Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Public Service Announcement: Hell is going to freeze over.

Two reasons:  My ex is being a normal, responsible adult sans snarky comments.  I'm calling it a festivus miracle.  And Krista found a guy.  Admittedly, the second reason is very premature and uncertain, but it sounds good.

My Football RNG has been making his presence known in my little world on a very regular basis, but not so regular I'd assign the stalker tag to him.  I likey.  :-)

In addition to football, I have this whole "Gilmore Girls" obsession going on so let's make a pro/con list a la Rory.

Pros:
He is very sweet and thoughtful.  After knowing me for less than a week he made a point to get a card for my birthday and give me a steaming, hot... cup of Starbuck's Gingerbread Latte.  :-)  Get your collective mind out of the gutter.

He's a single dad so he "gets" it.  He understands my schedule is not super flexible.  He understands I am hesitant to allow my son to spend time with him and/or his daughter because I don't want him to get attached to someone who isn't permanent.

He has a daughter.  I love this because should this become serious I'd have a son and a daughter.  I would love to have a little girl to have tea parties with, to play dress-up with and to put in ridiculously cute clothes.  I wouldn't dislike a guy who had a son, just saying I totally count this as a "pro".

I can use my full vocabulary without seeing him reach for a dictionary.  Intelligence is hot, people.

Cons:
He is a lawyer which is a little weird for me since I have a whole love/hate thing going on with lawyers.  Is it a good idea to be in a relationship with someone who argues for a living?

His fatal flaw is that he is not as into football as I am.  This could be a huge issue.  Although I suppose having one sane human being in the house on Sundays, Monday and Thursday nights would be a good idea.

The final point could fall into the pro or con file: His ex is practically non existent.  This could be a good thing as we should have a complete lack of drama because of this, but this could also create extra drama for those times when she decides to sashay into the picture again.

So far, I am really liking this guy, but considering an adulterous ex husband, an uptight ex boyfriend and several bad dates over the past few months I am doubting my decision-making abilities.  I'm just going to channel the turtle for a while and roll slow and steady. 

Monday, December 13, 2010

Ambushed

One of the advantages of having a fantastic circle of friends is their inability to allow me to dwell in the land of single-dom for long.  One of the disadvantages of having a meddling circle of friends in their inability to let me be solo for a while.

A few days ago one of these intrusive loving friends issued an invite for a game day party at her house.  I have a rather unhealthy obsession with football which can occasionally cause me to erupt in loud fits of armchair quarterbacking so I hesitated to accept, but agreed in the end because I knew my little man would love the chance to play with other children.  I had no idea she planned to entrap me.

I was having a blast, screaming at an inadequate offensive line who allows their already injured quarterback to be sacked repeatedly.  My son was running around like a madman playing with children who are just as crazy as he is and completely ignoring my escalating volume.  Then the doorbell rang to herald the arrival of a latecomer aka another RNG.

My friend excitedly presented her husband's "really nice" friend who he has known since high school.  Now, again, I must emphasize the fact that during a football game is NOT a good time to introduce me to someone you are hoping will be a candidate for the title of Mr. Krista. 

I have to give her RNG some credit though, he wasn't fazed by my complete lack of self-control when one of my favorite players in all of the NFL returned an interception for a 45 yard TD or my impatience with an offense who didn't score a single touchdown all game long. 

In spite of being less than thrilled that my planned day of watching sports and hanging out with friends turned into a blind date I was completely unprepared for, I actually rather liked this one.  He's smart, funny, adequately attentive without being overbearing... not a bad result for a sneak attack first meeting.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Mr. Not-Quite Right

The majority of the time I work as a patient education director, but I'm also an RN and do on-call work in a private office.  Like I mentioned before, if it isn't a married doctor, it's a patient hitting on me and that has all kinds of ethical "rules" attached that I'm reticent to break.

I do, however, run across the occasional single guy who isn't my patient.  A while ago this happened with a cardiologist at the hospital where I work.  After a few dates, numerous hours logged on the phone and too many texts to count I began to think he could be my Mr. Right v 2.0.  He even bought my son a birthday gift despite never meeting him.  Yeah, a decent way to melt the heart of a single mama is to be good to her kid.

Two things that are sure to make me fall in love with a guy: intelligence and wit.  I value intelligence highly and a great sense of humor is a must.  Reid has the first requirement cinched easily.  He is brilliant and I feel myself falling a little bit more every time we have an in depth conversation at the magnitude of his intelligence.  The sense of humor part?  Ehhh, not so much.  He can be funny at times, but there are other times my smart-assery is lost on him.  I have done a lot of back and forth internal conversations about whether or not this is something I can live with or a deal breaker for me.  This particular quandary took care of itself.

One night we were at dinner, we were having a fantastic conversation and I felt that giddy feeling.  At that point I seriously thought that I could deal with the imperfect sense of humor thing because I know that in 30 years we'd still have a great relationship filled with deep and meaningful conversations and that was good enough for me.  I found Mr. Wonderful.  The whole dating drama was over. 

Until I started being playful.  I admit, I am extremely flirtatious especially when I'm in a relationship.  I don't stop the little games when I'm in a committed relationship and become complacent, I just escalate. 

I slipped off my shoe and ran my foot slowly up and down his calf and even traced little designs on his leg with my toes.  He was obviously affected by this pretty quickly.  His breathing was uneven and he kept clearing his throat while he was talking.  I wasn't content to just make him a little warm under the collar, I wanted to have some fun.  The next step was to clean my fork slowly and provocatively while looking at him with one eyebrow raised.  I barely finished licking the last remaining bit of sauce from my top lip when he decided we needed to make a hasty exit.

Confession:  I was really proud of myself by this point.  The speed at which Reid went from discussing the latest case study about Aspirin correlating with decreased cancer deaths in additon to the well-known cardiac benefits to being all worked up was a record even for me. 

What do they say about pride going before a fall?  I've found that old addage to be true thus far.  When we got back to his house, he began kissing me and then abruptly pulled back.  "Krista, I'm a doctor.  A medical professional.  People saw me at that restaurant.  They could have been patients or the family members of patients.  How would they feel about seeing the physician in charge of their health and quite possibly their life in such a compromising situation?"

After being thoroughly lectured, my desire for any more fun that night disappeared along with my silly notions of a relationship with Reid.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Sunday Night Playlist

Tonight I blanked. out.

A little background:  My son's birthday was last month, but I did his party today due to his father's complaints about nothing being convenient for him some scheduling conflicts.  He adores "Cars", so that was the theme I went with for the party.  I decided to make a lot of the decorations myself because A) I'm a crafty kind of girl and B) the ones available for purchase failed to move me save for the scene setter.  So I made oval racetracks and checkered flag centerpieces for eight tables.  This was in addition to making all the food outside of the cake and wrapping my gifts for him.  Needless to say I went to bed at about 4am and my darling, precocious, intuitive 2 yr old woke up before 7am.  I spent the 8 hrs between his adorable wake-up call and the party finishing last minute details, transporting things to the party location, making quick trips to the store and blowing up so many balloons that I thought I was going to pass out.

All this combined to my brain freeze tonight.  My nightly routine for putting my son to bed involves bedtime stories, whispered conversations about the day and finally some lullabies.  I tend to lean towards unconventional lullabies.  Actually they aren't lullabies at all, just favorite songs of mine sung softly like "Let It Be".

Tonight, however, I couldn't come up with any decent songs to sing so our playlist went something like this:
"O Holy Night"
"Silent Night"
"Lips of an Angel"
"Where Are You Christmas?"

Nontraditional, even for me, but it worked.  He was out in under ten minutes and my unusual concert closed, much to the chagrin of the neighborhood dogs that decided to sing along. ;-)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Putting the "fun" back in "dysfunction"!

Not really, but I am a hopeless optimist.

My ex came over for Thanksgiving, as promised.  I impressed myself with the speed at which I pulled my jaw from the floor when he walked in that morning.  I did my best to basically stay in the kitchen so he and the boy could play and have some time together.  This is an easy task with my "Martha Stewart" complex to create the perfect holiday feast and food bordering on gourmet.

Things were going swimmingly until some chick had to start drama.  The little vixen's name is Dora.  As in "Dora the Explorer".  I wish I was kidding, but my ex did indeed pick a fight over Dora.

My son is 2, newly 2 as a matter of fact.  His world is pretty small, but ever-changing.  One day he is madly in love with Thomas, the next day it is Dino Dan, but some of his few constants are "Cars" and Dora. 

We were at a store recently and he saw a Dora doll, almost the same size as him, and fell in love.  He was hugging it, clinging to it and begging me to let him bring Dora home.  Under normal circumstances, I adhere to the "don't get used to having mommy buy you something every blessed time we're at the store" rule stringently.  This, however, occurred shortly following his birthday.  The birthday at which his dad was a big fat no show.  In a moment of weakness and guilt, I bought him this insanely sized Dora doll.  I have to say it's been a great investment in the potty training world.  When I need him to sit still, all we do is roll Dora up beside him on her own potty seat and it's all good to sit there for a while.

My ex thinks this is an inappropriate toy for a 2 year old boy.  He's a boy, not a girl.  It's a girl's toy.  I disagreed and stated that while fighting the urge to smash the pumpkin pie in his face.  I was fairly certain that would not be considered my most mature move. ;-) 

And the day fell apart from there.  Bring on Christmas!!!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The bigger person or just a big idiot?

For a while now, my son has been waking up in the middle of the night and coming into bed with me.  He just turned 2 and has been sleeping solo through the night since he was about 9 months old, save for a few episodes where teeth were bothering him.  I'm not naive, I know this is related to his daddy moving out.  During the night, just before going back to sleep, he will say, "I miss daddy."

This has to be the hardest part of this entire process.  Yeah, dealing with all the arguments, the lawyers, the pain and heartache all suck, but seeing it affect my little man devastates me.  I didn't expect that aspect to be so hard, but it is worse than I imagined.

Since my ex hasn't seen our son for a while, I made a decision to invite him over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Actually, I invited him for the entire day from parade to football and all the trimmings in between.  My son misses him terribly and he'll be thrilled to have his daddy with him.  Hopefully I'll be far too busy cooking to even notice his presence.

I keep waffling between being very proud of myself for putting my son's needs ahead of my desires (i.e. to not have my favorite holiday darkened by my ex's presence) and thinking I need to have "STUPID" tattooed across my forehead. 

At least I can be certain this will be an interesting Thanksgiving either way.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Krista! You have new top matches!

This is the subject line of emails I receive almost daily from an online dating site I joined.  I'm still trying to figure out what the "new" is pertaining to as it is filled with the same profiles time after time.  While on the topic of things that are unclear to me, I don't get the exclamation points either.  What are we so excited over?  The fact I am 30 and single again?  That my marriage failed? 

But I digress. 

I used to fall into the category of people who scoffed at online relationships.  Throw tomatoes at me if you must, but I couldn't see how they would work.  How a little questionnaire could get to the "real" you and find that one-in-a-million match.  I think I used the phrase "snake oil salesman" once or twice to describe the collective owners of these dating sites.

Then I went to 4 weddings in less than a year where the couples were matched by an extremely popular dating site.  I started to see the process in a slightly different light.  I saw real people that I know and love find the person that is genuinely their other half. 

Not long after that I found myself single again.  Yes, it's true I get set-up by many sweet and well meaning friends, but I kind of look at the process ahead of me like a whole new adventure.  Part of this being a new adventure requires me to do something different.  To take a few chances and see how my hand plays out. 

So Krista signed up for a dating site.  Anyone want to take bets on the outcome? ;-)

Sunday, November 21, 2010

"The Exception"

I think I'm in love.

Scratch that.

I know I'm in love.  He has a litany of fantastic attributes such as thoughtful, charming, successful, funny and heroic, but the most important is that he follows through.  If you ask him to do something he will move heaven and earth to accomplish whatever task for you.  And do so quickly.

Do you feel the "but" coming on?  There has to be a "but" or else this would be entirely too much of a sugary sweet post for my taste and end in a diabetic coma.

If he were a superhero his name would be "The Exception".  He is absolutely perfect for me... except:
  • He's old enough to be my father.  I like older men and all, but even I have my limits.
  • He's happily married.  As in completely head-over-heels in love with his wife.  This would be another one of his adorable traits.  After all I've gone through with the ex, I admire men who love their wives whole-heartedly.
  • He's one of my patients and I'm all about ethics so that just won't work out.
The reality is I think the world of him in a totally platonic way.  If I ever permanently leave this office, I'd definitely be staying in touch with him simply because he is a great friend, makes me laugh no matter what else is going on and he has done a lot to help me recently. 

In a funny little twist of fate, he is a high ranking military officer (who is, literally, a hero that served in Iraq and Afghanistan).  Since it seems like military guys are making a strong presence in my life lately, maybe I just need to troll bases for my next husband. ;-)

Friday, November 19, 2010

A selection from the bad date files

Either my subconscious graced me with selective amnesia or I never had a truly bad date prior to marriage.  I'm guessing it's the former.  The "Really Nice Guy" from my last post was apparently an anomaly for I have had the bad set-ups to prove it.  Including this little installment: 

A friend I know fairly well asked if it was okay to give my number to her husband's co-worker.  Yes, the very long degrees of separation should have been a red flag, but at this point I'm game for almost anything.  You never know when Prince Charming may ride up in his white H3 and who may have sent him.  Obviously I said yes or the story would end here, and what fun would that be?

My normal rule is to meet for coffee first.  If it is a crappy date, you haven't wasted multiple hours of your life and don't have to deal with that whole awkward time of finding topics you can discuss with someone you hope know you'll never see again.  Mistake #1 (or technically #3 if you count me agreeing to let her give him my number and then answering his call) was bending this rule and meeting him for dinner.

I arrived at the restaurant 5 minutes before we were supposed to meet and 35 minutes before he showed up.  Great start to the date, no?  I forgave this faux pas for a couple of reasons: A) I knew the area he was coming from and knew there was some major construction going on and B) He was gorgeous.  Not cute, not handsome, not even hot.  He was the kind of gorgeous that makes your heart skip a beat and your breath catch in your throat.  I admit, it was totally vain of me to even have this as a reason, but it was a primary reason.  He was so completely gorgeous I couldn't help but wonder why he was 35 and still single.

Shortly after he was shown to our table, he came out with, "Damn, you're hotter than the picture Jason showed me."  This was the high point of the evening. 

Next up: "Don't you think this idiot has really effed up this country in the past 2 years?"  Now, I didn't vote for our current President.  I don't agree with many of the changes he has made/proposes to make, but bringing up politics immediately and in such a derogatory way breaks major first date etiquette.

Over the next two hours he wowed me with tales of his drinking escapades, the dogs he went home with at the height of his inebriation and the numerous occasions he drove home drunk and only getting caught twice.  And by "wowed" I mean I sat in shock that he felt compelled to say all this at our first meeting. 

These anecdotes were interspersed with belches, chomping noises, loud complaints about the service, food and pretty much everyone seated within a 15 foot radius of us.  To say I was embarrassed was an understatement of gigantic proportions.  However after I declined dessert at a rate I am sure was noticeably quick, I was free from his obnoxious presence and could put it all behind me.

Or so I thought.

In an act of supposed chivalry, he walked me to my car.  I began thanking him for the dinner and was cut short by the sloppiest kiss I'd experienced since High School and some attempted clumsy groping.

The whole question as to why he was 35 and still single?  Yep, totally got that one answered.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The RNG files...

It seems like with the mass exodus of my ex-husband's stuff, my friends got the green light to start finding me Mr. Right v 2.0. 

They feel exceptionally obliged to provide me with a plethora of "really nice guy(s)" since I work from home the majority of the time.  The men I come into contact with in coworker format are, most of the time, married doctors.  While they are oh-so willing to flirt, they are more interested in the "gotta go, the wife's around" type of relationship rather than the "til death do us part" set-up I'm looking for right now. 

Our most recent addition to the RNG collection (really nice guy, in case you weren't paying attention) met me a few days ago for coffee.  He lived up to the RNG title my friend bestowed upon him.  He's a genuinely sweet guy and put my life into serious perspective.  His soon-to-be ex wife left him and their children very shortly after their IVF conceived, premature twins were born.  He's also a military member stationed far from his support system.  Yeah, and I thought I had it bad.

Aside from all that, we have a lot in common and had an easy rapport.  We left things with a possible dinner this week and the good ole "stay in touch".  So we'll see where this leads.

Stay tuned for more stories from the RNG files.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
James Michener

Since I started reading when I was 3 years old, I've had a love affair with words.  Words are powerful and evocative entities that possess numerous alternate personalities.  "I like you" expresses mild emotions, nearly to the point of being mundane.  However this sentence can be rocketed from placid to passionate with "love", "hate", "want" or "need" replacing one meek little word.

Two words, merely 8 letters combined, quite effectively showed their strength in my life recently: "I cheated."

The usual suspects filtered through me as I heard these words from my husband.  I was hurt, angry, bitter, jealous, self-deprecating, judgemental and... relieved.

It was shocking to identify that feeling at the time, but his revelation came following several months of distancing and arguments.  Repeated instances of interrogating myself as to what I had done to cause this reaction and what I could do to revive the man I married.  Countless tears cried in the shower over the loss of my best friend.

As the words "I cheated" sank in, so did my new discovery.  Words are not just strong, they are fast-acting.  At a speed that ought to shatter all the world records words that had defined me for three years morphed into a new reality.  "Married co-parent" became "single mother".

New words, new title and a new life deserve a new home.  And then came this blog.  My own little journey through this new world in written form.