The best thing for me to do when I’m upset about something is exercise. And seeing my new bikini on my body at the pool in front of a ton of people also makes me want to exercise. In addition, I’ve had the best intentions of running pretty much every night for the past month, but it’s been so damn hot out! So I remembered the gym…and yesterday when I couldn’t sleep at 2 am I got up and packed my gym bag. Time to make my return.
But thennnnn…..I got to work, gym bag in my car, psyched up Barista ready to work this out….and was reminded of the cocktail party being thrown for my department to thank us for all of our hard work during the audit last month. Crap. I was immediately disappointed that I wouldn’t be making it to the gym. Sure, I could have passed up the wine on the patio at the office, but…ummm…I was getting tipsy at work. Not even the gym could top that.
And tipsy I was! I tried to keep it cool, but it didn’t take long for me to start asking pretty much everyone I talked to for date referrals. I’m not going back to online dating and I want to meet some men…so why the hell not. These dudes at work spend enough time complimenting me, so why wouldn’t they want to send some friends my way? No brainer.
Allison and I were hanging with Coach (the captain of our softball team), so the 3 of us went into the company gym to give one of our teammates who was there working out instead of drinking a hard time. He was doing push-ups and challenged that I couldn’t do them after I’d made a snarky comment about him needing to man it up a little for us. So I hit the floor, in my 4″ heels and short skirt, and did some push-ups with him. Funny that I’d never done “real” push-ups before so I shocked myself and the others watching when I didn’t do them the girly way.
Coach and Allison were sitting on a weight bench and Coach got a call, then I heard him say “Talk to her in Portuguese” and he handed me the phone.
“Hello?” He’d told me about his pretty boy Brazilian friend, but people tell me about men all the time…and really, the pretty boy part isn’t my style so I hadn’t paid much attention. Dude broke into speaking Portuguese right away and we had a little mini conversation in which he told me he was surprised at how well I spoke and that I barely even had an accent. I was proud of myself, especially since it’s been a good 15 years since I’ve spoken regularly and I know I’m pretty rusty. But I held my own. I’m sure if I hadn’t had those glasses of wine I’d have been a little nervous about it, but I was a champ. He was at the gym at the time, so he said he’d get my number from Coach and we’d talk again. So that could be a new possibility for at least a date. I’m down.
Oh, and earlier in the afternoon while we were sitting on the back patio enjoying our hot dogs and drinks, the VP of HR came around and asked how we liked the little bbq. He said that they were considering having the same type of thing for employee appreciation week, but wanted to try it out on our smaller group first to see how the response would be.
“The only thing missing here is cupcakes,” I told him.
“Cupcakes?”
“Yeahhh, cupcakes. Don’t you think cupcakes would be perfect for employee appreciation?”
Allison chimed in then. “Barista makes the best cupcakes!” And the guy stuffing his face with hot dogs across from us nodded his head in agreement.
“I’m a cupcake baker,” I told him.
“Really?”. I think he thought we were joking.
“Yeah, think about it and we can work something out.”
“What kind do you make?” He asked.
“She makes all kinds and brings them in for us,” Allison said.
“Looks like I’ll need to stop by HR next time I bake some cupcakes!”
Later, after leaving the company gym and heading back up to my desk to gather my things, I ran into him again. “I haven’t been able to think about anything but cupcakes since you mentioned them!” Ahhh….there’s little I like to hear more.
“Well, come on then! I have some at my desk so you can try one.”
“You really have some at your desk?”
“Oh yeah, VP, this is serious!”. He followed me to my desk and looked wowed as I opened my new cupcake carrying case and handed let him have his pick of the 5 cupcakes I had left. He unwrapped it as he was walking away after thanking me, but he didn’t get far before turning around and coming back.
“Wow! This is great!”. I’m used to this reaction. It’s almost like people start walking away in case they aren’t very good and then they won’t have to embarrass me. Then they always do that double take and come back. “This is really, really good!”
“I’m glad you like it! Have a good night!”
And I now have a feeling I’ll be getting an order for 300+ cupcakes for employee appreciation week. Boo-yah!
Filed under: barista, cupcakes, dating, work | Tagged: barista, cupcakes, dating, drinking, friends, Portuguese, the gym, work
