George Simmons is worth twenty-one cents

On Sunday, after the conference, I went up to Oceanside to meet a certain wacky gentleman from the literal O.C. for dinner... and I believe I can claim to be the envy of all the O.C. when I say that I had dinner with the one, the only Mr. G-Money Simmons.

And folks, I have to tell you the truth.

He's funnier in person.

I don't think I have ever laughed so much in my entire life.

We talked about how the only way to lose weight is to choose foods you hate to eat. We talked about our ethnic backgrounds. We talked about spicy foods. We went to my favorite restaurant in Oceanside and we freaked out our waitress on more than one occasion (I swear, my new favorite thing to do is try to explain what "water ice" is and see people's expressions - classic).

I also discovered that George is worth twenty-one cents. Our waitress decided to give George back four dollars, even though the change was supposed to be $3.79. I concluded that George was obviously only worth 21 cents.

We drove around aimlessly in Escondido. I pronounced my last name for him so now he is one of five people in the world who can say it right (fyi: it does not rhyme with glass. Short "a" sound. British-ish).

He told me he doesn't like Cold Stones. We cussed a lot (Julia, I think you'd be proud).

He told me he doesn't like the beach. So naturally, that's where I insisted we go. Kerri, I don't understand it either. He told me he kept seeing signs for the beach, which I never saw, so I decided that he was going to drive to alley and murder me and steal my suitcase and post photographs of what kind of toothpaste I use (Aquafresh, if you were wondering). I tried to escape from the car but we got to the beach before I was successful.

This is George, not going onto the beach but staying firmly planted on the sidewalk.

This is us, schmucking it up for the camera.

A beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean.

Afterwards, George dropped me off at my grandma's and off he went... with my camera that I left in the front seat of his car. Needless to say I was on the phone with him the next morning.

So ends my 13th meeting with a member of the Diabetes O.C. Scott mentioned in George's comments that I was in the lead with meeting people from the O.C., which I'm not sure is even true. I know Kerri has met a lot of D-bloggers, but I'm not sure how many. In order of appearance, I have:

Jon Schlaman, Amy Tenderich, Lori Rode, BetterCell, Julia, Kate, Art-Sweet, Scott Strumello, Kerri Morrone, Gina Capone, Sean Hughes, George Simmons.

Edit: Scott posted his list and it made me realize that I left out a couple people. I have also met Kelly Close from Close Concerns and Tara Dairman from Diabetes Self-Management. I didn't really think of them as a bloggers, more as just writers. I met Amberthyme last weekend, although because I didn't know it was her, I'm not counting it as a real meeting. So I guess that brings me to 15 OC'ers.

As for the Minnesota trip that was also mentioned on George's blog, mostly it's just an overwhelming desire at this point. I know we'll eventually get to Minnesota, but right now, my finances need to recover from these two little escapades. And I need to find a job. But I'll keep you posted. Just like I do with everything else.