Date 74 - Lovely Parting Gift

T called me the same night he met me... basically asking me to ditch the guy who had glommed onto me toward the end of the evening, and hang with him instead. I didn't hear my phone at the time, and when I got the voicemail I had no idea who it was from - always fun.

Thankfully, he sent me an apologetic text message a day or two later asking if he could take me out and including his name, and I happily returned his call. He was out of town, but we made tentative plans for lunch or coffee over the weekend. Later in the week, we nailed that down to sushi on Saturday at noon. Fun with fishies! My favorite.

I arrived at IchiBan right on time. I'd never been; it was much cuter than I imagined. I didn't expect the little koi pond just inside the entrance. T was leaning over the bridge watching the fish when I walked up.

My first thought was, "Wow - that's one shiny shirt!" It looked like something that might actually be too loud for Rodney Dangerfield in CaddyShack, but I gave him points for being festive. It is the holiday season, afterall.

After a hello hug, we went inside and got a table and took our time catching up and chit-chatting. He's an interesting guy, but not what I expected. I don't know what I expected... but he wasn't quite it. He's got an amazing vocabulary, which is refreshing, but he's not formally educated. He's currently in sales and sells alcohol to bars, but has had quite a variety of menial jobs before now. I envy the freedom he has in driving around his territory visiting clients instead of being tethered to a gray fabric wall in a cubicle farm. I think maybe he's got the whole work thing figured out better than I do.

Halfway through lunch he asked me if I had any children or ex husbands. Nope!

Then he asked if I had any interest in having children or ex husbands, which I thought was novel and funny, but it made me feel self conscious.

The sushi was good, but when the restaurant started playing Engrish Christmas carols, it was my cue to hit the road. Our server brought the check and gave it directly to him. He accepted it graciously so I thought he was going to pay, but then he placed the folder open and perpendicular to me, which I took as a sign that he wanted me to split it. I opened my bag, fished around for my wallet and found enough cash, but when I had it ready, he was plunking down enough cash for the whole bill. I asked if he wanted to split it and he took my money, but it felt weird.

We wrapped up our conversation outside and he walked me to my car before remembering that he had "something for me". I couldn't imagine what. We walked over to his car and he pulled out an iced bottle of Italian bubbly. How random. And how goache of me to have mistakenly called it Champagne, when of course it wasn't from France.

I figure it's the first time I've gotten such a lovely parting gift from a lunch date; and I guess from a financial standpoint, all said and done, I ended up even.