Move over, Ricky! I'm really livin' la vida loca!

I trip my way through life collecting broad and sometimes bizarre experiences. I don’t intentionally place myself with people or in situations that create these interactions. They just happen.

But life is for living. And, for me, living means not standing still. It means being open and approachable while still being cognizant of my surroundings. 

I’m the woman who, the first time in Mexico at an all inclusive resort with my Mom, sat on the bar with her and helped the bartenders count liquor so we could close up and check out a rocking little local cantina with them.

I’m the woman who met some strangers in a bathroom in New Orleans and decided it was a good idea to get onstage with them and sing karaoke. (We got gonged off the stage.) 

Before marriage, I was the woman who clubbed in parties that were set up in warehouses after midnight (precursors to raves, I guess), danced on the speakers in gay nightclubs, travelled with my Mom (a similar soul) to different places getting lost and having better adventures than planned. My voice of reason was generally intact although tuned out at times. 

As time went on, I had always hoped to find a man with whom my life wouldn’t be looked upon with scorn or distaste. Someone who wouldn’t tell me to be less approachable, less open to experiencing life, less willing to see “what happens next."

I had given up hope of finding such a man (kissed so many frogs, I got warts but no prince) and then I met My Favourite Husband (MFH). It was pretty obvious very early on that his calm, accepting demeanour would mean not much would faze him as I skipped through life in situations where he shook his head and laughingly listened but didn’t judge. 

I worked for an airline for 18 years so it was obvious pretty early on in that career that I would come home from work with stories. Being serenaded by intoxicated passengers hoping to board an aircraft (they did not). Having a man tell me I look like I belong in the ocean only to later figure out he thought I looked like a mermaid with my blonde hair against a bright blue information screen. Having an airport policeman teach me how to ride the cop Segway through the airport during COVID-19.

I’d come home and when he asked about my day, I’d regale him with my stories. And since I was home safely, he never got upset but he sometimes asked, “Were other people around?" 

Sometimes I travelled with other people but without him and never alone. 

I came home from a travel agent trip to Russia (back in the late 1990s) and told him about how, on my flight from Montreal to Moscow, I was getting hit on by a man with a mouthful of gold teeth through his interpreter. Apparently, I was marriage material (even though I was married) and he leaving me alone on that flight wasn’t an option for him. When we landed in Moscow, it turns out the man was a Tajikistan warlord (according to our local tour guide whose face turned white when I pointed out the “pest.”) When I told him how my trip started (and everything else that happened on that trip), he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Babe, maybe you would’ve learned to cook if you had been captured for a bit.” I kinda loved that response but I do think he would’ve missed me.

Another time I was dancing in the local disco of a nickel-mining town in Cuba, feeling pretty good from the beer and from life. I was there with two Cuban female colleagues who were conversing with others from the mine. I wanted to dance and asked a young Cuban gentleman to do so. He spoke no English and my Spanish was limited but he understood what I was asking. We proceeded to dance a few dances and then I sat down with my colleagues. Fast forward to the next day when I was flying out of the local airport back to Havana. Out of nowhere this man appears. He speaks in Spanish far too rapid for me and eventually leaves. When he does, my companions break into hysterical laughter and want to know how I know this man. Turns out he’s the town “procurer of woman for foreign workers” and that was my dance partner! 

Same trip has me meeting local military on a dark Cuban road with guns pointed at our vehicle (the military thought a local had stolen it until they saw me and knew the car was on loan to my driver) and a few other “incidents.” When I came home and told MFH about my trip, he shook his head and said, “Babe, why you? I’m not surprised by any of it but why you?"

Why me, indeed!

When we were out together, he’d stand back and watch as people approached me in a store to ask where tampons/condoms/adult diapers/toothpaste were; he’d laugh when we’d holiday together as both staff and other guests picked me to dance/sing/talk to. I’d be the one taking a wrong turn in Paris with the result that we ended up discovering new people and new adventures. I made friends with a fellow seasick traveller on our cruise to Hawaii and we hung out together on driving day trips and nude beach excursions (totally by accident but I stumbled onto it and, well, sometimes you just gotta Adam and Eve that stuff). 

I have to say that when we were together, though, less bizarre things tended to happen to me. Maybe it’s because MFH was a physically imposing man so interesting people didn’t approach as much with his presence near. Or maybe his energy calmed the energy around me. Either way, he did get a taste of what was drawn to me.

After his death, I thought that as I changed, maybe how people and experiences showed up in my life would change. They have not.

I was the grieving widow who, not long after MFH died, has a friend (whose side hustle is male exotic dancing) offer to perform a private dance for me in a effort to make me smile, if only for a short time.

I’m the woman who got a marriage proposal from an Uber driver as I settled myself in a car on layover. I’m the woman who harassed the pilots I worked with random conversations and practical jokes. I’m also the flight attendant who had the “pleasure” or relocating exit row passengers who snuck a pet onboard; the FA whose camera flashed in the flight deck as I took pictures of the Northern Lights (“Shit, did I blind you, captain?”)

I’m the woman who recently parked by a homeless encampment (no wonder the parking was so cheap) when I met friends downtown for an excursion. 

I’m also the woman who, very recently, saw a young, attractive man and pointed him out to my friend and then her husband. I was trying to figure out his age from a distance (half my age plus seven years ... right?) when her husband boldly got up to ask. Was that bad enough? Yes, but what made it worse was that when he approached the young man, his father came out of the camper ... and he knew his father! And I’d met his father — twice. Of course it no longer mattered what his age was as I hoped my face would not be attached to the conversation.

I wouldn’t change any of these experiences. Not one. And these are among some of the milder ones that have happened to me. 

What I will say is this: if there ever is a man that comes into my world, one who turns both my head and my heart, I hope he brings along a helmet when he’s with me. It will, assuredly, be one hell of a ride!

❤️