Beauty, Grace, and The Ex Pt I

It has been a while since I posted,......work is killing me. Today is Friday and since it has already been a 70 hour week, I thought I might make some time to catch up this morning. I have several posts in the works, but a primer on what's going on now is due.
Well Nascar has been promoted to girlfriend status.....and now she has a name, Paula!!!! Wow, what a girl. Perhaps I have hit the motherlode. She is calm, sweet, beautiful, nice, and not even remotely close to psycho. She is gentle, and can be mean when she gets fired up (not to me of course), but she is a like a mother bear when the cubs are in danger.....she is fearless. Best of all, she gives me a run for my money. She is not afraid to challenge me on something I say, nor is she opposed to teasing me and does so at will. I think I like it.....
So a little catching up and then more about her....
The last real post regarding her was the Rodeo....and it has been great ever since. Last weekend was our first real time together, alone and in private. We were supposed to go to the fair last Friday night,...but she was not feeling well all day at work. Once I got ready and was heading her direction, I called her and she was much worse than earlier. We put it off the date. The best part was that I did not feel she was BSing me. I knew she was going to be home and I knew she was not just backing out. This has been an issue in dating. Women frequently change their minds and I often get stiffed on the first date...STOOD UP I SAY, STOOD UP! This was not the case.
We agreed to get together the next night. I went back home and decided maybe it was a good time for me to relax as well, cook some dinner, hang out in the apartment and just enjoy not having ThatGirl wearing my ass out, or keeping me up all night. This was the first quiet night for me in 6 months.....However, Paula and I ended up talking for almost 3 hours on the phone.....just learning about each other, our histories, our futures and so forth...it was very nice and the conversation was very sincere about all things discussed. Lots of laughs too......
The next night we agreed that we didn't want to do anything and she invited me to her house, about 25 miles away in a sleepy little town of Yulee (known as Po-dunk) by us city boys (hehehehehehehe). I offered to cook her dinner. When I showed up I was amazed at how squared away this woman was. Her house was very nice, she has two very nice cars, two great dogs, and a good bit of land.....She answered the door and took my breath away, she was looking,...well,...ummmm..... HOT! I gave her a light peck on the lips and we proceeded to the Kitchen. We made a couple of drinks and I began to prepare dinner. The whole time she was there chopping and cutting and stirring right with me...it was all very natural.....all very easy going. Finally, I pinned her against the sink and planted one on her....not a sissy kiss,...more like a Fireworks and Rockets Red Glare kiss!!! YEEEHAAAAAA
We turned on some music and just enjoyed talking while dinner was cooking....we ate dinner and laughed all the way through it. We cleaned up together and it was like well oiled machine,...everything was in sinc and like we had done it a million times before together. We never missed a beat in the conversation. I think we both felt incredibly comfortable.....after dishes, we put on some music, Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits, a little R&B old school, and we eneded up dancing to the entire CD. More smoooooooching and bunches of laughs. It was then that I realized that she completely trusted me, enjoyed my company immensly, and we were very natural together.
About 11:30 we sat on the sofa to watch a little TV, but I was getting very sleepy. By 12:00 I needed to go home,..since I didn't want to stay (even though it was certainly something I could have done). I felt like it was better to just get a few dates and hang outs behind us, so that we both were comfortable moving forward....I left. As soon as I pulled into my apartment complex,....my phone rings.....I have gotten these calls before and feared the worst. Maybe a back out for the next date or something. It was Paula,...when I answered the phone she sounded very somber, as if she needed to tell me something. I asked if she was alright and she said "No". It was then that I feared the rest of the phone call.....I had been waiting for a bombshell, it has happened so many times before.....
Was she married and had not told me (yep that's happened before)
Did she have kids? (Yep that too)
Did we not have the Chemistry I thought we had??? (See Go Carts, Mini-Golf and Body Language post).
What could it be,..I was already expecting the worst.......