How I Met Serifm

One day on facebook I received a message from a high school friend who had a little one a few months after me.  She was introducing me to a co-worker of hers who was expecting.  The message mentioned that her co-worker is interested in using cloth diapers, and that I was the Cloth Diaper Master, and introduced the two of us.

We chatted about cloth diapers, and I pointed her to the blog.  She read some of my posts about doctor questions, and so our coversations expanded to include local pediatricians and other mommy stuff.

Finally we decided, after numerous conversations on facebook, to meet in person.

Our first meeting went a little awry.  We had agreed to meet at a certain restaurant at a certain time.  I got the Wee One all dressed and ready, and we arrived just a little early.  My girl was just learning to walk, so she was occupied for a while going in and out the front door of the restaurant, but then she got hungry.  I decided we would go ahead and eat and then try to find our new friend after that.

After eating, I called my mom and had her check facebook, which is when I figured out that there were two restaurants with the same name in our area, and I was at one and she at the other.

After a good laugh, another meeting was scheduled.  We were both on the same page with the when and where.  Again, with the Wee One in tow, I get there just a bit early.  By this time I have programmed her number into my phone (see, I learn eventually.)

I am sitting in the almost-empty restaurant when she calls and says "I am going to get us a table, so look for me when you get here."

Uh-ho.  I've done it again.  She is someplace looking for me, and I'm in a half-empty restaurant.

I panic.  Which means my brain shuts down.  I've done it again and this woman is going to think I'm a complete moron because twice in a row I can't manage to show up at the right place.

Do I say "um, where are you?" and look like a total fool?

Oh, I have it.  I say "how do I get to where you are?".  That way I don't look totally stupid for being in the wrong place, I just look like I'm running late and can't find it.  I'll pay for the rice they brought my screaming child to make her stop screaming, I'll jump in the car, and we'll get to the right place, and I will hopefully save face.

She says "where are you coming from?"

More panic.  A white lie.  "I'm just leaving campus".  So she begins giving me directions to the place where I already am from the place where I'm not - but I told her I was.  I look out the front window of the restaurant, where she is talking on her cell phone.  Giving me directions.  To the place where I am.  I'm in the right place.  Hallelujah.  Except ... she's standing out front.  Giving me directions.  To the place where I am.

You know when you lie to someone, and you usually have to keep lying to keep the lie going?  But then usually there comes a point where you have to call it quits and admit you told a slight "untruth"?  And you know how it's better to do that earlier, rather than later?

Because my only other option was to whisk the Wee One out of her high chair, climb out the bathroom window, come back in the front door, and be all like "no, that's not our rice that's all over the floor under that high chair.  We just got here."

So instead, I went to the front door, stuck my head out, said "never mind, we're actually here already!" and hoped that she wouldn't think I was a complete and total idiot. 

I spent the rest of lunch chasing my toddler around the restaurant, avoiding the server who is a former student (who cornered me into a conversation about how to get into my fall class) and trying to calm down from my panic that I was in the wrong place when I wasn't, and my white lie because of my panic.

The food was really good though.

For the second lunch, I scheduled on a day that I had care for the Wee One.  Just her and me and Indian food.  Which was incredible.  I could relax and not chase a toddler around.  And obviously she had forgiven me for the little white lie, because she was, in fact, sitting here having lunch with me again.

Our third mommy date was dinner.  I had gotten out of a torturous faculty meeting a little early, so I called to tell her I was heading to the restaurant ahead of schedule, just to let her know.  I found a place to park and arrived at the front door of the restaurant, to find a sign that said they were closed due to a fire.  I called and left her a message to let her know, and to tell her I'd be right next door.

At a bar.

I made a pregnant woman come find me for dinner in a bar.  With half a beer in front of me.  Which I was afraid to chug to get said pregnant woman out of said bar, because I hadn't eaten all day, and I have little alcohol tolerance anymore, and I was afraid I'd end up drunk and making an ass out of myself.

And I'm trying not to do that anymore in front of this particular person.

So I made a pregnant woman sit in a bar and watch me drink the rest of my beer while telling her most of the long drawn-out story of the womanizing drunk soulmate guy (she asked.  I think.)

We finally found a non-bar for dinner.  And again, the food was really good.

I'm thinking about asking her to go to the zoo with the Wee One and I.  Then I can take her to this really cool Mediterranean restaurant nearby.  Because I know where it is, I can be there on time, I don't think it's had a fire recently, and there isn't a bar next door.  That way I can (for once) appear to have my shit together.

Or maybe she knows that I really don't have my shit together all the time, and she doesn't really care.  And that's why she continues to want to hang with me. 

She does read my blog, after all.