Third Tri-Annual Pisco Sour Fest

Sean and Melissa recently returned from Peru bearing gifts from my friends down in the area and from Melissa herself - two bottles of Pisco, a liquor that apparently is similar to brandy in the sense that it is the result of distilling grapes and also in the fact that it tastes disgusting without some sort of masking ingredient. I am not aware of any masking ingredients that go well with brandy, but lime juice, sugar, and ice cubes do a pretty good job on the pisco - a margarita-like concoction known as a Pisco Sour. With Carnival (the world's largest party) recently wrapping up in Brasil, I invited some people over to celebrate in a night of South American culture - beverages, music, and dancing. Those that are familiar with my apartment's floorplan (and size) know that it might be appropriate for dancing 5 year-olds, but not much more than that. So I planned on heading down to SOB's (Sounds of Brazil) with the guests after whetting our whistles with the pisco sours.

Rewind back two days: I woke up in the morning like any other morning and started getting ready for work. My head was spinning a bit after I woke up (but when does it not in the morning?) and while I was taking a shower I started to feel naseaus and dizzy....not good. I got out of the shower, realized that my head didn't feel right, my stomach didn't feel right, my joints didn't feel right, I couldn't even think straight, it was like I was totally confused, and I had no appetite. I put my pajamas back on, called my boss and told him I was not coming to work that day. I slept until 11:00 in the morning and, despite my best efforts, still couldn't help getting dizzy whenever I got out of bed. It was some kind of wicked head cold I guess and I missed out on a free schmoozing event that I had helped organize for myself and my coworkers (on someone else's dime ;o). I basically stayed in bed all day after trying to go to work in the afternoon, making it halfway to the subway before turning around and heading back.

My head was, for the most part, cleared up on Friday, though I still had little appetite (I pretty much didn't eat anything all day Thursday). More than work, I was worried about my party on Saturday night! By the end of the day Friday (which I barely made it through), I basically just had a bad cold and I knew I'd be in no shape to host 15 people in the current shape I was in. I woke up Saturday morning and debated back and forth on whether to postpone it before deciding to go ahead with it, though there would be no/limited pisco sour's for me!

I had a great turnout and felt better as the night went on and when people started requesting salsa music and attempting to dance in the tight quarters, I knew it was time to head down to SOB's. Much to my surprise, I had a great time down there, my cold be-damned! Part of the reason was because we had a nice sizable group there and plenty of girls for me to twirl and dance with. I'm not much of a Latin dancer, but I gave it a go and had some great dance partners that I could lead with my two left-feet ;o) .

One of the best parts of the night was when the DJ's began playing some of the Axe (ah-shay) music that I grew to love to listen to when I was in Brazil. It was played at the wedding, it was played at the clubs, it was played everywhere down there, so there's a special place in my heart for the cheezy songs and dances (think: Macarena-style) that everyone down there knows. It was great to have some authentic Brasilians around to show us gringos how to get our Axe on again! It brought back many of the most special memories of my trip in November and definitely made it a night to remember...

Speaking of special memories, I took the previously-mentioned Lavalife girl out again for dinner and dessert earlier this week. Although we had lots to talk about initially, similar to our first time out, my well of patience at being the conversation initiator was beginning to run dry and the straw that broke the camels back was after I asked how many times she'd travelled overseas (she said twice per year for the past four or five years) and then asked about specific memories / funny stories / special moments from any of her trips. "I can't really think of anything". Wha-wha-whaaat? I didn't even know how to respond to that because I couldn't believe that. I tried giving examples and still nothing. I tried something else and still nothing. That just made everything awkward and I got bored at that point. I don't forsee any future expenditures on this one...

Justinho, I have no idea how to date girls that don't want to talk, but I am willing to accept (partial) responsibility for this...