Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

First of all, I promise to have a wedding recap sometime next week. At this point, I'm waiting to get all of the pictures back and I just haven't had the energy to give the subject justice. I'll chalk it up to having seven nights off in a row which always seems to bring out my inner sloth!!

In honor of "wedding week" why don't we travel back about a year to a magical time in Jenn's life, a momentous occasion, an event that changed two people's lives for better (at least we're hoping) ... the first date of Jenn and BJ.

I didn't post effusively about the date because I had learned in the recent past that sometimes it can bite you in the ass if you gush about a blossoming relationship. I think I played it coy and just said "it went well" or some other nonsense .... but now you'll get the full story.

BJ and I (or should I say hogshtrbug and GennX) were introduced on match.com in February '07. He winked at me (matchspeak for "hey you look kinda cool") and sent me a message, but by that time I was embroiled in a blossoming relationship with Bachelor #1 (henceforth to be known as "He Who Dumped Me By Never Calling Me Again"). Since I'm an honorable woman ... seriously I really am ... I let hogshtrbug know that I was currently dating someone but thank you for the interest.

Fast forward about 6 weeks and I put my profile back up on match. Pretty quickly I got a message from BJ to the effect of "Hey you're back!" We ended up talking on the phone, getting along quite well, and planning to meet for lunch. After he cancelled on me THREE TIMES, I was getting the feeling he wasn't really interested. It was no skin off my bones because I was leaving for an assignment in Colorado in 5 weeks - a fact that I told him of upfront. I sent him a text (don't you love this new high tech courting?!?) and said, "if you don't want to meet me, that's fine." Apparently that lit a fire under his ass, because he scheduled another lunch date for Friday, April 5th at 11:30 a.m. at Vino's - a local brewpub/pizzeria. Of course in the back of my mind, I was waiting for a 10:00 text cancelling because of "work" or some other rubbish.

We met at Vino's and I WAS ON TIME (just for the record) and my first thought was that BJ reminded me of my friend Spooky's younger brother. We got our pizza and beer and commenced to talk about everything under the sun. We quickly found that we had similar tastes in movies and TV, were both fans of Star Wars and Buffy (something I normally reserve for later dates) we hit on politics, religion ... basically all taboo subjects. The hours flew by, the beer continued to flow, BJ called his office and took off the rest of the afternoon and we stayed at that lunch for FIVE hours.

At this point he suggested that we just change clothes and go out to dinner ... but I actually had another dinner date already planned (remember BJ had cancelled on me numerous times so I wasn't planning on it really working out) so I said, "I'd love to but I have other plans." BJ replied, "Well if your other date doesn't' work out, I'll be out at Sticky Fingerz ( a local restaurant/live music joint) with friends and you should join us."

Long story short, I did end up at Sticky Fingerz later that night. The local paper was shooting pics of the crowd and we actually have a photo to commemorate the first day we met (near the top of the page) .... I like to call it Date 1B since BJ refuses to allow it to be Date 2. I got home at an ungodly hour but still managed to get up early and run a 10K race the next morning. Obviously things went marvelously from there!!! It was the best first date I ever had.

Boyfriend 2.0 - a much needed update

So it turns out that my new(er) man, "Boyfriend 2.0" was a much needed and welcome update :) I now feel it's *safe* enough to include him on my blog and not incur shame in the event that he shamelessly dumps me.

This past week was a nice mini-vacation that included the often dreaded, and feared by all ... meeting of the parents. After flying to Little Rock, we traveled to Branson, MO to celebrate the 85th birthday of my granny with all of my mother's family who were gathered en masse at my aunt and uncle's lake house. Certainly an opportunity more stress inducing than a simple dinner with the parents given that all of my assorted aunts, uncles and cousins were present, as well as a generous supply of beer. Luckily Boyfriend 2.0 was well up to the task and fit in marvelously.

For my parental test, we made a slight detour through his hometown of Fayetteville, AR for brunch with his parents. We didn't get to spend a great deal of time with them, but I'm pretty convinced that they didn't totally hate me at first sight. Though he has yet to get a full report.

The picture above is the requisite cheesy old time photo that was our souvenir of our Branson trip. It was either that, a tshirt, or a mountain dulcimer ... I went with the photo. My cousin Joe was totally grossed out that they were loaner fishnets - they were just thigh highs and it didn't even occur to me to be disgusted.

In addition to this most recent trip, Boyfriend 2.0 recently traveled to Denver in early June for a get away on my week off. We went to the zoo on a beautiful sunny day, traveled to Estes Park and toured through Rocky Mountain National Park, ate Thai food quite a few times (Little Rock is sadly devoid of any quality Thai food). He passed quite the test when meeting JCR, one of my dearest friends who gave him a two thumbs up which is quite a feat for a girl who closely scrutinizes even the color of her neighbor's home. Below are pics from that visit, including a few that boyfriend (who is a wanna be amateur photographer) took of me.





Probably the most interesting event from his trip was our overnight babysitting duties for my friend Chrissy's infant twins. Chrissy and hubby had a wedding to attend in the mountains and I had offered my services. As a trained NICU nurse, how hard could it be to watch a pair three month olds?? I had arranged this gig prior to Boyfriend's plan, so I was surprised when he voiced his willingness to extend his trip knowing that 24 hours of baby watching would ensue. I have to say that it was a blast!! The twins (a boy and a girl) are absolutely adorable and it wasn't long before Boyfriend was feeding and burping like a pro despite having never attempted such duties. It was essentially 24 hours of changing diapers (which I did not make him do ... I have it down to an art form after 3 years), bottle feeding, and attempting to soothe the screaming child with reflux who is incredibly adorable when he's smiling, but quite loud when refluxing. We took them out for a walk in the park in the double stroller and between the two of us managed quite well. Despite my enjoying the experience, I still ask the universe to only grant me ONE (1) healthy child at a time if you please :) I honestly don't know how Chrissy does it!!

Hopefully this will satisfy some of those blog readers out there wondering, "what on earth is going on with Jenn's love life?" and "is she even still alive at this point?" I'm posting this from the Northwest terminal of the Little Rock airport and hoping to compose a Disney post while laying over in Memphis......

The Theater Curse is Lifted!!

Well I for one am glad that the theater curse is lifted. Theater curse you ask? What on earth is that?

Well you see my faithful readers, I've only been dumped once in my life ... alright that's a lie! There was that time when I was a freshman and I had a crush on a junior named John Hayes. He went to the other Catholic high school in town and we met over french fries and smokes (it was the 80s - teens smoked!) at the downtown Hardees. We went on one, perhaps two mall dates, and then he decided to "break up with me" and he went with some really ugly girl to prom. Anyway, I think I requested a George Michael song for him on the local call-in "love show," wrote several brooding poems about the smell of his Polo cologne and the shine of his braces, and then put the poems in my journal with scratch and sniff stickers and moved on .. . but I digress.

Anyway, the only *adult* experience I've had with being dumped occurred after I was taken on a date to the local Repertory Theater. I thought that things were going smashingly, but then he never called me again - though to be fair I did receive two or three "hope your night at work is going well" text messages, prior to being completely ignored. So when the new boy I'm seeing said he was taking me to The Rep after dating for a month, there was a bit of anxiety. I'm wondering so is this how boys dump girls in the South?? Is this an Arkansan tradition that I'm not familiar with??? Date a while, make them dress up for the theater, torture themselves in high heels on downtown sidewalks THEN dump them??

Well, never fear! We had a lovely evening and I looked quite hot if I say so myself! We had excellent box seats, the play was modern and avant garde, the boy came bearing flowers, I wore some cute strappy heels, had a fake tan, received random compliments, "that dress is cute and you look good in it" from the woman serving wine and the boy called me not only the next day - but the FOLLOWING DAY AS WELL! The curse is lifted - hooray!