Yesterday after work, we went to the 17th annual Taste of Newport event, which is like a huge, upscale street faire on Newport Center Drive in Fashion Island, Newport. (For locals to the So Cal area, this event goes thru the entire weekend, last day being this Sunday, September 18.) 33 local restaurants, from the casual chain La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill to the classy The First Cabin at The Balboa Bay Club & Resort, present samples of their best in introductory booths, with incentives like the $20 dining certificate we picked up for McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant. You get a “rechargeable” debit card upon entering the event, and use those to buy the food. Some vendors, like Sunkist’s Almond Munchies, are giving their entire proceeds to the Katrina Disaster victims.

When we first arrived at the venue, a Police Tribute Band, “Fallout”, was performing onstage. After them was The Derek Bordeaux Group doin’ their R&B, Motown and Soul groove. And then, as we made our way to the 5th row from the stage, MACY GRAY began her performance punctually at 9:15pm. (The B-52s are featured for today, Saturday, and Hootie & the Blowfish are featured for tomorrow’s schedule.) I’m not a huge Macy Gray fan and I had never heard any of her music aside from the two overplayed songs on the radio, but I really enjoyed her boppity and bluesy styles. People started getting drunk around us, the y0ung on beer and the old on wine, and once again I was in that too-familiar mode of watching out for other people and their exaggerated, oblivious bodily movements, making sure I wasn’t going to get myself hit or spilled on. This time, however, the company I was in was not drunk and it provoked endless smiles on me to be able to enjoy the evening with my Bacardi (low carb) Green Apple and not worry about having to watch my back, and knowing that should anything happen, my protective company would have my back. There were actually a few times when my unspoken rising concern about some rambunctious guy near me caused my date to hug me and swing me around so that I was on his other side, placing himself between me and the threat. Big brownie points, I tell ya.

Speaking of brownie points — and I have gone back and forth about whether I should blog this — he appears to have a sensitivity and consideration to me or “us” that I have never seen before in anyone I had ever dated, but which quality my girlfriends and I display instinctively and just chalk up to “a girl thing.” After we buy some food item that requires a flat surface to eat off of, we’d look around for some open seats at the round tables set up in the middle of the aisles in between the food booths (technically on the grassy center divider section of the street that the faire’s on). There’d be a couple of people on one side of the table and those looking for repose would ask to sit with them, and people there are generally friendly and entertaining, especially the older people (the young college age people were just loud and drunk, like young college people usually are). Anyway, here’s the brownie points part. We walked by a table w/2 scantily dressed women probably in their mid 20s (there were quite a few of those, and I had not known before last nite that Newport is the Land o’ Plastic Barbies) and after we passed, he said, “Well, there were some seats open by those 2 women back there, but I didn’t think that was appropriate.” I did feel a bit uncomfortable walking by those women and realizing they had the rare open seating at their table, but nothing I consciously registered. I was just so used to having to deal w/that stuff from my last relationship. I asked him, “Inappropriate for whom?” He said, almost nonchalantly, while looking around for other tables, “Inappropriate to sit with 2 women while I’m out with my girlfriend.” I think it was a slip of the tongue for him, and I chose to ignore the title, but what will forever stick out in my mind is the realization that someone will consciously choose to forego, without even being asked, hanging out w/attractive young women in favor of keeping me comfortable as a prophylactic measure. I know more men who will make a point of sitting with these 2 women and hide behind the excuse of “Well, there’s no other seats! What are you so insecure about? It’s not like I’m gonna ask for their number or something, geez!” Altho my female friends and I would never do that in a role reversal situation, we certainly don’t expect the same consideration from men.

My date’s favorite part of the night, he told me, was chatting w/the people we sat with. At one table, we joined two older women (by older I mean probably 60s) and at first it was laughing about how they have their men under their control as their husbands brought them food item after food item, drink after drink, so that they didn’t have to get up and fight the crowd. And then that somehow evolved to talking about what my and my date’s occupations are, and it got into my writing. My date looked so proud of me as he talked about how “incredible” my writing is and I just watched him brag about me in a sort of awe. (I was in awe, not him.) Oh yeah, and it turns out that the older of the two women is also a UCLA alum – English Department. I knew there was an innate depth and intelligence to her when I first started talking to her. 🙂 When we walked off after good luck exchanges, I thanked him for all the nice things he said about my “talent.” He put his arm around me and said, “I’m your biggest fan.” I smiled and said, “I think you might be.”