Questionably Fabulous

Yesterday was a splendid day – long but lovely.  Can you tell I’m desperately trying to learn my vocabulary here?  Last night I said “Blimely I hate that my flat is so small and I can’t get a mobile yet.  And if I have to climb one more flight of stairs cause there isn’t a lift in the building I’ll be bloody pissed!”  This of course was met with a round of laughter but secretly I was applauding myself – I gotta give myself some credit if no one else will!  How Questionably Fabulous is that? 

After a solid 8 hours of house hunting Bryan and I had found our way to The London Bridge where we were to meet Wanda (obviously not her real name but she picked it out herself, and I will get to that Questionably Fabulous moment in a moment!) who had called earlier to said “Lets meet at a pub downtown.  It’s at the end of the London Bridge, you can’t miss it.  I’ve never been there but it’s called something like The Banker Boy and the Wanker or something with a lot of B’s in it.”  Up for an adventure I agreed, plus, lets admit it, I’m a little despite for friends so what the heck, right? 

Let me back up a sec…  Wanda is friends with two of our most beloved people back in San Luis Obispo.  When they heard we were moving to London they said “You must meet Wanda, she’s great!  I studied abroad with her.”  So, as a typical American, I thought she was also American.  Cause obviously when you meet someone ABROAD they have to be American.  Picture me the darkest shade of bridesmaid-dress-red when I answered the phone and heard “Eh-low, this ez Won-da spee-kin.  Ez this Ehy-See?” 

So back to The Banker Boy and the Wanker saga…  First of all, it was not hard to miss.  It was easy to miss.  Really easy.  We walked up and down The London Bridge twice before stopping to ask someone and only then did we stop to ask because I had forgotten the post-it note I wrote everything down on and I was starting to doubt myself.  Were we meeting at 7 or 7:30?  Was it The London Bridge or The Tower Bridge?  What tube stop was it?  Neither of us had a mobile and couldn’t call her but if we’d had the post-it note then I could borrow someone else’s phone and ring her up…  Arg!  Anyway, the two gents who helped us repeated that it was hard to miss and that it was, as luck would have it, called The Borrow Boy and the Banker, which for a financial district, to me anyway, made as much sense as The Banker Boy and the Wanker, but I digress.  Also, my apologies to Daniel for that last comment!

Having found The Borrow Boy and the Banker, Bryan and I discovered that although that name is indeed written on the top of the building, all of the doors and windows say Foster’s Ale and Pie on then so how the heck were we supposed to know that it was one in the same place? For the record though, we had walked past it at least three times! 

So fast forward a half hour… cause it was 7:30 and not 7…  Bryan and I are looking like lost little rats in this overcrowded happy hour pub crawling with suits…  I say to Bryan, “She’s got long straight dark hair with bangs (fridge in London).” and we proceed to hunt for Wanda.  I had to use the loo (potty) and left and when I came back Bryan had firmly scared a few ladies by approaching them and saying “Are you Wanda?”  Classic.  We did find her and we hopped off to a quieter wine bar where I quickly discovered that Wanda too was Questionably Fabulous.

My first clue?  Oh, that’d be when she said “I meant to bring you an A to Zed so you had all of the maps… Oh and also my spare mobile phone but I forgot both!”  I knew we’d clicked soon enough…  Oh yes, and there was the wine incident.  This might have been my favorite part of the evening…

I digress, again.  Wanda had her friend Daniel meet us and as soon as he got there and had a full glass of wine, Wanda spilled it.  And it was a glorious spill!  Bryan wanted to measure it for distance after it went flying across the table all the way to the front bar and sprayed an innocent woman’s purse and coat thoroughly before crashing and shattering on the floor.  It was quite impressive.  Wanda shrugged as the woman mopped up the outside of her purse (waterproof black so no big deal) and then surveyed the damage on her coat (also black so no big deal).  We all agreed it was far better for her to get covered than for either of us given we had a white coat and a light brown coat!  Terrible we are, and again I knew we’d clicked. 

Then, as the waitress was mopping up the debris, I pointed out that Wanda had some wine splashed on her shoes.  She looked down, threw her head back, slammed her hand over her mouth and said “Oh that?  I think that was there before!” and proceeded to laugh.  I have to say, in that moment, for me anyway, I fell in friend-love. 

Later in the evening we were joined by three other friends of Wanda’s, all equally as wonderful.  A few bottles of Cab later we were all good and “Enjoying the atmosphere.”  We talked about everything from fashion to politics to areas Bryan and I should live in.  Turns out Wanda is a Speech Language Pathologist which is pretty close to what I did my undergraduate and graduate work in (Deaf Education) so we even talked about the differences between British and American Sign Language.  It was great.  By the end I’d scored myself a friend-date for ballroom dancing on Monday!  I can’t wait for Jive-Nation!!!

At one point Jen stepped out for a smoke and when she came back in with a glass of white wine (we were drinking red) she confessed some guy had bought it for her.  We laughed as Wanda had seen her talking to a guy who looked older than her dad and I chimed in that I’d seen her talking to a younger bloke (see, I’m learning) but he looked like he was riddled with disease.  This caused a round of boisterous laughter all around and all three ladies said “Where have you been all of our lives?”

A success indeed. 

And just before we left, I handed out my AC Fabulous Business Cards for the website and my lovely husband chimed in, “Be ready to appear in this!”  I rebuttled “But I never use real names…”  to which Bryan said “Might as well pick your own now.”  This is when Wanda said “I’d like to be called Wanda.” With a straight face and then laughed.  And then Daniel said, with a completley serious face “I’ve always liked the name Daniel.”  And Lynn said “Daniel sounds like a lovely name.” 

Totally British I tell you. And I totally love it.