I Look Too Young To Feel This Old

On Saturday night Ray invited us to join him at the Blue Gator to check out his good friend, Cathy Ann Wells, a.k.a. Phat Betty, who would be performing. I had seen her play before, many moons ago when I used to work there. She's really great. Very Janis Joplin-esque.

As I may have mentioned before, I don't have a lot of fond memories about the Blue Gator. The tips sucked almost as much as the management, and some of the clientele was on the shady side. Not all of 'em,  but on your average night, I'd say about 25 - 30% of the customers were either creepy, really rough around the edges or hard drug dealers... Not that I actually had a problem with the latter. Sounds bad to say, but two of my favourite regulars were coke dealers -- they were always very friendly and they tipped really well. Plus, they just loooved me because they thought I was so sweet... and well, can ya blame them? Ha ha.

Anyhow, you get the idea... it's a blues club. So it seems to attract not only folks who love the blues, but folks who live the blues. Plus, it's located only a block or two from skid row, so one can obviously expect a mixed bag of customers.

But despite all that, the entertainment has always been fabulous. With awesome live music to look forward to every night of the week, it almost made up for the shitty management, tips, and occasional dine n' dashes.... almost.

I don't get down there very often, so I was kinda looking forward to Saturday night. But as the afternoon crawled into evening, I felt myself getting a little too cozy. Jim was still working hard on his animatics, and I was lounging in my "around the house" dress.  (I wear it around the house all the time because it's breezy n' cool and our apartment is always hot, although it's actually cute enough to wear out - and sometimes I do. Of course, when I do wear it out and people compliment it, it almost feels cliche for me to say, "This old thing? I just throw it on when I don't know what to wear." Which is totally true...)

ANYHOW, getting back to my story here... I was lazing around in my around the house dress, and my mojo was sinking with the setting sun. Ah, remember the days when you didn't leave the house until 11:00? Here I am at 8:30 and already thinking of getting into my p.j.'s (on a Saturday night, no less...)

Shortly after 9:00, Jim was finally done his work, and then we had an extensive debate about whether or not we should head downtown. So lame, I know. I was really on the fence. On one hand, I knew Ray would appreciate the company and I was sure that once we finally left the house, we'd be reenergized. But then the other half of me was completely dragging my ass, thinking, "If we go out, then that means I'll have to get dressed and put on make up... and that's gonna take at least ten minutes. Ugh. That sounds like too much effort." What a lazy bum, huh?

We tossed it back n' forth until 9:30.

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know... you decide."

"No, you decide. I don't care either way."

"No, you. It's your call. I'm fine with whatever."

Honestly, I think we both just wanted to stay home. Jim didn't want to disappoint me because he thought I was looking forward to a night out... and I was.... about 5 hours earlier. Meanwhile, I didn't want to disappoint Ray, although I'm sure he would've been just fine.

I don't know what the final factor was... I guess we probably knew that if we continued going round in circles for another half hour, we just be wasting the rest of our evening, whether we decided to go out or stay in. So we finally decided to just push ourselves to get dressed and go.

Once there, we're stopped at the door for cover charge. Maybe my mistake was not making eye contact with the door man as Jim dug through his wallet. The big fellow sized me up and then said, "I'm gonna need to see your ID."

Now, my dad was occasionally ID'd until he was 30, so I assume that I must have inherited some of his youthful-lookin' genetics. Only I've beat him at 31. Take that dad! Ha. ;)

I really have no concept of how old I actually look... I don't think any of us do? I mean, define 25 versus 30 versus 35... But I sure as hell know that I DO NOT look 18. In the right lighting with the right make-up (or perhaps I should say in the wrong lighting with the wrong make up), anyone can clearly see the faint creases around my eyes that are slowly evolving into a new topographical map. Especially beneath those harsh fluorescent lights in Brandt's Creek Cold Beer and Wine Store, where I was ID'd while buying my birthday booze a few weeks ago. I later heard that it was the girl's first and only shift (she didn't show up for her second), so perhaps she was just being extra cautious, which is fair enough.

However, in the darkness of the doorway outside a shady blues club, those lines must not be so noticeable, because boy... I suddenly got the feeling I was not going to get in!

Flattered at first, I quietly chuckled as I searched my wallet for my ID. Although a moment of panic set in when I realized that I had given it to Jim the other day so he could pick up a package for me at the post office.

While brief, I haven't had that kind of "Oh shit" feeling about not getting into a bar in a very looong time. But instead of thinking, "Oh shit, I'm getting ID'd!" while trying to sneak into the River Club at 17, (legal drinking age in Quebec is 18, so it's not like my friends n' I were really trying to pull that much of a fast one), this time it was more of an, "Oh shit.... you've got to be friggin' kidding me!!! I put on my makeup and got dressed for THIS?!" I knew that if Jim didn't have my ID and we had to go home, there would be no grabbing it and going back out.

Thankfully, Jim still had my ID in his wallet. I passed it over to the dude who then looked at it and looked at it, and then said, "I need another piece of ID."

"Credit card do?" I asked as I handed over my MasterCard.

As silly as it was, now I was almost beginning to sweat it. We waited while the guy looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it, then gave me a suspicious look, then looked at it again. And then FINALLY passed both pieces back to me with an iffy, "Okay."

Jeeze Louise!! Based on the tone of his "Okay", part of me wonders if he still didn't fully believe I was old enough. Maybe he felt that if my ID was convincing enough for him, that it'd be convincing enough to an officer doing a bust for underage drinking.

Like I said above, normally getting ID'd is flattering... but this time it was super annoying... especially since it took me forever to drag my butt out of the house in the first place at the late witching hour of 9:30. :P

Anyhow, to make a long story a little longer, once inside, we found Ray and grabbed the only remaining table, tucked in a quiet corner at the side of the stage. I soon rediscovered my mojo that I had lost sometime around 8:00 and found myself drumming my hands on my lap to the catchy beats.

As expected, the music was really great. And surprisingly, the service was great too. (A very rare thing in Kelowna, I hafta say... and I think most people would agree.) The crowd wasn't sketchy either, at least not in our little corner. Actually, there were quite a lot of white hairs out on the dance floor. One in particular who I just loved watching -- this adorable little old man who was just having the time of his life, bee-boppin' away, throwing his arms up in the air, with a huge smile on his face. Oh my goodness, he was just sooo sweet! I totally wanted to adopt him as my grandpa!

So yeah, all in all, we had a pretty decent time. It was worth getting dressed and putting on my makeup after all.