I woke up this morning early (well it was early here, my body thought it was nearly 11:00 and what the heck was I still doing in bed?) and had nothing. No tea bags, no phone minutes, nothin. I bundled up (parka, scarf, mittens and fur hat) and went up to the strip mall up the street. I popped into Rogers Video to get a mobile top-up, then I popped into Safeway to get some tea (Red Rose, because you can only get it in Canada... pity...) and then went into Starbucks to get a peppermint mocha (it IS that time of year).

I'm standing in line and notice this blonde girl standing two people in front of me in line. She looks familiar... but.. no... it can't be... It was. It was Sirekka (I'me sure I just butchered her name) from Hammerhead's. She quit there awhile back and left Cayman to move back to Vancouver and it turns out she's working at the Mountain Shadow Pub, just down the road from my parents' place. It would have been awesome to say out loud in the middle of a busy Starbucks on Christmas Eve "I thought it was you, but I didn't recognize you with so many clothes on!" (considering that whenever I saw her in Cayman she had on shorts, flip flops and a tank top, and now we were both all bundled up for winter in Vancouver) She said "OMG! I thought that was you, I was just thinking to myself "That's Claire's brother.... no it CAN'T be, he's in Cayman..."

I don't actually have a sister named Claire. Claire and I were very close for a lot of years, and we never ever hooked up, so the only logical relationship we could have had was brother and sister. When we used to go out to the bars together, we'd keep our eyes open for targets for the other, and be each other's wingman. If there was a scenario that either of us needed to get out of, we played the boyfriend or girlfriend role and if there was the opposite scenario, it would be "oh, him? nooo he's my brother!" or "Nono, we're not together, she's my sister..." It got kind of involved, to the point that people who only knew one of us actually thought we were related.. just like Sirekka. Claire has actually moved back to Vancouver now too with Wammer and their little girl, Tai.

I actually knew that Sirekka was working at the Mountain Shadow already. When I was home in September for Ork's wedding, I met Brandi at Sammy J Peppers, and she was friends with Shandi (that sounds like a headline act on Duo Night at the NBI, doesn't it?) who used to work at Legendz. She also knew Sirekka, and told me that she was at the Mountain Shadow. Brandi ended up blowing me off, but whatever, who's loss was it, really? :)