ON THIS DAY | Our First Date

On this day, eight years ago, Sly and I went on our first date. I don’t normally keep track of this, but I have been archiving some old photos and found a bunch that I thought were lost in an HD crash. As I found more and more that were previously thought to be lost, I wondered if there were any taken on this date, April 28.

It was then that I discovered we had gone on our first date, eight years ago today, at Fleur de Lys. Mentioning this restaurant in my previous post and discovering these photos today is a total coincidence. Up until we were married  we considered this date to be our “anniversary.” Even though we had met several years prior to going on our first date, we never really connected until this point in our lives.

Back then, Sly lived in DC, I lived in SF.  He was in between leaving the Navy and starting his new job in the private sector. During his break he flew out to SF. We were kind of skirting around the issue of friendship and dating. I told Sly that I just wanted to date him for now — see where it went — and that my definition of dating was, you know, going on dates.

After lots of research, Sly made reservations at Fleur de Lys, which was an SF fine dining institution at the time. We arrived early, drank champagne, then proceeded to eat everything off the menu including all the fois gras upgrades. Sly had a long consultation with the sommelier and together they chose this wine. We took maybe seven photos of the entire evening but in an age when camera phones and digital cameras weren’t quite up to par when it came to low light photography, those photos aren’t much to look at. Besides one gluttonous trip to Vegas, I don’t think I have ever felt so full after a meal. And I was kind of boozy after drinking so much.

For the second part of our date, Sly took me to see The Temptation of Faust (?) at the SF Opera. I barely remember the opera because I was sort of boozy, and according to Sly, chomping on my gum very loudly, through the majority of the opera. I had also broken out in hives, which sometimes happens when I drink too much wine/sulfates. Despite all this, Sly still continued to “date” me.

Even though the restaurant is no longer open and the photos that we took are pixelated and out-of-focus, we still have the the most important thing: the memories. And each other.