First Date

Early in July I received e-mail from her asking about the Freddy Jones Band. I replied, and she followed up with a question about cyber-cafes in the South Bay which had Macintoshes. I wrote back suggesting one which turned out to be near where she works, and she wrote me back that evening saying she was sitting there using it to send some photos she had on a Mac disk, and she sent me a picture of herself.

Hmmmm.

We ended up striking up a correspondence after that (this is actually not an unusual way for me to gain an e-pen-pal, of which I've had many over the last 11 years), talking about various things, and about each other. We set up plans to meet each other for coffee sometime this past week.

Well, about a week later, she pulled my phone number out of the book, and called me up and asked me on a date!

That sounds so abrupt. It was startling at the time, but not quite as out-of-the-blue as it sounds here.

I didn't see any reason to say no (as far as I could tell, she wasn't a psycho, for instance). So I said "yes", of course! After some back-and-forth, we decided to head down to the vicinity of Santa Cruz yesterday for a picnic and some other things which Adrienne decided to surprise me with.

As I later described her to some of my friends, Adrienne turned out to be a cute, redheaded, Italian woman. (I actually have no idea how "Italian" she actually looks, but that's part of her background. She doesn't look like, say, John's family. Different part of Italy, probably.) She's 25 years old, and moved to the Bay Area last November for a relationship which didn't work out. She decided to stay, and will start teaching first grade in the fall.

She's from rural Tennessee, and in fact her mother - in her professional capacity - knows some of my relatives down there, which is certainly an amazing coincidence! Adrienne has a noticible accent, but she's clearly working on reducing or losing it. (I suspect I notice it as much as I do because I'm familiar with that particular accent.) On the other hand, she doesn't have the conservative values which seem endemic to the South.

I found her attractive almost as soon as she showed up on my doorstep to pick me up. (Since she asked me on the date, she felt she should take responsibility for driving and food. I'm pretty ignorant of the 'protocols' of such things, especially since she's the first woman to ever ask me out!) I showed her my place, introduced the cats (Jefferson hid, of course), and we tried to get over our nervousness.

We drove down to Santa Cruz, to some bluffs north of the city itself, where we walked out to nearly the edge of a bluff and sat and had a picnic. It was a beautiful day, a bit windy and cool, but with solid sunlight. (Adrienne ended up getting rather sunburned over the course of the afternoon.) She brought sandwich fixings and some chocolate for dessert, all of which was quite tasty. We sat on her blanket, still both feeling a bit nervous. But we both seemed to be enjoying the other's company. It was a good time.

Here are a couple of photos of the bluffs. No photos of Adrienne; she's reticent about having her photo taken.

When we got back to the car, Adrienne said, "Uh-oh." The key wouldn't go into the ignition. She has a pretty old car, the sort where she probably worries that something will stop working at any time (sort of like my old car!), but this was bad news. Sure, we could get help if necessary, but what a pain! And on a first date! I tried it myself, but the key was just not going in. Oh, dear.

Then Adrienne says, "I just realized what it is." "What?" I asked.

"Those are your keys!"

See, while we were on the bluffs, I stuck my wallet and keys in Adrienne's bag, since they were uncomfortable to lie on. She must have grabbed them, and both of us proceeded to completely miss this fact over the course of five or ten minutes, despite the fact that the keychain had my electronic door lock and Apple logo dongle on it. Sheesh!

We had a good laugh over that. Adrienne felt terrible about it, but I reassured her that it's not like I noticed it, either! We were just a couple of doofuses. (Maybe our obliviousness was a sign that the date was going well?)

We went to a little beach that Adrienne had found and enjoyed recently, but it was very windy and blew sand in our faces, so we left and went up to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Pescadero. Adrienne and her mother had stayed at the hostel next to it recently, and she thought it was beautiful. I'd told her that I'd stopped at it once before, but hadn't taken the tour, so we did take the tour. It was neat! The guide really knew his stuff, and the old lens installed back in the 1800s (although no longer used today) is very impressive. It's worth seeing if you're ever in the area.

We wrapped up our seaside date by going to Moss Beach, which was not so windy, and we spent an hour or so lying by the ocean. Very pleasant.

For dinner we went into Palo Alto to the Peninsula Creamery (I later learned that Adrienne knows of and like City Pub in downtown Redwood City, which was an alternative idea I'd had). We stopped briefly in Mountain View and I introduced her to Bookbuyers. Then we drove back to my place and talked for a while.

It was really a very nice date. At Pigeon Point we were already talking about going on a second date ("you ask me this time", she said). And in the evening, yes, we did in fact kiss.

And then today we got together again (our first-and-a-half date?), not really having any plans; we just went to Hobees for a late brunch and some more talking. Nice.

It's very flattering to be asked on a date, I find. It's also really nice to actually have a date, which I haven't in quite a few years, as I've whined here before. (I haven't been on a date since before I started this journal.) Adrienne had never asked anyone out before, so this was all pretty new to both of us.

I think both of us are surprised that we hit it off so well. Adrienne claims to be a bit intimidated by me, while I'm concerned that she'll lose interest when she sees the true depths of my geekiness. We don't have many hobbies in common, it seems, although she likes to read, and obviously we both enjoy going outdoors. But we've clearly connected somewhere, and we're both interested in seeing where it leads.

So, Adrienne will probably be popping up in my journal regularly for the foreseeable future. How about that?