LC and the City: Get Smart: Undercover with GGM

LCpod

Juliette by Hollerado
Wasteland by Augustana
Coney Island by Good Old War

This business of working 9-5, even though I love consistent hours, is tough on the social life. Here it is, St-Paddy's day, I am Irish (not full fledge but enough to wear it proudly) and Catholic and yet I cannot express my joy of being either by participating in the green beer rituals and crazy attire. While the rest of the city has been lining up outside of pubs since the early A.M, I am in a different kind of line: at my local market buying my tomorrow's fresh produce. The only green I'm sporting is the lettuce and green pepper I'm about to scale. No beer. No barley. No buzz.

However, the night was not a full waste. Like a rebel in the night, I drank alcoholic beverages with Gym Guy Matt, at the gym no less, while he worked his midnight shift. He longed for my companionship, so much so, he was on the verge of creepily finding my phone number from the database and calling me to hurry the heck up. "I was so bored I was going to creep you in the system and call you to come over now". Awww, I am wanted.....only to kill his boredom mind you. Silver lining people, there's one in most things. The way I look at it, there are people who can actually make you bored. But me, no, not me. I am a cure.

I don't show up empty handed. We have to be discreet. Inconspicuous is my game and I know how to play it well. So I shove multiple vodka crans into an empty gatorade bottle. I've never been one to make excellent drinks so that bottle could very well have been 80% vodka, 20% juice. He's a big boy (as he likes to retort, "that's what she said"), so he handled the high ratio of alcohol just fine.

We both chugged back our drinks. I don't know what that says about either of us. All done. No more booze. Not so fast, lucky for me, I have a bottle of wine in my purse. If that doesn't bring me back to my highschool days, I don't know what will. Actually, I wasn't mature enough for wine back then, so switch the bottle of wine for a mickey of anything I can get my hands on and that's a more accurate depiction. Add to that depiction a cigarette flimsily in my right hand taking fake puffs and you really have me down to a tee.

Undercover drinking brought me back to the good ol' days of no responsibility, spending my days at Ecole Secondaire Catholique Champlain and then burning the midnight oil in the back of an elementary school, grocery store chugging back crown royal, bush parties where pretty much the whole town's teenage population would come together, maybe even contemplated cow tipping; or when my gf's and I, all 9th grade post pubescent dudettes, hid and drank a beer in a friend's closet as her dog Belvedere watched on. One beer split between four. That took up a whole what, 5 minutes of our night. Nerds.

I was easily persuaded by Gym Guy Matt and friends to go out with them. My plans to have a couple undercover drinks with him and retreat to my bed by midnight were well intentioned. Technically, I had the choice to go with or stay back. But realistically, I didn't have any choice at all. The decision making was bigger than me. Going out was in my cards. I didn't have a say and so that's why when Gym Guy Matt and Verissimo demonstrated their power of persuasion, almost immediately, I acquiesced. Also what helped was Verissimo's intriguing accent and his no non sense "I have to be at work earlier than you tomorrow morning, so get your ass in my car" argument. So in his sports car we went.

No matter the mode of transportation, I'm never comfortable with heavy accelerating, breaking abruptly, sharp turning, unless I am behind the wheel. It's a control thing. So when I was thrown around in the back seat like a rag doll, I may have been a tiny bit uneasy.

I also didn't have a say in the tequila shot first thing upon arriving at The Madison. Great. I have a shit dinner, I go to the gym and put in a superb cardio session, go home, have some blueberries, then head back to the gym, drink a very potent vodka drink, some wine and all of this is followed by a dirty tequila shot ?! I can already predict my morning: rough. Added to all of this are three pints of delicious beer.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder, I press my glass up to Gym Guy Matt's. Well what do you know, I'm nearly finished mine and big tough guy to the right of me is more or less nursing it like a sucker.

HA ! He's not the sucker. I am, for taking on a 200 pound man in a now very heated drinking competition. In one corner we have LC, standing at 5'7", weighing in at 130 pounds, fiesty, cheaky and ready to rock. In the other corner, we have Gym Guy Matt, 6 feet and however many inches, weighing who knows, alot, solid as a rock (seriously, solid), excited, happy and ready to party. Next thing you know, he stares right at me, both eyes locked and chugs an entire pint. So, what do I do. I chug mine as well. Dumb. The only breed of girl who would chug a beer to impress a guy s one from northern Ontario. I blame my place of birth for my exceedingly heavy buzz and for what is about to go down here.

The evening was great. I walked away from it composed, not sloppy. Fast forward to the morning and you would have thought otherwise. I wake up frantic at 8:04am. I seldomly drink during the week so hangovers are exclusive to weekends. Hmm, are we saturday? SHIT ! I should already be in the subway on my way to work by now. Instead, I am tangled in my blankets in a pitch dark room, my mouth is a desert, my breath tastes like last night, my coat and boots are scattered around the room, and my body is not listening to my central command station that is telling it to get outta bed ASAP and get to work !!!!!

Believe it or not, I get to work on time. I packed myself a breakfast which was too healthy for what my body was craving: grease. So it did nothing in terms of helping me through this morning. I had the spins while standing, walking, sitting, bending down, carrying heavy boxes, hoarding files. I called on St-Patrick to relieve me of this hangover for it was in his honour that I drank. That was the least he could do. My request was not fulfilled.

If I'm going to get through this day without barfing, I need to get some dirty food in me. So lunch time comes around and I b-line it for a restaurant. I don't know what I want but I want it all. I am a bottomless pit the day after I drink. I still can't get myself to eat a big fat, dirty greasy burger. So once again, my inner health nut butts in and what do I do, I go to Longo's to grab a healthy lunch. They have freshly made foods in a buffet set up and you pay per weight. Another mistake of mine.

In one single container, I slabbed together: strawberry salad, zesty chicken, spicy quinoa, curry chicken, chow mein. teriyaki tofu, crisp chili tofu, crab salad, hunks of feta and a kaiser bun. It cost me a small fortune too. Freg.

What I should have gotten was a dirty shwarma or that calorie intense smoked rib poutine at South of Temperance. But nooooo, I have to exercise will power even when I'm hungover and opt against the foods that will almost immediately inject life back into me.

I devoured the first few bites but once my taste buds caught on to what I was shoving in my mouth, my devouring came to a screeching halt. There were too many flavours and the gag reflex was triggered. I mixed alcohols the night before and look where that got me. So I should have known that mixing all these different ethnic foods was not going to do me any good either.

The "I can drink you under the table" champion was not crowned between Gym Guy Matt and I. He says he showed me who's who in that respect, I say I held my own pretty well against a man twice my size. We both want the title so round two is the only way to go about this. I'm sure I'll have tons to tell about that occasion. I can see it now on a score board:

LC: 1
Gym Guy Matt: 0

Now as I eat my goat cheese, walnut, apple chicken salad and treat myself to a biscotti with my coffee (my one indulgence during my training) before I go torture my body at the gym, I leave you with this, food for thought.

Thoughts?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/selling-push-up-bikinis-to-girls-age-7-is-it-too-young/article1952706/

Inspiring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVbri3k31LY

LC Cam - Week in Photos

Drunk Irish or just a drunk ?