Polly Wolly Doodle

I nearly titled this Seven Hours of "Parking," but then I thought better of it. Then, I thought about calling it All The Things He Did Right... but again, it just wasn't what I wanted in a title...

The truth is... I'm not even sure today was a date. Defining it as that brings up a lot of the insecurities I haven't quite worked through yet. CatMan picked me up at 10:30am-ish. He played with the cats while I finished rushing around and pulling my shigt together, and then we were off... In a REALLY CUTE little red two-seater Toyota thingy. Apparently, he also has one in blue. I think this car was born in the '80's, and it was just FUN to ride in, without being the "pimp-daddy date car" that it could easily have been. Part of the fun was that CatMan is a good driver, and I could actually ignore the road and focus on the conversation while we drove out to the well-treed park we were planning to walk around in. It was actually very easy to relax and allow the whole day to just unfold. I really appreciated that.

The plan was to take a short jaunt through the tree-lined paths of the public park, nosh on some munchies (he brought cheese and crackers and berries from his yummy black raspberry bush and a knife to cut the bread and napkins and...-- I brought Dave's Killer Bread and some Mediterranean Kalamata Olives), and get home again before the day got hot.

But we had such easy conversation, and it was so much cooler among the trees, that we eventually ran out of trail and settled on a park bench (in the PARK, so technically we were "PARKING") for another hour or two of talk. Just talk. Really. I think we got back to my place (and promptly walked up the street for an ice cream cone and some more conversation) around 6pm.

Turns out he's an ice cream freak. Not as bad as I am, but close. Turns out, he takes my teasing pretty well-- though I wasn't always sure he knew I WAS teasing him. I might need to work on that. And while I'm into corny action flicks, he's into corny action heroes (and the constant rash of tv series about them)... I own more DVDs, but his CD collection outweighs mine by a couple of decibel points. (Ahem-- I meant decimal. I did.)

We both have moms who like to collect and/or save large quantities of inexpensive and potentially useful storage items. (read: pack rats)... He's into live and let live yard work, and he's scrupulous about it. I'm happy I don't have a yard (though I do dream of an herb garden and some shade trees one day...), and I'm glad to hear the baby maples stand a chance, even if the conifer doesn't. Basically, we had entire conversations about stuff that the other person knew almost but not quite completely NOTHING ABOUT, even though you'd think from the outside that the topics we each enjoyed would seriously overlap at some point. It was very entertaining.

We both seem to be at a point where we'd rather not have a relationship at all than settle for one that's not so great. And, like I said, we both love ice cream. I have to say, I think there's potential. Isn't that bizarre?

And, truthfully, it's a little scary.