I was going to write about how I ended up in Rossland and all the things I've done since landing in Canada (don't worry, it's a short list), but let's be honest. Pretty much everyone reading this blog is only interested in my abortive romance with Maud's Hot Sister.
I will be honest. Things are not going well on the Maud's Hot Sister front. And not for want of trying. In Whistler, it took no time at all to assemble all the necessary elements for wooing: A rudimentary knowledge of Mr Big's seminal romantic-rock classic I'm The One Who Wants To Be With You, a collection of friends to provide alternating moral support and coercive social pressure according to my somewhat variable motivation, a sweater vest, Maud's Hot Sister's address, the complicitude of Maud's Hot Sister's Sister (Maud) and, perhaps most importantly, a backup singer with a voice of pure gold to hide in a bush and sing the harmony/backup parts that make Mr Big's hit so loin stirring good.
Indeed, all of the pieces of the puzzle were in place to provide a surprise rendition of one of modern music's greatest songs to Maud's Hot Sister while she listened from the balcony of her own house. Short of turning up in her bed scantily clad and surrounded by candles and rose petals it was the most romantic thing I could think of that was free, and I've already tried the other option.
The only piece missing was Maud's Hot Sister. Who was in Vancouver THE WHOLE TIME. I can't help but think that someone should have alerted me to this possibility. I don't take this dating business lightly - I could have gone to a lot of trouble and considerable expense for nothing.
The apparent up-side of Maud's Hot Sister being in Vancouver was that she was heading to Rossland a few days after I arrived and it synched up pretty well with my plans. And so, on Wednesday, rather than candles and bubble baths and sustained self loathing, I met Maud's Hot Sister at a Starbucks in Vancouver and the two of us set out on the 9-ish hour drive to Rossland.
In the uplifting feel-good comedy that will eventually be made about my life, this car trip will be represented as a montage with some kind of folksy adult contemporary soundtrack and gently shifting images of the two of us smiling at each other, looking at the the beautiful scenery, maybe sharing a stack of pancakes that later generations will look back on as an example of poor role-modelling for healthy food choices.
But none of those things happened. Oh God how I yearned for pancakes. For the sweet release of ice cream and maple syrup. For diabetes.
In reality, it was a long, tiring and inefficient journey with innumerable small stops and some super sketchy driving over a mountain pass in a snow storm. In keeping with the tradition of me driving terrible vehicles in Canada, our ride had bald all season tyres (which means not winter tyres, which means terrifying) and headlights that didn't have either high-beam or low-beam. I couldn't work out which was missing, which in itself is something of a worry. Also, the driver's side seat belt didn't really work.
Anyway, we left late so we slept the night in the back of the car near the top of the sketchy mountain pass. The next morning the storm had cleared out and we stopped in Princeton, then Keremeos, then Oosoyous, and then again in Oosoyous in a different place. Look it up on Google Maps people, there pretty much aren't two distinct places in Oosoyous you can stop, and yet...
The romance between Maud's Hot Sister and I has survived many setbacks. It thrived despite being conducted for most of its life through second-degree text messaging. It persisted in spite of my obviously spurious claims to be half-Costa Rican, my flat out lies about dancing or speaking Spanish, my terrible haircut, my lack of a white suit. Most significantly, it survived in spite of the mutual disinterest of both parties and the fact that it was completely fictional in every important respect. But it could not survive the drive from Vancouver to Rossland. In our 20 hour approximation of a 9 hour journey we went straight from the thrill and excitement of new love and dating to the grim, jaded habit of infatuation held too fast for too long.
And so, dear friends, I announce to you the end of my first great attempt at wooing. Yes, perhaps there is time for love to flourish again. Maybe we can arrange a romantic interlude the All-U-Can-Eat Spaghetti night at the local diner. But really, I think that it's time to move on. There's a whole world of people with hot sisters out there. It's time to make another lucky girl extremely confused and uncomfortable.
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