Thursday, July 19, 2007

We're Walking, We're Walking

After work today I made a quick trip to Mecca to pick up some supplies and realized I could get my cranberry juice and yogurt there too. As well as some snacks in 100 calorie packs to restock the desk with things that are cheaper and smaller than vending machine offerings. As I got home and ate some yogurt to settle my guts a bit by replenishing the beleaguered acidophilus, I decided I needed to call Enormous Man before I sat down and got distracted for the third day in a row. I was apparently on my game and made him laugh so we decided to meet up and chat in person.

He lives about a half hour up the 101 from me near where I like to go to the beach. I made him choose a place to meet and it sounded generic but easy to find, so I agreed and went the the Coffee Bean in the new mall at the SW corner of Victoria and Wooley where this map shows a field.
map of Victoria and Wooley in Oxnard

Enormous Man is 6'7" and used to be a defensive tackle. But he was not overwhelmingly large in my estimation. In fact, I would probably have guessed 6'5" but we all know I'm not good with judging heights if I think 6'2" is "average". He is one person that I can't fault for driving a large vehicle. I had ordered myself a Chai Latte before he arrived and he decided just to grab some bottled water from his car then pointed me past the fountain and off we went on a nice little walk which wound up being lovely, and not at all generic.

There has been a huge surge in development in the last couple years, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was well done. The apt/condo buildings weren't just solid lines of wall, but had insets and bump outs and were painted in several fun colors making the place look very nice by giving the eyes places to rest. I think they've also extended the canal and boat dock region into this space because it was unfinished and therefore more interesting to me. There were wide walking paths and restful landscaping. We walked around the canal and down to a bridge where we stopped so I could drink, we could chat, and he could look at fish. We saw a couple small rays cavorting which was unexpected.

He's from Georgia but has friends out here from home and not much of an accent. He works in special ed/ mental health which is something my dad used to do. He was nice and laid back and fairly comfortable to be with except he didn't look at me much. I kept trying to make eye contact and sometimes he engaged, sometimes he did not. I don't think it meant anything. He does have nice eyes. The other con was that he smelled a little strange, but I think it's because of a scented cleansing or cologne product, not a showstopper. Since we were walking around outdoors it wasn't a big deal. EM's a big fan of cartoons so we had some fun calling up South Park episodes that tickled our fancy. I showed him some pics of the Kwik-E-Mart in Burbank. Then as it became closer to dark there were bunches of fishes disturbing the surface of the water in order to eat which reminded me of the fish hatchery in Sandwich which we watched for a while. I managed not to mention anything about going to the ER. He didn't mention anything about ex-girlfriends. All to the good.

He called again as I was arriving home to check in and make sure I made it home ok, which seems like a nice gesture, if an unfamiliar one. I had to drive home at 70mph after a policeman grinned in my window as he passed me. He looked at me deliberately so I figured it was a friendly warning and I took it easy. It occurs to me now that I probably also looked harmless and didn't fit the profile of Speed Racer (little did he know). Thankfully the traffic didn't back up because of him and I had Hellcat's mix on the CD player to groove to, so I was still mellow when I got home. And I've agreed to take another stroll with EM at some unspecified future time.

5 comments:

Janet Webb said...

Fingers crossed: that sounded relaxed and lowkey and promising. The antithesis of forced or tense. Now I'm going to have to google those fish :)

Anonymous said...

Sounds like fun and a nice guy.

And as you know, in my world... a lack of eye contact means nothing... I have to force myself to make eye contact... it's hard to do.

Glad your feeling better.

S.

Unknown said...

Very cool. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between you two...and maybe more. :)

Unknown said...

hmm...i'm liking this situation a lot better than the last one! Also like that he's tall :::drool:::

now, from a financial standpoint: wouldn't it be more cost-effective to buy a big package of your fav healthy snacks and put them in this "snack size" baggies instead?

CrankyOtter said...

I like this situation better too. But I have another cartoon loving date lined up for monday all the same. It'll be interesting to see what happens on a second date. This was a lot different from my expectations, not that I could tell you my expectations just that the date was different from them. I'm trying not to make a judgment call on the eye contact. Thanks for the good wishes!

shasta: It might be more cost effective to buy the big bag of doritos or little cookies, but when I repackage them they tend to go stale before I get to them. I find, perversely, that I eat fewer snacks if I have them around, so it might take me a month or two to eat all 6-12 packs of snacks. And while I'm working on portion control, it works better for me right now to have someone else take care of it. Plus, some days I'm just lazy. Although I need to get on the debt paying down wagon again so maybe next year at this time I will be bagging my own chips.