Michael’s Blog

Back when I first met Kari a friend of mine was getting married so a bunch of my buddies wanted to go to out for some drinks. I told Kari that I was going out with some friends and that Mod Club (on College) got tossed around as the place we’d be going to.

When I actually met up with my friends we took a vote between Mod Club and a strip joint. The strip joint won of course.

The women there were like hawks, I would just glance at one of them and they’d be all over me. Being a good boy I of course turned down all of their offers. Later in the evening Kari sent me a text message inviting me to swing by her place afterward. As the evening wound down I eventually made my way to Kari’s house and explained to her what had happened with my evening, mainly the switch from the regular night club to the strip joint. After my story she noticed some sparkles on my cheek. I thought about it and remembered that a young lady that went by the name “Innocence” had gotten especially close to me while trying to persuade me to utilize her services and went so far as to brush her cheek up against mine.

It’s been many months now since that night and I can only imagine what trouble I would have been in if I had lied about where I went. Instead, I’m fortunate enough to still have Kari in my life along with occasional teasing about my run in with “Innocence”.

So for Christmas I ended up getting Kari a Nespresso machine that I knew she had her eye on since our trip to Europe. I bought the frother together with the machine as a combo since I noticed that she also seemed to be a fan of this additional magical contraption.

Normally I don’t wrap gifts, I just toss them in a nice looking bag with some tissue paper. For Christmas though I try to put forth the extra effort, so when it came time to wrap the two boxes I decided to start with the frother since it was way smaller. Half an hour later I had a neatly wrapped frother and enough insight into the wrapping process that I was able to come to the conclusion that there was no way I’d be able to wrap the actual machine since it was so much larger. I decided to hide it away in a closet and present her with just the frother and the book I got her that would hopefully convince her to stop smoking and gauge her reaction and hopefully get a few giggles.

When I presented these two small gifts to Kari I immediately saw the look of sadness in her face. I could actually see the thought “Is there a Nespresso model that small?” pass through her head. She opened the book first and did her best to contain her impending greater sadness. As she started to peel away the wrapping for the frother I immediately darted into the bedroom to get the machine and came back and exclaimed “It’s ok! It’s ok! I got the actual machine too!” so she wouldn’t get the idea that I only got her the frother and still be disappointed. Happiness and relief came over her face and I knew right then and there that I done good .

So as I was making my way to the door to get off a bus the other day I felt my rear pocket and noticed that my wallet wasn’t there. I was seated at the very back of the bus so I ran back there and began staring at my seat and the purse that had been placed on it as soon as I left. As the passengers started staring at me like I was some kind of weirdo the owner of the purse asked me, “What are you looking for?”. “My wallet actually,” was my troubled response. At the point I wasn’t a weirdo anymore and everyone at the back of the bus came together looking around for my wallet. The effort didn’t find it so I quickly made my way off the bus so I could avoid having to talk to anyone about my current predicament.

Instead I sought comfort from my girlfriend and sent her the following text message:

I just lost my wallet.

My mind started racing and I got very tense. Did I lose it on the subway? Was I so focused on the book I was reading (The Lost Symbol By Dan Brown) that someone picked my pocket without me noticing? I was standing with my back to the open subway door at one point during the ride, that would have been the perfect time for a pick pocket. What do I do now? I’ve never lost my wallet before! I still have copies of all my important documents that I made before heading to Peru, those should prove useful. When today did I last remember having my wallet? Hey wait a minute… did I even grab my wallet before I went to work?

I sent Kari a message with this new revelation and then immediately called her as I briskly walked home. I kept her on the line and when I finally made it in to my home and up to my room I immediately saw the familiar black blob that is my wallet on my desk. Immediately relief came over me and I was glad.

The main thing from this ordeal that sticks out in my mind was the reaction from the people at the back of the bus. After first I was some weirdo staring at people and things at the back of the bus and the next, after saying a few choice words, I was some guy that was about to have a terrible evening.

Surprisingly enough a bunch of women responded to the craigslist thing (I’d link to it but craigslist will eventually delete it and I don’t want to contribute to link rot). I actually got two responses within fifteen minutes of posting. Using my amazing sleuth skills (i.e. looking them up on Facebook) I was able to quickly deduce that none of them were her. I currently stand at 5 emails. If I was a sneaky person I’d be so inclined to use this as a tactic to meet women. I imagine that women wouldn’t like being tricked or anything but I also think that these women are pluging the email I respond from in to Facebook and doing a “background check” so to speak on me. I’d never push to keep chatting but if a beautiful woman did, who would I be to stop the converstaion ? Four of the five women have been pretty cute actually. One of them was actually a model and thus drop dead gorgeous. I wasn’t expecting to get a single email so no harm no foul.

I know this is a 1 in a million shot but I’ve always wanted to post here so here goes.

On July 2nd I was walking on Queen heading west and you were headed east. I saw you from the distance and thought you were so cute but thought it would be rude to stare so I looked at you through the corner of my eye hiding behind my sunglasses. Just as we passed each other I noticed that you looked my way and smiled but then quickly looked away when, I’m guessing, you thought I wasn’t noticing you.

That obviously wasn’t the case and feel really dumb now for not stopping you and saying hello so here I am looking for a second chance.

Turns out that once again the city needs to do some construction at Dufferin and St. Clair thanks to the street car track replacement going on on St. Clair that prevents cars from crossing St. Clair on Dufferin. As such my street has been turned in a detour or Highway Norton Ave. I went out yesterday night and luckily left during a window where there were hardly any cars. I peeked outside a few moments ago though the line of cars extended all the way down the street. I need to run to the liqour store today so I’m guessing I’ll be walking instead of driving. Heading to a BBQ later so I’ll probably be walking somewhere where it’ll be easier for my buddy Nick to pick me up. All in the name of progress and improvement right ?

Specifically, my driver’s side mirror. Fate would have it that an Italian win during Euro 2008 doesn’t come without drunkenness and drunkenness doesn’t come without destruction of property, mainly mine. So $235 dollars later I have a shiny new mirror. The nice Portuguese family that lives 2 house over had their car (a VW Jetta) vandalized as well to the tune of $500. The third car that was damaged has an owner that is currently out of the country and probably won’t be too pleased to find this “present”, a missing mirror as it wasn’t lying around anywhere nearby (or dangling on the side of the care like mine was).

In other news Portugal was eliminated from the tournament by Germany today which brings a smile to the face of just about every Italian person I know . Not mine of course, I like to stay neutral .

I forgot to mention that I went to a stag on the weekend for my cousin’s cousin Giancarlo. This also marked the first time my brother Peppe went to stag. Which is funny in itself since well… Peppe has no money. In case you didn’t know Italian/Portuguese and probably all European stags are really just fund raisers in disguise. Let’s just say his experience was a funded one .

Anyway, we had two lovely hostesses – a blond and a brunette. When it came time to buy raffle tickets I chose the blond which runs contrary to my normal female hair colour compass. She seemed a lot more friendly than the brunette so I made my choice based on that. Anyway, with the purchase of raffle tickets I am of course entitled to a hug. So I do my thing and she then says to me “Now a spank”. Now for half a second I was taken a back by this but got over it quickly and did my thing while trying to remain respectable. Who am I to deny a lovely lady’s request?