Monday, July 26, 2010

A (Sort Of) Blind Date

Yesterday afternoon was the day Yizong brought his friend over to my house. I really didn't know what to expect, and I wanted to make a good impression, so I spent Saturday doing something I should have done a long time ago: cleaning house. I got my front rooms and kitchen spic and span, as well as my guest bathroom. I closed the doors to my office and the spare bedroom as well as to my main bedroom. A good cleaning was just what I (and my house) needed, so whether or not Yizong would cancel, I felt good about the job.

Yizong didn't cancel. He, his baby, and his friend, Kathryn, showed at about 3:30 yesterday afternoon. Neither Kathryn nor I knew what to expect, and I think we both felt a little awkward around each other while he wasn't present. He wanted me to show her around, and I started to do so when his phone rang, and he took the call IN MY BEDROOM! This was the bedroom that was entirely unkempt and nasty, even by my standards.

Moreover, all my guns were in there. I have to say, I wasn't really looking forward to trotting out all my old warriors, but he wouldn't have it any other way. Yizong wanted Kathryn to see everything I had, and I dutifully hauled out whatever he asked me to show, feeling like I was hurting my chances more and more with each rifle that appeared.

When we got through doing show and tell with the rifles, he wanted me to demonstrate ammo reloading. I did so, going through the steps of putting together some 9mm, which was what I was loading at the time. After I did that, both he and Kathryn wanted to load their own round. Yikes! I didn't mind, but reloading is something that you have to pay attention to, and I watched them like a hawk to make sure nothing bad happened.

It was all the watching, running, and serving that made this feel weird. It didn't feel date-like at all, but it didn't even feel like I was hosting friends. It felt like I was hosting Yizong, and Kathryn was just an accessory. After the reloading, I tried to balance out my attention to make sure Kathryn and I were talking so that I wasn't performing for Yizong.

I felt like progress was being made in that department until Yizong's one year old decided to start engaging my cat. Dash, my cat, usually doesn't like strange people (although she liked Kathryn), and she's not used to having people chase her around. Yizong and Niuniu (his baby) chased Dash around enough until she got tired, then Niuniu decided to try to touch Dash. Really, according to Yizong, she tried to poke Dash.

Dash doesn't take kindly to being poked by strangers, and she reached out and touched Niuniu to let her know she didn't appreciate the gesture. Niuniu ran back to Yizong, crying like the world was coming to an end. We all checked her, and all Niuniu had was a tiny little scratch on her eyelid courtesy of Dash. At that point the afternoon's activity was pretty much done.

I had hoped that Kathryn didn't feel threatened or weird being around a guy that's a gun collector and a reloader, but she said she thought it was cool. We didn't get to exchange any kind of info or make any other plans due to the hasty departure necessitated by Niuniu's boo boo, so I'm not sure exactly how it all ended. Yizong promised to call me, but I'm afraid he's in the doghouse with Xiaoyan when she finds out about Niuniu and Dash. Let's hope it all works out for both him and me.

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