Today, I blushed until the roses asked for their color back.

So, I had a business meeting today with someone whom I had never met.

He actually found me through Linked In, so I had seen a microscopic photo of him, and he looked cute. But given that I have been in the single doldrums until about two weeks ago, I really hadn't given it much thought. Besides, Linked In, unlike Facebook, doesn't disclose much personal information. And honestly, I assumed he was either gay or married. Such is A-town, right ladies?

Anywho, I showed up this morning, and he was so cute, I blushed to my knees. I mean, I blushed so hard that I blushed again, embarrassed at how much I was blushing. I blushed so deep the roses called me and asked me for their color back. Blushing, at age 37? Really? Is that what we're doing? I was suddenly transported to seventh grade when you get that first real crush, and so much is riding on the outcome. A first love letter. A first kiss. A first stolen glance in the hallway between class. A first time you feel those butterflies flutter in your stomach. While all that was delicious, all this was so new again! So unexpected! So out of my control! Control, ladies, that is what I completely lacked.

So, to cover up my blush, I smiled like a stranger in a strange land, where you don't know the language so you smile in greeting, thinking that makes you fit in. Remember that movie, "The Gods Must be Crazy?" Okay, you have no idea about that movie, but for that other person out there who watched it, I smiled as much as that Kalahari bushman in the courtroom. I mean I smiled so big that I think Businessman could see the skeletal structure of my head behind my strained skin, like an X-ray. I smiled so much in fact that he looked at me with that grin movie stars give their fawning fans, that sort of slightly embarrassed but flattered look? You know the one, you've seen it a thousand times on TMZ as stars get "spotted" by the hoi polloi. Anyway, what a great way to introduce myself. Like a fawning, friggin' idiot. Totally smooth.

Okay, all of the awkward introductions out of the way, we proceed to the business portion of the meeting. I had to take pictures at his company, and this guy (did I mention he was hot?) became a complete ham... I couldn't get him out of the photos, and really, he didn't need to be in them! I was annoyed, and then I gave him one of those looks grammar teachers give pupils who can't diagram a sentence. A bit stern. Suddenly, I had the upper hand. Oh this is fun!

Once I figured out that he was a ham and actually knew he was hot (of course he did!), then I relaxed and had fun with the meeting. There were some flirty e-mail exchanges later on, in which he couldn't see my blush, or skeletal structure.

The long and short of it is now I have a lunch date. And that, my friends, is the unbridled power of a blushing rose.