"Oh, No, No, NO, Mami!"

So the Bearmaiden went out with Beautiful Hair on Saturday night. Due to various reasons, my latest musical obsession (and I haven't had one of those in a minute) is Salsa. I admitted to my friend, after two Jose Cuervo margaritas (mmm, mmm, mm!) that one of the things I'd like to do before I die is to dance salsa at my wedding. Yes, this was admitting to more than a couple of things... and means that there's a bunch of things I need to do in order to achieve that goal. And probably the thing that's most attainable in that goal is to actually learn to dance salsa.

I'm not the world's greatest dancer... I definitely don't live up to the stereotype that all "Black" people have rhythm, cuz it usually takes me quite a bit of alcohol to get my dance on. And my best dancing is usually done to reggae. But at least I don't dance like "Elaine" on Seinfeld... that much I can say for myself. But anyhow.

The Professor, who has successfully bagged a "YoungFlow" claimed she was too tired (due to a seminar, uh huh) and ended up bagging on us, but it was OK. I've neglected my friend for a few years while I was being a goodmommy to the Sun, and it was nice to be out with just her again. We went down to "G & G's" on Broadway and Houston. I haven't been there in a minute. I used to hang out a looooong time ago in that same spot, back when it was called "Bar Lui". We used to hang out at Bayamo, back in those days, cuz the Professor and I had a friend whose boyfriend was a bouncer there. When Bayamo closed for the evening, sometimes we'd walk stagger down to Bar Lui and drink "Bar Lui Blues" (some concoction I vaguely remember coming in a martini glass and was made with a blue liqueur). A friend of the boyfriend bounced there, and the boyfriend's friend or cousin bounced at the "Big Kahuna" which was directly across the street. "Big Kahuna" is now some fancy "SoHo" store, and Bayamo is long since closed so the last vestige of that time is G&G's, which started out as your basic Mexican place, but seems to have evolved into a pretty good place for salsa music. They even have a live band on Saturdays... And they give a demonstration on actually how to dance salsa before the band comes on.

We missed the demo, since we were finishing up on some nachos and stuff, just shooting the breeze. We were sitting at tiny, shaky table, right along the main "flow" of traffic, which was a little annoying but a great place for scoping. And being scoped. A smallish but good looking guy "swanked" in, wearing shades and a flashy beltbuckle that bore the Dominican flag. BeautifulHair and I giggled, cuz we thought he looked very much like the singer Sean Paul.

After we paid the tab, we went to the back of the restaurant to the TINY-ass dance floor, and watched the end of the demonstration. The DJ started playing some music, and some baldheaded man came up and asked me to dance. Why not. I told him I couldn't really dance salsa, so he would have to show me, but it quickly became apparent that he was much more interested in rubbing up on me than dancing. So after a song or two I cut him loose and went and stood by my friend.

She got a dance or two, and we were just standing there chillin', when none other than "Sean Paul" came up to me and asked me for a dance. In my cream go-go boots (yeah, I wore them... they're hot) I stood a good few inches taller than him (and I'm pretty short) but up close and without the shades he was actually sort of nice looking. So we start dancing, and in his flat nasally Dominican accent he says "Mami, you're so beautiful". Why thank you. He asked me where I was from, and I told him The Rock, and he said he was from "Washingtone 'Ites". So then he wanted to get to know me better, did I have a man and I said no, not really. But I didn't want to give out my number. He asked me how old I was, and I said "I'm old".
"How old, Mami?"
"Old"
"Mami, you look good, how old are you?"
"I'm old.... how old are you?"
"I twenny-fie"
I laughed. "I'm Old. I'm 42."
He stopped dancing, his eyes wide and said "Oh, no, no, NO, Mami! You messin' wi' Carlito's head!"

I fell out laughing. Just because he made me laugh so hard, I took his number. But I ain't callin'.

This morning, ShoeFly, who so nicely held my Sun for me (oh, cuz to backtrack... the Sun's dad was supposed to come from Cali for a visit... but even after I sent him an email from which I got NO response, and the Sun asked him, FINALLY on Wednesday he told the Sun he wasn't coming) asked me if I met anyone. I think she has a problem with me hanging out with the SugarCube, but I'm not sure why. I told her, yeah, I met Carlito, but he's 25 and I already have a Youngflow so that was useless. But it was fun....