Date #7 - Lord of the Rings

Tonight was date #2 with Mr. Marvelous. Our first date was just okay, but since we'd had so many great phone conversations before it, I wanted to have a second date. I thought maybe that I allowed my disappointment to color my overall impression of him.

We decided to meet at Macaroni Grill... except that, as I realized about 30 minutes before date time, I realized that Macaroni Grill is closed. So instead we met at Ruby Tuesday. Once again he brought me a flower, only this time it was two yellow roses. I sort of got the impression that every date we'd have, the more flowers I would get. It's a sweet gesture, but considering the amount of doom I felt about going on this date I couldn't really appreciate it for what it was worth.

As I blogged in my last post about Mr. Marvelous, I had a completely different image of him in my head than the person who appeared in front of me on our date. You might recall that I thought he was this cute, shortish guy before I met him... but in reality, he's tall and lanky with a weird body shape. What I didn't realize was that he actually reminds me a bit of a hobbit. Broad face, pointy ears. Sort of like this, but with shorter hair:

I came to this unfortunate realization about 5 minutes into our date... try enjoying your salad when all you can think is, "Frodo! Frodo Baggins!"

Sigh.

So we ordered and I tried to put the hobbit resemblence from my mind. My meal came with a salad bar, which he told me I could go enjoy. (Yes, you read that correctly. Told me.)

10 minutes in and I'm already annoyed that he's giving me permission to go to the salad bar. This was gonna be a long night.

I made myself a huge and delicious salad, which I began to enjoy upon my return to the table. However, he kept making comments about how weird he felt watching me eat. So I moved the plate to the side and waited for our meals to come. But then he got all weird about having chastised me for eating my salad. Hello dude?! What do you want from me?!

20 minutes in and I wanted to kill him.

While we were making idle conversation, he wanted to know what my first impressions of him were. I guess I wouldn't have thought that was such a weird question if my first impressions of him were positive. I know he was just trying to give me a compliment because he liked me "spirit", but I was just sort of put off by the whole question.

Our food came a few minutes later - thank goodness, because the awkward silence was starting to streeeeeeeetch. Except that during dinner he talked about salmonella poisoning. And the silence began to streeeeeeetch again.

50 minutes in and I was ready to go. Check please!

We finished our meal and the server brought the check. I picked up the tab because I knew I was about to break things off and figured a free meal would at least soften the blow. I got the impression that he wanted to linger and chat some more. I suggested we head out.

We walked out to the parking lot and I mentioned I was going to walk over to the bookstore for a few minutes, so this would be where we parted ways. He went for the hug/"I had a great time" combo. As we were hugging, I pulled out the "We're not clicking" line.

I hated the look of disappointment on his face. I hated that I put it there. He (understandably) cooled considerably upon hearing that I wasn't interested in seeing him anymore. I hate this part.

He kind of creeped me out at that point, so I wandered towards the bookstore and hung out for a few minutes until I thought he'd left. Seriously, I'm a 27 year old woman and I felt the need to hide? L.A.M.E.

Grade: N/A

Up next: Drinks/dinner with Teach tomorrow - Woo hoo!

Cross-posted at Cingle In The City.

Cornhole Revealed

Okay, so I've talked a little bit about cornhole on this blog before, and no one outside of Ohio really even knows what it is. So I'm going to break it down for you as best as I can.

So basically, there are two boards with holes in them. The hole is situated towards the far end of the board, at the point highest (about 15 degrees, I'd say) from the ground. The boards are each about three feet long from the start of the board to the edge of the hole. See this photo.

You place each board on the ground about 30 feet apart from edge to edge. One player from each team (there are two teams total playing on the same "court" at a time, so four players total) stands on either side of the board. Their team member stands opposite them at the other board.

Players take turns tossing four corn-filled bags apiece. If you land a bag on the board, you score a point. If you land a bag in the hole, you score three points. Each player takes turns tossing their four bags. At the end of the round, the low score is subtracted from the high score. So if my team gets three bags in the hole, we get six points. But if the other team gets two bags in the hole and one on the board, we only get one point.

The game continues with each player taking turns tossing the bags until one team reaches 21. The first team to reach 21 wins.

Of course, rules will vary a little bit regionally. For example, we always play that if you bust on 21, you go back to 13 points. Others don't play that way, which can make it a little confusing.

Even though it looks kind of boring, the game is actually really fun and can get pretty intense, especially when teams exchange leads or the game is tight. Consider that drinking is often done in conjunction with the game.

Okay, this video is kind of cheesy but here you go, this might help a little. It explains a lot better than I could.

Things I learned today

1) There are 23 bones in the human hand and 26 in the human foot.

2) The human body has 600 muscles.

3) The average length of the small intestine is 10 feet.

4) Your skin is the heaviest organ in your body.

5) Science is freakin' cool.

I took a vacation day today and had a "Mommy and Me" day with my mom. We went out to lunch at this restaurant called Chalk, followed by the "Bodies" exhibit at Cincinnati Museum Center. It was nice to spend some time just hanging out with her, especially since the pace of my life has been so busy lately and shows no signs of slowing down.

-------------Weekend Recap--------------

Friday: Drinks at Mulligan's with "Teach" followed by a party at Volleyball Joel's, where we played cornhole and just sat around bullshitting. Later met up with my friend TJ, whose company I am beginning to enjoy more and more as he lets me see behind the tough exterior.

Saturday: Date night with myself, followed by an interesting and lengthy conversation with The Ex (S). He hooked up with someone else. He called her by my name. Point for me. We actually had a really great conversation, he knows what is behind his fear of commitment and it sounds like he is really trying to embrace an understanding of himself and how he affects other people. Point for him.

Sunday: Felt GROSS - sore throat, congested, tired, weak. Popped Halls like candy and made it through the day.

-----------------Up Next-----------------

Tomorrow: Drinks with the girls at The Rusty Bucket to celebrate Anna's new job.
Wednesday: Happy hour and charity auction
Thursday: More sand volleyball with the "Beaters" crew - Joel, Joey, Scott, Megan, Megan #2, Kelli and Coach Jen.

Tonight I had a date with Mr. Marvelous. Here's how it went down.

We decided to meet at J. Alexander's. I have said before that I have this kind of weird, tingly feeling whenever we've had conversations in person. But I think I had a different image of him in my head than who he is in real life. In his photo, he looked like this cute, sort of short-ishy guy, but in real life he is tall and has kind of a weird body shape. Right off the bat I was a little disappointed... the chemistry that I'd felt on the phone just didn't seem to be translating into real life.But he brought me a pinky/yellowy rose which was incredibly thoughtful and charming. So I tried to set the fact that he wasn't at ALL what I expected aside.

I also felt a little awkward because while not the most expensive steakhouse I've ever been to, J. Alexander's is a nice restaurant. And when I eat steak, I usually eat filet mignon because it is the smallest cut of beef and is always delicious. But on a first date, I feel kind of weird and almost guilty ordering a big expensive meal, even if the dude is the one who suggested it.It wouldn't be so bad if they guy was planning to order a big expensive meal, too.

Unfortunately, when I compared what I was thinking of getting to what he was getting, it was clear that my meal was going to be more expensive. Like, double. And I felt bad about that! So rather than get the glass of wine and the filet that I would normally get, I got a strip steak (uck) and stuck to water. That way, we were a little more on par with one another. And oh yeah, since he doesn't drink at all, I would have felt TOTALLY out of place getting a relaxing glass of pinot noir. Sigh.

Anyway, the conversation was good but I felt like I wasn't being quite myself. I think I was trying to overcompensate for the fact that I was disappointed that I'd built up my expectations of him, and he didn't meet them. And by the end of the date, I was ready for it to be over.

I will go out with him again. Now that I have a better sense of what to expect, I think it will be a little easier. Maybe I can concentrate more on what he is saying and less about how my intuition was so totally off about him. We just had such GREAT conversations on the phone... and I had sort of built him up in my mind and was disappointed by the real thing.

Grade: B-

I treated myself to some fro-yo after my date, and literally bumped into a hottie in line in front of me. We made conversation and while I didn't make a move and neither did he, I was still struck by the fact that you literally could meet someone anywhere.

Cross-posted at Cingle In the City.

Weekend Recap

Brian often recaps his weekends, so I thought I'd try my hand at it. I give you my Weekend Recap for your reading pleasure.



Friday: Date with myself

I picked up some Chipotle, got a six pack of beer and STAYED IN. Caught up on TV, talked for a little while to Mr. Marvelous and had a great night.



Saturday: Cookout at Megan's

Beer, hot dogs, Mexican dip, Jell-O, cornhole, good tunes and good friends... what could be better? The weather was unbearably hot, but the rain held off until late. My friend TJ and I went up to the bar down the street and did a couple of Irish Car Bombs. I smoked him, per usual. (The Irish Car Bomb is one of my favorite drinks ever, and I have an inhuman ability to chug 'em down.)



Today: Date #2

So today I had a date with Tall, Dark and... Skinny. He was exactly as described. Really tall and REALLY skinny.



We went to the Cincinnati Art Museum, which is an awesome place. It was the first time I'd ever been there, and I definitely need to go back. We spent two hours wandering the various exhibits and trying to make converation. But in the hushed reverence of a museum is not the best place to make conversation, especially for the first time.



At one point, I saw him reach onto his belt for a little device. Yeah - he was wearing a pedometer. "This thing must not be working," he said. "It says I've only taken 245 steps!"



[Editor's Note: When I told my mom that, she laughed louder than I've heard in a while. I assumer you're joining her in laughter.]



At the end of the date, he asked me if I wanted to go eat. But the conversation, the chemistry just weren't there. So I declined. I mean, the kid is hugely nice and you can tell he is a total sweetheart, but if it's not poppin', it's not poppin'.



And seriously... a pedometer?! You may want to leave that at home the next time, fella.



Grade: D



Up Next: Dinner on Tuesday with Mr. Marvelous; Sushi with my girls Stephanie and Kristen on Wednesday; AMA YP meeting, followed by the first game in our summer sand volleyball league on Thursday.



Portions of this post are cross-posted at Cingle in the City.

Date #1

Last night was Date #1 with Italian Stallion.

We met at The Hillside Room, a quiet little restaurant that has a tavern on one side and a restaurant on the other. Unfortunately, Italian Stallion asked me to meet him on the tavern side, so I went in, ordered a beer and waited. Then a fancy-schmancy server beckoned me over to the other side, where my date was waiting. Oops.

The food was good. The conversation was good. He was pretty much what I expected. A gentleman all the way. A little nervous. A few awkward silences. Was the ZING there? Not sure yet... It is really hard to go out with a person for the first time, especially when it's a blind day. It was kind of hard to tell if we were both being ourselves 100 percent; in fact, he mentioned that he was being more quiet than usual. At the same time, I felt like I was having dinner with an old friend. Is the keyword "friend"?

Grade: B+

Cross-posted at Cingle in the City

Okay, so I up and did it!

http://cingleinthecity.blogspot.com

I'm trying to keep it anonymous...

I will probably cross-post here or at least let you all know that the site has been updated. To those of you who are single: Take heart, your dating disasters can't be as bad as mine! To those who are married: Way to fight the good fight. :)