Posts tagged with "Pita"

A Weekend With Pita

Pita was over for the week­end. He had a com­pe­ti­tion in the city, in both Standard and Latin, and need­ed a place to crash. He tells me that he’s at the point where he’s stuck between achiev­ing a high­er lev­el and pri­or­i­tiz­ing the sport as a recre­ation, espe­cial­ly after com­ing back emp­ty-hand­ed this week­end when he won two golds at the last com­pe­ti­tion. 25 is get­ting old for a com­pet­i­tive dancer, and his instruc­tor, who’s the same age as him, is already the Canadian cham­pi­on.

I have an inter­est­ing rela­tion­ship with Pita. He was the first per­son I met when I moved to this city, shar­ing a room on the 15th floor of a res­i­den­cy. Similar inter­ests and intel­lects meant that we got along much bet­ter than the oth­er pairs of frosh room­mates, most of whom got stuck with the crazy, the irra­tional, and the dis­gust­ing. We went sep­a­rate ways the next year, but moved into an apart­ment togeth­er for the fol­low­ing two years. After part­ing ways as room­mates, when he moved 12000 kilo­me­tres to the place he was born, before com­ing back to this coun­try, we did­n’t speak to each oth­er for more than eigh­teen months.

Now, when­ev­er I see him, when­ev­er he’s in town vis­it­ing old friends or par­tic­i­pat­ing in com­pe­ti­tions, we can greet each oth­er with­out for­mal­i­ties and just pick up where we left off. It’s on odd state between acquain­tance and friend­ship. We share our­selves, and what we’ve learned and how we’ve changed since last see­ing each oth­er, but nev­er keep in touch oth­er­wise. We also give each oth­er per­spec­tive. He often speaks as if he’s ask­ing for advice or guid­ance, with­out actu­al­ly ask­ing. I offer my point of view, which he always inter­prets in a dif­fer­ent way than intend­ed, and this keeps me on my toes.

Pita And Friend

After the last house­warm­ing par­ty, Pita stayed the night, hav­ing come all the way from Montreal, not want­i­ng to dri­ve back after a few hours of drink­ing. I asked him to stay on Sunday, and we end­ed up play­ing all the old Gamecube games that we used to play and mas­ter, back when we lived togeth­er. We nev­er had the chance to do this since he moved to Taiwan and back to Canada over two years ago, so it was quite a rem­i­nis­cent expe­ri­ence.

Discovering I had a free week­end, I invit­ed him over a lit­tle while ago for two days of pure gam­ing. The invi­ta­tion was extend­ed to his room­mate, after Pita said that I should meet her, being a hard­core gam­ing chick who appar­ent­ly can kick his ass in Soul Calibur 2. I have yet to observe this ass-kick­ing chick phe­nom­e­non for myself, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, I haven’t had any time to prac­tice with Kilik or Raphael, so I’m pre­pared to get my ass hand­ed to me. I’m hop­ing to make it up in Super Smash Brothers Melee.

This is the last week­end of fun before I start to get seri­ous about work (aside from a LAN par­ty I have planned for the first week of November). I decid­ed not to take the job at the book­store, and put my full focus on a web solu­tions busi­ness that I reg­is­tered this week.

They should be here any minute.

Housewarming '05

It’s a new week, and I final­ly feel like myself again. The only time I have an unsta­ble mind is when I wake up between two and four every night. All the thoughts I push to the back of my mind come flood­ing back, and I have trou­ble falling asleep for anoth­er hour or two. Other than that, I’m okay, more or less. All it took was a house­warm­ing par­ty and a week­end of no wor­ries.

Thumbnail: Corona bottles

Thumbnail: Cat and kitty

Trolley and I start­ed prepa­ra­tions on Friday. We were expect­ing 14 peo­ple (with three not drink­ing) and we got that exact­ly — Pat, Jen, Jeff, Pita, Mike, Iain, Aaron, Karen, Kat, Sebastien, Eric, Jen, Trolley, and I. In all, we had four bot­tles of Keith’s (left over from pok­er night last week), three bot­tles of wine, a 12 of Corona, and two 5‑Liter Kegs of Grolsch. In addi­tion to this, Aaron end­ed up bring­ing six more Keith’s, while Mike gave me a mick­ey of Smirnoff, and Pita sup­plied a 12 of Blueu (the dis­tin­guished Quebec vari­ant of Blue). A few major drinkers pow­ered through the alco­hol, and while we ini­tial­ly believed our­selves to be over­stocked, we end­ed up with only a few Blue and the wine.

It was a pret­ty good mix of peo­ple. While I was grilling burg­ers on the new bar­beque, peo­ple were min­gling, hang­ing out on the couch­es, catch­ing up on hock­ey on TV. Some were even soak­ing up the sun in my lit­tle back yard/patio, which has an accom­mo­dat­ing set of stairs and a few lawn chairs. There was­n’t as much seg­re­ga­tion, and I think that Aaron, Trolley, and Pat helped blend the two (and a half) groups a bit. For a suc­cess­ful par­ty, I’m always sure to have all three in atten­dance. To my sur­prise, we all end­ed up play­ing some four-play­er Gamecube games towards the end of the night, some­thing I was­n’t sure that every­one was inter­est­ed in.

Thumbnail: Barbecue thermometer

Thumbnail: Crystal lowball glasses

Thumbnail: Moonray solar-powered lanterns

All-in-all, it was a good par­ty, even if I was too busy run­ning around, mak­ing sure every­one was well fed and thor­ough­ly drunk, to hang out with my guests. I even got a few house­warm­ing gifts. Trolley and I built the bar­beque Pat gave us in time for the par­ty, and Iain got me a nice set of crys­tal low balls (which have a nice weight to them, but need to be hand washed). Aaron gave me a set of six solar-charged patio lanterns that real­ly make my yard stand out from the rest. I could­n’t ask for more.

Pita crashed that night, but not before I got him burned for the first time. I think his mind was a lit­tle too rigid, and he was ana­lyz­ing things a lit­tle too much to be able to relax and enjoy it. He stayed for the rest of Sunday, and we played the old Gamecube games we used to enjoy back when we were still liv­ing togeth­er. I had such a good time, that I was able to real­ly for­get about every­thing else that’s going on right now. It was like a lit­tle get­t­away in my own house.

I need­ed this week­end.