Sometimes, Life Gives You the Red Dress Run

I skidded into mid-week with a resounding crash, feeling stressed out in a major way due to work. I decided to go for a few drinks on Thursday with my girlfriends Oral Fix and Sexy Scooter to let off some steam.

We went to the Four Floors where Sexy Scooter and I hit the dance floor and almost immediately met B and P. Having quit their IT jobs in London earlier this year, the two sold most of their possessions and took off on this trip around the world with just their dive gear and a few pairs of shorts! They have been working as Dive Masters for the last couple of months and were only here for an afternoon to buy dive gear. Five days later, guess who are still on our small island?!

I decided to ask P to join me on the 8th Annual Red Dress run and we went out and bought a dress for him. Finding a dress for a Caucasian man is not as easy as you might think. We couldn't get most of the red numbers past his shoulders and I told him he needed to shop in a store for fat girls. However, as there are not many fat girls on this island, we had to make do with one of the open-air markets. We finally managed to find him a housecoat type dress and rolled up to the event that Saturday afternoon with Rachel and Nicole.

I have never done the Red Dress Run myself and seeing the runners arriving was just brilliant. Some of the guys had the cutest outfits on that even I would wear, while others in full make up and wigs looked downright ridiculous. Dresses were busting at the seams with man hair sprouting all over the place.

We started off in Chinatown and ended up in Little India via public transport! The looks we got were classic! Imagine a pack of 50+ people all in red dresses running through the most crowded areas of the city and you've pretty much got the run sorted. As this was hash run number 333, the event was named Halfway to Hell.

In true spirit, Oral Fix wore a clingy red number, devil horns and carried a pitchfork. Now, for those of you who have met her in person, you know that she has a 'ghetto booty', an ars* large enough to feed the African continent (her own description). For those of you who don't know her, take my word for it. She is a gorgeous girl but there's no denying it, baby got serious back!

She started running in front of us and her butt just took off on its own accord as a separate entity from the rest of her body. It did this hilarious u-shaped swinging bounce. You couldn't help your head doing its own u-shaped swing as you watched it. Kind of like those ornamental bobble-headed dogs. P and I looked at each other and just burst out laughing. It was worth doing the run just to see this doinga doinga doinga!

After the run, a bunch of us friends, including P and B, had dinner and drinks together by the river. It was a brilliant day and I had the best time. I had an early night as I had to go mountain biking across the border with my dad the next morning (which by the way was the best ride of the year to date).

It's funny how things go sometimes. There is that old saying, "God doesn't always give you what you want, but he gives you what you need". I am not a religious person, but I really felt that about life this week.

Breast Cancer Awareness (BCA) Run

You know, raising money for charity is a curious thing. It brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others. I learnt that this week.

A few of my friends and I decided to take part in the annual BCA Run organized by the Hash House Harriets running (drinking!!) group on Saturday, 7 October. Originally, I was just going to pay my $25 registration fee, run/walk/hobble/crawl (in that order) the 5km and be done with it. I had also sent out information to my friends and family, asking them to join me. My dad didn’t want to do the run, but said he would give me $50 for the cause.

That gave me the idea to approach other people for sponsorship. I asked around at work and even hit up a couple of ex-boyfriends for money! I was very pleased that almost everyone opened their wallets and contributed generously. Within four days, I collected $1,351 for the Breast Cancer Foundation. Most of you know that this year, I lost a good friend to bile duct cancer and my aunt to lung cancer. I also have two friends who are currently in remission with breast cancer, one of whom is only 33. So this is a cause which is definitely very close to my heart.

The whole point of the run is to raise awareness of the disease and this week showed me that unfortunately, there are still ignorant people out there. One of my colleagues not only refused to donate any money as he said breast cancer didn’t affect him, he even went further and made a tasteless joke about it! Although it was hard for me to keep my cool, I managed to do so by reminding myself that a calm reaction would show him how immature he was being. It probably didn’t, but maybe some day he will realize that cancer is not as far away from his life as he’d like to believe.

Thankfully, some of my other colleagues were simply amazing and helped me to collect money from their departments. You know who you are and I am very grateful! Thank you so much and also to everyone who contributed to hopefully saving somebody’s life.

The race itself was a lot of fun. It was a very hazy day so not the best conditions for running outdoors. However, the group made up for it with their enthusiasm by bombing down the main shopping areas of our small island with the braver souls (both men and women) wearing decorated bras over their shirts. It must have been a real sight for the unsuspecting Saturday afternoon crowd out for a quiet coffee or two!

I ran/walked with my friends, all of whom are much fitter than I am but I made up for my slowness by raising the most money so whatever haha! This is the first time we’ve ever done any sort of charity event together so it was wonderful for us as a group.

Next week, a few of us are also participating in the 8th Annual Red Dress run to raise money for another charity. Red dresses are mandatory for all runners. Watch for those photos as I know that some of the men will even wear pumps. I hope that that will give me an advantage in keeping up with them!

P.S. I am still on sabbatical. Isn't it amazing what I can achieve when I'm not busy chasing boys?!! :-D

New Hair and Old Friends

For all of you who haven’t seen me lately, I have chopped all my hair off! It is now a layered crop. Why did I do it? I suppose that along with being sick of men and their childish nonsense, I was also sick of my long hair. The best thing to do was to get rid of both!

I recently started a two-week sabbatical from men. Yes, it’s sad that two weeks for me is considered a sabbatical, but I can’t help it if boys (and I really do mean boys) like me! The break has been going pretty well, though my credit card has taken a beating recently and it coincides with the start of the sabbatical. I guess that I have just substituted one bad habit with another!

Last week, one of my closest friends visited our island on a business trip. I’ve known Copenhagen since our high school days back in Sacramento. We met in January 1987, which is almost 20 years ago, eek! I can’t believe that time has passed so quickly and that it has been eight years since we last saw each other in Denmark. We spent some fantastic quality time together and I was very happy to see her again. Although I’ve had an amazing year to date and have made some wonderful new friends, spending time with Copenhagen reminded me of how important my ‘older’ friends are, especially those who have stood by me all these years.

On the topic of good friends, I had another fun night out on Saturday with Rachel, Huney, Oral Fix and about seven or eight others. Covering every shade of white, yellow and brown, we were at my favourite Irish pub listening to the band. A recipe for success is definitely great music, good conversation and lots of alcohol :-).

We even met a laid back guy from Boston who has 11 tattoos. No, your eyesight isn’t going, it really is 11. When I asked him what his mum thought of his many tats, he said, “She likes them as she has some of her own!” How awesome is that?!! He told me that he comes from a family of bikers and that his mum has two motorcycles. I like her already!

Here's to cool chicks and hot guys! Oh I almost forgot, I'm on a sabbatical from men. Okay, well here's to cool chicks anyway!