Hilary and I have our mutual friend Ben to thank for bringing us together. We met one typically bitterly cold winter Ottawa night at Mexicali Rosa's at Dow's Lake. I had skated from downtown with several friends, while Ben and Hilary, plus a few other less brave friends, met us at the restaurant.

Hilary and I sat across from one another. In retrospect, this arrangement was probably the product of clever engineering by Ben, but any deliberate planning was lost on me at the time.

Hilary struck me as mysterious and intriguing, which had a lot do with what appeared to be a tattoo on her left wrist (it is, in fact, a tattoo of 12 stars that represent the zodiac or some such thing). I'd never seen anything like it. I could make out two or three small stars of different size. What did they represent? When did she get them done? How many were there and how far up her arm did they go? Did she have tattoos all over her body?!

Obviously the tattoo wasn't the only thing that struck me about Hilary. She was certainly beautiful. She was gentle and sensitive, but not insecure. She seemed satisfied with who she was as a person. This in fact is true, which is one of the things I love about Hilary.

She drove a bunch of us home from the restaurant that night. I sat directly behind her and made some disparaging jokes about her driving, her beat-up car, and the various stickers on her dashboard, all in jest of course. I mean, how could I not make a joke about the fact that 3 among the many stickers on her dash were of Freddie Prince Jr.? She took all the jokes well, and dished some of her own in return. Again, intriguing.

So my impression of Hilary that night was that she was mysterious, intriguing, beautiful and really smart (as described by Ben and confirmed by her conversation), which added up to her being sort of unattainable.

A number of weeks later, Hilary called me at work and left a message. I'll never forget her gambit: "I understand from Ben that you wouldn't be averse to going out on a date with me." Whoever uses the word "averse" when asking someone out?! It might sound geeky, but it hit the spot. As it turns out, Ben had told us separately that each had the hots for the other (I never took Ben to be a matchmaker!).

We met for drinks on a Friday night. The night before I sustained a nasty knee injury playing soccer. For those who care or know about these things, I tore my ACL and meniscus and ended up requiring two surgeries. That Friday night I could hardly walk, but I wouldn't miss the date. I figured I couldn't do any more damage to my knee, so I may as well see if I could get lucky! Just kidding, Ann!!! Anyway, the date went really wonderfully. We kissed beside my cab as the snow fell, and Hilary turned and ran off into the night. The rest is history!

Posted by julian at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Julian and I met in 2003 at the illustrious Mexicali Rosa's on the Rideau Canal. My friend Ben had invited me out to join him, and I asked him as to whether any interesting boys would be there. He thought there might be. Once I got there, Ben kept pointing out Julian to me in a rather obvious way. Embarrassed, I proceeded to try and ignore him all night so that I wouldn't look too interested, though I thought he had lovely eyes. I decided that ignoring him cultivated a rather mysterious aura.

Later that night, I was giving Ben a ride home, and being the generous sort, also offered to give Julian and his friend a ride too. My car was rather, well, 'dented' might be a polite way of saying it. I had also covered it in stickers. So they were all teasing me about my driving and the stickers and I ignored them even more. But Julian made some great jokes in the backseat, which intrigued me further. I've always loved a sense of humour.

I didn't hear from Julian again for a while, but my our friend Ben kept mentioning how Julian thought I was so interesting, and how he'd really like to see me again. He also told me what a nice, smart and sweet guy he was. When I finally realised that the ignoring tactic wasn't working I called Julian and asked him out. He wasn't too hard to convince (and I made Ben suss him out first).

For our second encounter (and first date) we met at another fine Ottawa dining establishment, a Mexican restaurant in the market called the Blue Cactus. (Julian wasn't much help in picking the venue since he hadn't seemed to have heard of any restaurant I'd suggested.) I'd kind of forgotten how strong it smelled in there of Mexican food. But despite the smell of quesadillas we managed to make it romantic anyway and ended up chatting for a long time. Conversation came extremely easily and I found I could talk to him about almost anything. Julian mentioned that he'd hurt his knee the day before, and when he got up to go to the bathroom, I realised he could barely walk at all. (He found out later he'd torn his ACL.) I was so flattered and touched that he'd come out with me that night being in so much pain.

When we said goodnight, Julian asked me if I wanted to see him the next day. I did.

Since we've been together, we've had lots of adventures, including a week-long festival in the Nevada desert, fly-fishing near Lake Placid, driving through Death Valley in August, staying at a B&B in Newfoundland, and moving thousands of miles across the country to Vancouver.

So far, we still haven't run out of things to talk about, he still has a great sense of humour, and I still want to see him tomorrow, and every day after that.

Posted by hilary at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)