Recipe no°11: Plumber's Punch

(a.k.a Planter's Punch)
4 oz. fresh orange juice

1 oz. fresh lime juice

3 oz. dark rum

2 oz. simple syrup

(www.drink-recipes.co.uk)

Triple the recipe, stir with a monkey wrench and pour into a glass bottle, so you can share with friends. Turn up the thermostat and drink over ice, imagining you are on a tropical island (I'm assuming you're not).

Last night I had a date, sort of. It was a date in that I texted a boy to come meet me for a drink, and not in the sense that I brought C. along as a wing-woman. As stated previously, G.'s cute-osity potential had previously been difficult to ascertain, obstructed by his insistance on sporting a winter hat designed to protect the ears, and thus covering a maximum of head area and letting nary a hair peek through. My fear that he was perhaps prematurely balding (sadly, I'm realizing that as I age, the baldness of these men may not be so premature) was only multiplied when he entered La Boîte à sardines (one of my favorite bars in Grenoble, despite the bipolar server who suddenly was all smiles and sunshine last night, after formerly behaving as though the fact that we were ordering drinks from him was just so unbelievably annoying, couldn't we get them ourselves?), wearing a soft grey cap, jauntily positioned to the side.

I later assuaged my baldness anxieties by asking him to remove the cap, revealing a rather full head of fro-ish hair. Ahhh. The rest of the night was rather the same, in terms of him revealing himself little by little to be: very considerate, well-traveled, not half bad at English, affectionate, and flattering.

But there must be some downsides. He also made it known over the course of the evening that he was: a plumber--while I find this a respectable profession, and potentially useful to me (see sink-clogging entry), it can be a slight letdown when I long to discuss literature or philosophy, but hey, maybe he's a literate, philosophizing plumber! I mean just look at all Joe has accomplished! He is also a shoplifter, and by consequence obviously pretty broke. But here's the icing on the cake, that makes me think I should really think of running straight back for the hills of dateless, single life: he lives with his ex-girlfriend (and her sister). It gets worse. Now, when he told me this, he was obviously chagrined (yes, I'm having fun with the dictionary/thesaurus today) and embarrassed, and assured me that he worked like crazy, trying to get his own place, and was there as little as possible.
Yet--when I casually posed the obvious query: "So, you've been separated for how long?" his response was less than satisfactory. Because two months ago, that was when we met. That was when we spent the night dancing away, and then he left C. his number for me to call. Which I waited to do until I saw him again, after the concert (and oh-so-smooth, all I could think of to say was "Oh, it's YOU." He made fun of me for that). So unless he started liking me the day he broke up with her (yet continued to live under the same roof)...
Plus, if you're living with someone, that indicated you have probably been together a good long time. And not necessarily over each other in two months (especially if you're still living together, dammit!), let alone the 5 minutes he apparently waited to start giving out his phone number to drunken dance partners. O mon dieu.

What do all y'all think out there? Am I totally nuts for even agreeing to see him again? Keep in mind, the dating drought around here is causing some serious dangerous conditions...flames could arise at any moment. This isn't the giant cumulo-nimbus raincloud I've been waiting for, but little sprinkle could be nice...