alice and I sat alone feeling out of place, until one of the guys invited us up to their room.
Is there seriously like a college boy room checklist? Kurt Cobain poster? Check. "The Kiss" poster? Got it! Bob Marley? It's covered! Canadian beer coasters, hockey memorabilia and a stolen handicapped sign? Must-haves! (Not pictured: the requisite giant bong, the beer fridge, and the white board.)
"Seriously Alice, what is wrong with us?"
Oh, did I mention the frat boys stamped our faces? It's only natural that they would want to mark their territory, tag their property.
Thanks for an awesome weekend Monique, Jo, Janel and Alice!
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