Alternate subject lines for this post:

"The day an attractive woman took Monkeyman's pants down" and "Monkeyman Got Lei'd". But have no fear, this post is still rated G (or maybe PG).

The last time I had access to Rinkworks was Tuesday, July 10th. At that time, I had moved out of my previous home and was crashing with friends while looking for a place to live. I was pretty desperate to find a place to live. The real beginning of my story is before that, though.

Monday, July 9th

The day was spent moving all the rest of my worldly possessions from my old home out to the garage and the space under the porch. In all, I ended up working for about thirteen hours that day, though one of those hours was spent driving my cat, Mocha, out to a kennel in the country. She hated the car trip, spending most of it yowling and panting. She settled in fairly well at the kennel, though. For accomodations that night, I had planned to take my friend Blair's offer to stay with him and Shayne, but from about 9:00 to 11:00 PM, the phone was busy. Presumably, Blair was talking to his girlfriend, who lives about eight hundred miles from Calgary. When I finally got through, Shayne answered, and agreed to come and pick me up, since there would be no place for me to park downtown, and I had too much stuff to bring down to be able to take the bus. When we arrived at Shayne's apartment, he helped me bring up my basic necessities (suitcase, pillow, and blanket) and then pulled out Blair's futon for me. Before going to bed, he gave my his apartment key, the building keycard, and the key to his car, just so that I could get my computer out of the car in the morning and be able to leave the apartment as I pleased. We agreed that if Blar was not going to be home the next night when Shayne got back, I would have to come to Shayne's office to give him his keys or else be home when he arrived. Despite that little clause, I felt VERY pleased and thankful to have a friend who was so kind to me in my time of need. In case you were wondering, I haven't forgotten all the kind RinkyDinks who offered to let me crash with them--I was just especially thankful because Shayne was actually in a position to fulfill his offer to me. :-)

Tuesday, July 10th

I slept until about 10:00 Tuesday morning, mainly because I was so exhausted from the long day before. I started the morning by trying to set up my computer, but quickly found that I couldn't get into the parkade. I called Shayne at work, and he realized that he had forgotten to provide me with his parkade key, but he was able to tell me where to find a spare parkade key in the apartment, so the problem was resolved. I got my computer all set up, pulled up my house hunting spreadsheet, and made a few calls. I also used Shayne's computer to print off a page for house hunting and to read my daily comics and come to visit Rinkworks. After all this, I left the apartment and grabbed a sub at Subway for brunch and a newspaper to look at the classifieds for house listings, then went to the bus stop to catch a bus up to my old home.

While I was waiting for the bus, I had a very odd encounter: an extremely attractive young woman came up to the front of the bus shelter, looked in at me as I was reading my paper, and said bluntly, "Hi! Remember me?"

It took me a moment, but astonishingly, I DID remember her. She was one of the three women in my first year engineering group at Medicine Hat college. The last time I saw her would have been in April of 1996, over five years ago. Unfortunately, I could not remember her name, so I told her where I remembered her from and apologized for not knowing her name. She graciously reminded me that her name was Adrianna, but then admitted to forgetting my name as well, so I re-introduced myself. We talked for a moment, mainly about what I had been up to. I saw my bus come around the corner, though, and had to get up to catch it. She asked, "Is this yours?" and I said yes, and so we said our goodbyes, and she walked away up the block as I went to get on the bus. It was then that I realized that I had forgotten which stop this particular bus stopped at, and as I sprinted up the block, blushing furiously, I hoped that Adrianna had not turned around and seen my running like an idiot.

Looking back on the conversation, I feel like a cad for not taking the opportunity to ask her more about what she was up to these days. I don't even know if she finished engineering (one comment she made seemed to imply that she didn't) and I have no idea what she was up to in Calgary. Oh, well...

I got up to the old house, and Ryan and I got back to work on house hunting. We already had one "appointment" for that evening at 6:15, but we were supposed to have received a phone call confirming the time, and we did not get it. Another landlord offered to show us a place at 6:00, so we went ahead with that one. I also spent some time helping Barb (Jason's mother) cleaning and organizing the house in preparation for Darla (Jason's fiancee)'s imminent arrival. When Jason needed to be picked up from work, Barb was exhausted, and so I offered to go pick him up. Since my car was full of stuff waiting to be moved, she offered me her car to drive. I took it, which was an interesting experience for me, since I drive a 1995 Nissan Sentra and she drives a 1997 Nissan Sentra. On the outside, there are a few cosmetic differences, but in the inside, she has a better stereo and I have air conditioning, and that's about it. I felt like I was driving some weird alter-ego of my car, with some power steering problems and smoother shifting.

At 5:30, Ryan and I hopped into my car to go see this place. It was in Beddington, which is one of the distant northern communities of Calgary. The drive took about forty minutes, which bother Ryan quite a bit--he knew this would crate problems with his girlfriend, since neither of them had access to a vehicle, and a forty minute car ride would probably translate to over ninety minutes on buses. In any case, there was a young couple already there when we arrived, also viewing the place. The landlords arrived, and we were a bit startled.

Victor, the owner, was a short East Indian man, wearing nice clothes, with a thick gold chain around his neck. We later learned that he also owns a bar near downtown Calgary. Steve, the main operator of the rental side of things, was about six foot eight, and at least three hundred and fifty pounds. The two gave us and the couple a good walk through the house, and we learned quickly that they were very laid back, and--dare I say it?--unprofessional. The house was nice enough--it was actually a townhouse condo, with three levels--three bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs, a kitchen, dining room, garage, and half bathroom on the main floor, and an unfinished basement with a washer and dryer downstairs. Two of the bedrooms upstairs were a bit small, but overall the place was fairly large. Ryan and I were a bit apprehensive about Victor and Steve, but we decided to go ahead and apply for the place in spit of that. The other couple were given application forms before they left, but we think that Steve and Victor liked us or something, because they stuck around while we filled out forms on the spot. We didn't have information like contact numbers for our previous landlords or bank information, but that did not bother them--as Steven said, "So long as your checks don't bounce and you don't wreck the place, we don't care." This attitude also frightened us a bit (what kind of landlord doesn't care about stuff like credit checks and previous tenant history?) but it was also a good thing for us, because with none of the three tenants working, we had been having some trouble with other landlords, no matter how much money we could bring in through other sources, so this was a bit positive.

After we filled out the forms, they asked for two checks from us (damage deposit and the first month's rent) to be cashed immediately in the event that our application was approved. They did prorate the rent for the month, although Steve's hand calculation seemed a bit off--you tell me how many days out of 31 makes 732 dollars out of 1100. In any case, Steve asked us to call him the next day around noon, and they would tell us if we got the place. (This was also odd--what kind of landlord asks YOU to call THEM?)

After we left, Ryan and I decided to go to Shayne and Blair's apartment. I ordered pizza for the four of us, partly so I could eat, and partly to thank Shayne and Blair for their hospitality. I then drove Ryan back to the old house (he was crashing with his girlfriend and her father, who lived upstairs) and went downstairs and ended up chatting with Jason until about midnight. I then caught a bus back downtown and fell asleep almost immediately when I reached the apartment.

Wednesday, July 11th

Shayne had a family reunion going on out at the lake this week, and had taken the 11th, 12th, and 13th off in order to attend. Wednesday morning, however, he had to wait around until his sisters were ready to go, so we hung around the apartment in the morning while he cooked up some breakfast. We watched a bunch of TV, and although he had to leave partway through, I watched an entire episode of Starsky and Hutch. Man, that Starsky is a PLAYUH. That Rosie Malone never new what hit her. When she found out that Starsky was a police detective investigating her father's connections with The Syndicate, the sparks sure flew, but in the end, Starsky's amazing ability to grab a woman by both arms and talk some sense into her won the day. Of course, at the end of the show, Rosie's father decided to leave the country, and Rosie had to go with him so that she would not be a target if The Syndicate ever found out that he had ratted them out. Poor Starsky's heart was broken, but I'll bet he was back in the game the next week.

Anyway, Shayne told me I could have some of his food while he was out running errands, and I quickly learned that I have no idea how to cook frozen hashbrowns or make over-easy eggs. When Shayne got back, he offered me a ride back up to my old place before he headed out to the lake, and I accepted.

When I got to the house at 11:45, I came in just to catch the tail end of my phone ringing. No message was left, though. About five minutes later, I called Steve, and learned that it had been him who had called just a few minutes before. (Who calls about something important like that and doesn't leave a message?) As it turns out, our application had been accepted! Since Victor had already cashed $1832 in checks at the point, it was pretty much a done deal that we would move in. We arranged to meet at 2:00 that afternoon to do a damage inspection and pick up our keys.

I spent the intervening time making phone calls to various utilities. I managed to get my gas, power, and water set up with no fees or deposits and no hassle. The phone transfer was set for the next day, at an unspecified time ("in the morning"). The internet would have to wait until *GASP* Monday afternoon. I also got a hold of people at U-Haul who said they would try to book me a truck for as early as possible, but it would be no earlier than the next day.

The damage inspection was pretty straightforward, though a little rushed. I hate being rushed with damage inspections because of some of the bad experiences I have had previously, and I only hope that they are not too harsh on that, as we have since found a few other problems (the sort that you only find by living in a house) which were not listed on the report.

After the inspection, we had agreed to go help Darla move out of her old house and into our old house. After a slight misadventure in getting there (I got completely lost) we arrived just in time to help put a few last items into the U-Haul truck and eat some watermelon. We proceeded to drive back to the old house and help to unload the truck completely. After this was finished, we relaxed for a short time, and then decided to start moving stuff into our new home. (During that relaxtion bit, I also called U-Haul again and learned that I would have to call after 7:00 AM the next day to get my truck booked.) Since my car was already packed almost completely, we invited Blair over to fulfill his offer to help move, and put a few items in his car (including Ryan and his girlfriend Janis) and headed up to the new place. We unloaded all the stuff we had, and then I decided that I should go pick Mocha up from the kennel, and Blair and Ryan and Janis decided to just leave.

I drove out to the kennel to get Mocha, and paid $14.98 for the two nights that she had stayed. Once again, she hated the car ride, and when we got back to the new home, she spent quite a while exploring thoroughly while I tried to assemble some sort of bedding for myself for the night, since I had already decided to spend the night in the new home.

My hunt was met with no success. I ended up sleeping on the floor with a thin blanket under me, and a thin sheet and another thin blanket over me, with a pillowcase full of clothes serving as a pillow. I did not sleep well. I did, however, set my alarm clock so that I could be up and ready to go at 7 AM should a truck be available.

Thursday, July 12th

I woke up at 5:32 AM. I had not slept for eight hours; I did not feel well rested. I simply could not sleep any more at that point. For some reason, one of the first things I did upon waking was check to see if my phone was hooked up yet. To my surprise, it was, which was very nice, as I had expected to have to drive to the old place to make my phone calls regarding the U-Haul truck.

I spent the next hour and a half puttering around the house being VERY bored. I was too exhausted to do any unpacking, and I didn't have much available to unpack anyway, and I was too uncomfortable to fall asleep again. When 7 AM finally rolled around, I called the U-Haul place again, and was told that they could get me a truck from a center near my old house, but that this place did not open until 8 AM, and I would get a call back after eight giving me details. I decided that this was for the best, since I hadn't really wanted to start moving at seven in the morning anyway, so I puttered around the house for a while longer. I set up my computer on the floor of my study (Ryan chose the unfinished basement as a bedroom, so I have both a bedroom and a study upstairs). I finally got my call back from U-Haul at about 9:00, and headed upstairs to check on the phone number at Janis's house (which I had on my computer) but before I got to my computer, the phone started ringing again, and since the only phone in the house was plugged in in the kitchen, I ran back downstairs, only to find that it was Ryan calling (saving me some trouble.) I told him the details of the situation, and then threw some clothes on, hopped in the car, and went.

I grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonald's, and managed to pick up the truck at 10:00. It was loads of fun driving the seventeen foot monstrosity, but I was really nervous at the beginning. At least I didn't keep trying to hit a clutch that wasn't there.

It took us about three hours to get everything loaded into the truck. It was a hot day, and neither Ryan nor I are in any kind of shape, so it was pretty rough. We had a little help from Barb (Jason's mom), but for the most part, we filled that seventeen foot truck ourselves. I drove very carefully up to the new place and we realized that we only had about an hour and a half left to unload the truck before I had to return it, so our unloaded process was pretty simple: We opened the garage door, and filled the garage haphazardly with all our worldly possessions. I then drove like a maniac (well, not really--I honestly don't know how a maniac would drive, but I suspect it would involve more crashing) and got the truck back to the rental place at 3:58--two minutes before my deadline. The total distance driven turned out to be only one kilometre more than the guy had estimated, so he kept an extra forty-nine cents of my deposit, and I was off again.

I drove (with Ryan riding shotgun) back to the opld house to wait for the arrival of Jason. He was finishing work at 4:30, and his brother and best man was arriving on the bus at 5:00, and then before 6:00 we wanted to go try on our tuxedos for the upcoming wedding so that we could make it to the wedding rehearsal for 7:00. Well, things didn't work quite that way.

Jason arrived back at the house with Stewart at about 5:15. I asked how he wanted to do the logistics of vehicles for going to the fitting, and he said that he would shower and think about it. He showered, but didn't think about it (a groom-to-be has a lot of things to think about) and so around 6:00, we had finally figured out what we were going to do. We drove up to the tux rental place in two vehicles, with Ryan and I arriving first. The place was very busy, and we had to wait a while before we could try on our tuxes, but Ryan and I still had our tuxes on before Jason and Stewart arrived.

The wearing of the tuxedo leads to a cute little story. When I was putting on my tux, I had it all figured out, except for the pants. Those pants really stymied me. My first thought was to do up the button and clasp and fly at the front, like any normal pants. That all worked fine, but I noticed that I had either done the pants up incorrectly, lost four hundred pounds since I was fitted for these pants, or the pants were sized incorrectly. I ended up choosing the first option, and looked for another way to fasten the pants. I found one quickly--another little metal bit on one side of the pants served as a place to hook the clasp into. Unfortunately, with the clasp hooked over there, I coule not fasten the button or zip up the fly, and the pants were a bit snug. Also, the two weird clip things located near my hips seemed useless, and one of them did not clip down very well with the way I had the pants done up. Still, the pants were on, and I figured that was good enough.

I went out and checked out the tux in the mirror, and the cute girl who had taken our measurements months before checked over various features of the tuxes. When she asked how everything fit, I mentioned that the pants were a bit odd, and so we unbuttoned my jacket and vest to take a look. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes widened as she asked, "WHAT did you DO?" I was very glad that I was wearing boxer shorts a moment later when she undid the mess I had made and showed my where to find the little strap dealies which would shorten the waistline. Needless to say, the other guys had a good laugh at me, and I was quite embarrassed, but the girl did say that it was the most creative way she had ever seen someone fasten the pants before. Most people who couldn't find the straps would just give up and ask for help...

In any case, Ryan and I left the tuxedo rental place shortly after that. I dropped Ryan off at the C-Train station since he was planning to go meet his girlfriend and go to the Calgary Stampede that night. I managed to get to the church (which also happened to be about ten blocks from my new home--an amazing coincidence) at about 7:25 for the 7:00 rehearsal. When I arrived, a few people asked if Jason was close behind, and I said that he should be--but I was wrong. Jason ran into some directional problems (he got lost) and got to the rehearsal shortly after 8:00. From there, though, everything went smoothly. By the end of the rehearsal, I had a pretty good idea of just how great this wedding was going to be.

When the rehearsal was done, Jason and Stewart agreed to come and visit my new house, and after giving them a quick tour, they invited me to come back to Jason's place, where Barb was ordering pizza. I got a decent meal and met some of Jason's relatives from Kansas, as well as seeing an old friend who had just driven down--Darcy, who I hadn't seen in over four years.

At the end of the night, Ryan and I drove back to the new house, and we managed to get mattresses and bedding for each of us, which for me was a joyous change from the night before.

Friday, July 13th

I slept in late this morning, knowing that I had very little to do that day. Aroudn 11:00, Ryan and I went out to try to meet Darcy (we failed) and purchase wedding gifts for Jason and Darla (yeah, yeah, last minute). We got them gifts from the wedding registry, and we also picked up a shower curtain and bath mat for our home, and I bought a pair of khaki shorts to wear that evening for the Hawaiian themed Rehearsal Dinner. (Yes, the dinner was a different day than the rehearsal. Long story.)

At 5:00, Ryan and I arrived at the dinner, having showered and changed into our AWESOME Hawaiian shirts. The dinner was a simple barbecue held at Jason's house, but it was lots of fun--I got drafted into going to fill a propane tank and picking Janis up from work and missed a few of the early events, but I was back in time for such games as "He Will/She Will". I've been typing this post for a long time now, so that's all the detail you get. (This, by the way, was where I got lei'd. ;-) )

At about 8:00, Shayne arrived (as planned ahead of time) and we kidnapped the groom for his last night of freedom. We had done the bachelor party (a weekend at a cabin at Sylvan Lake) the weekend before, but we all wanted to go and see The Score so we planned out this little event to allow us to do so. Jason and Barb were both in on the plan, but Darla was not, which almost resulted in me getting socked (well, not really, but she jokingly threatened to knock me flat when I said that we were taking him and there was nothing she could do about it).

The movie didn't start until 10:30, so we had a few hours to just hang out after we bought our tickets. It was a lot of fun--I don't get to see Stewart very often, and as I mentioned before, I hadn't seen Darcy in ages. We wandered Chinook Centre as the mall was closing, then headed over to Moxies to get something to drink before the movie.

The movie itself was entertaining, but a bit too long and slow in parts. Most of us liked it, but would have preferred to wait for it on video.

Just before the movie started, we were joined by Blair and Melanie. This fact leads to a whole can of worms which I will not open in this post, so I'll just say that after the movie there was some awkwardness which resulted in pretty much everyone leaving very quickly. Ryan and I went straight home, knowing that the next morning we had to shower, vacuum out my car, take it through a car wash, and be at Jason's house by 10:00.

Saturday, July 14th - THE BIG DAY

The morning stuff went off without a hitch. Ryan and I arrived at Jason's house at 9:59 smelling good and in a clean car. When we came in, Jason was amazingly relaxed. Shayne and Darcy were there, telling stories about the night before (the party they went to after the movie). After a while, they left, and we helped Jason get ready to go, like good little groomsmen. Actually, everything came together very nicely. We even had time to decorate my car (and Barb's) a bit before we left. (I was the official driver of the groomsmen, and barb was going to be driving Jason to the wedding.)

We arrived at the church at about 12:00, which is pretty good for a 1:00 wedding. Of course, Ryan and I were doing double duty as ushers, and we needed time to cut buttonholes open and pin on corsages (long story). I also had to give Ryan a quick run through where and when he needed to go as a groomsman--fortunately, he had the easiest instructions.

In a stunning display of accidental revenge for the rehearsal, the bride was about half an hour late for the wedding. After that, though, everything went off without a hitch. The service was wonderful, and thankfully short, as I was cooking up there and my feet were burning from standing up in those rental shoes after about five minutes. I won't give any other details of the ceremony, since I wasn't the one getting married.

After the service, we did the receiving line outside (in the shade, thank goodness) and I had a blast meeting people I had heard stories about and re-acquainting myself with people I hadn't seen in a while (like Rio, the guy who was my Bible Study leader in University--he had just arrived home from a one year mission in China four days before). After that, some photos with the families were taken, but I had to stick around anyway because I was supposed to drive Stewart down to the photo session. When we did leave, we went and picked up a couple of cases of soda before heading downtown to the lovely MacDougall Park, where we jockeyed with over a dozen other wedding parties to get photos.

There were surprisingly few conflicts with other photo sessions, but that may have been because we were very patient in waiting for the best backdrops--we spent over three hours at the park. We got some very good photos (or at least, I think they will be good) including some like Ticia and Don's "groomsmen kissing bride" and "bridesmaids kissing groom". My personal favorites were the ones with all the men--we have what should be a great shot with Ryan and me kissing Jason on the cheeks, and another with me and Ryan and Stewart trying to lift Jason above our heads. Hopefully, I can eventually get copies of those pictures (and a few others) up on my web site, Jason willing.

After the photos, we headed straight over to the reception. The reception was without a doubt the most fun I have had in months. Sadly, this comes near the end of a long post, so I'll give a brief summary.

I made new friends, listened to some good speeches, told a joke that made everyone laugh, felt like I knew everyone there by the end of the night, took lots of fun photos with a disposable camera, ate some of the best food I have ever had, pined away for the stunningly beautiful Church Girl (31142), got more pictures taken, and sat on the patio after the bride and groom had left inhaling second-hand cigar smoke from a Monte Cristo and shooting the breeze with friends, both old and new.

I could write an entire post longer than this one on the reception alone, but I won't.

Sunday, July 15th (Denouement)

The tuxedos had to be returned between eleven and five on Sunday, and around 11:30, we got ahold of someone at Jason's house--surprisingly, it was Jason. Ryan and I went over to pick up our shoes and Jason and Stewart's tuxedos, and came in to find a very happy couple sitting in the living room opening gifts. Jason and Darla had chosen to have a private gift opening, and many people had complemented them on the idea. They got me to take a picture of them opening gifts, and we sat and chatted for a bit. It was amazingly relaxed--I could really feel the relief that they were feeling, at the whole thing being done with. Ryan and I took the tuxedos back and then went home again. My brother had called that morning to say that he would be arriving to move in that afternoon, and he did. His cat (Kat) and mine (Mocha) get along fairly well, but they have met before, so we are not surprised. I also took the opportunity to set up a ten gallon aquarium for whatever fish of mine had survived the move--it turned out to be only one, and that one died within the hour. :-( :-(

Some details which were missed in the telling of the story:
- Our linoleum in both bathrooms was replaced on Friday. The guy who did it made an awful mess and didn't clean up after himself, and reconnected the toilet upstairs incorrectly, which resulted in a leak which dripped water through the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom.
- Disposing of dead fish was pretty much a daily process for me, and was extremely draining emotionally. On the plus side, my newts and both my bettas survived, although one of my bettas got spilled--that was a near miss. As well, I am considering setting up my large aquarium as a reptile enclosure now, since I have no fish left to put in it.
- I basically only ate one meal a day for the entire week, and now my stomach has shrunk noticably--it looks smaller from the outside, and I can't seem to eat large meals like I used to. I am VERY happy about this. As well, with Kevin living here now, I will be eating better and exercising more, and I am starting to feel very good about myself again.

I have probably missed a lot of details and made a lot of typos, but I am so worn out now that I don't really care. It is time to post this.

Don Monkey