
I'm awake, my kid is not. I'm in the wrong time zone, so I'm up early for vacation, and the other half of my family is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, so it's teenage girl and me for the moment.
I want to talk about our dinner last night. It's not about psychiatry. Oh, except I think the woman was in the mental health field and her dog was raised in a mental institution (her choice of words).
So tired, jet-lagged teenager and I grabbed a bite at the grill at our hotel. Wine, cheese, calamari, chocolate...what more could you ask for? At the table next us there was a couple on a date. A first date, and not listening wasn't an option....the tables were close, they spoke loudly, it was a get-to-know-you, tell-you-about-myself, trying-to-make-a-good-impression place. She ate half her entree and he ordered a wedge salad which looked like the whole head of lettuce was just dumped on the plate. They shared brulee, after declaring that chocolate molten cake would be too much (we had the chocolate molten cake and it was not too much!).
We weren't there for the very beginning, we were seated as she talked about how her mother was upset that she'd traveled alone in India. Mom doesn't like that she also is always covered in white cat hairs or that she wouldn't go to church with her in high school. Mom is an artist. She is/was a professional belly dancer and spent the Millennium dancing in some golden bird outfit for elders in a Indian tribe in Colorado. I believe she worked at a state hospital in Southern Colorado where everyone worked there or at the prison (ClinkShrink?) and she dated a co-worker who took her for Chinese food. She's glad to be away from Southern Colorado because they have no ethnic food and people ordered hamburgers for lunch....here you get get Vietnamese and other ethnic foods. (Calamari and chocolate brulee, too, apparently). She has a dog (he was raised in mental institution and is good with all sorts of people) and a cat, one sleeps on the bed, the other does not.
And the gentleman...he's from Scotland where his linguist mother drew attention to him by talking to him exclusively in German. Her family is Jewish, his father's is Christian, and he went to Christian schools. He works in the film industry and has read hundreds of bad screenplays. His favorite movie is Looking for Bobby Fisher (it has soul) and when you see a good screenplay, the writing sings.
It was a nice place for a date and he paid.
So daughter and I both thought it was an Internet date--- two people interested in finding someone who are worldly and want to meet another worldly soul. My teenager thought they spend too much time talking about themselves and the woman talked too much about people she's dated before. Conversation seemed to flow, and I found them both likable and interesting. This may have been the best meal I've ever eavesdropped on. We were both dying to know if there would be a second date-- conversation flowed, and he was thrilled to hear she liked Indian food-- but it was a little, oh...trying? I thought he liked her better than she liked him, and my kid thought it was the other way around, maybe slanted by the fact that we were seated facing different members of the couple? I thought Match.com, my daughter thought eHarmony.