coloradoman,

Welcome!!! You can just say "Oh I am sorry that is kind of personal but I will confirm that yes we are getting a divorce."

Leave it like that and then if they continue on with the whys and how comes they are the one being the boob!!!!

Dawn

Sorry about things Coloradoman. It will likely work out better than you thought. I just told people straight up what happened - made them more uncomfortable than me. Take it one day at a time. Sunday's a long way off, no sense committing yourself to something too early when something awesome could come along before then!

It was a nice night but there was only one subject people were interested in. Some people were gracious and understanding; others needed to tell me how much I should consider staying togther for my daughter's sake. Still a great time and I got to eat a lot of food for free...what more could I ask for?

If people walked a mile in my shoes...it'd be hard to catch them...they'd be a mile away and I'd have no shoes!

booka,

You'd been proud of me tonight!!!! I was dressed well, nice jeans with a crease, white sweater with a little clevage showing sometimes, silver accessories, not pointy shoes, but heals and a red leather jacket. Pretty hot for grandma!!!! No one was home to take my pic to post before I went out!!! Darn!!!!

Meet up with the girls at local watering hole where a good band was playing, haven't heard them in about a year!! Sandy brought George, or george came along!!! Not sure! Anyways, there were some prospects in the room, scoped them out, ordered drinks. Played some pool!!! Didn't dance any as it was pretty much country and I never learned to follow!!! Am going to take lessons.

I smiled at every guy I seen, greeted a few with hello, smiled and nod at them all!!!! Had one guy that we had meet this summer playing quarters that stopped and said hi, but we didn't have any space at our table, bummer!!! Creepy part was, he sat and watched us all night!!! Every time we'd laugh he would look!!! Had another guy sitting on the rail behind us, a couple of cowboys came in from the rodeo, we stopped them so we could admire their belt buckles. We played quarters with quite a few of them.

Ran into a teacher that use to work with me that my mom was really close too!! I didn't know that he had been divorced. We talked he asked how my folks were, and he gave me a big hug and a kiss, he smelt good too!!! The GF didn't like that at all, then she looked again and recgonized me from church!!! That shut her up. So then I just had to play quarters with his butt, she didn't like that either, but I explained how it was such a better way of meeting guys then doing the old "My friends dared me to ask you to dance." She agreed with that.

The one guy on the rail walked out with us when we left and asked if we were going anywhere else, so had him tag along to the otherlocal watering hole. He was very nice and I left to come home at closing time!!!

So booka I followed most of your advice!!! You;d been proud!!! Will probably go there again tomorrow night!

But need to get to bed!!!

Dawn

coloradoman, i have a friend who explained that her husband and his first wife divorced because the wife didn't understand that you couldn't date other people while you were married. I always thought that was a reasonable way to describe infidelity when you were having to explain to others what had happened.

This weekend, I am making a tooth fairy costume for myself. I am going to get better dressed - not to Booka's standards - and go check a couple of thrift stores for a pink size 6 formal to turn into a princess costume for my daughter. The dog will be the dragon.

This evening, I am being the popcorn machine operator for a 7 year old's birthday party. Knowing her parents, I may be eating well.

Daughter has a date that her boyfriend's mom will be chaperoning. Son is home with the vcr and computer while I'm at the party.

I am no longer driving down south to pick up the equipment.

I repaired the machine at work today, so that put a stop to me selling the equipment to the company and getting a gigantic television. Sometimes doing the right thing suxx.

Well, it didn't suxx. The owner found out I repaired the machine and wants to see me first thing Monday morning. Also on the way home, I had to run by the store to get some items for dinner.
On the ground by the door of my truck was what I thought a leaf sticking to my shoe. I reached to flick it off and it was A FREAKING HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL!!!

So on top of 9 hours of overtime today, I get a karma bonus.

If Tabs feels better tomorrow, I will take her and her mom up to Dahlonega to see the fall colors and a trip to the Winery.

Come to think of it; I never did set the expectation that she shouldn't date while we were married...it could all be my fault anyhow. Who'da thunk?

I have an apology to write...be back later.

Regards,

CRM

She got her mortgage and the house passed inspection!!! Pass the champagne!!!! I'm moving on!!!

Actually, I think I'll just colour my hair tonight. I'm so tired of living in this sterile environment - this should make a lovely mess. Might even stain the floor too!

Great day today. Took my daughter and my fiance's girls to a Pumpkin Patch. The four year old and five year old (my daughter) rode ponies, played in a bounce house and the 12 year old picked out a great big pumpkin that we carved at home. I babysat while my fiance attended a baby shower and the 12 year old and I watched Ga Tech get beat by Va...bummer. Then we all went to my parents and had chili and talked about the wedding plans. Getting married Nov. 21st and having a weddding reception/party Nov 22nd.

Fall Fest at church is in 15 hours. No candy yet....costume isn't finished. It's well under way. No pattern. Just fabric and an idea. Skirt is done. Tunic is still to big. When you have no pattern there is SO much room for error. Trying to figure out what to do with the sleeves. Clueless. Totally.

I'm so happy for you Gekko!! You deserve the best! She seems to really make you and your daughter really happy and content!

I wanna see pictures!

Ronda

Yes gekko we need to see pictures!!!

coloradoman, I would and still do tell people that my xhusband choose the girl over me and the family!!!

Went to a 40th b-day for a bowling buddy tonight and something came up about MLC and I lend over and said buy the red sports car it's cheaper!!!!

cindrella---do the sleeves so they aren't sewn together but have ties that tye them at the top of the arms.

Dawn

I need hugs.

I drove up the mountain this weekend and my car fell into a ditch due to the uneven narrow road. I accelerated to get the car up and rammed right into a parked car 20 feet away. That car hit the car beside it.

I am shaken and terrified.
What's worse, if not for the stationery cars, I could have driven me and my friends off the cliff.

At least you are ok!

HOLY MOLY!! :MrEEk:

:MrEEk:

Thank God that you and your friends are all OK...

Crap, that sucks. I'm glad you are alright. Was your car badly damaged?

Remember that cars, though important to our lives, are only things. They are metal, glass, and plastic. They can be replaced.

Since you were able to post to us, I do hope you are ok. Be sure to pay attention to your body. I have learned that even a fender bender or bumper thumper does a number on my spine. My chiropractor has to do some work on me after a wreck.

This was my first weekend in my new work hours that I had Friday off. I will have every other Friday off so this served as a good experiment for how I would spend that extra day, which at first sounds great to have every other Friday off, but I’ll need to fill that time doing something. Thursday night I went home, made some dinner, and then headed up to The Dog for the rest of the evening. I had the chance to sit for a long chat with Nikki who is Dave and Jo Ellen’s niece and is married to my friend Jerry. Jerry ended up playing euchre with the boys so Nikki and I had a long and expansive conversation, the first that we’ve ever had. There was plenty of amusement with some of the usual characters and I ended up leaving just before midnight. Friday morning. One note of interest that will set the stage for Friday is that I specifically left my phone at home. When I got home, there was a message from Mary inquiring about lunch on Friday. Now I am at heart a planner and my word is true, although those that know me well know that I can embrace spontaneity. I certainly thought that Mary and I had made a plan to have lunch on Friday. I wonder now what her true motive was. I did not answer the message because of the hour.

I awoke about 09:00 and did a lot of housework. That’s one way to use up the new Friday time. I did text Mary about lunch and she replies that since I hadn’t replied to her Thursday night message and thought because of that I didn’t want to go. No where’s the logic in that? So she had gone to her sister’s which I know if out of town. I texted back that we would try again later. I went to O’Fallon and had lunch at one of my favorite places called Lion’s choice, a local chain, think Arby’s but 10-times better. Then it was on to Lowe’s where clearance prices have landed and I bought 4 Russian Sage, 1 Salvia variant, 3 blue rug junipers, and 1 Andorra juniper, the first 5 at $.50 each! I needed some items from inside as well and then headed home. I did a few more housework-related items and then kicked back with some beers and cigars. The Dog was having a rare bane on a Friday night and I considered going but decided that I should skip a night and plan on seeing the Saturday night band. I ended up hanging around the house and watching a couple of movies and heading off to bed at a very reasonable time. Friday was also a note of interest as it was the first day of the fall season that I couldn’t stand being without the heat on anymore, so turned it on for the first time.

Saturday I got up about 07:00 and it was too cold to sit outside and read the paper, so I read it inside and while experimenting with cleaning a few spots on my carpet. I had picked up a tub of Oxiclean at Lowes and mixed up half a cup of that in powder form to 32-ounces of water and followed the instructions closely. This stuff worked great and it’s like the pots never existed. I have to give this product a big thumbs-up. I then ventured outside to plant my plants, 4 of which (the evergreens) went into the front bed and the rest in the back. Then I had a text message for Toni saying that she thought that my name was sexy. For those of you that don’t know my name, it’s fairly unusual. I had emailed Toni the day before saying that I thought that her name was sexy. This will require a bit of setup, on Wednesday my gorgeous 20-something hairdresser and friend Jill called me and offered to set me up with Toni. Jill was very funny on the phone, sort of embarrassed at presuming, but I told her that everything was okay and that this is the kind of thing that I had been working on, i.e. getting referrals, and that referrals were valuable because Jill knows me very well (more on this later), knows what I like, , can pitch me, etc. We left it that Toni could email me and she did after I had left work that evening. I responded Thursday and we had a few rounds then. She wanted me to call her after 22:00 as she was at some meetings at the state capital but I declined on the calls. I don’t like making late night calls, making regular phone calls (daily for example) is a lot of work and breaks up your schedule, I’m off the thought at this point that less is more and tend to text way more than call. Calls can take a lot of time, and if you need to call multiple women, then there can go your whole evening and every night. Less is more. Chicks seem to dig text as well. I didn’t text until this year and now want a phone with a real keyboard!

So Toni thinks my name is sexy, I’ll take that. So I call her and ask what’s up etc. and we make plans to meet for drinks at a place close to where she was staying as I found out at that point that she lives in Kirksville (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Kirksville,+Missouri&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=54.79724,114.257812&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FUpcZQId_Up7-g&ll=40.296287,-94.669189&spn=6.484667,18.457031&z=7&iwloc=addr). We agreed on 19:00 as the meet time. So I finished up planting, mowed the grass, cleaned up everything, talked to some neighbors including the new ones moving in across the street and had a generally full afternoon. I headed inside at about 16:00, cleaned up, made some dinner, ironed (I am the king of ironing), got dressed, and left about 18:30. I drove through town and past The Dog and saw Jo Ellen pulling out in her silver Honda Odyssey van and honked at her. She ended up following me a long way and I thought she was going to meet Toni as well! She eventually pulled off and I wondered what that was all about. It only took me about 20-minutes to get there, leaving me quite early, so I sat in the car and listened to the radio a bit (alternative music, my current fave). I was about to head in and I see this white Mercedes sport-ute pull in behind me and I have an intuition and waited a bit. A woman got out and headed into what is a trendy but not expensive bar/restaurant. I had been there several times before both for food and for drink, but it had been a while since I had been there and it was my suggestion that we meet there. I head in. I had not seen a picture of Toni nor had a description of her nor had a plan to meet in a specific fashion. It was very casual and I was very unconcerned and importantly, had faith in Jill. So I walk in and the same woman is standing there, I say “Toni?” and she replied yes, we asked for a booth, she settled down to a glass of Chard and I had a draught by a local brewery that produces a very decent 5-day IPA. This then lead to almost 3-hours of constant conversation. She was very surprised that I would show up without knowing anything about. I told her that I had faith in Jill and that I enjoy conversing with almost anyone, anyone can add value to your life, anyone has a separate potential to add value to your life, some just for hours, some that last longer, some that are just friends, and some that we become romantically involved in. We had a very high-bandwidth conversation and exchanged a ton of information and she asked me quite a few questions, the volume of which is unusual in my experience. She is curious about my job, my elected office, my political aspirations, with great interest in the latter. It was a pleasure of mine to have such interest expressed. In an unusual category, there was some discussion of our divorces and exes, with some parallels in the exes. This is not a subject I ever bring up on a meet and greet/first date. We talked about a lot of things. I commented that she had a great smile. She reciprocated. We talked about becoming whole persons, self-validation, etc., and she was very surprised that I was well-versed on what it takes to be an emotionally mature non-needy single person. Very early in the conversation based upon some of my intuition, I asked her if she was a physician. She replied yes, an anesthesiologist. We then had some discussion about her job and she said she never announces on a meet and greet/first date her profession as she wants to be known as herself. I know that you will all want to know, she’s about medium height, small frame, decent figure, very nicely dressed, very nicely coiffed, I would guess based upon what I can surmise (I did not ask) that she is a bit older than me. As a total package, I was attracted to her on multiple levels. At one point, the waitress comes over and asks Toni is she in Toni *****, and Toni replies yes, and someone had called the restaurant for her, so the waitress brings a phone and I excuse myself for the bathroom. I come back and she’s on her phone talking to the couple she is staying with, they are concerned about her, maybe had a plan for a call to escape, etc. It was very amusing to hear her refer to them each and Mom and Dad, even though they are her peers, she was fine and didn’t need their help for anything, etc. In short, it was very amusing and she handled it well. She later told me that she had her phone turned off. Interesting. We go near the end and the action in the venue was a bit interesting and Toni liked to people-watch, so we both did which is kind of refreshing for a change. Some women don’t want you to look at anything else period. This was like a recess where we both were free to look around. I think that we also just plain ran out of things to talk about and it was nearing 22:00, so we had been at it about 3-hours already. We split the check and I walked her out commenting that I would like to see her again. I started and ended with a hug, which is my custom.

I got in my car and hustled back to town for The Dog. Dave had told me that he customarily wore ear-plugs for this particular band, so I had imagined that they would be good and they were. The band was a bunch of old hippie motorcycle dudes and the lead guitarist and singer was the former guitarist of a famous local band from the 70’s, Pavlov’s Dog, which in the day had gained some national prominence. He had a steel guitar on a stand in front of him, another talented guitarist-vocalist that I hit it off with during the course of the evening, bass, drums being played by an acquaintance Sammy, and keyboards. They were smoking-hot and mainly played blues-based songs, including my personal fave as requested by my friend Paul, “Stormy Monday”, which I feel is the quintessential blues song. They were load and the best band I’ve ever seen at The Dog. So I walk in and the usual friends are there, and then there’s the drunken plumber Mark who I have never seen sober and later that evening heard quite a few stories about him as related to me by Dave. He is an obnoxious drunk and I don’t care for him at all. Most of my evening there was my attempt to avoid his company. At one point Dave and Jo Ellen cut him off and I saw for the first time Dave get really mad. They should have thrown Mark out, but part of the problem I guess is that he can’t drive every again, permanently barred from holding a license, and I guess that he had no method to get anywhere. Dave said Mark was probably out on a plumbing job for someone and they had dumped him off at The Dog. Dave told me that Mark, ho is my age or older, lives with his parents. I could go on and on about Mark but suffice it to say that after the Trivia Night let out at the picnic ground hall, Jerry and Nikki came and Jerry and Paul later took Mark home and I heard that things got dicey during the ride and that Paul got downright medieval on Mark. One person can put a damper on a lot of other’s evening. I danced several times, made the rounds and had interesting conversations, the usual good time. We ended up closing the place and I headed home intending to go to bed. I saw that Tim’s garage was open and the lights were on, so knew that they were still at it, so went up there and they were all at neighbor Mike and Gen’s playing Rock Band, so I watched a bit and caught up on all of the news. I ended up taking my leave somewhere after 02:00. I had missed a bunch of phone calls from the hostess of a Halloween party that I had missed, and evidentially she had missed me and had someone in mind for me. I’ll catch up with that later.

I slept until noon. I got up, puttered around a bit, and decided I needed a nap. I was up again around 14:00 and went outside and dug my caladiums up in preparation to bring them inside for the winter. We’re supposed to have a hard freeze tonight and I will hustle home and dig up my banana palms and elephant ears. It got up to 60 yesterday but was very, very windy and not particularly enjoyable. So I went in, made some dinner, texted Toni telling her that she had a beautiful smile, I enjoyed her company, and hope that she had a good trip back. She replied later on. I cleaned up from dinner, knew that I have to get up at 05:30 on Monday, so I crashed about 20:00 as I was tired.

This morning it was 35 degrees out of the door and gas prices are $2.54. It’s cloudy and I dragged out the down jacket for the ride into work. There is no substitute for down. So, you’re asking, what did I think in summation about Toni? Several thoughts occurred to me, I’ve been interested in nurses but should probably focus on doctors, I’m 49 years old, could pass for 40 or below, but shouldn’t be so concerned about finding a younger woman, and maybe I should marry for money!

Again, there’s more, lot’s more, and I’ll need a film crew to follow me around to get it all. Wouldn’t that be amusing!

I will entertain questions about specifics.

Good job Dawn. And Cinderella, it seems that you are aptly named with all of the costumes, etc.

Dutch

P.S. Neither Booka not Dutch is my real name and I do have an unusual name.