DatingJosh

It has been an absolute whirlwind of a week. There is a bit of a romance blossoming between Kim and me, and it is both wonderful and trememdously fun. For all you first-daters, I highly recommend dinner at Moxy on Laclede in the CWE. I reserved a window table for our first official date and the evening could not have been better!

We started off with the baked herbed goat cheese appetizer. Garlic-infused oil and wonderful, chunky whole-grain bread accompanied by soft, delicious chevre complimented our conversation nicely. I drank Penfolds and stared into those beautiful eyes as she laughed and flashed that sparkling smile.

Dinner for me was this phenomenal roast duck entree with herbed wild rice and steamed spinach. The duck was cooked to perfection, flavorful and not at all fatty or greasy. Kim had a delicious salmon glazed with a kind of honey maple reduction that was truly excellent.

After dinner we walked, hand in hand, to Brennan's, my favorite haunt in the West End. We sat in the cozy loveseat-for-two tucked back in the wine cellar. You could not imagine a more romantic backdrop: cozy booth, candlelight, the wonderful, earthy aroma of cigars and old wood. Our first kiss was electric, momentous. I felt the world spin beneath my feet in the ineluctable press of her soft, moist, slightly parted lips.

Later that evening, after we said goodnight, we made plans for Sunday brunch. Wildflower is my chosen spot in my neighborhood – I love their Eggs Benedict. Be both tried one of the specials: Maryland Benedict, consisting of poached egg and hollandaise sauce on top of their signature crab cake. Wow. Good stuff indeed.

Afterwards, we stopped by my place, right around the corner. We had planned on heading to the Museum of Art but never made it. Quit your naughty thinking! Nothing like that happened – it was only our second date.

So of course, later that afternoon, as we are talking, all hell breaks loose outside because some monster storm cell decides to blow through the area!

Now Kim has some training in Meteorology, and briefly considered it as a career. She looks out my window and up at the sky above Parc Frontenac and turns pale. "Wow", she exclaimed to me. "Look at that sky. Those are updrafts! Things are being sucked off of the ground!"

No sooner do these words tumble from her lips then, as if on cue, the severe weather siren sounds. Kim looks out the window, looks at the swirling winds and a sky turning the ugly grey-green of an ageing bruise, and through numbed lips tells me that she has never been this scared!

Whoa. Here is someone who has spent her entire life in the St. Louis metro area, has actually been in a tornado when she was 16, and is telling me she has never been so terrified by the weather conditions. That did it for me. I grabbed her in one arm, a flashlight in my other, and we retreated into the bathroom. 

Fortunately, this fast-moving beast blew by in about 10 minutes. It did bring down trees in Forest Park and even damaged the Boat House, a place which I have been longing to go for brunch. Needless to say, I was spitting four-letter epithets and lamenting my migration from California! Stupid Midwest. I did know we would be fine though, because we were not in a trailer park! Why are those things magnets for twisters? It is amazing – it's like some maniacal hoosier-hating fuck is at the controls of the storm and maliciously steers it RIGHT FOR the shiny white boxes! Bye-bye, mullets!

Soon after, she said good-night and we parted. There is definitely potential here. Thanks, AEG, for a wonderful weekend!