Second Date

I was waiting for Derek outside the Gap at the intersection of Powell and Market Streets in downtown San Francisco last night and it suddenly hit me that it was a Tuesday night at 7 p.m. and I was in San Francisco! And, even stranger, I was waiting for a really cute guy to come meet me and take me out to dinner. This is NOT my normal life. But, I could get accustomed to such things! He spotted me first - we were surrounded by hordes of tourists waiting for a ride on the cable cars. He gave me a big smile and a sincere hug. We decided to escape tourist hell and take a taxi to Pacific Heights, his 'hood. We walked for a few blocks before settling on a cute little (emphasis on little) bistro right off Fillmore Street. The food was good, the wine was great, and the conversation with my very cute dinner partner was even better. I'm just really impressed by him, I don't know how else to describe it. He's intelligent, articulate, well-traveled, open minded, has good taste, knows about the finer things in life, yet is not snobby in the least, has a lot of interesting stories to tell, and most importantly, seems to think I'm great! We stayed at the restaurant until almost 9:30 p.m., and left when I told him I had to think about getting back to Oakland, where I had left my car in a parking garage that closed at 11:00 p.m. Bummer. We left the restaurant and walked to his car, our arms hooked. Then he did something sweet - he asked if he could switch sides with me, because he was brought up to make sure the man always walked closest to the street. Awww. How often does that happen? We got to his car and I knew we were close to his apartment, so I asked where it was. He said we had walked right by it. I still had some time to get to the BART station, so I asked if we could go see it. He's talked a lot about how amazing the place is, so I was curious. And it is amazing. His roommate owns the apartment. It's on the second floor of a house and has hardwood floors and huge, open vaulted ceilings. A nice kitchen, open to the family room/dining area and there was a massive wine collection (Derek's) to boot. His room is the loft upstairs, which you reach by climbing a tall and very steep ladder that is tilted at a slight angle. Somewhat unsure, I scrambled up after him. His room is so cool. He has a great view of the city through a huge window in the front room of the apartment, and there's another window with a ladder next to it. We climb out of the window and we're on the edge of the roof, with yet another wonderful view of the city. He chose this moment (appropriately) to kiss me, and I was again thinking, this is SO not a normal Tuesday night! Being kissed by a hot guy on the roof of his SF apartment, with city lights and the stars surrounding us?? Oh man. Back in his room again, some more kissing, me very, very reluctant to leave. We walk back to the car and he drops me at the Embarcadero BART station, after a prolonged goodbye. I tell him I might be in SF this weekend and he says to call him. Several more kisses later, I leave and have this huge smile on my face as I'm walking into the underground subway station. Now it's the next afternoon and the smile is pretty much still there! Let's see what this weekend holds in store.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I was browsing through some other blogs and came across one that was, frankly, really boring. This guy writes a new post every day, simply describing exactly what he does each day. I thought I would emulate him to see if a typical day for me is any more exciting. Probably not. Here goes: My alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I promptly turned it off and went back to sleep. Felix the annoying black cat began to meow incessantly at around 6:30 a.m. I ignored her and covered by head with a pillow as to drown out her cries. It never works. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 6:51 a.m. As always, I began my day with a shower. I am always pissed at the cats for waking me up, so I make them wait until after I shower to eat. I fed the cats and briefly considered cleaning out the litter boxes, but decided that could wait until later. I selected an outfit and got ready for work. I ate breakfast: green tea, apple cinnamon instant oatmeal, strawberries and mango. I've had the same thing for breakfast every day this week, in an effort to at least start out the day being healthy. This plan usually fails by mid-day when I get cravings for sweets, but at least I have good intentions. I left for work at about 8 a.m. I drove today - I don't always drive, sometimes I ride my bike and occasionally I take light rail. I arrived at my office by 8:20 a.m., something I was proud of, because I'm trying to come in earlier and leave earlier. I checked my e-mail and voice mail and made a phone call. I did some research for an event I'm organzing next month and then got ready for a phone meeting I had scheduled. That took about 45 minutes. A guy I met at a conference last week wanted to provide me with a demo of his company's web-based social networking platform. It was interesting to learn about. After that meeting, I had about 15 minutes to check e-mail and get some coffee before the monthly staff meeting. I usually dread these but today's was relatively informative. The rest of the morning, until about 12:30 p.m., was spent working. Oh, I did talk on the phone with Carolyn for about 20 minutes, but I considered that part of my lunch break. I brought my lunch from home and ate in our breakroom at the office, while chatting with some colleagues. I had split pea soup, baby carrots with hummus, and a whole wheat tortilla. I washed it down with a flavored sparkling water from Safeway - my favorite alternative to soda. Yum! However, my healthy lunch was ruined by 2 pieces of cinnamon pound cake that I ate immediately afterward. Darn it. They were sitting right in front of me, calling my name. Total pieces of cake eaten today: 3 (the first one was at the staff meeting). Total pieces of Ferrerro Rocher hazelnut chocolates eaten: 2. After lunch I headed back to my desk, where I made a variety of phone calls, typed up a bunch of letters, and sent tons of e-mails all afternoon. I also put up a new laminated world map that I bought at Borders. It looks great. I got all excited a short while ago because I've been obsessively checking my personal e-mail to see if Derek, the hottie from SF, wrote back to me, and he did. Yay! Now I'm getting ready to log off and head a few blocks away to Morton's, where I'm having dinner with some diplomats from Taiwan and six politicians. I don't eat steak but I'm sure they will have some veggie alternatives. I'm ready for people to ask me about my diet habits and why I don't eat meat, etc. That's kind of annoying, because I don't go around asking people why they choose to eat cow flesh. That just wouldn't be polite! Update: the dinner was nice. I had never been to Morton's and it was much as I expected: dark, with dark wood paneling. Very masculine. The highlight of the evening was a hot waiter. He was setting down coffee cups and saucers and dropped a couple of saucers. The older Taiwanese man sitting next to me made a joke that everyone could hear - he said to the waiter that he dropped the saucers probably because he was looking at me! I turned bright red and wished that were true! Otherwise, I had to sit around and listen to a bunch of elected officials talk about their upcoming junket to Taiwan. Stupidest comment of the evening: one of them (not to be named, of course) said that while they were in Taiwan, they should meet up with some colleagues in Tokyo one evening. Taipei is about 1,300 miles across the East China Sea from Japan. Riiight. Oh well, it's his first trip outside of the U.S., other than to Mexico. Oh, and he chairs a committee on international trade. What I ate at Morton's: bread, caesar salad (not very good), huge shrimp in a wine butter sauce with rice, raspberry sorbet, red wine. Who I sat next to: two Taiwanese doctors - one urologist and one pediatrician; a chief of staff to one of the electeds, and a diplomat from Taiwan who had previously been posted in Paraguay and Brazil. What everyone got as a gift: a wooden box filled with premium Taiwanese tea. All in all, not a bad evening. I may have to go back just to flirt with the cute waiter sometime.

International Affairs

I just returned from a short trip to SF for the purpose of attending a Germany California Solar Day Conference that took place at PG&E headquarters. Much to my surprise, the event was attended by a number of very attractive men and very few women. Demographics were definitely on my side. Sitting in my row was one of the above-mentioned attractive men, a German guy who works in SF for a German firm with U.S. headquarters in Sacramento. I had a chance to talk (read: flirt) with him at the post-conference reception, over a couple of cold Beck's beers (well, he was drinking Dr. Pepper, I had the beer). We were arguing over the benefits of living in Sacramento because he sees none, having lived here for 8 months before getting transferred to SF. Despite the fact that he seems to hate my city, I think I'm in love. He said he visits Sac once a week or so for work, so I told him we'll have to get together when he's in town, so I can show him some good places. He turned it around and told me to contact him next time I'm in SF, so he can show me HIS city. Fair enough. Later on that evening, I had dinner with my cousin and her roommate and then we prepared for my date with a guy who I met at a Christmas party in December and haven't seen since. I convinced my cousin to be my wingman, or wingwoman, as it were, just in case I was totally not into the guy. He met us in the Mission district and we checked out a few bars before settling on a place called Bruno's. Very cool place, on Mission, very lounge-y with a jazz band playing. Perfect. Derek turned out to be just as cute as I remembered, and is tall, blond, and blue-eyed, very Northern European-looking. Turns out he grew up in the Netherlands, go figure. I was very impressed by this guy. He was very smooth and articulate and intelligent and seemed passionate about his work and his life and yes, it helps that he's nice to look at too. Well-dressed also. He drives one of those Mercedes hatchbacks, new. It's the first time he's owned a car in 10 years. He is 29, well within my age range and he seems several years older. He didn't ask me how old I am, I'm assuming he doesn't care about such non-essential things! Right. We left Bruno's and dropped Gen off at her apartment, a few blocks away. Derek proceeded to take me on this romantic late-night drive around the city, stopping to check out the view of Alcatraz from the Presidio (Inspiration Point, no less! Sounds cheesy but if you're with a hot guy, who cares). It was chilly and windy, brr. We got back in the car and headed downhill to the Palace of Fine Arts. It was very beautiful and we walked all around - it was empty and very quiet. We went back to his car and he told me that he was really glad I e-mailed him, and he told me that I was beautiful and then he made his move, not very smoothly, I might add. By this time it was after 1 a.m. so I suggested - reluctantly - that he take me back to Gen's place so I could get to sleep and be able to catch an early train back to Sacramento. He wanted to stay out longer, but I figured it would be good to leave him wanting something more. He walked me to the front door and kissed me goodnight and told me to let him know when I'm coming back. Soooo now I just need to come up with some more excuses to go to SF, but who am I going to contact first? The German hottie or the Dutch one? Decisions, decisions.

Blind Date Hell

I had a blind date last night and arrived with zero expectations. I quickly realized I should have set the bar to a negative scale! Was he really that bad? You may ask. To answer, I have two words: Facial Tic. To make matters even worse for him (and me), he is unemployed and lives with his parents - "temporarily" he says, but later he said he's been back in the area for 2 years. He is 30 years old. He also has a large gap between his front two teeth. Despite all of this, he made it clear to me that he "dates a lot" and talked about different nice restaurants where he's been on dates. Uh huh. Probably one-offs with poor unsuspecting girls like me! I made conversation with him just to be polite, but felt that every moment was torture. After I finished my meal I excused myself and went to the ladies' room, where I called my friend Carolyn to report that things were not going well. I went back to the table and he said, "Did you have fun?" I was perplexed, and said,"In the restroom??" He said, "no, I meant tonight." I didn't know how what the appropriate answer was, and don't appreciate being put on the spot. Honesty seemed out of the question. I said "uh, yeah!" And he asked if I wanted to go out again. I just said I didn't know. He asked again a couple minutes later (it took forever for the server to bring back our change!) and I said I still wasn't sure. But I wished him the best of luck for his job search, so hopefully he got the hint that I don't plan on ever seeing him again. He seemed like a nice guy, and I hope he gets everything together in his life, but he was described to me as someone with whom I would have a lot in common and I am pretty disappointed that I was misled like that. That's an hour and 15 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. At least I can see the humor it the situation, I was laughing hysterically to myself in the car as I pulled away - the best laugh I've had in weeks!

I love...Sacramento??

I had to do a write-up on Sacramento for a work project, and I found myself getting really into it. Maybe the Convention and Visitors Bureau should hire me! As I was writing this narrative, I was thinking, Sacramento IS a really nice place! Here is what I wrote:
"Sacramento and the surrounding region is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the U.S. and features large employers such as Intel, HP, Apple and NEC Electronics. The State of California is the largest employer in the Sacramento region, but the workforce is very diverse and generally protected from economic downswings. The unemployment rate is low, around 4%. Sacramento is well-known for its gold rush history. The city was founded in 1848 by Swiss immigrant John Sutter. The city was a major transportation point for the Pony Express and the transcontinental railroad. Sacramento still embraces its gold rush history with well-preserved state parks and museums, including Sutter’s Fort, the Crocker Art Musuem, the California State Railroad Museum, the California Indian Museum, and more. Old Sacramento is a carefully restored state historic park area, depicting the city during gold rush times. It is the city’s most popular tourist destination. Modern-day Sacramento is well-known for being the home of Arco Arena and the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, as well as the AAA baseball team, the River Cats. Sacramento is an outdoor sports haven, with a mild climate that encourages outdoor activity all year long. Sacramento is a bicyclist’s dream, with flat streets and a 26-mile paved bike path that follows the American River from Old Sacramento to Folsom. Water sports are especially popular, and many visitors enjoy river boat cruises that embark from the docks in Old Sacramento and cruise along the Sacramento River, one of the Central Valley’s and the agricultural industry’s most important waterways. Folsom Lake and the American River parkway are also very popular leisure spots for boating, waterskiing, fishing, and kayaking. The Sacramento region is also home to two major universities: California State University, Sacramento, and the University of California, Davis. There are a number of community colleges in the region as well. Sacramento’s Midtown neighborhood, adjacent to Downtown, is home to a variety of unique restaurants, bars and nightlife entertainment options. The neighborhood is characterized by historic Victorian homes and leafy trees that shade the streets from the hot summer sun. Sacramento’s close-in neighborhoods of Land Park and East Sacramento are great places to go walking, bike riding or jogging and see examples of pre-WWII bungalow homes. In addition, the city is only 1.5 hours drive from San Francisco, one hour from wine country in Napa, and 1.5 hours from scenic Lake Tahoe and the ski slopes. In short, Sacramento is a great city in which to work and live!" Who knew??