Mild Amusement

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I deal with little kids all the time. They run around my house during the day ( sometimes literally ), and I see them on my days off. This has led to all manner of amusing exchanges , shenanigans , and even some added stress on my part . Mind you, none of these are my actual children, but I've grown very accustomed to dealing with munchkins. It's actually kind of fun, and it occasionally gives me a way to relate to folks with young children of their own. That last part also means that I have opinions on things like daycare etiquette, and I can talk to other folks my age about their experiences with their kids. I know full well that their job is much harder than mine (I've yet to wake up in the middle of the night because my kid demanded attention of some sort), but we can hold conversations about other aspects of their development. I never quite expected to be in this position a decade ago, but that's ...

I like to listen to music while I'm working on things that require concentration. Since my day job generally requires a good amount of concentration and abstract thought, it is pretty common to see me with headphones on at work. In fact, one guy even commented that I looked like Mickey Mouse because of the shape of the headphones and the way they were oriented on my head. Regardless, I usually have some sort of music playing while I get my work done. Now, I don't have any particular song or album that I listen to over and over, so I usually just let my whims take over. I once spent an entire day coding away to Janet Jackson's "Escapade."  I don't quite remember what I was working on, but I somehow got into a good groove (the work kind, not the booty-shaking kind) and I just kept playing the song over and over again. It's a very haphazard process, and it keeps things interesting. I've found, though, that music services like Pandora don't really ...

It all started out innocently enough. I was sitting at home taking care of some mundane task or another, when my mom asked me to pick up a birthday cake. My mom was throwing one of her renowned birthday parties for one of the day care kids, and every other adult in the house was tied up. So in the logical next step, my mom asked me to go pick it up. All I had to do was pick it up and get it back home. I agreed readily enough, since it seemed like a simple enough task. The cake was probably something like a mile away, so it was a short enough drive to the store. It had already been paid for, and I literally just had to walk in, carry it out, and then drive back home. However, my mom did caution me that if there was a line or I was otherwise delayed at the store, I shouldn't enter the house through the front door. Little kids tend to be experts at spotting and picking out cake, so the idea was to keep it out of sight until it was time for the cake to actually be eaten. This seeme...

It's been about six months since I've last written about the things that little kids say around me , so I figure I'm due for another one of these posts. As the title implies, I think that these kids are just being clever or funny, rather than trying to make fun of them. Either way, it never gets old. It's ridiculously fun having them around.  So, without further ado: Me: "Hey, we have some Halloween candy, if you want some" Kid: "Oh yeah!" Me: "Do you know what you're supposed to say when you go trick or treating?" Mom: "Yeah, what are the magic words?" Kid: "Please and thank you!" I will readily admit that this is not the kid's fault, we misled him with the wording. Still, it was amazing to watch how easily and readily that answer came to his mind. And technically, he wasn't wrong, either. The best part, though, was the big, fat, ear-to-ear smile he immediately had as soon as he said those words; ...

I have Chinese family, which means that I grew up around Chinese customs. I know how to play mahjong , for example. Unfortunately, that didn't quite translate to the language, since I didn't practice it much growing up. I can pick out a few words in Cantonese, usually enough to know when other people are talking to or about me. I can't make out too much more than that, but I'm not completely ignorant of what people are saying around me. And as with any language that you're trying to learn, the words that tend to come easiest are usually swear words or common refrains that get repeated often. My theory on this is that swear words are almost universally uttered with a harsh tone, so it's easier to pick them out from the rest of the language. The common refrains are precisely that: common. You hear them a lot, and eventually your ear gets used to them, so you can pick them out from conversation. Either way, it's not uncommon for people who don't speak muc...