It’s been a very good weekend.

Spent Friday evening with R…dinner at one of those “stuff on the wall” places. Am becoming braver in my food ventures in that R ordered salmon, and I accepted a taste when it was offered.

And I liked it…well, but for the fact that it wasn’t seasoned well (read: not at all). So I wouldn’t order it at this particular restaurant, but I will definitely be trying it at some other place.

I had a mediocre chicken caesar salad. I prefer my caesar dressing creamy.

The two drunk men at the booth adjacent to ours became our new best friends. Upon overhearing R confuse Ann and Nancy Wilson in a conversation we were having about Cameron Crowe, Drunk Guy #1 interjected with a correction.

Later, when I went to the ladies room, R was sucked into a conversation with Drunk Guy #2, who lives and works in LA as a screenwriter. They offered to buy us drinks, but we politely declined.

When I came back, we did the whole introduction thing, and I had to laugh at Drunk Guy #2’s reaction to R’s name.

“You mean like McNally?”

hee!

We left at the first convenient moment (these guys could have gone on all night…).

I did have one kind of sad moment…I was having a conversation with R about him being the guy who knows random crap like the name of the bass player for the Scorpions (it’s Lothar Heimberg. Seriously. It’s freakish.), and I said, out loud,

“It’s really too bad we don’t talk to our friend K anymore. She’d like you.”

She would.

It’s too bad.

Anyway…

He gave me two more of his band’s CDs to listen to…one of them is a rock opera about monkeys.

No, I’m not kidding. I’m dating a guy who has written a rock opera about monkeys.

😉

We watched “Shanghai Noon,” which is far funnier than it has a right to be. I just may become an Owen Wilson fan myself…

He invited me to a little get-together his friend T was having at his house on Saturday…this friend is kind of like his Jen. They met freshman year of college, and have been tight ever since. I was very, very happy to accept the invitation.

He picked me up on Saturday and we headed to the dinner party. I was nervous, of course, but his friends were kind and gracious and nothing short of wonderful. The moment we arrived, T shook my hand and said “I know you’re Erin. I saw your picture on the world wide web!” T, who also has an English-type background, asked me questions about what I do, etc. I explained that I have certification to teach secondary English, but haven’t found a “real” teaching job yet. He asked me where I got my certification and was surprised to learn that I went to the very school where he and R both work.

I never saw either one of them, as far as I can recall. Weird, eh?

I told him where I work, and about the teaching gig, and R interjected, “She’s also a writer.”

That made me smile.

I learned that one of the other guests is a teacher at St. Mary’s…the music teacher. It was his class I was subbing for when the girl jumped out the window. We had a laugh about that.

After dinner, we played Cranium. (I’d never played before…what a ridiculously fun game!) We played guys against girls and the girls kicked ass. Whoo!

When we left, R’s friends invited us to come back any time. T’s wife hugged me. When we got into the car, I asked R if he thought I “passed.”

“Oh come on,” he said. “I wasn’t even a little bit concerned about that.”

🙂