Heaven Help Me

I had a date tonight.

It went well.

I fell in love. 

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With the place, not necessarily the man.

I'm sorry, was that misleading? (muahaha) ;) 

The guy was actually really nice. He was one of my better dates so far. I've had a lot of dates that went fine, but I felt really "meh" about afterward. Like, if the guy was persistent and asked me out again, I'd say yes, mostly because I had no reason to say no (incidentally, none of those "meh" dates have actually asked me out again--I guess they felt the same way). I've had a couple where I decided I'd discourage any continued attempts at dating. And I've had one or two where I really wanted to go on another date. This one fell towards the positive end of the scale. I might actually solicit a second date instead of just letting them do all the work (which is a pretty good indication of my interest). 

But that's not the point of this story. The point is that he took me to this little German deli in downtown SLC. 

And do you realize what German delis have???

REAL, AUTHENTIC GERMAN CHOCOLATE! Oh heaven help me, I probably shouldn't know that this place exists, because now I know how to get my hands on the best chocolate (and yes, Mom, I checked--it's not "imported" through Nestle, it's 100% real) whenever I want. I don't have to wait for my sister who is in Germany on her mission to send me some. 

Guys, I'm in trouble. Because it's also walking distance from work.

Oh, and I've actually now had weinerschnitzel, and it's really good. I don't know what it's made of, but it tasted delicious. And this was in my head the whole time:

Sauerkraut (oh my gosh, I am infinitely proud of the fact that I'm spelling these German words correctly without having to ask Google how to do it) is also...not that bad. It was pretty good, actually. My date ordered some and insisted that I try it, so I did. I wouldn't eat a whole plate of  it or anything, but it's a nice side dish/garnish on a savory meal. I get why people do sauerkraut hot dogs and stuff. I might even do that myself someday.

When we were in the German section of Epcot at Disney World when I was 17, I'm pretty sure I either flat-out refused to try sauerkraut, or I hated it on principle. My dad (or Brian, not sure who) tried to convert me and it failed. But in the years since that day, I have discovered that being a picky eater has deprived me of some really good food. I can't believe I lived most of my life without tomatoes or avocados. What a sad, lonely existence I had before. So I've learned to be more adventurous in my food choices, because you never know what might be delicious. (That did backfire once, when we had tacos de lengua (cow tongue) for a work lunch, and my boss asked jokingly, "So who is tasting who?" right in the middle of my bite. I can never do cow tongue again, no matter how good it actually tastes.)

And those are my food-related anecdotes for the day.

The online dating thing is still going well. Nothing too exciting in the "I've met the man of my dreams!" way, but I'm being exposed to new and different foods, experiencing new things, and stepping outside my comfort zone more often. I like it. :) 

And now I know where to find authentic German chocolate. My wallet and my diet are already whimpering in fear.

Nostalgia Update

For the record, Simba and Hayley (from this post) are still living contentedly in my box of childhood. Turns out, I really couldn't bear to part with them, and I did in fact go home and rescue them from the D.I. bag.

I'm a sucker for my own memories, and I'm not quite so cold-hearted yet that I can just throw those out.

Simba and Hayley live on for another round of weeding-out-childhood-memories.

What happens at night...gets posted on the blog

Once upon a time, Roommate downloaded this app that changes your voice. So you make a recording and then select a filter and listen to yourself sound all kinds of crazy. The first time she ever used it, she nearly scared the pee out of me. 

It was Saturday night, about 10:00. I'd just walked in the apartment from after my temple shift and noticed her door was closed. That's normal. She's often in bed before I get home. As I'm passing her door, I hear this super creepy, echoing, maniacal laughter, and the acoustics in our hallway made it almost impossible to pinpoint the sound, so it was alarming.

Before I could actually transition from confused alarm to genuine terror, however, Roommate couldn't help herself: she started giggling from behind her door. Ah yes. I should have known she'd be pranking me. Again. She'd recorded herself doing an evil laugh, and then applied a "Villain" filter to it to make it even better.

Anyway, we've played with the voice changer app several times, and usually, since we tend to only do it way too late at night, we laugh way too hard.

Last night, Roommate had had a pretty bad day, and I'd had a busy one, dealing with the stress of packing and prepping for my move. And, you know, Groundhog Day celebrations and all. So we didn't see each other much until around 11:00 at night. Frayed nerves, wacky hormonal levels, and lack of sleep set us off laughing our heads off. 

And then she sneakily pulled out the voice changer app and started recording us. This video is the clip she sent me, with the "drunk" filter applied to it. I promise, we were not actually drunk, nor did it sound quite this bad in real life. The filter is very good. She took a picture for good measure, I guess.

For reference (if you need it) I'm the one telling a story about a gob of spit.

Yes, that story is true. Roommate is mostly just laughing.

And I totally understand if this is only funny to the two of us. We were both desperately in need of a laugh, and my ribs ache a little bit today from laughing until tears were streaming from my eyes.

The reason I share it at all is because I'm deeply grateful for best friends, with whom it is perfectly acceptable to be a complete weirdo (also, apologies to Brian for calling him a weirdo in this video. We love him, really, we do).

And while I love change and I'm excited by the prospect of moving and getting a fresh start, I do end up carrying around a lot of stress and tension. If I didn't have an outlet, it would get pretty bad. So I'm really grateful for fits of laughter, stupid stories, and ridiculous apps that make us sound more punch-drunk wacky than we actually are.

Incidentally, I had one guy accuse me of being too serious and too intense. I think this puts that to rest once and for all. Although this might scare him off, too. Oh well. :)