Mild Amusement

People who have talked to me in the recent past know that my allergies have been acting up far more than usual lately. I've never really been a sickly person, but I have been sniffly and congested more in the last few months than in the last few years before that, combined. What makes the whole experience so bad is that it makes you unfit to be in public (do *you* want to hang out with someone liable to get snot on you?) and it makes you feel miserable. I started taking medicine on a daily basis to try to keep it under control, but every now and again, it would still flare up. Worse yet, it was entirely unpredictable. I've had myself tested to try to determine to what I was allergic, but nothing conclusively really came up (dust mites, pollen). I dusted and vacuumed regularly to try to prevent any of that from building up and causing problems, but every now and then, my sinuses would just decide to rebel for no apparent reason. I also know that although I can handle the col...

I'm not exactly a rookie at weddings; I'm old enough where I've been to a wedding or two . You get the person a gift, you go to the celebrations, you (usually) wear a suit or a tux, and you have a good time celebrating with someone you care about. Sure, the details change for each and every wedding, but it's not like I suddenly have to learn a new language or stand on my head in order to go to a wedding. My point is, if you've been to a few weddings, you can fall on past experience to understand what's going on. Several years back, my I went to a wedding for a friend that I've nicknamed " Mom ." I didn't know many other people there, but remember, this was someone I called "Mom." There was no way that I wasn't going to go to this wedding. And as it turned out, one of my good friends was also knew Mom, so the two of us went to this wedding together. Anyhow, the actual ceremony was in a garden setting, so we all walked up and wai...

A long time ago, I remarked that my sister thinks I read very quickly . It's one of those things that I've apparently done for a very long time, but I've never really spent much time thinking about it. It's not like it's ever made much of a difference one way or the other. Until recently, that is. A shorter time ago, my brother and sister got me some comic books for my birthday. Well, to be precise, they got me the comic books a few days before my birthday, so I was pleasantly surprised. What's more, they'd actually gone back to a Secret Santa wish list from years past to figure out which ones I thought would be interesting (clever of them, I must say), so I was even more pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was so pleased by the gift, that I was reading them within the hour. Now, just to give you an idea of how much there was to read, one of these was an inches-thick anthology. It was easily several hundred pages long. Even if you account for the fact that th...

One of the funniest things I have ever heard come out of a kid's mouth is that lunch was her favorite part of the day . That wasn't the only kid to say something to that effect, either. I've heard other kids say some variation of, "this food is awesome" enough times to realize that my mom is a legitimately good cook. It's actually gotten to the point where my mom has a reputation among the parents; they're always excited when she cooks for a function, since they know it will be quality food. As it turns out, this seems to run in the family. It's just not the same type of reputation. I've always treated cooking as a bit of a chore. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a good meal, but my criteria for what to prepare have always involved speed of preparation and simplicity. As I like to say, I can cook well enough to stave off starvation. I know this isn't going to impress anyone any time soon, but it's yet to cause me any grief. And ...