Match.com profile coming down!!

While I was driving through the 5 miles of rural Tennessee between the interstate and The Garden, I was transported back in time as I drove by a field of very tall, good looking corn. It looked every bit as good as corn grown in Iowa – which is not supposed to be possible. I recalled climbing the stairs of the Washington Monument on a high school band trip singing the Iowa State song – “That’s where the tall corn grows”. The closer I got the more comfortable became with the sense that The Garden was going to feel a bit like “home”. I was not wrong.

Nine very comfortable hours later, I drove home. Match Dude is who I thought he would be from our extensive communication over the 2 weeks before we “met”. He is kind and caring. We never ran out of things to talk about. We sat on but back porch until my first mosquito bite. I doused myself in OFF and we walked around The Garden with The Magical Forest on the other side of the fence line. He sang some songs for me. We ate apple pie before the quiche. Both seemed to please him a great deal. I do think I appreciated more flavor from the apple pie than I did last December so perhaps I am getting a bit more taste back.

I was as close to being my authentic self as I could possibly be in this circumstance and I think he was too. There was mutual appreciation and attraction. Check and check.

We introduced Buckley and Carli. Buckley has an outdoor pen and we gave them a chance to interact through the fence. As I predicted, Carli was very aloof but then got a little curious. Buckley wanted to get out and play. Buckley is quite a bit bigger than Brady and interaction seemed similar to Carli and Brady’s. Buckley’s tail was wagging the entire time – Carli’s tail started to relax towards the end – not a full wagging but not tucked. I think they will find a playful interaction with time.

The ONLY thing that was different from our easy phone communication was his hearing loss (from “riding a machine gun” fora year in Vietnam) was more noticeable – particularly with background music. I brought it up. We should not attempt serious conversations with loud background music. He will need to let me know when he did not hear everything clearly to avoid inadvertent miscommunication. Speaking louder does not necessarily help as sometimes words are just muffled

He is coming to Nashville on Tuesday for an appointment. He will drop by and see my place. I think he will be pleasantly surprised by how quiet it is here. Not rural but not like being in a city.

This is the only picture that I took yesterday. I stopped after I turned into the driveway – I sensed the day was going to be significant.

We are both mindful that there will be challenges ahead but yesterday was a great start.

P.S. – while there will be some challenging hills, it looks like there will be safe cycling from his place.