As I may have mentioned recently, I am at present graciously hosting a [”Surly”] from the remote wildlands of Canada. He doesn’t really live up to his Surly sobriquet as in person he’s really quite sweet. For those of you who are not aware, I live in Houston, Texas. No, I am not *from* here, I live here.

Now, I don’t want to make my guest sound like a small town hick who resides in a village so remote from civilisation that they only recently heard that WW2 had ended . . . however, the phrase “We don’t have that [indoor plumbing/electricity/summer clothes] in Yellowknife” has become one of the most common phrases to enter the English language. To the extent that some Houstonians are now pre-empting the aforesaid comment with “Betcha don’t have that [trees/dishwasher/BBQ] in Yellowknife!” As I was driving back to my house from the airport on the six-lane freeway [they don’t have those in Yellowknife] two [yes, two] police squad cars passed me on the left. Surly immediately assumed that there was some kind of high-speed chase taking place. Two.Police.Cars. Together. One right behind the other. Since then, Surly has discovered that human beings do not, in fact, have to wear multiple layers of clothing at all times, including when showering. Cars do not have to be plugged into a heater overnight to prevent the engine from freezing. Trees can have green leaves. He has also discovered that while you might *feel* as though your flesh is being melted over a barbecue pit, you can actually walk around in 100°F [that’s “F” as in “effing hot”] heat and survive. As long as you are not outside for more than 30 seconds at a stretch. Texas is not, in fact, the 5th circle of Hell. It just feels like it is. The water in the swimming pool does, in fact, feel like bathwater at 2:30 a.m. Which is perfect for skinnydipping. Especially if all the single men in your building are gay. Surly now knows that big city gymnasiums have more than one exercise machine. That they have, in fact, many, many machines for every body part. Plus racks of free weights that weigh more than 40 pounds. Surly has also discovered that his hostess wasn’t kidding about being able to burp really loudly. Surly has not discovered his hostess’s secret porn collection. Yet. Surly does not appear to have been trying on his hostess’s underwear. Yet. Surly is in agreement that his gracious hostess is, indeed, “as advertised” in every way. Best of all, Surly has had no objections to sleeping in the “spare room” with the kats’ litter-boxes and food dishes.

In terms of entertainment, Surly has thus far been taken out for several dinners and has made new friends at the Pub. He got to hang out and study eye candy at my nightclub with my buddy Kevin [another Canadian]. He bought himself a very nice leather jacket at Wilsons Leather in the Galleria. Because, you know, in Yellowknife they need clothing that will keep them warm. Weird, huh? I had accidentally done the Typical Girl Thing the day before and purchased a pair of dahling lavender strappy sandals. Which went with precisely nothing in my wardrobe. So, I took a moment in the Galleria to shop for a top that would match the sandals. A $35 top to go with a pair of $15 sandals. The moment instantly stretched into several moments … or 30 minutes in the Canadian metric system … which left Surly pacing around wondering where in the hell I had gotten to.

We spent Saturday afternoon in Galveston with my buddy Frank. Who is yet another Canadian; I seem to attract them like flies since Sallison is also one of Them. [Galveston for you non-Texans is an island in the Gulf of Mexico]. While in Galveston we “toured” the Strand which is a street lined with some incredibly tacky tourist trap gift shops . . . in one of which Surly purchased a lovely ceramic chicken candle holder for his Mum. Yes, a chicken. I’ll stop there. Oh, and we stopped and had a drink at a G.A.Y. bar. I could have sworn there were more bars on the Strand but we couldn’t find one, so as we were walking back to the car we stopped in at the one lone bar on 23rd Street. Utterly oblivious to the pretty rainbow flag in the window, we stormed the bar to the obvious confusion of the bartender as we plunked our hot and sweaty arses onto barstools. OK, I failed to notice the rainbow flag but I *did* instantly notice the posters of beefcake underwear models . . . and the one wall covered in photos of drag queens. And the “lady” by the men’s room who had quite an array of impressive sex toys displayed for sale on a table. My two Canadians flatly refused to be sporting enough to pose in the bar for photographs. They wouldn’t even pose outside under the pretty flag. I did, however, manage to snap a shot of the boys together on the Strand. Having handed Surly my handbag so I could take the shot. He looks quite adorable clutching the handbag to his torso in the resulting photo. You know what else they don’t have in Yellowknife? A giant outdoor chess set! Talk about an uncivilised place to live! After driving away from the fascinating Strand we drove up and down the Seawall searching for some hot bodies on the beach to gawk at. Failing which, we looked for a restaurant and then spent 15 minutes searching for a parking space. We finally parked illegally on the Seawall along with 10,000 other cars and then trudged our weary tourist-wannabe bodies into Landry’s Seafood Restaurant. We then commenced to eat at least one of everything on the menu. At least I did. We ended our day by guzzling yet more adult beverages at the pub. Strangely, when I weighed myself the next day I had gained three pounds overnight.

Prior to planning the Surly visit I had made plans with Frank to see the Gypsy Kings. Before the show we had dinner at the Lancaster Bistro, which is located inside the Lancaster Hotel in downtown Houston. Lovely place. The night before I had binged on masses of seafood appetizers, a salad, a huge chunk of Chilean Sea Bass smothered in lump crab and sauce, a double chocolate mousse cake, a gallon of Chardonnay, and an espresso. Because of packing on those three pounds overnight, I decided not to have seafood again and instead went for the goat cheese salad. Followed by a slab of filet mignon with mashed potatoes . . . and an espresso/chocolate mousse for dessert. What??? I only ate half of it!! I really don’t have a “dessert tooth”. I can count on one hand the number of times in a year that I eat dessert. But there are times when I have to behave like a girl and order dessert. I only do it to be polite. Since we had already started on a bottle of Chardonnay before deciding to order steak, we also ordered a bottle of red wine just to be polite. And triple espressos to keep us awake during the show. It turned out that the show would have kept us awake anyway. The Gypsy Kings were very energetic and we were constantly jumping up from our seats and bopping around. Frank compared the jumping up and down to being in church, as if *I* would know what that’s like. On the way home we decided to stop at a cigar and martini bar. Purely so we could pick up a nice fresh cigar for Surly. Or “the youngun” as Frank refers to him. The two lemon drop martinis I had were purely to pass the time while Frank cigar-shopped.

Coming up this week in the Kurves Entertainment Schedule are the following events: Several hardcore workouts at the gym to get rid of the monstrous three pound weight gain. Tomorrow, Frank is taking Surly to lunch at Hooters and then possibly to a strip club afterwards. Which I think is seriously inappropriate behaviour, since I’ll be stuck at work and won’t be able to go with them. Hell, I get the Lancaster Bistro and the Gypsy Kings and HE gets to go to a strip club? No Fair!! Wednesday is Frank’s birthday so we will be taking him to Cafe Toulouse as the manager is a friend of mine. No doubt there will be more male bonding at the pub while the Little Woman demurely sits by in her new Amish underwear. Next weekend I’d like to take Surly to see my favourite Texas roadhouse blues band, Matt Leddy and the Meatcutters. There will be at least one more visit to my nightclub so Surly can again attest to my being the best [and probably oldest] dancer in the place and, of course, more studying of eye candy with Kevin. There will probably be at least one trip to the cinema thrown in to satiate the Surly One’s film fetish. We may even check out the Lord of the Rings museum exhibit. [Betcha they don’t have museums in Yellowknife!]

And so I leave you with this invitation: It’s damn expensive to entertain visitors [even when they are helping out financially], can somebody send me a large wad of American dollars?

Current mood: burning through cash

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2005 at 8:21 am and is filed under Naughty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.