A Tale of Two Bloggers

With just a little over 3 months of blogging under my belt (and a few extra pounds under there too--thank you very much), I have had the opportunity to get to know some of you truly wonderful people out there. With some of you its an occasional post back and forth, with others it is a daily check in comment, with a few it has graduated to some back and forth "off the blog emailing". Last night I crossed the final frontier and met...in person.... my first fellow blogger, Michelle from The Accidental Scientist. Michelle has been out there representing the Oregon foodies for a few years and lucky for me, she and her husband moved to Hawaii a couple of months ago. She left a post on my blog a few weeks ago and according to her has been "stalking" me ever since--for which I feel very honored!

I had planned to write a really clever post about our evening together; the anxiety leading up to meeting someone new and wondering if they will like you, the excitement of finding you do have things in common (food of course but other likes and dislikes as well), our dinner in an exotic Moroccan Restaurant and the things that made us giggle--but she did it first! And she did it so perfectly, cleverly capturing every moment of a fun evening, so humorously and in such great detail that I will just have to lead you over to her site to read her write up. (Here it is)

After you read it you will understand why the evening was so great--Michelle is as smart, witty and fun in person as she is on her blog. Which is good because as much as I was looking forward to meeting her, I have to admit I was a bit nervous--probably due to the fact that I am not a huge fan of blind dates and although not one in the traditional sense--meeting someone you have been "chatting" with on line and in a few emails for dinner is a bit like a blind date. My friend Julie at work (one of the few people that know about "THE BLOG") didn't help. (The following is a transcript of our conversation yesterday before the dinner as close as I can recall it but pretty accurate I think).

Julie: "What are you doing tonight?"

Me: "Going to dinner."

Julie: "Who are you going with?"

Me: "Um..well..." (in a low mumble) "another blogger who I have been emailing with and stuff. Her name is Michelle and she and her husband moved here from Oregon a few months ago."

Julie: "Hmm... Are you sure it's legit? I mean you are sure it isn't like an old pervert guy or something pretending to be a female so they can meet you and do something to you?"

Me: "Well she has had a blog for awhile and I doubt an old pervert guy would go to the trouble to set up a blog pretending to be a female, cook recipes and post them for months so they could meet me in a restaurant and hack me to pieces or something but I guess you never know..."

Julie: "Well, I am just asking because I don't want to see you get hacked to pieces or anything!"

Me: "Me neither...Um..thanks for caring!?"

I can happily say that I had fun, met a new friend that I look forward to hanging out with and came home in one piece! Although we might be kicked out of the Food Blog World because (gasp!) WE DIDN'T TAKE PICTURES OF DINNER! We didn't discuss our reasons until mid-way through our entrees: she because her camera was too big and she didn't want to look like a dork, me because she didn't have a camera with her and being a newbie to all this I didn't want to look like a dork. (See how much we have in common!)

Michelle, thanks for a wonderful evening and I look forward to being your fellow "food dork" here in Hawaii!