Gary ~ May 21

 

My Lunch Date With Elizabeth, or: She Thought I Might Be Gay

 

I was really looking forward to my lunch date with Elizabeth because a mutual Facebook friend private messaged me saying, "Look out for this one!"

 

Yes, we met on Facebook when I responded to something my friend Jackie had written and Elizabeth commented on my comment and I responded to Elizabeth and before you knew it we were playing Words With Friends on Facebook after I accepted her Facebook friend request and that was pretty much that.

 

Until she found out I was going to the Colorado Chautauqua for a gathering of spiritual friends and she messaged me asking if we could meet for lunch while I was out in Boulder. She said she lived 2 blocks from the Chautauqua and she knew of a really great place to eat lunch that only the cognoscenti knew about and she was sure I would like it.

 

I said, "Sure" and thought nothing of it until I mentioned to Jackie in a private message that I was going to have lunch with Elizabether when I was out in Boulder and Jackie shot a message right back to me saying, "Watch out for this one!" which of course made the upcoming lunch date a whole lot more juicy than it had been previously.  In fact, I couldn't wait to see what Jackie meant by that remark since I didn't enquire as to what Jackie meant by that remark, figuring I would just enjoy the mystery until I found out for myself.  Now I had, not only a lunch date but a mystery to solve as well.

 

We met for lunch on Saturday and rather than go the hip place that "only the cognoscenti" knew about, Elizabeth texted me to say that since she lived only two blocks away from where I was staying, why don't we have lunch at the Chautauqua Dining Hall and keep things simply rather than have to drive all the way in to Boulder, and I said, "Sure," which is one of my favorite words since I am  always up for almost anything, especially blind dates, where like Forest Gump's famous box of chocolates, you just never know which one you're going to wind up with. 

 

Elizabeth turned out to be quite a bon bon, let me tell you.  She was very sweet and a little bit nutty, if you ask me.

 

She was very sweet and very attentive and told me almost right off that bat that really liked men who had a sense of humor and that's one thing she said she noticed about me right away. OK, I thought, we're off to a good start, especially after I had committed what could have been a big faux pas in this day and age.

 

What I mean by that is when I saw her waving at me from a table on the porch of the Dining Hall where I went to meet her, I went over to her and as she stood up to greet me I gave her a big hug, b/c she seemed to be inviting that somehow, although I can't say exactly how.  Some people invite hugs and some people don't invite hugs is the way I look at it.

 

She seemed to respond to my big hug fairly well from what I could tell and we sat down at the outside table on this bright, sunny, balmy day at the Chautauqua all ready to get to know each other a little bette and enjoy a nice lunch, as we were doing it.

 

The faux pas I was referring to is the fact that what I did to Elizabeth, i.e. walk over and give her a big hug, could have been considered, she later told me, an "assault" in these sensitive times.  But, she assured me, she didn't feel assauted in the least, but rather, in fact enjoyed my hug and was feeling real good about me, just as I was feeling real good about her.

 

We really started hitting it off when she told me, shortly after she ordered a customized version of Eggs Benedict, that she really liked my eyes, which made me think, "Really?" because my eyess were  feeling very dry, and maybe even red,  after that long day at the airport on Thursday when I was playing the role of limo driving, going back and forth to the airpost picking up friends whho were arring for the spiritual gathering I was presently attending.  I hadn't had a chance to buy eyedrops, but oh well, if Elizabeth thought I had nice eyes, well that was more than good enough for me.

 

But it wasn't until my Shrimp Louie Salad arrived that I really bonded with Elizabeth. Even before I could the first Louie shrimp in my mouth, she grabbed my hand and told me she really liked the dark aging spot that freckled my wrinkled hand.  Her aging spots were lighter because she applied fresh lemon juice to them almost daily, but for some reason she really liked my dark aging spots, and she said it so convincingly I had no reason to doubt her.

 

Man, " I thought, This chick really knows what to say to a guy. Especially and old guy with dark againg spots all over his hand.