Natasha's awesome boyfriend

Yesterday I woke up with a little bit of a headache. No big deal - I just took a couple of ibuprofin and started studying for my stats exam. The headache started to get worse so I drank a couple of glasses of water and laid down for a bit. An hour later my headache was so bad that I started to cry.
I decided to call Natasha hoping that she could give me a ride to the doctors. If it was just a sore throat or a bit of a fever, I could have grumpily taken the bus by myself. Natasha answered but could not drive so she asked Matt to pick me up. He showed up to my building ten minutes later where I waited for him on a cement ledge with my jacket-hood up so that I could curtain my teary eyes.
He waited for me at the doctor's office which did not take too long. The doctor figured it was the combination of wine, cheesecake and chocolate from the night before that provoked the headache. This is generally because of the sulfites that occur naturally in red wine, but also because of other ingrediants found in cheese and chocolate. The doc prescribed me some tylenol 3's and off to the drug store we went.
My eyes were still wet and red from crying, and the ten minute wait the pharmacist proposed was so much more painful with the florescent lights. Matt, on the other hand, entertained both himself and I by trying on bright ladies' summer hats with polka-dots, bows and ribbons. The laughter eased my headache. Then we played with kitchen chairs, wine-stoppers and other kitchen implements as we waited. To thank Matt for his help, I bought a pink wine-stopper that looked more like a strange adult toy than a kitchen item. Matt said that he and Natasha do not drink wine, but it would be fun to give it to Natasha just to see what she thought of it. He was right: she thought the same thing we did!
I asked Matt if it was okay for me to nap at his and Natasha's place because when I am sick, I feel safer, more comfortable and warmer in a place where people I love and trust are around. Or, as Matt so delicately put it, "just in case blood starts shooting out your ears."
One two hour nap later and I was feeling great and ready to finish studying for my stats exam (which I think I did alright on).
I have a lot of people in my life I know I can count on in times of need, and it's really cool when someone, a friend of a friend, goes out of his/her way to help you out just because.

Mom the Rebel-Rouser

Mom is the woman who lectured me against swearing when I was 7, punished me for stealing at 14 and worriedly disapproved of my drinking at 20. But every now and then life upsets the order that you have grown accustomed to just to keep you from being boring. Well, that happen to me last night with Mom.
We planned on seeing the movie the Wild friday night and had sushi at a nearby restaurant. After finishing our dessert of ornamentally coiled oranges, we had almost an hour before the movie began. "Let's go for a walk," my mother suggested and I concurred even though the local scenery consisted of the highway, fastfood restaurants and parking lots. "Susie introduced me to these drinks called Vodka Ice " my mom said, "and I really like them." I then noticed that we were approaching a liquor store.
I sarcastically reciprocated, "What? You want to get some booze for the show?"
"Why not?" she replied.
"You serious?"
"We can hide the bottles in my coat or your purse."
"Okay. I guess . . . " I was quietly shocked inside.
With one Vodka Ice and a bottle of Canadian in my purse, we purchased our tickets and headed for the theatre. "You know," my mother started, "it would be less conspicuous if we sipped from straws. I'm going to go get some."
I had not sipped beer from a straw since I was twelve years old when Natasha and I got into my dad's 0.5% Alc beer. I hated the taste and figured that I could endure the drink better if I sucked through the straw from the back of the mouth and bypass all my tastebuds. I had forgotton that it is easier to get drunk from beer through a straw because you never have to remove the beer from your lips as your would with a glass, bottle or can and can therefore suck at length.
My mom and I enjoyed the Wild for what it is - a kid's movie. When it was over, I noticed that some movies had just started. My mom has snuck into a second movie twice (both times in her fifties), and I have never. I have, as a fourteen year old, bought a ticket for a G-rated movie and snuck into a R-rated one, but I have never done the double feature. My mother, and I agree, feels that it makes the expensive price of a ticket more worth your while.
So from the washroom we headed for theatre 17 to see the Rocket. This movie is about Maurice Richard, one of the best hockey players of all time, and his tribulations of being a francophone minority in the anglophone majority of the NHL. The film wove between English and French (Quebec French - an accent I have not heard since I was 18) just like the common dialect of Montreal, the story's setting. Both my mom and I enjoyed this film, and found ourselves tired at home at 1 am (I was cranky . . . I'm not really nice when I'm cranky . . . )
All in all I enjoy seeing the hidden dimensions of my mother. It's as if she turns into a real human being when we leave the house as opposed to the worrisome but law obiding mother that I know.