A Naked Texan Inside Me
Amazing when this internet thing actually works the way people predicted it would a decade ago, "bring people and ideas together coast to coast," and so forth. I met some new friends for dinner tonight whom I'd stumbled into via Flickr, and spent a great time talking politics, music, and travels. David and Pam are a couple of Bostonians who are finalizing plans to move to Vancouver, and I'm glad to have been a resource to them so far.
During the recounting of a particular story today, David suggested that it deserved a spot up here, and volunteered the title, and I figured it was as good an excuse as any. This doesn't mean I take requests, however (recalling a particularly grisly moment from my professional piano days when a man told me his wife's favorite song was "The Eyes of Texas" and pleaded with me to perform it for her. I'm every day proud that I stood my ground on that one — a man's gotta have his standards), so don't get any ideas.
Relevant to questions about what life is like for an American (a Texan no less) in Canada, I had sort of an embarrassing moment today. I was eating lunch with several coworker friends (what kind of genius came up with shopping mall calamari? I owe a big thanks to someone out there), most of whom seem to forget, or at least graciously ignore, the fact that I'm still a bit of an outsider, evidenced by the occasional comment of, "Oh yeah, you wouldn't have known that would you?"
I'm a sneaky Texan, that way. I don't have an accent (people's first guess as to my place of origin is actually Toronto, these days). I don't own a beer bottle collection or any kind of Nascar paraphernalia. I could make all kinds of other stereotypical comments here, but suffice it to say that I'm my own person, and very few of them scream "Southern US" in much of any way.
So apparently it came as quite a surprise to these coworkers when, in the course of telling a story, I threw a Rodney Carrington quote in there in the most authentic drawl I could muster. The reaction I received wasn't simply horror. As I told my dinner companions, I could have shed my clothes and been a woman underneath and caused less surprise.
The silence was finally broken with a sotto voce comment of "Don't do that."
* * *
I received the refund check from my movers today. The check for "$100 per day beyond the final day promised for your goods to arrive" which I was told would be processed and sent promptly. Two problems: "promptly" was decreed on December 1st, and the check is only for $264. I can't possibly reason out how $100 per day could ever equal $264, especially since by my calculations it was an 11 day delay from their final commitment date. What a weird sum, anyway, right? So maybe they figure it up to only 3 days late, but that's still $300, not $264, and it's not like there's sales tax on a refund offer, or something weird like that. I also wondered if maybe there was a misunderstanding about the daily rate, but that would only really make sense if it were off by a multiple of 10 or 2 or something. It does come out pretty close to $25 a day. . . . Anyway, I'm going to drive myself crazy if I think about this too much. They're getting an email from me tomorrow, regardless.
During the recounting of a particular story today, David suggested that it deserved a spot up here, and volunteered the title, and I figured it was as good an excuse as any. This doesn't mean I take requests, however (recalling a particularly grisly moment from my professional piano days when a man told me his wife's favorite song was "The Eyes of Texas" and pleaded with me to perform it for her. I'm every day proud that I stood my ground on that one — a man's gotta have his standards), so don't get any ideas.
Relevant to questions about what life is like for an American (a Texan no less) in Canada, I had sort of an embarrassing moment today. I was eating lunch with several coworker friends (what kind of genius came up with shopping mall calamari? I owe a big thanks to someone out there), most of whom seem to forget, or at least graciously ignore, the fact that I'm still a bit of an outsider, evidenced by the occasional comment of, "Oh yeah, you wouldn't have known that would you?"
I'm a sneaky Texan, that way. I don't have an accent (people's first guess as to my place of origin is actually Toronto, these days). I don't own a beer bottle collection or any kind of Nascar paraphernalia. I could make all kinds of other stereotypical comments here, but suffice it to say that I'm my own person, and very few of them scream "Southern US" in much of any way.
So apparently it came as quite a surprise to these coworkers when, in the course of telling a story, I threw a Rodney Carrington quote in there in the most authentic drawl I could muster. The reaction I received wasn't simply horror. As I told my dinner companions, I could have shed my clothes and been a woman underneath and caused less surprise.
The silence was finally broken with a sotto voce comment of "Don't do that."
* * *
I received the refund check from my movers today. The check for "$100 per day beyond the final day promised for your goods to arrive" which I was told would be processed and sent promptly. Two problems: "promptly" was decreed on December 1st, and the check is only for $264. I can't possibly reason out how $100 per day could ever equal $264, especially since by my calculations it was an 11 day delay from their final commitment date. What a weird sum, anyway, right? So maybe they figure it up to only 3 days late, but that's still $300, not $264, and it's not like there's sales tax on a refund offer, or something weird like that. I also wondered if maybe there was a misunderstanding about the daily rate, but that would only really make sense if it were off by a multiple of 10 or 2 or something. It does come out pretty close to $25 a day. . . . Anyway, I'm going to drive myself crazy if I think about this too much. They're getting an email from me tomorrow, regardless.