a very long Stampede recap

Good news! All that talk of nothing exciting happening, went swiftly out the window on the Friday of Stampede at the rodeo! There was much drama and intrigue, including a stand-off between one set of exes, a friendly meeting between another, and a Spansede hook-up with a familiar face. A few weeks have passed and the alcohol has finally worn off, so I feel I can write a proper summary of the events.

So it all started off innocently with lunch at Cilantro. Very classy. Cheese plate, salads and only 2 bottles of Australian Sauvignon Blanc. Then we went to the rodeo. Also started off classy – infield seats, more wine, was all good. Then we switched to beer. Then we went to the infield beer garden where we had more beer. So many plastic cups full in fact that AH and AZ needed help carrying the beer from the bar to the place we were standing a mere 10 metres away. So they recruited some helpers. Turns out, one of the helpers was Yankee Hat Guy! (yes, this city is really that small). He was almost unrecognizable in his sunglasses and cowboy hat – seriously he carried the beers over to us before we realized we kind of knew this guy and his friends. We probably would have figured it out eventually - his winning good looks and extremely white smile gave him away. Plus when SS arrived from another party, he immediately turned up the charm. Much witty conversation ensued. It did almost go completely awry when SS’ ex-husband (let’s call him DB, which may or may not stand for douchebag) showed up, along with the originator of “Spansede", HC’s ex. But both fought through it. When talking to a random 3rd person who asked HC and Mr. Spansede how they knew each other, he very politely replied “we dated for awhile.” 3rd person was impressed at their friendliness. While SS was talking to Mr. Spansede her ex was standing about 5 metres away with his back to her. As I don't have a picture of the event here is my attempt at drawing it - stick figures are about as artistic as I get.

After the back to back standoff, SS decided to be the bigger person, went over and said hello, have a good stampede and off we went. I think he was in shock. SS = 1. DB = 0.

Off we went to Cowboys, the “legendary” tent which has been missing for the past few years in Calgary. More tomfoolery ensued. Ran into RB who was rocking the cowboy fascinator, and who has no recollection of when she and Ryan did the Dirty Dancing lift in the smoking area. AZ’s Norwegian crush LT showed up in fully Stampede regalia, danced like a maniac for an hour, and pulled a houdini, cementing his status as a foreign enigma. Yankee Hat Guy was there, but missing in action, save for his very cryptic email to SS which said, and I quote, “wanna make out?” So then the dance played out and eventually they left … together. I won’t sully my friend’s name by publicly declaring whether or not she was a good hostess, but let’s just say that after day one of Stampede, the score was SS = 2. DB = 0. It should also be noted that while some of my friends tried to claim that they “drank themselves sober” one of them threw up before going to bed and another slept on the hardwood floor in the living room while her husband and cousin looked on and laughed. Oh and Cory threw up on the street.

On Sunday night I went to the Chucks. No horses were harmed, but whoever produced the evening show should probably be. The performers did their best, and I appreciate all the work the Young Canadians put into it, but the attempt to provide a narrative thread (in this case it was the “garden of imagination”) to a mishmash of performances was completely pointless. The Chucks were awesome as usual. In another life I would like to be an outrider.

Tuesday night was the CBA party, which surprisingly doesn’t have any crazy stories, but was still fun. We saw threesome guy, who uncharacteristically kept grabbing our asses. Made us wonder about a potential substance abuse problem. Good news is that we saw him again the next night and he was quite sheepish - I think he was just quite drunk. I saw this guy from back in the day – he was not as alluring as he had been a year and a half ago, but still a nice guy. I did facebook stalk him the next day and confirmed that he has a gfriend. Oh well, like I said, not as endearing as previously thought. DB was standing at the entrance talking to some friends and saw us. Within 3 seconds he had moved further into the party. I think we can now say that SS has the upper hand. SS = 3. DB = 0.

On Wednesday we hit up the Stampede Round-Up. This night was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which is that I finally got to see the band that sings the one country song I know all the words to – “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).” I don’t know that I ever needed to see them live, and to be honest I was too busy drinking free beer and stalking Yankee Hat Guy (of course he was there!) to actually “watch” them, but I appreciate that they were playing in the background. Later on we got to see some equally cheesy pop music when we went the ultimate boy band concert – NKOTBSB! But back to the Fort Calgary party. Oftentimes we are scrambling to get tickets to this event, but this year they magically appeared courtesy of SS and AH. So yes, YHG was fairly easy to spot thanks to his winning good looks and very white smile. His smile is so perfect that we were considering changing his moniker to CC – which represents both the short form of Cheshire Cat and his actual initials – but it seems a bit too obvious. So we will stick with the much more creative YHG. There was much too-ing and fro-ing about how to approach him (even though SS had run into him at another party on Monday night …as I wasn’t there, it’s not included in this very official Stampede summary). Eventually contact was made, but things got a bit awkward when his ex-gf, who is now engaged to someone else, came up to say hello. It should be noted that as the world is so small, his ex used to be friends with SS and was actually invited to SS’s wedding to DB. She didn’t come and they aren’t friends anymore. There’s more drama to the story, but frankly this is getting a big long, so let’s just say, it was uncomfortable for everyone involved and YHG pulled the plug soon thereafter. As a result, SS didn’t leave with him, and came with us to the NKTOBSB concert as planned. We have a friend who is on a first name basis with the NKOTB and actually gave them the cowboy hats that they wore at the concert. She also got us great tickets that enabled us to get this close to the BSB resident bad boy AJ:

The concert was a hoot (I sound like my mom) and we danced and sang along with the boys in all of their cheesy glory. I'd also like to point out I've had "I want it that way" in my head for the past 2 weeks.

So now we find ourselves at Thursday, which also happened to be my bday. Now I’m not really a big birthday person, but for the second year in a row, my birthday happened to fall during stampede, which means everyone is out, so it’s natural to have a party. The problem in this case was that my birthday was at the tail end of stampede (so everyone is tired of going out) and I was super busy at work (I know … who knew?) so it was kind of a pain. But I soldiered through. I managed to sneak out of work to hit my company party, which unsurprisingly, was kind of lame. Then headed to my previous employer’s party, which was actually quite good – helped along by the fact that I’m good friends with many of my former co-workers and there was free booze. Then we wandered over to Cowboys (again), where other people bought me drinks, mostly shots, and I proceeded to get somewhat drunk and belligerent. But this was not entirely unexpected as in the weeks leading up to my big day, when discussing plans, I had sent out an email inviting people to come meet me, but with a qualifier indicating that “I will be drunk and belligerent as I come to terms with the fact that I am the oldest person I know.” That my friends, is a direct quote. And a prophetic one at that. A bunch of peeps were there – all at various stages of drunkenness. Luckily AH and SS had been triple fisting beer and wine at the rodeo and some of my former co-workers had done shots along with me, so while I was still the drunkest one there, at least I had some friends along for the ride. After eating a bucket of mini-donuts that substituted for a cake, I raised my hand, thanked everyone for coming, and declared my birthday to be over. So even though I was home by 11, my 8am meeting the next day was a rough one, and I made it through thanks only to the extra-large fountain pop I picked up at Subway. Needless to say I got a few looks from my colleagues as they sipped their coffee and silently judged me.

And so Stampede was finally over. YHG seems to have disappeared into the ether - if and when he surfaces, I'll be sure to let you know. Either way, I think we can all agree that SS won Stampede this year.