Margaritaville: Legacy of the Lost Scrolls

As you know D(Racer's wife) and I made a date for dinner and drinks.

The text exchange was rather funny as she mentioned a good Mexican restaurant that had great margaritas and good food.

I responded back jokingly that she had me at margarita.

 We picked a time and a date for getting together.

So how was it?

Well I got there after work at 5:30.

After many a laugh, some pretty good food, numerous stories and four margaritas we finally decided we should be responsible adults and make our way home at eleven at night.

It was a school night after all.

It was just so much fun getting to know someone you already knew all over again.

From the moment I walked in it was we started chatting.

We talked about our respective days. Got caught up on some larger life stories that we both had mentioned to each other but did not have the time to go into details.

Book, movies, art, music were all discussed.

We poked fun at silly people and some of the less than stellar human beings we have worked for.

We even got into the topic of me a little(it was the first time she was able to ask me some more in depth questions).

"Let me just say Kelli you have completely blown me away with who you are. I am also stunned how good you look. I cannot believe you are the same person."

"lol, that big a difference huh? Let me guess you were expecting something else?"

"I would not say that I was just unsure of how it would work. I mean when I was finally able to get home and talk to Racer about you I asked "how does she look?" He just told me you looked incredible and amazing. Which is why I had to go to dinner with you shortly after. I was so bummed about not being able to meet with that night, but my mom needed help."

"And what do you think?"

"Holy cow girl!! You have simple amazed me. Not only with how you look but who you are. I had so much fun meeting you at dinner. Poker night was a blast and I just had to hang out with you again. Even your personality is different. I mean there are some of the same things there but you are more open and relaxed these days compared to that engineer I met so long ago. I am really glad for you and glad that you are finally happy."

"Thanks D it is not an easy road to get here and a lot of people think they know what the issue is or how it works. Really they do not."

"I don't doubt it one but you are doing it well. In fact you really caught the attention of everyone at poker. Particularly Tilt's."

"Really?"

"Oh my god yes! Quite a few people wanted to know how we knew you. Who you were, etc. But we went to dinner with Tilt about a week later and he was all about you, asking all that and if you were going to come back. He also thought you were a really good poker player. He could not stop taking about you."

"Oh dear it sounds like he has crushing on me a bit."

"lol I would agree. Now are you coming back?"

"Oh definitely, I enjoyed it. As my schedule allows I indeed to be there."

Which I have been since this night.

She even mentioned a conversation with her hairdresser when the topic of a trans person popped up in the salon when she was there during a session.

I am not recalling what caused another patron to mention it but D's hairdresser made a comment to her that a trans person can always be spotted.

D disagreed with her. When questioned about it. D replied "I know it is not true because I have a friend who does not look like anything other than a woman." Her hairstylist then started rattling off the common tells in a trans person. To which D shot down every single one of them regarding me. Finally stating:

"Look she is small, only and inch taller than I am. Does not have any distinguishing features nothing. She dresses respectable and well. Even when she is being super casual. There just isn't anything there. She has a wonderful voice. Heck it is better than mine. Her manners everything just fits. So no you cannot always tell."

She told me her hairdresser was a bit taken back but D went on to staunchly defend me. It just goes to show how un-informed people really are.

D stated that from the moment she met me that this just made total and perfect sense for me.

The rest of our talk was just pure fun and idle chatting. All together it was a great time and we enjoyed each others company so much we have done it since then and are even planning another now that she is back from a vacation.

After the string of friends and even family that had an issue with me. It is astounding me the number of people who knew and now have no issue with the new me.

It seems with every step I take forward these days the more life seems to finally be falling into place.

And I really like that place.

Where's Waldo

Once again I am going to tease the general audience.

 How?

With a picture.

That's how.

Recently I posted how I attended a hockey game for my favorite NHL team.

This is the hometown team I grew up rooting for.

Well they are in the playoffs yet again.

Really it has been twenty-two years straight.

I know another big clue as to where I live but really, I had the name of the major city I live near and the arena printed on the ice in the last picture.

Google would have solved that riddle in a second.

Anyways we had such good seat this last time I managed to find an interesting picture.

Why is this one so interesting?

Other than a great action shot, it is the fact that yours truly is sitting in the stands in plan sight.

We even made the national broadcast.

How cool is that?

It was a lot of fun, a great game, but still I marvel at how normal life has become.

I truly am fortunate to being living my life as me.

P.S. I know once again teasing the audience. What can I say I value my privacy. There are people in the know who will be able to find me. As they have either met me or gotten to see more picture of me via email.

P.P.S. Also do not worry, I am working on the follow up post to my last story. I has a system upgrade and outage recently took up way too much time to resolve. I had to play catch up on other things first and get some much needed rest.

I'm All In: The Lost Scrolls Revisited

Now that I got you all caught up with the lost scrolls, I can tell you the next part of the story.

Since I now had Racer up to date on what was going on. We promised to speak again soon.

But that did not end up happening.

Not that we didn't talk.

Quite the contrary we did a lot. On the phone, IM and emails.

We were still IT engineers and we often share data. He also moved some of my personal services onto his hosting environment as I shut down my personal lab for the time being.

So there was plenty of chatter between us during my first year full time.

Yet we never had the chance to get together in person. I was busy, he was busy, I did not think he was blowing me off at all, it was just not working out.

Which brings up to early 2013.

He had an IT question for me about a platform I work heavily on. While chatting via IM about it he actually brought it up.

"Hey I haven't seen you in over a year?"

"You are right." As I realized this was, in fact, true.

"Can you go to dinner in the near future?"

I checked my schedule "Yes, I am busy this week but I am really free next week."

"Okay, perfect I have nothing next Tuesday. Let's go!!"

We chatted a bit more on logistics and venue. Settled on it quickly and that was that.

Tuesday came and we met. He arrived before I did as I had a longer drive. Plus it was starting to snow in the region(this was mid February).

I walked, shrugged off my jacket and sat down.

He looked dead at me and said "Holy F*#$!

Taken aback I questioned him.

"You look great!! I was not expecting this!"

"Really?"

Oh yeah, I had no idea what I was going to see, but damn. You look good and if did not know who you were I would not suspect. Wow!"

{It should be noted that I was not dressed in anything unusual. Simply a sweater and jeans tucked into knee boots. It was winter after all.}

I thanked him and asked him how his wife D was doing.

"Oh she is good, she wanted to come tonight but she had to help her mom tonight and with the snow coming probably won't make it."

I told him that was too bad and tell her I said hi.

Now I should note here that I knew both of them separately. I met her doing work for the company she was the office manager for and in charge of the IT consultants coming in. Her and I talked all the time I was there. Often if I need to kill and hour so I could head home rather than back to the office I would chat with her. We always got along.

As He and I worked together and when I was placed on a long term large project, He was the one who replaced me. Which is how they met. They did not start dating until about five years later and were married about two after that.

We ate dinner. Talked most of the night, enjoyed a frosty adult beverage or two. He asked a bunch more questions of me, we caught up on life and joked about a number of things.

It was a good a productive evening.

He promised to get together again soon...

...which did not take very long at all, within a few days he contacted me again wanting to setup another dinner. This time with his wife D.

It was my hunch there was some curiosity. It is to be expected at times.

So we setup a day the following week and I met the two of them for dinner.

Again I got a big hug from her as soon as I walked in.

Great dinner, good conversation it went amazingly well.

It got even better near the end when she asked me: "Do you still play poker?"

{back story here, Racer and I started playing poker with a group that was made up of people we worked with when he and I worked together. They wanted to learn how to play Texas Hold'em and so a monthly poker night was setup. Being a gamer of just about anything I was interested. Originally it was just guys only but on occasion it got opened up for wives and girlfriends. Me, being the gamer that I am loved it, even if the boys did get out of hand from time to time. I was used to it then and just stayed quite when things strayed too much.}

"I have not played in quite a few years."

"Would you be interested in a game once a month, our friend Tilt host a game these days and it is open to anyone."

I will use this poker term as a nickname since this man is a hardcore addict to the game.

"I would loved too!"

"Great we need more girls and you are an awesome player."

This was true, not to toot my own horn but after a few months of playing with those guys, learning the game and their tells. I started an impressive streak. In two and a half years I was finishing first or second most months. Even winning three times in a row. Only a few times did I ever go out early and even then I could usually outlast more then half the group and get close to earning money.

She informed me the next game was at the end of the week asked if I could go and I confirmed I could.

This brings me to the title of the story. I attend the poker game. There were three other girls there besides myself. Even though I didn't know most of the players or their tells I still managed to bust out Racer and two others, took more than a few pots of off Tilt, our host. Eventually placing third and winning eighty dollars.

Not too bad for a $20 buy in.

I had a blast, impressed the boys with how well I played, enough to get an invited back.

At the end of the night D and I were sitting on a couch chatting about things waiting for the boys to wrap things up. She looked at me and said "Oh hell, you are my kind of girl, give me your number we are so going out for drinks!"

Laughing I did just that and within a few days we settled on a place and a day to get together.

That brings me to the last part of this story.

To be continued....