Had a good weekend. Yesterday I went to lunch and a movie with Mike. We had Thai food at Champa. I ordered the pad thai with chicken, and it was delicious! I highly recommend it. Although our food was served on real plates, our drinks were served in plastic cups. And water was not free. Fifty cents for tap, or a buck for a bottle. Raleigh's water situation is getting pretty dire.
We saw The Bucket List, with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It was all right, but not great. The first part was really slow and not fun at all--two old guys dying in the hospital. The pace picked up when they started working on the List, but I was hoping for a more light-hearted movie.
Saturday night I went to my parents' house and cooked dinner: Southeast Asian Turkey Meatballs. Yeah, I doubt they have turkey meatballs in Southeast Asia, but it's nice to mix up the seasonings instead of going with the traditional Italian style. I found the recipe in an old crock pot cookbook I'd picked up at the library sale. There's really no reason to cook meatballs in a crock pot when you can just pop them in the oven for 20 minutes. They're super tasty, especially with the "plum sauce" (which I made with strawberry jam instead of plum jelly--LOL).
Today I was supposed to meet up with John (eHarmony guy #4--my subscription is expired now, by the way) for brunch, but last night he called and asked for a raincheck because he wasn't feeling well. The bug is definitely making its way around the Triangle. Many at my office were sick last week, and my dad is sick now too. I hope I'm able to escape unharmed!
This would have been my second date with John. He's 39, a computer programmer, and lives in Chapel Hill. Our first date was last week--dinner (Brixx) and a movie (Fool's Gold--very cute!). Afterwards we went for ice cream. I'm not sure what else to say...it's kind of like when cops say they can't give anymore details due to the ongoing investigation. I'll let you know if anything progresses.
This afternoon I went to Lake Johnson to meet up with a bunch of coworkers for a group run. We've all signed up to do the Blue Planet run at Black Mountain in May. There's a team of 10 doing the relay (5-mile loops over and over for 24 hours!). I'm planning on doing the 5-mile "fun run." Since I'm really out of shape I think that's a much more reasonable goal! Alas, I was a little late to the lake, and didn't see anybody there. I think there was a mixup on the time. Oh well. I just walked around the lake by myself. There were lots of other people there, mostly with their dogs, and even a couple guys fishing off the bridge. I walked for 40 minutes and probably did about 2.5 miles. I tried jogging twice, and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as awful as I'd expected. Of course, I've still got a ways to go, but I think it'll be easier than I thought since I've done this before.
Tomorrow I've got to get up early and drive north to Danville, VA (just across the border) for an onsite training. I think it should go well because we did a lot of prep work to get everything in place beforehand. Then I'll drive back home tomorrow afternoon. Round trip: approx 170 miles.
I'll be in the office all day Tuesday, and Wednesday morning. But in the afternoon I'll be going to the airport to fly to Tallahassee, FL by way of Charlotte, for an onsite training in southern Georgia on Thursday. That evening I'll fly back to Raleigh, getting in at approximately 9, if my flight is on time. So I'll be home around 10. Friday morning I have to drive four hours back into Virginia to be at a training by 10am. Sessions go until 3:30, then I have to drive four hours home! Round trip: approx 442 miles.
It will be a looooong, tiring week! And then the next week, I'm flying to Providence, RI, for trainings in Massachusetts and Vermont. (Hello, snow!)
The work traveling has been pretty low key since the summer, when I got burnt out and requested to be home more often. I asked to have a couple trips recently, and look what I got myself into! It will be fun, though. A break from answering phones all day. :-)
Showing posts with label a whole different odyssey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a whole different odyssey. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sunday, December 02, 2007
First eHarmony Date
One-word summary: lame.
I bought a new red sweater just for the occasion and looked rather spiffy, if I do say so myself. He showed up in baggy jeans and and old sweatshirt. We'd decided ahead of time that we would grab a bite to eat and then see Bee Movie. I left it to him to settle on the details. He had me meet him in front of his apartment. Twenty minute drive for me, zero for him. Granted, he lives in North Hills, which is convenient to restaurants and a theater, so I'll overlook this inequity.
He listed the nearby places to eat, and asked me to choose. I narrowed it down to two and left it up to him. He chose Panera. We walked over there, ordered, and sat down. The conversation didn't exactly flow smoothly, but that is not abnormal for a first date. He kept bringing up topics we had already gone over thoroughly in our email exchanges, though, so I felt like I was repeating myself. He went over his previous eHarmony date experiences: married, 68, stalker, bitter. He said he's not going to renew when his membership is up in two weeks, because it's just "too much work." His words: "I get like, 10 matches a day, about 5 of them communicate with me, it's just exhausting. I've got about 25 in open communication now." Holy crap. I have two in open communication. Something is wrong here, because he is NOT the catch of the decade, so why all the interest? I think there must be way more women than men in the system. No wonder all the guys are so picky--they have scores of women to choose from!
He asked about my job, which we had not discussed. My profile says I'm a software trainer. "How did you get to THAT from teaching?" Um, it's not exactly that big of a stretch to go from teaching kids to training adults, but he made it sound as if I switched from teacher to streetsweeper or something. So I explained what I do, and he seemed thoroughly bored. It was at this point that I noticed he had yet to smile since we met, and he did not seem particularly engaged in our conversation or interested in what I was saying. He kept nodding his head ever so slightly, accompanied by the slow blink, as if to say, "Yeah, yeah, I get it, who cares, move on already." I really don't think this was me being ultra sensitive, either. I already knew all about his job (he's a high school social studies teacher), but we talked about it nonetheless. He'd stayed up all night Sunday grading papers, and then took Friday off as a "mental health day" to catch up on his sleep. I asked why the all-nighter was necessary, when he had a four-day weekend previous. He got defensive, and then asked if I knew what kind of school he taught at. I knew it was kind of like a magnet school, but he launched into this diatribe about how it's ranked in the top 5 nationally (B.S., by the way), there are thousands of applications every year for 800 spots, etc. He brought up why I left teaching, which, again, we'd already discussed, and when I explained my frustration with student behavior, he said (rather haughtily), "I never had those types of problems, even when I taught low-achievers." Okay then.
He only ate about half of his Caesar salad, because he said it tasted awful. I kept eating my sandwich, and had about two bites left when he said, "Shall we walk around?" Um, how about you let me finish first? So we went outside and walked around all the little shops there in North Hills. I tried my best to make conversation, keep things upbeat and moving. We passed by Wolf Camera, so I asked him about the camera he's planning to buy, but he seemed completely uninterested in hearing my opinion, even though he'd been impressed before by my knowledge in this area. We had pretty much reached the theater when he said he wanted to go back because he wasn't feeling well. He walked me to my car and apologized for cutting things short, but he felt like he was going to throw up. At that point, the date officially entered the Hall of Shame. Less than an hour after I arrived, I was heading home. That was Friday--haven't heard from him since, which is probably just as well.
Back to square one!
I bought a new red sweater just for the occasion and looked rather spiffy, if I do say so myself. He showed up in baggy jeans and and old sweatshirt. We'd decided ahead of time that we would grab a bite to eat and then see Bee Movie. I left it to him to settle on the details. He had me meet him in front of his apartment. Twenty minute drive for me, zero for him. Granted, he lives in North Hills, which is convenient to restaurants and a theater, so I'll overlook this inequity.
He listed the nearby places to eat, and asked me to choose. I narrowed it down to two and left it up to him. He chose Panera. We walked over there, ordered, and sat down. The conversation didn't exactly flow smoothly, but that is not abnormal for a first date. He kept bringing up topics we had already gone over thoroughly in our email exchanges, though, so I felt like I was repeating myself. He went over his previous eHarmony date experiences: married, 68, stalker, bitter. He said he's not going to renew when his membership is up in two weeks, because it's just "too much work." His words: "I get like, 10 matches a day, about 5 of them communicate with me, it's just exhausting. I've got about 25 in open communication now." Holy crap. I have two in open communication. Something is wrong here, because he is NOT the catch of the decade, so why all the interest? I think there must be way more women than men in the system. No wonder all the guys are so picky--they have scores of women to choose from!
He asked about my job, which we had not discussed. My profile says I'm a software trainer. "How did you get to THAT from teaching?" Um, it's not exactly that big of a stretch to go from teaching kids to training adults, but he made it sound as if I switched from teacher to streetsweeper or something. So I explained what I do, and he seemed thoroughly bored. It was at this point that I noticed he had yet to smile since we met, and he did not seem particularly engaged in our conversation or interested in what I was saying. He kept nodding his head ever so slightly, accompanied by the slow blink, as if to say, "Yeah, yeah, I get it, who cares, move on already." I really don't think this was me being ultra sensitive, either. I already knew all about his job (he's a high school social studies teacher), but we talked about it nonetheless. He'd stayed up all night Sunday grading papers, and then took Friday off as a "mental health day" to catch up on his sleep. I asked why the all-nighter was necessary, when he had a four-day weekend previous. He got defensive, and then asked if I knew what kind of school he taught at. I knew it was kind of like a magnet school, but he launched into this diatribe about how it's ranked in the top 5 nationally (B.S., by the way), there are thousands of applications every year for 800 spots, etc. He brought up why I left teaching, which, again, we'd already discussed, and when I explained my frustration with student behavior, he said (rather haughtily), "I never had those types of problems, even when I taught low-achievers." Okay then.
He only ate about half of his Caesar salad, because he said it tasted awful. I kept eating my sandwich, and had about two bites left when he said, "Shall we walk around?" Um, how about you let me finish first? So we went outside and walked around all the little shops there in North Hills. I tried my best to make conversation, keep things upbeat and moving. We passed by Wolf Camera, so I asked him about the camera he's planning to buy, but he seemed completely uninterested in hearing my opinion, even though he'd been impressed before by my knowledge in this area. We had pretty much reached the theater when he said he wanted to go back because he wasn't feeling well. He walked me to my car and apologized for cutting things short, but he felt like he was going to throw up. At that point, the date officially entered the Hall of Shame. Less than an hour after I arrived, I was heading home. That was Friday--haven't heard from him since, which is probably just as well.
Back to square one!
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Unexpected civility
As always, I never expect anyone but friends and family to read my blog, let alone comment, so it was nice to see that others stopped by and were compelled to say a few words. I was very impressed with the mature and thoughtful comments left by the two guys. They both make very valid points. Just because a guy's looking online doesn't mean he stops being a guy. And, I shouldn't let the closings get to me because it really IS their loss. I guess signing up for the service was kind of like buying a lottery ticket--it's easy to get caught up in the daydream of what you'll do with all the money when you win, but in reality, it's a lot harder than it seems to strike the jackpot. I keep getting 6 more matches a day (what's up with that?) and a couple more have indicated they want to start communication, so it's not like a barren desert or something. There are little flickers of possibility...
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