I always win

Lastnight, Paul and I went for Cuban food at an amazing little place in the Chueca. Shortly after we arrived, two of the tallest, most impossibly-good-looking people EVER came in... a man and a woman. They were so tall and so perfect looking, Paul and I decided they had to be models. The guy was literally one of the most beautiful people I´ve seen in person. He was wearing a Dolce & Gabbana shirt with Huey, Dewey, and Louey on the front. They took the table in front of ours. As if that wasn´t enough destruction, they were soon joined by more and more beautiful people. They were all smoking and drinking, and I realized in horror that my jacket, which I had hung on the wall, was now buried in supermodel jackets. I briefly considered leaving it there... passport, wallet, and all. We had our food (I ate all my carbs, despite what I was looking at), drank our daquiris, and hung around long enough to verify that they did, in fact, eat something (and not just smoke and drink). Oh,...

It´s official: I love Madrid. I love the architecture, the osos , and the round Spanish asses on the hordes of HOT men EVERYWHERE. But Pablo is very dissapointed in me, because I´ve apparently lost my mojo. I have not had "the sex" since being here. Oh there was a darkroom trist at Cruising , but that was really more fun for the "coke can" than it was for me. (Jason, you know what I´m talking about? Dr. Brad?) The peak was at a bar called Paso where I was simply stared at by several patrons. Unfortunately, there was so much cigarette smoke that after 45 minutes without a hazmat suit, I had to leave. Upon exiting, a tall hombre grinned at me and said loudly, "Toro! Toro! Toro!" FINISHED! I managed a "buenos noches" and a blush but left. Madrid out... Mloyd

OK! Nightmare trip so far. A snowstorm descended upon Pearson as I was waiting for my flight. Over 2h late taking off. And, at some point KLM decided to become Martinair and cram about a million seats into a 747-400. I thought I was going to die. Knees jammed into the seat in front of me. Zero room. 4-year-old kicking the seat behind me for the entire flight. (Oh, except for when she fell asleep on our approach to Amsterdam, and failed to wake up despite the plane being struck by lightning 3 times .) By the way, I never have to take one of those parabolic flights that they use to train astronauts. I (and the rest of the jam-packed flight) experienced a couple of zero-G moments trying to land at Schipol. The pilot had his work cut out for him. It was one time in my life that I wasn't stressed out by applause at touchdown. This guy earned it. Of course, I missed my connecting flight to Madrid. 2.5 hours of waiting at the transfer desk and I'm on the 4:15 p.m. flight...

There's a certain peace that comes over me when I realize I can just walk away from a stressful situation. Pull the cord on the emergency chute. This is the type of calm that settled over me tonight during a careening ride through rush hour Toronto traffic in a beat-up Beck taxi--a ride paid for by my car dealership; no doubt because I got General Motors Canada involved in a little "disagreement" about the latest service incident with my car. Tonight , I decided, is the last time I deal with Midtown Saturn Saab . I can pay this ridiculous bill, walk out the door, and never come back... I blogged about these car troubles on the 16th and the 19th. The trouble on the 19th (howling noise from engine; fluid leaking out) turned out to be a loose power steering hose, right under the top radiator hose. The very radiator that the dealer did a flush & fill on last week. No, I know . Completely unrelated . I was informed of this over the phone this morning. In addition...

a sampling of Tori Amos' cover of Cyndi Lauper's All Through the Night , Royce Hall Auditorium, Los Angeles, April 25 2005 Jason and I are seeing Cyndi Lauper in concert on December 6th! Although Jason makes fun of my fondness for Tori, he seems to forget that he liked Armand Van Helden's 1996 remix of "Professional Widow"--in fact, I think he even owned a copy. This was back when Jason was into dance music. Now he's into early-bird specials and online spades with other seniors.

Wednesday, November 16th : I bring the car home after paying a $2800 repair bill. This morning : I go to use my car for the first time since Wednesday. After starting the engine, I notice a howling sound. It doesn't go away. I decide to try and drive (slowly) to the dealer, but the howling sound becomes a screaming sound if I touch the steering wheel. I turn the car off. The engine has seemingly barfed yellow-green fluid (coolant?) onto the pavement. I go back inside, call the dealership, and speak with the service manager. He agrees to pay for a tow truck. This post is in case anyone was wondering why I entitled my blog I always win .

$2807.14 is, for me, a lot of money. It's four months of rent. It's roughly my annual grocery budget. But today, that is the amount I spent getting my Saab fixed. What started off on Friday as a trip to the dealer to repair a fault in the alarm system ended up being a whole bunch of service that: a) the car needed b) can be viewed as preventative c) would have cost me a great deal more on separate trips (think disassembled European car engine, then think $109 hourly shop labour rate) d) the previous owner (who leased the car from the very dealership I bought it from) neglected to do * My horoscope for Friday said that I shouldn't buy anything. Perhaps that's why I nodded and said yes--with what I'm guessing was a glazed look in my eyes--to all of the service items. It was one of my Mary Richards moments. You know--where she looks at the price of the meat, rolls her eyes, and tosses it in the shopping cart. It's ironic that I drive one of the safest vehi...