starting the year off on a better note

What is the most extreme thing you've done for New Years?

I hate the holiday.  Perhaps it stems from when I dated SI, and he'd leave me alone and crying so he can go be with his mistress...and all the New Year's after that more or less sucked because I was alone on a night that is known for kissing at midnight.  So I'd go to a matinee, order Chinese food, work on a puzzle and go to bed by 10 pm.

Then I spent 2012 and 2013 with ManFriend, so I wasn't alone, and I did kiss someone at midnight.

This year I decided to fly out to see Mountain Man.  I have no idea what is going on with 'us'.  Sure we email and text 6 of 7 days and we've had some virtual dates...but is anything there?  I hoped to find out.

New Year's eve was a long day.  I woke up really early, worked 1/2 a day then spent about 10 hours traveling.  Instead of watching the ball drop, we watched a movie cuddled on the couch, I did make it to midnight in the new time zone and we wished each other a happy new year after the movie was over.

virtual date: mystery box cooking challenge

For my second virtual date, I thought it would be fun to show off our cooking skill and creativity.

I asked 25 people to name a single food/ingredient, for the most part these people did not know what other people selected.  I wrote down the items in order received and when I thought there was enough, I shared the number with my date, and told him he could eliminate a few to pick the numbers from 1 - 25.  Having him eliminate random ingredients was a good idea, because over the course of the few hours of collecting items, ideas were forming in my head about what to make...but then when something was eliminated, that changed things.  Brought it back up to a level playing field.

This is what was given:

1. onion
2. hot peppers
3. cumin
4. cilantro
5. basil
6. hominy
7. sausage
8. apple
9. ginger
10. spam
11. bacon
12. asparagus
13. jicama
14. shrimp
15. brussel sprouts
16. bell peppers
17. capers
18. pretzels
19. kale
20. snow peas
21. lime
22. quinoa
23. mozzarella
24. raisins
25. cabbage

At the selected time, we have 60 minutes to prep and prepare a dinner using a minimum of 13 ingredients.  We can use very basic extras like salt, pepper, oil, butter, etc.  

There are a lot of green in there...I hope I can get creative enough to pull something off...that is edible.  My goal is one main dish and two sides.  We'll see how it goes.

I cut up half the apple and put it in the food processor, I mixed in juice from the lime and added part of the hot pepper.  I marinated the shrimp in this marinade and closer to the end time, I sauteed the shrimp and added the kale and cut snow peas.

The brussel sprouts were the most work.  I chopped them up quite fine and sauteed them in some olive oil and a smidgen of garlic.  I cooked 2 strips of bacon and some spam; once cooked/browned I added that to the brussel sprouts.  I stirred in raisins and topped with broken pretzels.














The hominy I sauteed with olive oil.  I cooked the hot sausage through and cut into small pieces.  I mixed the sausage into the hominy and added cut up asparagus.  I wasn't sure if the hominy should have stayed in the balls...or blended, so I put more into the food processor and mixed the extra hominy into the rest.  It tasted good, but didn't look good, so I thought maybe I could try to make it into a patty/cake, so back into the frying pan it went.  However, it didn't stay in a patty/cake, when I attempted to flip it, it fell apart.

I did not use the capers, cumin or mozzarella.

When 54 minutes passed, my meal was done.  It didn't take that long to cook it all...but I wanted to be sure my food was hot when 60 minutes was over.  It all tasted good....well, except for the spam. I probably shouldn't have bothered, but I figured I never used it or tasted it before, why not try it?

My completed meal

My competitor, did not finish in the time allowed, he apparently was a little distracted by household work. He did not use hominy, spam or brussel sprouts.  What I appreciated was the whole time, he was enthusiastic about this idea for a date and his meal looked good too.

his completed meal

virtual date: dinner and a movie

Most relationships start with dating - the time when you get to know the other person.  However, when you are talking to someone a few states away...that makes dating a little harder.

After all our talking, I decided to ask Mountain Man if he'd like to have a virtual date with me...dinner and a movie.   We'd eat the same thing and watch the same movie at the same time.  He was intrigued.

On Saturday evening, we each ordered Chinese food and we watched Dead Man Down.  We hit play at the same time, and tried to pause when we had to get up so we'd finish about the same time.

During the movie there were a few texts, but nothing crazy, "what a first date!", an "ooohhh, wow, I didn't expect that" or "...answer to your question at minute 37:18".

The concept of dinner and a movie was good.  With the time difference, I ate dinner a bit later than normal. Unfortunately, somehow we kept getting out of sync with the movie. At one point I was on pause for 20 minutes when he caught up....then at the end he managed to get 15 minutes behind me. I am not sure how that kept happening, I know he had to rewind a few seconds here or there to hear a line better.

When the movie was over he called me and we talked about the movie and if we liked it or not.  We both enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

Not sure how to gauge if the date was successful.  I enjoyed the movie and chatting with him.  Do I feel like I know him better because of it? No.  But, by sharing an event I feel somehow closer to him, in the sense that he isn't so far away. If anything we are building a really nice friendship.

long distance, is it worth it?

A long distance romance, I wonder if it is worth it. The space between visits and the spending of money to travel...all for a hope that it might work.  Dating and love always start out as a gamble - but most time if it is local, it seems like less of a risk.

And then what do you have? Short gaps of time to make up for all that time in between.  And that short burst of time is spent evaluating the person, trying to have fun and wondering if it is worth it.

I can easily justify the expense of travel as money that would have otherwise been spent on local dates, well for me, I paid for ManFriend for a year and a half, but I am sure in a more equal 'relationship' the expense is more evenly divided.  But then how often can I really pull that off more frequently? I am broke, I don't have a ton of vacation time...and where is it leading?

Is it worth it?