Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Runners on the Loose

The night in question had finally arrived and of course, my desire to follow through and join Myriam for an after work Friday night drink was non-existent. Maybe it was the guilt factor- since I was cozily unemployed, I hadn't earned the right to partake in this famous American pastime of decompressing from a stressful work week. Gone were the days of inane emails from a supervisor questioning why I was two minutes late returning from break the previous day. No longer did I have to suffer through the bullying customer threatening to call his lawyer if I didn't remove the bogus charges for the phone call on his bill made to his daughter's cell phone; as he never calls her cell phone. Oh, OK, I guess someone broke into his house and called his daughter from his home. That could happen. In fact, since my joining the ranks of the happily unemployed, my only stress in the past 3 months came in the form of a hamstring injury- brought on by an overzealous attempt to complete a third track workout for the week. So I guess guilt played a role in my trying to get out of going out. Myriam is a very persuasive co-conspirator, and after shooting down the last of my feeble excuses ('But Myriam- I'm unemployed, I can't afford to go out!' 'Oh, I'll treat you to the first drink. Knowing you, that will be twice as much as you'll finish anyway', she ribbed). I finally caved. It sounded like a healthy thing to do, meeting up with a group of runners.The bar was a handsome new one in downtown Middletown, not yet tarnished by the typical boisterous crowds of the area nightlife. It was nice to see a lot of familiar faces from track and local races. Next thing you know, Myriam is whipping out her cell phone camera and delegating photographers and posers. This of course is the most frightening moment of the evening, because you never know when an unflattering photo of yourself will show up in a future newsletter or on the Sullivan Striders website. One day I was innocently viewing online photos from some recent race, and much to my shock was a photo of myself and Myriam's nephew with his arm around me! Luckily, it was a cute picture, and I didn't have a crazed, jealous boyfriend at the time, but still.. A girl could use a little warning. So next Rene, Myriam's husband, comes in. I'm very happy to see him. Rene has a thousand great stories about all the different countries he's lived in. We got onto the subject of animals speaking in Spanish. (Not sure how we got there, as I had mentioned that I was working as a literacy volunteer, and my student is definitely human, but the wine was strong..) So he was telling me his friend had a talkative parrot who would repeat everything his master said. Whenever a guest would pass the cage, the bird would scream, 'MARICON!' at him. About this time, many of the other runners started to leave. I don't know if it was the foreign cursing or maybe when you work for a living you just need more sleep- luckily this malady didn't effect all of us. So Myriam thought it was time for us to move to a different locale. Those Geminis always need new stimuli. So off we went. The new bar featured a live band, free buffet, and a really delicious Pinot Grigio. Ha, look Myriam, I'm no longer a lightweight! Somehow the subject of singles meeting other singles in the running community came up. Someone mentioned it would be a good idea if in addition to displaying your age group on your race number, your marital status should also be available. Then the women reflected for a moment on the near non-existent pool of single men in the area, and someone said, 'I guess it wouldn't make a difference', and we all burst out laughing. We spent the next few minutes brainstorming for other valuable information along these lines to be included on bib numbers. How about if a guy's a good kisser? 'Oh yeah', someone said, 'I'd like to know that up front'. Apparently, this woman had kissed a few clueless frogs. Something about a dead, frozen, open mouth. I don't know, it didn't sound very appealing to me either, but I didn't want to depress the woman any more, she sounded fairly traumatized from the experience. So the general consensus was in favor of this new category of info to be taken for upcoming races. The only problem was, who in their right mind, when filling out a race application is going to answer 'no' when asked 'are you a good kisser'? So we decided we may need to discuss this more at the upcoming Sullivan Striders meeting. Those meetings are overdue for some livelier topics, anyway. Just then Rene, not having brought up the subject of 'the great match of me and his nephew' in over a year, thought that now would be an excellent time to do so. 'You know Tamar, I recently had dinner with Jesus. He told me that when he met you, he's never had this feeling about anyone before, but he said he could really see himself having a son with you'. Now that's quite a loaded statement to feed to a woman who would one day like to have children, not to mention she was on her second glass of wine. 'Well Rene, that's really nice', I said, 'But I feel a little suspicious about the sincerity of this story, since you once mentioned to me that Jesus could really use a green card'. Rene explained this conflict by means of reinforcing why a green card would be so valuable to Jesus. Huh? Let me get back to my girls. The girls had that glassy-eyed look of 'if I have any more excitement tonight I'm liable to poke an eye out'. Myriam, Marie and I all walked to our cars. Myriam pulled out her cell phone so we could laugh at the photos again. There was one of the three of us where we were all smiling, but Marie was standing about a mile away from us, like at the last second she agreed to appear in it. We parted laughing and happy, despite the baked avocados served in the free buffet. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for, but the evening as a whole was priceless.

5 comments:

Clement said...

Jesus is probably a very nice guy and you don't seem to be totally opposed to the idea of having a child with him, just suspicious about his motivations.
Maybe he is a sincere guy, not the flirting type. Just very deep, after one date, he knows he wants a child from you.. wow... that's the effect you do to men ? impressive...

Jon said...

Odd... I don't think the main thing I would be thinking about after meeting you would have anything to do with children.

I'm glad you got out and had fun. This is something I am in need of.

Ms. Senyak said...

clement~ Sounds like you believe his uncle? If he was telling the truth, well, of course that's very flattering, but no.. How could I consider having children with someone I only had one date with? I would need at least two dates to know a thing like that

jon~ And I believe this guy's about 10 years younger than you, so I imagine your priorities back then were even further from procreation than now..

Anonymous said...

Tamar: Glad you were able to have a night out on the town with the runners and make a good time of it. I generally like being in the company of other runners.

I enjoyed the part about adding information to bib numbers, someone wanting you to have his son (note, he didn't say child, what's wrong with a daughter?) and the picture you took with the other women.

Kevin

Anonymous said...

Hi Tamar!
Miss you!!
Lis