I think the worst thing one person could do to another is tell bold face lies.  Lying is so hurtful once the truth comes out.  And it always comes out.  Any trust that had ever been established is gone or is going to be hard won again.  I dated a liar.  Well, I’ve dated a few liars but I’m speaking about one guy in particular.  Nick*.  With Nick there was an immediate spark.  He would call instead of just texting and if I didn’t answer he would leave me cute voicemails that started with, “Hey, it’s me”.  He added me on Facebook right away, which I thought was too quick but a bit indearing.  It was like we had been dating for awhile because it was super comfortable right away. 🚩

Our first date was on a Friday.  We grabbed a drink at a local bar and the discussion flowed as if we had known each other for years.  We discovered that he used to have a crush on my sister. Small world!  He played baseball in college and she was on the volleyball team.  The two teams hung out together and he liked her.  Now, I know what you’re thinking. We’ve already heard this story about cross contamination dating.  Let me clarify; they never dated.  She didn’t even know who he was, let alone that he had a crush on her.  

In three days, we had three dates.  Things were moving so quickly I could barely keep up.  By Sunday, he was saying everything I wanted to hear.  He called me ‘babe’ right away, he told me to “Get used to being taken care of”, and he made me drop my guard.  That’s right around the time the MAJOR red flags (🚩) were waiving in my face.  He talked about where we would put his stuff when he moved in.  🚩RUN🚩. Where he would park his car, depending on who got home first, of course.  🚩FLEE🚩.  How he wanted me to have his babies. 🚩Bitch, GTFO🚩.  My head was screaming at me, WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!  Even though I wanted someone to say these things to me, I knew I did not want to hear it three days in.  I let my heart shut my brain down.  

That Sunday we had fallen asleep on the couch watching football.  I woke and it was already 10:00pm.  I then tried to wake him so he could go home.  We both had work the next day and I needed to pull myself out of the three day date fest we had been on.  I gently tried to rouse him.  Nothing.  I shook him a little harder.  Still nothing.  “NICK!”, I said.  After about 5 minutes of this, I hit him in the face.  That did it.  He was extremely groggy.  I told him what time it was and he got up, kissed me and attempted to leave my apartment, sans shoes or wallet.  I stopped him and sat him back on the couch.  I got him some water and he gave me some attitude when I made him drink.  🚩 
I determined he was not driving home so I got him into my room and in bed.  He immediately passed out again.  I tidied up in the living room and got a charger for his phone.  I plugged it in and tried to sleep next to him.  Nick was 6’4″ and probably 250.  I only have a full size bed.  It was cozy, to say the least.  Then, he rolled over and began to snore.  I was clinging to the few inches of mattress I had, deciding what to do when his phone started blowing up.  Literally buzzing a hole in my dresser.  I definitely knew the sleeping situation was not working as it was let alone the flashing/buzzing phone of his.  Between the snoring and the phone, I got up in a huff.  I didn’t want to invade his privacy but I needed to do something.  I went to turn the vibration off when I saw who had been texting him.  

It said 7 missed calls and 12 texts from Mommy. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩  Um.  What?  So many questions.  Why would your mom be blowing you up when you said you live with a roommate, whom you described in detail?  Why would she be texting you to be home by 11?!  And WHY the fuck is she “Mommy” in your phone!?!?  He was way passed out so the questions needed to wait.  I moved out to the couch.  I couldn’t sleep.  I knew his mom wasn’t sleeping either.  I decided I was going to let her know what was up.  

I didn’t want to invade his privacy so I didn’t want to use his cell.  I knew that she was also his friend on Facebook.  I sent her a FB message.  I let her know he was ok, that I was on the couch, and that I would make sure he got to work on time, since that was what one of the texts were about.  I was super respectful and apologetic.  After, I was finally able to fall asleep.  

5:00am that morning, Nick woke me up asking where his phone was.  I told him and then let him know I had to tell him something.  I told him about his mom blowing his phone up and sending her the FB message.  He was quiet.  I thought he might flip on me but he simply said thank you.  He hugged and kissed me goodbye.  I fell back asleep for a couple hours.  When I woke, I had a text from him that said, “I appreciate you”.  

I knew he had already lied to me about not living at home with his parents but it wasn’t until I discovered the empty Grey Goose bottle in my trash that I understood the stuper he was in on Sunday night.  When leaned over me to  tell me to get used to being taken care of, he was getting up to make himself another drink, instead of me making it for him.  Me who measures out shots not blindly dumps vodka in a glass with a splash of OJ.  He went through an almost completely full bottle of Grey Goose in a day, didn’t tell me when it was empty, and threw it away and buried it so I wouldn’t know.

I’m pretty sure Nick was an alcoholic who lived with “mommy and daddy”.  I don’t think he was sober on any date we had.  I discovered his secret and his lies sooner than most I suppose, so as quickly as we got together, it ended just as fast.  The next thing I knew, I was deleted from Facebook and he stopped responding to texts.  He had moved on to another girl without even the courtesy of letting me know.  But, of course, this wouldn’t be the last I’d hear from Nick.  

8 months passed and he reached out.  Turns out in addition to being a raging alcoholic, he was diagnosed with epilepsy.  He had had a couple grand maul seizures.  One of the causes to late onset epilepsy is heavy drinking.  While he was in the hospital, the girl he moved on from me with broke up with him.  She couldn’t handle it.  He wanted to let me know he was sorry.  I agreed to meet up with him.  With his new diagnosis, he was forced to quit drinking, so at least he would be sober.  He wasn’t able to drive any longer so I picked him up.  He jumped right back into calling me babe again.  I took his face in both my hands, looked him dead in the eye and said, “Do not say things that you can not follow through on.”  He lowered his eyes and apologized.  This was the last I’ve seen or heard of Nick.  I hope it’s because he respected what I said but I’ll never know for certain. 
*Names have been changed. 

Last night I had a first date.  The first 10 minutes had really awesome potential.  The conversation was on point, he was good looking, we were laughing, things were looking up.  Now, before I get into where shit went wrong, I have to talk about myself personally a bit.

I’m a mixed bag when it comes to my heritage.  My mom’s side is Western European: French, English, Belgian, etc.  My dad’s side is German, English, and Portuguese.  Mostly Portuguese.  My dad is half so therefore I’m a quarter.  But I’m so white I’m see through, so I don’t look Portugue at all.  All that Western European drowns out any color I might get, especially in January.

My Portuguese side has been in the SF Bay Area since the early 1900’s.  My great grandparents had a farm in south Fremont and so they had a few kids to help run it. When I say a few kids, I mean that my poor great grandmother was knocked up 13 times in 20 years.  THIRTEEN TIMES 😳  She was almost never not pregnant.  They had so many children, there were two sets of twins!  My grandfather was the last one so I’m glad she didn’t quit one kid early.

As you can imagine, being good Catholic farmers and all, my great aunts and uncles all had large broods of themselves.  For example my dad is one of 6.  Every year we have an annual family picnic.  There are so many of us that, one year, each sub family had to all wear colored shirts so people knew which clan you hailed from.  My grandfather was Art and all of Grandpa Art’s kin wore maroon shirts.  My Uncle Dan’s group had blue shirts, etc. 13 different colored shirt groups.  Good times.

Each year the picnic is held, the attendance is smaller and smaller.  I blame the matching shirts…  There is only one original “kid” holding the family all together, Uncle Lennie.  He is in his 80’s so  we all still gather for Uncle Lennie’s sake.  I’m pretty sure that after he passes *knock on wood* the picnic will become a distant memory.  It’s OK for my immediate family because we see some extended members almost weekly, we are that close.  Funny enough, they are the same people we hang out with when we go to the picnic.  Like all families, we definitely have some branches that need a trim, so we like to close ranks a bit at this event.  Anyway, I digress…

Now that you have a bit of cultural background on me, I can continue with the date that went south in a split second.  The conversation turned to camping and how badly I can sunburn while inner tubing on the American River in July.  How my Portuguese is suppressed by so much paleness that I burn to a crisp if I don’t slather myself in sunscreen on the hour.  It was the mention that I had some Portuguese in me that prompted my date to say, “Portuguese, eh? What’s your last name?”

I paused momentarily, mostly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to give this guy my last name yet.  I thought to myself, meh, it’s long and hard to pronounce, let alone spell correctly.  So I told him my last name.

He leaned back, laughed to himself and said the following…
…Wait for it…
“Well, you’re on a date with your cousin!”

My mouth dropped in horror!  I said, “SHUT UP! Is it spelled with an ‘e’ at the end!?!”  My great grandpa added the ‘e’ on the end when he immigrated from the Azores so anyone with an ‘e’ on the end is related to me.

He answered, “Yes, with the ‘e’.  I’m Belmeda’s great grandson.”

I remember Aunt Belmeda.  I can recall going to her house in Newark and that I liked visiting her.  She was the eldest of my great grandparent’s children.

1 universe, 9 planets, 204 countries, 7 billion people and I was on a date with a blood relative who was my 4th cousin.

We sat in shock, talking about the family.  Who we knew, drama, rumors, etc.  We ended up calling both parents to let them know what was going on.  My dad laughed his ass off.  My “date’s” grandmother was my dad’s godmother.

Part of the problem was that my cousin said he never goes to the family picnics.  I told him I’m making him go to the next one.  I also started showing him pictures of other single cousins of his, including my sister, so that he could avoid any potential “matches” in the future.

If this isn’t the piece de resistance of my dating life, I don’t know what is. I’ve definitely hit rock bottom here.  Not the way I wanted 2016 to start out but I guess there can be something to be said about making this discovery 10 minutes in.  MUCH better sooner than later with that tid bit of information.

I now have an AMAZING business proposition for EVERY dating app and Ancestry.com.  I think there is a missed opportunity if there isn’t a collaboration soon.  I mean, my cousin and I were a 91% match. Something is just very wrong about that!

I recently discovered that, when you have dated in the same pool as your similar looking sibling, you may want to have a photo reference of guys who you’ve gone out with in the past to run by each other, so there isn’t any accidental cross contamination.  Just as I was laying down to bed one night, I received a call from my sister.  It was after 10 o’clock and nothing good comes from phone calls from her after 10.  I should have known better than to pick up the call but you never know when there is an emergency.

“Hello…?” I answered, groggily.

“HI! Where are YOU??”, she asked energetically.

“In bed… Where are you?”

“In bed with who?”

“…Myself. Do you think I’d answer my phone if I was in bed with a guy!?!”, I replied.

“Oh… I would.”, she retorted.  “Have you dated a guy recently named Max*?”, she asked.

Fully awake now, I responded, “Um, no, kinda, not really. Only a couple dates. He is a moron. Why?!”

“Oh, because he is sitting across the table from me right now. We are on a date!”, she said.

“OH MY GOD. You need to leave RIGHT NOW!”, I yelled. “That is the guy who was late 50 minutes to one of our dates! He told me his ex girlfriend was coming into town, that she’d be staying with him, and that he felt bad about us hanging out until after she left!!! Run!”

She laughed and then asked, “Is he the one you call…” Before she could finish, I interrupted her and called her an ass, told her to get out of there and hung up.  Is nothing between sisters sacred?! Sometimes she kills me!

Apparently, they were talking about life and my sister mentioned me.  She discussed my job and where I used to work, which is a big tech company in the valley.  This was sort of familiar to Max and he asked what my name was and if I had blondish hair.  My sister said yes and pulled up a picture of me.  That is when they realized for sure that he had gone out with me recently and decided to call me.

After I got off the call with her, I texted her to get out of there and to call me when she was on her way home.  She did.  She told me that he had still tried to get her to go home with him even after he found out that we were sisters!!! The creep.  Luckily, my sister had the wherewithal to get out of there.  That’s when the iMessages started.  His cell was blocked in my phone so he started using his iCloud account to iMessage me.  Even while he was STILL trying to hook up with my sister.

When you look up the word creep in the dictionary, I have to believe this guy’s picture can be found there.  He even sent my sister a dick pic after she left and while he was messaging me.  I can’t fathom why this guy is single! Any ladies want to take him off the market to spare the rest of us??  Ugh.  Online dating is a cesspool of cretins.  I will never go back, no matter how lonely I get.  It isn’t worth it.   That being said, my sister and I now have a process.  If she has a date with someone who would fit my criteria, she will show me their photo first.  If I’ve never seen him before, its a go.  If I have, run!

*Names have been changed

I have dating PTSD.  No matter what is going on, there is a part of me that expects the guy I’m seeing to completely bail on me.  It has happened a number of times in the past so I cannot help it.  I internalize my crazy thoughts, for the most part.  What saves me are the best friend phone calls where I get things off my chest. (Thank you, friends ❤️)

If I have a date scheduled, in the back of my mind I think he will cancel. I know eventually there will be a time where someone will have a legitimate reason to bail and I have to keep reminding myself that it isn’t because he isn’t interested in me. Perhaps, he is a grown up and I have to remember that stuff comes up once in a while that might not be expected.  As long as there has been proper communication, I should really not worry.  This is so easier said than done.

I do have higher expectations for the guys I see now. If for some reason, things aren’t working out, I expect at least a conversation. I understand why people disappear but I hate it. I’d like everyone who is dating and reading this to try your very best to not “ghost” on anyone ever again. I will take this challenge as well. I will promise to have adult conversations, no matter how difficult they might be. People deserve it, especially if you’ve been naked together.

Here is the real kicker. I’ve never dated anyone, ever, where I questioned if I was good enough for them, until recently.  If he is the whole package, am I as well? I’ve come to the conclusion that, that thought process isn’t healthy. That I am good enough. That I am the whole package.  We all have areas we can improve upon but, for the most part, I’m awesome. I do have to remind myself that believing I’m awesome is not being conceited.  Everyone should think that, they themselves, are amazing!  If you don’t think this about yourself, how will someone else?  I think to myself, would you date you? I would.  I would date me. I’m, at times, hilarious, mostly intelligent, fairly pretty, very nice, and extremely caring. I always give more than I receive and it would be nice to date someone, someday, who gave as much back as I give. I deserve that. We all do. So I would date me.  Would you date yourself?

In honor of Cinco de Mayo yesterday, I was reminded that I should probably post my cautionary tale of the events that occurred 8 years ago in the wee hours of the morning of May 6th, 2007.  Please note, that the tale I’m about to tell is very A typical for this type of situation.  According to every law enforcement person who’s heard this story, I’m the luckiest girl ever!

It was Cinco de Mayo and my friend was having a party to celebrate because everyone is a little Mexican on Cinco de Mayo.  The party started at noon and the jello shots were refreshing on this warm day in May.  We partied all day and later that evening my good friend, the Doctor, joined us for our evening out.  We bar hopped until we found one we liked and hung out, drinking, until closing, at 2:00am.  We were in the Foster City area and I was driving.  I drove my one friend home to her place and she tried to get the Doctor and I to stay and not drive back to the East Bay.  “You should stay”, she said as she hugged me goodbye.  I didn’t have any stuff with me and I really wanted to go back home so I declined her offer.  Back in the car we went for the 45 minute drive to south Fremont, where I lived at the time.

We got all the way to north/central Fremont on 880 when I noticed the flashing lights in my rear view mirror.  I handed my flip phone to the Doctor and said, “Hold down the 2.  It will call my parents because I’m getting arrested.”  I went to pull over on the freeway when the Highway Patrol behind me bullhorned me to exit the freeway.  I did as they said and pulled off the next exit and into the parking lot on the right.  Two Highway Patrol officers exited their vehicle and approached my car on the driver side.  I rolled down the window and they said, “So, who’s been drinking because we can smell it?”.  Scared to death I couldn’t muster a reply so I pointed at the Doctor.  He pointed at himself.  They then asked me to follow the end of their pen with my eyes only as they moved it back and forth.  I followed directions and when the tip passed out of my line of sight, my eyes fluttered struggling to see the pen.  I later found out this is a sign that a person has been drinking.  They asked me to step out of the car.

They let me know that the male Highway Patrol would be leading me through a series of road side tests.  He asked me to stand with my feet together, arms at my side, head back, and to count in my head to 30 and to let him know when I was done.  In my head, I was thinking, ONE ONE THOUSAND, TWO ONE THOUSAND, THREE ONE THOUSAND. etc., until I got to 30.  He looked surprised when I told him I was done.  Shocked that I was close or right on the nose of 30 seconds.  The Doctor later told me that he was watching me in his side mirror of the car and, while I didn’t step out or lose my balance, I was wavering around like all hell.  The next few tests went surprisingly well, until we got to the last one.  I was to count again but this time out loud on one foot looking at my raised foot with my arms at my side.  As this was the last test, I was seriously anxious to be done.  So anxious that I completed skipped the number 29 to get to 30.  “Oh, sorry!”, I said.  The officer replied, “Don’t worry about it.”  I knew at that moment he was new.  He must be training with the other officer and that night seemed like his first night out.

He brought me over to the front of the patrol car where the other officer had been readying the breathalyzer.  She explained how it worked and that I would need to blow until they told me to stop.  I did everything they said to the letter.  She was surprised I was actually blowing.  Apparently drunk people usually pretend to blow.  If they had told me to do pushups I would have.  I was not messing around with these cops.  She looked at the result and asked him how he thinks I did.  He replied, “I don’t know.  She did great on all the tests.”.  She showed him and then myself the result.  I blew a .0723.  I was less than a hundredth of a percentage point away from automatically going to jail.  Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.00.  Jail.  They began to lecture me on not lying to the police and how expensive a DUI is.  How could have hurt myself, my friend or a stranger.  They then told me that they weren’t going to be taking me to jail that night.  I began to cry.  They didn’t want me driving so they asked me where I lived.  I told them I lived in south Fremont but that my parents lived on the other side of the freeway.  They chatted for a moment and then told me the plan.  They would pull my passenger out of the car, pat him down and place him in the back of the patrol car.  They would then put me in the passenger seat of my car and she would drive my car to my parents house with the other officer following in the patrol car.

Watching the Doctor get patted down was one of the funniest moments of my life.  When we retell this story together, the reenactment is hilarious.  Now neither one of us has ever been arrested before so we only know to assume the position from what we’ve seen on TV and in movies.  Apparently, when you’re a taller guy, you have to spread your* legs really wide so that a shorter cop can get in your junk and make sure you don’t have any weapons hiding anywhere.  The Doctor didn’t know this and wasn’t spread very wide so when the officer had to ask multiple times for him to spread his legs, “wider Sir…” it was all I could do not to bust out laughing.

Finally, with the Doctor secure in the patrol car, we were off to my parents house.  She small talked with me in the car.  “Is that your boyfriend?”, she asked.  “Just a friend.”, I replied.  It was a short drive.  She parked my car, let the Doctor out, shook our hands, and let us go.  This is always the part where the people who work in law enforcement, who I’ve told this story to, tell me how lucky I am that they didn’t cite me for a wet and reckless and/or have my car towed.  Lucky they all say and I believe them.

Now, I was not about to get back into that car and drive the few miles back to my place from my parents house.  Up to the front door walked the Doctor and I.  When we went inside, my mom was still awake, which was surprising since it was 3:30am.  She looked at us and exclaimed, “What are you doing here?  You don’t live here!”.  I told her, “OK, don’t get mad.”.  The whole story spilled out, while the Doctor hugged me in the doorway.  “OK.”, she replied.  If you knew my mom you’d know this was unlike her.  She is known to scream and be terrifying when ticked off.  She put on a sweatshirt over her nightgown and got her shoes on.  She put the Doctor and I in her car and drove us to my condo.  when we got there, the Doctor asked for a hug, even though this was his first interaction with my mom.  She obliged him.  We went inside and passed out until 8:00am.

When we woke up, the realization of the events of the night before hung over us like a dark storm cloud.  He somberly and silently drove me to my car, parked outside my parents house.  I said goodbye, got in the car, and drove off.  I didn’t go into the house.  To this day, my mother has never discussed the events of that evening with me.  I think she knew I learned my lesson, which I definitely did.

*This was the 1000th word :)!

I read somewhere recently, that people who use the F word often are loyal, honest, and more real than people who do not.  If this is true, I must be a pretty loyal and honorable person.  I know my writing is pretty clean but it is rare a day that I don’t drop an eff bomb here and there.  Be it under my breath at work or in the car at the top of my lungs, it is definitely my favorite expletive.  Most of us can remember the first time we said a bad word.  You got in trouble and, perhaps, your mouth washed out with soap.  I do not remember my first bad word but the story of this moment is infamous in my family.

It was 1985 and I was 3.

My Nana and PopPop were my caretakers while my parents both worked.  While we were not blood related, I loved my Nana and PopPop as if they were my actual grandparents. They lived in Newark at the lake and their house backed up to 880.  Because of their vicinity to the freeway, they sometimes had rodent issues.  There was one particular rat that gave my PopPop a run for his money.  It would constantly escape his traps and infuriated him.  But today was the day PopPop would get his revenge.  I was toddling around while my Nana was folding sheets.  PopPop bursts into the house!  “Va fangool!  I got that FUCKING rat!!”.  Not wanting to be a bad influence on me and laugh at her insane husband, my Nan hid behind the sheet she was folding, laughing, her shoulders bouncing up and down.  Now being 3, I misinterpreted Nana’s laughing with crying.  It was completely innocent confusion when I went to Nan and said, “Oh, don’t cry Nana!  PopPop got that fucking rat.”  Nana and PopPop were absolutely horrified that they had taught my adorable 3 year old self my first bad word.  Nan called my mom at work, “Ohhhh, Lisa.” She said.  After hearing what had happened, my mom could only laugh at the situation.  She was most likely relieved that I had copied them and not her.  She is a very loyal, honest, and real person herself, who likes to use the F word a lot.

Nana and PopPop

This is my favorite story that includes my Nana and PopPop.  They were some of my favorite people.  They didn’t have to love me and my sister like their own grandchildren but they did.  We lost PopPop to lung cancer in 1988 and Nana to breast cancer in 2013.  I didn’t just learn bad words from these two wonderful people.  They taught me respect, kindness, love, humility, and life lessons I will never forget.  If I ever get the chance to be there for someone like they were for me, I hope I’m as great as they were.

A friend of mine told me that he challenges himself to write 1000 words a day.  He sets his alarm at 5:30 every morning so he can get up and write.  Now, I don’t know how successful he is at this, as he says he snoozes his alarm, more often than not, but he is committed to writing.  I greatly respect this.  While, early morning writing isn’t for me, as I’ve never been a morning person, I like the idea of writing every day.  So I am going to.  I may not publish it all but I will challenge myself just the same.

As I’ve recently had my 33rd birthday, I fondly reflect on everything that I have and the experiences that have made me who I am.  I’m truly lucky.  I cannot wait to see what the rest of my life has in store for me.  Will I write a book?  Will I travel the world?  Will I fall in love?  The world is open to so many possibilities for us all.  You might wonder why this entry is different from my previous entries.  All I can say is I am happy.  Very, very happy.  That being said, which story should I tell next?  I’m not in the mood for bad dating stories at the moment, seeing as things are looking up as of late.  How about an Ambian story or two?

My mom is an avid user of Ambian.  She takes it every night, without fail.  Now, we discovered that if she does not commit to going to sleep when she takes it, interesting things happen.  The first time we discovered the amusing side effects, I was hanging out with my dad, watching baseball.  My mom bellowed down the hall, “LICORICE!!! 5 pieces!”.  I looked at my dad and asked, “Who the hell is she talking to?”.  He shrugged and replied, “Us, I suppose.”  I got up and asked where they kept the licorice.  I yelled back, “You’re only getting two pieces!”.  I took the two pieces back to her and she had the oddest look on her face.  Her eyes were mostly closed and she had on a dopy grin.  Frowning, I waived my hand in front of her face, to which she did not react, and handed her the two licorice pieces.  She took them, chomped a bite out of one and fell back onto her pillows.

The next day, I was over at my parent’s house again, with my sister, having dinner.  My mom told us what had happened that morning.  She and my dad woke up and as my father was sitting up in bed, my mom looked over at him and saw a strange sight.  Stuck to his back, was a whole piece of licorice! She had absolutely no recollection of the events of the previous evening, which definitely is a side effect of the Ambian and a theme to all the stories I have like this.  As she was telling us this tale, she was getting ready for bed, putting on her nightgown.  It must have been the same nightgown from the night before because, in the folds, she discovered a half chomped piece of licorice!  Now this is all fun and games but she has a thing with eating after she has taken this stuff. I’m a little worried she could aspirate.

Another time, she decided that she was hungry, so, in her Ambian haze, she pin-balled down the hallway to the kitchen.  She counted out 20 almonds onto a plate. At least she is a healthy eater, aside from the licorice.  She pin-balled back to her bedroom and attempted to get back into bed.  Now my mom is on the shorter side and her bed is on the higher side.  She has to lift a cheek to get in.  Since she had the almonds balanced on a plate, she had some trouble getting back into bed this night.  She managed to push the mattress off the frame and wedge herself between the nightstand, bed frame, and mattress.  Almonds flew everywhere!  She bellowed for help and my dad came running.  She still had the plate balanced in one hand with two little almonds still on it.  He helped her up and got her into bed.  Later, we were finding almonds everywhere.  Under the bed, behind the nightstand, and in her shoes, like she was a squirrel hiding nuts for winter.

Aside from eating, she does all kinds of things on this medication.  I’ll save those stories for another time.

Wow, I thought for sure I’d be able to hit 1000 words.  No such luck because this is only word 773.  I’m not giving myself such strict guidelines, as long as I write daily, I’ll be happy.  Hopefully you all will be as well 🙂

I went to lunch today with a friend from work.  She was talking about how men make women crazy and, not that I disagree with her, crazy is a two way street.  For example, I have a guy friend who has almost as good dating stories as I do.  Almost!  He tells two tales that have stuck with me over the years.  The first is the story of a chick who, legit, brought a requirement sheet of traits that her “Prince Charming” must have.  Some examples of the required features were that he graduated from an Ivy League school, that he can ballroom dance, and that his family owns a yacht.  Ok, princess, reel it in.  The second, and completely separate girl, asked my friend what his lifetime earning potential was as her opening question.  My friend was so offended he excused himself from the date.  When he reached the door to leave, he thought of exactly what his retort should have been!  *Lifts pinky to lips* ONE MILLION DOLLARS!  He was very upset he thought of that too late.

My coworker intently listened to my examples of crazy chicks and responded that she would simply like a man with a car and a job who treats her good, let alone a yacht!  Let’s keep it real, folks!  Its the simple things in life that make people truly happy.

And now, drum roll please, for your reading entertainment pleasure, I present… HUGGY BEAR!

A few years back, I agreed to meet up with a guy for coffee.  I walked into the coffee shop and scanned the room for my date.  I did not see anyone that looked familiar, yet I heard my name being called.  I scanned again and saw a man who looked vaguely like my date.  It was my date but the photo he used on the site was probably 7-8 years old.  Shockingly, I made his introduction and let him buy me a coffee.  I never understood what exactly the point was of using outdated pictures if you were going to eventually meet someone in person, unless he needed it to land the date the first place.  Honestly, he wasn’t an unattractive guy, physically.  We took our coffee to the bookstore across the way.  It was there that he proceeded to spew any and all awful things going on in his life.  He owned two houses.  Both were under water.  One was painted black on the inside so he was having trouble renting it.  I asked why he didn’t just paint it another color and he responded that it would be too hard to cover up the black.  The look on my face must have told him I thought he was odd.  It didn’t phase him one bit though.  He then told me he just got out of the hospital.  That he rolled a four wheeler and that his insurance didn’t cover all the medical bills.  He also couldn’t stand still in one place.  He kept walking back and forth, four steps in either direction.  I just kept pivoting his direction as he moved.  I couldn’t believe that he was being so negative.  This isn’t a therapy session, my friend.  You are trying to woo me not make me run for the hills.

As we ended our date, he walked me to my car.  I told him it was nice to meet him and I gave him a one arm over the shoulder, ass-out hug goodbye.  The I’m-not-interested-but-I’m-polite hug goodbye.  It was then I heard him say, “Oh no!  You’re getting a REAL hug!”.  Next thing I knew, my other arm was up and over his shoulder and he was giving me a bear hug.  He then proceeded to lift me clear off the ground.  I made a noise that was alarming, a cross between a squeal and a scream, and he set me down.  Now I have to say that I am no 110 pound girl, who you can throw over your shoulder, not that if I was, it would be OK either.  My weight may be misleading since I know how to dress my body.  I, hurriedly, said goodnight, got in my car and sat there for a little while in shock.  I couldn’t believe what had just happened.  As I began to drive out of the parking lot, I saw my date walking in the cross walk on the way back to his car.  I could see he was talking to himself.  It was before hands-free devices were really popular so I assume he was talking to himself. Then, all of a sudden, he threw his hands up above his head, exasperated in his own behavior, I can only imagine.  Needless to say, he didn’t get a second date, only to forever be know as Huggy Bear.