W for Wayback Wednesday (Part 4)

Welcome to another edition of Wayback Wednesday! This series is made up of old blog posts from a few years ago. If you'd like to, you can catch up by reading previous editions first. We’re gonna jump into the Wayback Machine and travel to Sunday, August 27, 2006…

Ten Hour Date

Wow.  I just really don't know where to start.  I'm just overwhelmed with how damn great this date was!  Seriously.  I left the house at a little before 1:30 in the afternoon.  I walked in the door to my apartment at around 11:30 p.m.  It was a ten hour date!!!!!!  Can you even believe it?!?!?  That's gotta be some kind of record!  I'm telling you, people, this guy is cool if he can handle me for ten hours and still want to see me again sometime in the future, which he does.  (I hope.)  Maybe, given time to really think about it, he'll change his mind.  Let's hope that's not the case, because that would make me a bit sad.

Okay, so I'm completely exhausted right now, but I just have to brag.  This date was awesome!!!!!!! 

Music Man called me Saturday morning.  He told me that he had bad news:  He was unable to get us tickets for the Body World exhibit at the Science Museum.  Trust me, he tried hard.  Per my advice, he even tried convincing the guy that a second date was on the line.  Unfortunately, the ticket guy at the Science Museum had no heart.  I, personally, find it hilarious and incredibly endearing that Music Man even tried to play that angle.

It's totally understandable that they were completely sold out, considering that everyone thought this would be the last weekend the exhibit could be seen.  I'm so glad they've extended it to December so that we will be able to go see it in the future.  Yes, you read that right; I said "we" and "future."  (*much bouncy giggling girly madness ensues* )  So, that not being an option, we had to come up with another plan.  I remembered that one of the other things on both of our summer to do lists was the zoo, so I recommended that we go to the Minnesota Zoo.  Music Man seemed really excited to go, which I thought was super cool.  The plan was to meet at his place at 1:30.

When I arrived, I called up and Music Man said he was in the middle of something but that I should come up and let myself in because the door would be open.  So, that's what I did.  My hand anxiously on the doorknob, I paused for a moment to consider what I might find behind the door.  He said he was a clean guy, but we all know that guy clean and girl clean are two totally different things.  My jaw dropped when I entered his apartment.  I have never in my life seen a single man's apartment so neat, clean, and organized.  Oh, and it contained live plants, which made me super jealous and amazed because I kill everything no matter how hard I try not to.  I really was astonished; his place was very nice.  Granted, I've only seen the dwellings of a handful of single men in my life, but still.  I was beyond impressed.  We left Music Man's apartment and headed for the zoo.  I was super excited!

We had an absolutely spectacular time at the zoo.  Phenomenal.  It was soooooooo much fun!  We laughed and joked all day.  It was a fantastically gorgeous day to be outside, and I even remembered to wear sunscreen!  I had a bit of a freak out in the bat building, but Music Man dealt with it extremely well.  It helps that he hates bats too, so he totally understood my fear.  Music Man bumped into one of his music friends.  The guy was telling him about a website he just had to check out, so I dug in my wallet and pulled out a pen and little notepad so that Music Man could write the info down and get the guy's phone number.  Music Man was impressed that I was so prepared, which was awesome because I thought he'd surely think I was a dork.

We had to ride this trailer pulled by a tractor to get up to the farm exhibit.  On the way back, two little girls got on with their mother.  They were very energetic and very chatty little girls.  One sat right next to me (I think she liked my sparkly sandals, because she kept looking at them) and the other sat next to Music Man.  They and their mother were chatting with us all the way back from the farm exhibit.

When the ride started, it was kind of a jerky start.  The girls' mom made a comment that she didn't know it was an amusement park ride, or something like that, so Music Man raised his arms as though he were riding a roller coaster.  The kids looked at him and laughed, so then he got them started doing the wave.  This one little boy, who was really shy at first, had us doing the wave all the way back.  How frickin' cute is that?!?!?!  Music Man made a great joke later about how he hoped the kid would spontaneously break out into the wave at the dinner table, in class at school, etc.

At one point, the little girls had been talking about bees and how bees like people that smell sweet.  Music Man said to the one sitting next to him, "Well, that's why they like me, because I'm so sweet!"  Had I been thinking, I would've said something like, "And that's why I like him too!"  But I wasn't really "on the ball," instead I just smiled.  I expressed my regret later for having not taken that moment to say something.

I had a moment where I really should've thought a little more before I spoke.  We were looking at the Moose.  It had huge antlers, or horns, or whatever the thing on top of its head is called.  I couldn't think of what it was called at the moment, so I said, "Wow!  That thing has a huge rack!"  Yes I did.  I'm so not kidding.  Music Man started cracking up as I realized what I'd said.  I told him I could not believe I'd just said that.  In retrospect, I totally can believe it, because that's just so "Elle."  Music Man really seemed to enjoy it, and joked with me about it a few times later in the day.  Later, he'd say this was his favorite part of the whole zoo experience.

The zoo is a lot smaller than I remember it being, but it was cool.  I know you're wondering, so I'll confirm that I did indeed see the sharks.  Yeah, don't think the irony of me seeing sharks up close and personal during shark week escaped me.  Speaking of shark week, thank god for the diva cup.*  (Don't read the information after the * at the end of this blog if you don't want to hear my diva cup commercial.) So, yeah, we had an absolutely excellent time at the zoo.

It came time to leave, and we headed out the nearest exit.  Well, it was totally the wrong exit, which we discovered after walking around the parking lots for a good fifteen or twenty minutes looking for Music Man's truck. He kept apologizing when it wasn't entirely his fault, because I hadn't exactly been paying attention to where we'd parked either.  We both agreed that we'd just been too excited about the zoo.  All we could do was laugh about how we'd lost his truck.  He kept telling me this had never happened to him before.  I had to tell him that it happens to me all too often.  We decided to sit down and have a cigarette to think about where we needed to go. 

Music Man asked to look at the zoo map, so I took it out of my purse and handed it to him.  He was able to ascertain that we had gone out the wrong exit and that we'd need to go back in the zoo and ask them how to get to the parking lot we needed to go to.  He asked for directions!!!!!  Yes, he did!  We were super excited to finally find the truck.  We did a high five as we walked to it.

When we returned to Music Man's apartment, neither of us was really ready to end the date, so we decided to head up to his place to regroup for a minute while we figured out what we wanted to do next.  We ended up hanging out, drinking Diet Coke, and watching TV for about an hour and a half.  Music Man kept apologizing that all we were doing was talking and watching Myth Busters, but I told him it was fine because the zoo had kinda tuckered me out.  Truth be told, I was enjoying just hanging out on his couch with him.   

At one point, a humming bird appeared outside his patio door.  That was pretty cool—I’ve never seen one so close before!  Music Man asked if I'd read my horoscope that day (something else we both have in common:  we're horoscope junkies), and I hadn't, so he read our horoscopes.  We were both supposed to have five star days, which we thought was cool.  I definitely felt like I was having a five star day.  We finally decided we'd got get something to eat.

Music Man took me to the coolest place ever, I'd read about it months ago and had been meaning to get there "someday."  Well, someday happened yesterday.  We went to this place called Chatterbox in St. Paul.  Much like the guy that was taking me there, this place was super cool!  They had couches and TV's setup all over, and you could choose from a menu of Sega and Nintendo games to sit down and play if you wanted to.  In addition to good sandwiches, burgers, and assorted other offerings, the menu also had a list of board games you could select from.  So, if you chose to, they'd bring a board game right to your table for you to enjoy.  They had everything from decks of cards to Operation to Trivial Pursuit.  Very cool!

The atmosphere was also very neat and the bathrooms were very clean, which seals the fate of a restaurant in my mind.  We didn't play any games, opting instead to talk while we waited for our food and while we ate.  When the bill came, Music Man insisted on paying.  I told him that I'd totally remember that it's my turn to pay next time.  Thinking that presumptuous, I qualified it with, "Well, if there is a next time."  I think he smiled at that, so that was good.  I'm sad to say I don't remember his exact reaction, but I got the feeling that there'd be a next time.

It's insane all the things we keep discovering that we have in common.  Yesterday we discovered that we both have a parent that's a school bus driver.  We both hate tomatoes and olives, don't like large crowds, and like to clean.  Read that last one again a couple times...he. likes. to. clean.  My head almost exploded.

After dinner, we still weren't ready to call it quits, so we headed to Enjoy in Apple Valley to hopefully listen to some live jazz while having an after dinner cocktail.  (Can I just say right now that I love that Music Man says cocktail instead of drinks?!?!  As in, "Should we go have a cocktail somewhere?"  There's just something about that that I really really like.) As we got out of the truck to walk into Enjoy, we were dive bombed by a bat.  I kid you not.  It was horrible, traumatic, and funny all at the same time.

I felt so bad for Music Man; the wretched thing seriously looked like it was heading right for him!  He has quick reflexes and totally managed to avoid it.  Sadly, we went through all that only to find out that Enjoy didn't have any live music.  So, we headed to a different bar that Music Man knew of.  “The Russian Pirate Bar." (Not it's technical name, but that's what Music Man calls it.)  This place was neat; a little hole-in-the-wall kinda place decorated all "piratey" and ship like.  There was a big, sweet, obviously Russian lady behind the bar.  The place wasn't crowded at all, and there was an eclectic selection of music playing on the juke box.

We had a couple beers and talked for about an hour or so.  I had put ten bucks on the bar to pay for my beer, but the bartender had taken Music Man's twenty to pay for everything.  As we got ready to leave, Music Man handed my money back to me.  I insisted that he take it.  I told him to consider it payment for my drink and maybe part of the tip from dinner.  He would not take my money.  Instead, he said, "You can get it next time," and smiled.  I smiled back and told him he was "sly" and then giggled like a little girl.  He admitted that he was pretty proud of himself for the comment and proceeded to pat himself on the back, which I did too.  It was a cute moment.  You had to be there...

We agreed that there will definitely be a next time.  We both commented as we left the bar that we couldn't believe we were finishing up a ten hour date.  That's a lot of time for two people to spend together!  You know what?  I enjoyed every single minute of it.  Every minute.  I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Music Man walked me to my car to say goodnight.  We agreed that we'd definitely get together again.  We left it open-ended, but it's "my turn" to call him, which I'll definitely be doing sometime soon.  We still haven't quite figured out the parting ways thing yet, so it was a bit awkward again.  We ended up hugging and then I got in my car and drove the long way home.  (Total exaggeration right there.  It took me all of maybe five minutes to get home; he lives that close.)  I was absolutely exhausted, yet bursting with energy, when I got home.  I could not calm down.  I had just had the greatest day ever!  It was, hands down, one of the best days of my life in a very long time!

I'm eager to see and talk to Music Man again.  I really like him.  He's such a great guy.  Nice, funny, polite, clean, fun, interesting...I could just go on and on.  I'm so excited for "next time!"

* Okay, I've just gotta say it, the diva cup totally rocks my world.  Shark week sucks, there's no doubt about that, but the cup makes it so much more bearable.  There's no way I would've had a ten hour date, or even walked around the zoo getting hot and sweaty, yesterday without this fantastic invention.  Seriously.  I would've been crabby and feeling icky and dirty and nasty.  Not with the diva cup!  No worries at all.  Put it in, forget about it for 12-14 hours, and go on with your life.  It totally rocks and was worth its weight (and a million times more) in gold yesterday.