Mild Amusement

At work, we tend to hear about cultural differences a lot, since we work with people from lots of different parts of the world. Even if you've never actually had someone tell you this, you probably understand this on a gut level. People from different cultures eat different foods, have different customs, and even ask about different things when it comes to small talk . Now, it's all well and good to understand this on a theoretical level, but it gets far more interesting in practice. I remember the first time I visited the Philippines, some of my coworkers there asked me about my love life within an hour or so of meeting me. They were especially interested to hear about the Filipina Mild-Ex, since that was one of their people. It was all sorts of interesting, and pretty amusing all the way around. More recently, I had some foreign coworkers discuss marriage. One of the guys got engaged recently, and all of the married guys were giving him a hard time. In fact, one of the ma...

A while ago, a buddy of mine invited me along on a hike. A bunch of her other friends were there, and they seemed nice enough, so I made friends with a few of them, as well. Fast forward a couple of months, and the new-found friend asked if I wanted to have dinner with her and the hiking buddy. They wanted to go to a ramen place that was supposed to be really good, so I happily accepted the offer. Little did I know the laughter that would result from this. Shortly after I agreed to go, my hiking buddy commented that she could provide some company on the ride back across the bridge, since she had to come back the same way I was going. A couple of days later, she asked if I would mind giving her a ride back home after dinner. Now, let me be clear: it was all very innocent and given that the we were heading in the same direction, riding together made a lot of sense. Let me also be clear about this, though: I am a smart aleck and I couldn't pass up the chance for some friendly ribbin...

A few weeks back, I made plans to meet up with an old friend over the weekend. We were trying to figure out when schedules would align, and we finally settled on mid-morning on a Sunday. Given that, I figured that brunch of some sort would make sense. She agreed, and she even invited me over to her new condo so I could see the place. I didn't want to impose, but she insisted, so I consented to this plan. Now, I don't generally like to make life harder for my friends, so I figured I would help with said brunch. I brought a bottle of champagne as a house-warming of sorts (also, mimosas with brunch are not unheard of), and I arrived with rolled-up sleeves. I wasn't about to make her slave away in a kitchen in exchange for my company. I'm not nearly that entertaining. Before we actually got down to preparing the meal, we had to figure out what we wanted to eat. There were plenty of options: eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, waffles, a fruit compote, and miscellaneous fixi...

A while back, an old friend from out of town suggested that a bunch of us meet up for a meal. It'd been a while since I'd seen some of these folks, so I was quick to agree to this plan. Now, we all grew up together, but we don't all still live in the same city. We're still in the Bay Area, but not in the same city. Ultimately, this would make things very, very interesting. First of all, we had to figure out when we were all free. Frankly, this always feels a little bit like herding cats. I don't think it's necessarily these people that make this task hard, since I've definitely racked up a few interesting stories about coordinating social events with others involved. Still, it took several emails back and forth to settle on a date and time. At one point during the process, I even got yelled at for not responding to the email thread fast enough. Still, we ultimately settled on a date and sorted out what everyone was going to bring. It only took about 80 em...