Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Blind Date pt 1
Jami and I met the summer I was 21. We waited tables at a cheesy themed restaurant at the Waterside in downtown Norfolk that summer. I don’t remember the moment we met, I just remember being friends with her immediately. She is my longest girl friend. I have traveled with her more than any other friend and we are the most opposite out of any of my relationships.
Jami works at a lovely casual fine dining place where she hangs behind the bar once a week. I work at a travel agency doing admin support for the Learning and Development department tackling projects that provide days that make me want to stick my finger through my eye, into my brain, and swirl it around. The other day unveiled itself to be such a day so after work I took off to see Jami for dinner at the great happy hour price!
I figured that it would be a quiet night at the restaurant especially at the bar, we’d get to catch up and chat while she served libations and spirits to the tables in the restaurant having dinner. As soon as I was settled in my bar chair an older brunette woman with a very bright cheery smile sat down about four chairs three chairs down from me She ordered a glass of white wine and kept smiling. Jami’s coworker that makes THE best cakes I’ve ever eaten was making flat breads and pizzas down by the stone fire pit in the wall. He was scooping them up with large broom handle length spatulas looking like Uncle Buck making pancakes.
Jami asked the lady if she was meeting someone and she says, “Yes.” A few minutes later a gray man with a mustache came in and introduced himself to her. They sat down with only one seat in between us. Were they on a blind date?
Another couple came in at the other end of the bar, out of ear shot. When Jami came back to me I told her, “I think they’re on a blind date.”
“I think so too, and so are these people.” She turned her back to the couple at the end of the bar and pointed to her chest as she said it.
I glanced over, “No way?!” Jami giggles and moves about taking care of her patrons and I immediately start to twitter that I am at a bar with not one but TWO blind dates happening at the same time. My self talk is out of control, wondering why people did those services and what triggers that. I’m feeling immediately uncomfortable and nervous, despite the comfort that no man was coming to meet me at the bar.
Jami comes back to me and I ask her, “What are the odds that two blind dates would happen at the same time?”
“Oh we partner with a service.” She tells me.
“Really? What is it something like, ‘It’s just for drinks?’”
“Yeah it is.”
Every once in awhile Jami comes back to check in and we update each other on the conversations of the couples. My couple is talking about cruising vacations and Jami says her couple at the end of the bar is talking about travel as well. Both couples are older. One is in their late fifties and the other about ten years their junior. The couple to my right talk about politics and religion. They talk about religious theologies in their life and views on the church. They cover the major topics quickly.
Jami works at a lovely casual fine dining place where she hangs behind the bar once a week. I work at a travel agency doing admin support for the Learning and Development department tackling projects that provide days that make me want to stick my finger through my eye, into my brain, and swirl it around. The other day unveiled itself to be such a day so after work I took off to see Jami for dinner at the great happy hour price!
I figured that it would be a quiet night at the restaurant especially at the bar, we’d get to catch up and chat while she served libations and spirits to the tables in the restaurant having dinner. As soon as I was settled in my bar chair an older brunette woman with a very bright cheery smile sat down about four chairs three chairs down from me She ordered a glass of white wine and kept smiling. Jami’s coworker that makes THE best cakes I’ve ever eaten was making flat breads and pizzas down by the stone fire pit in the wall. He was scooping them up with large broom handle length spatulas looking like Uncle Buck making pancakes.
Jami asked the lady if she was meeting someone and she says, “Yes.” A few minutes later a gray man with a mustache came in and introduced himself to her. They sat down with only one seat in between us. Were they on a blind date?
Another couple came in at the other end of the bar, out of ear shot. When Jami came back to me I told her, “I think they’re on a blind date.”
“I think so too, and so are these people.” She turned her back to the couple at the end of the bar and pointed to her chest as she said it.
I glanced over, “No way?!” Jami giggles and moves about taking care of her patrons and I immediately start to twitter that I am at a bar with not one but TWO blind dates happening at the same time. My self talk is out of control, wondering why people did those services and what triggers that. I’m feeling immediately uncomfortable and nervous, despite the comfort that no man was coming to meet me at the bar.
Jami comes back to me and I ask her, “What are the odds that two blind dates would happen at the same time?”
“Oh we partner with a service.” She tells me.
“Really? What is it something like, ‘It’s just for drinks?’”
“Yeah it is.”
Every once in awhile Jami comes back to check in and we update each other on the conversations of the couples. My couple is talking about cruising vacations and Jami says her couple at the end of the bar is talking about travel as well. Both couples are older. One is in their late fifties and the other about ten years their junior. The couple to my right talk about politics and religion. They talk about religious theologies in their life and views on the church. They cover the major topics quickly.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Fishy Lies Part 2
“They won’t come this close to shore. They are pretty far out.”
“Come on ma, they can’t hurt you.” I said to her. I was always teasing her about her lack of guts when it comes to animals and things consisting of slime. I had yet to achieve “girly.”
My mother relaxed a bit and we continued our frolic in the waves when all of a sudden about a hundred fish the size of a ruler bombarded our Saturday jaunt. The events that followed, to this day still go through my head in slow motion.
My mother, with a look of disbelief, wrenched free of my father’s grasp, turned, and looking like Richard Pryor from the piranha scene in the movie, “The Toy,” proceeded with Christ-like ability of running On water. The laughter had already taken over our bodies as we watched our poor defenseless mother try and outrun a school of attacking fish running through the waves in a desperate effort to get away from them. She was about a third of the way from shore when my mom suddenly stopped in mid-stride. We stopped with her and watched intently. I will never forget what happened next. My mother stopped, looked down for a brief moment, and grabbed the right leg hole of her one-piece bathing suit. She proceeded with dramatic force to pull her bathing suit up to her throat pulling it away from her body at the same time; exposing lord knows what to god knows whom.
Then it happened…a single fish flopped back into the sea.
We roared with laughter again and my mother let her bathing suit slap back against her leg and just as quickly as she stopped, she started her descent to the sand.
My mother never went back in that water again. It was one of our last times going to Ferry Landing Beach. But it sure was worth it.
“Come on ma, they can’t hurt you.” I said to her. I was always teasing her about her lack of guts when it comes to animals and things consisting of slime. I had yet to achieve “girly.”
My mother relaxed a bit and we continued our frolic in the waves when all of a sudden about a hundred fish the size of a ruler bombarded our Saturday jaunt. The events that followed, to this day still go through my head in slow motion.
My mother, with a look of disbelief, wrenched free of my father’s grasp, turned, and looking like Richard Pryor from the piranha scene in the movie, “The Toy,” proceeded with Christ-like ability of running On water. The laughter had already taken over our bodies as we watched our poor defenseless mother try and outrun a school of attacking fish running through the waves in a desperate effort to get away from them. She was about a third of the way from shore when my mom suddenly stopped in mid-stride. We stopped with her and watched intently. I will never forget what happened next. My mother stopped, looked down for a brief moment, and grabbed the right leg hole of her one-piece bathing suit. She proceeded with dramatic force to pull her bathing suit up to her throat pulling it away from her body at the same time; exposing lord knows what to god knows whom.
Then it happened…a single fish flopped back into the sea.
We roared with laughter again and my mother let her bathing suit slap back against her leg and just as quickly as she stopped, she started her descent to the sand.
My mother never went back in that water again. It was one of our last times going to Ferry Landing Beach. But it sure was worth it.
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