Mild Amusement

If you ever happen to go wine tasting, you're bound to hear some interesting descriptions of the beverage that you are consuming. I'm starting to pick out a few ingredients in my food , but there's no way I can match all of the adjectives and descriptions that someone describing wine can. I'm not sure I even know what some of those fruits look like, much less what they taste like. Still, one of the more interesting things I've heard is " fruit forward ." Basically, you can really taste the fruit. That doesn't necessarily mean that the wine is sweet, but it does mean that you should be able to taste whatever fruit they put in the wine. It sort of makes sense when you stop to think about it, but it's not a term I hear all that often in daily life. However, the Mild Girlfriend and I just so happened to hear it a while back at a wine tasting thing. It just sort of stuck out in our minds. Now, fast forward a few weeks, and we'd gone out to ea...

Several years ago, I started working out with some friends at work. Specifically, we started doing CrossFit work outs at work . A buddy of mine opened up a gym, and he wanted some company as he tried out this whole newfangled CrossFit thing. It was a lot of fun, so we decided to keep doing it. Ultimately, that led to a different blog where we kept track of the work outs . Funnily enough, that blog itself has led to some hilarity . Now, I didn't start that blog, but it more or less fell into my lap to keep it updated. I used to actually send out emails to people at work, since some people missed the work out. However, at one point, someone decided that they wanted to be able to search through them. Email isn't the best format to search, sort, and filter, so it magically turned into a blog. Either way, though, I happen to be the main contributor to that CrossFit blog. And since I've been writing those blog posts, I have a routine down. I usually reserve Sunday morning...

It just so happens that I had to have blood drawn twice in a short period of time. The first time, I was donating blood with a very interesting technician . The second time, I had to go in for my usual yearly check up. I'm sure other folks have done the same thing before: you check your cholesterol, blood sugar, and various other numbers related to your relative health. Basically, they want to actually measure how healthy you are. In order to do so, though, they have to draw blood. This wasn't my first time having to do this, so I knew the routine. I showed up early in the morning, got my number, and waited for my turn (it's not a particularly hard routine). All in all, that whole portion of the interaction was relatively smooth. I always end up wishing that they would call my number faster, but it's not like I had an unreasonable wait. Like I said, it was a pretty reasonable, mundane wait. The actual blood draw portion, however, was slightly less mundane. The nurse...

Every now and then, I need to have someone stab me in the elbow to draw blood . Usually, it's part of my yearly check ups and physical, but sometimes, I donate blood. Either way, someone with a medical degree gets to stab me. I've had to do it enough times where I'm used to it, but, somehow, it still leads to a few chuckles. Take the last time that I donated blood. I made an appointment to get blood drawn, but I didn't realize that I was the last appointment for the day. Maybe it was because people wanted to be done for the day, or maybe they were trainees. Either way, I had a rather interesting experience. The technician/nurse/medically-trained person that did all of it had to ask a bunch of questions. It makes sense: you don't want to draw blood from someone with a high risk of disease or who might somehow taint the blood supply. That includes a bunch of questions about where I was born and my genetic lineage . That just blew the man away. He kept saying somethi...

My sister doesn't live in the same state as I do, so it's always good when she visits. We usually end up hanging out at least part of the time, and it's good to catch up. Sometimes, it leads to a little bit of hilarity because I let her use my room (I get up really early and don't want to wake her by walking through her sleeping area). Either way, it's pretty much always a good time. Well, she and her husband visited recently. There was a lot of the usual banter about life and people we knew, but one exchange in particular stood out. See, my brother-in-law works for a company based in the Bay Area. He was flying in for work, so my sister decided to tag along on the trip and visit family (i.e., us) while he was there. However, since he was in the area for work, his company put him up in a hotel. Given that they'd already paid for the room, he planned on using it the whole time. It just sort of made sense. Now, my mom had assumed that both my sister and my br...

I wear cologne. That in it of itself isn't too funny, though the process of purchasing it has led to more than a few laughs in the past. Luckily, I usually buy big enough containers of my cologne so that I don't have to go through that process very often. As it turns out, though, I'm starting to run out of my usual cologne. Yup, it's time for another cologne purchasing post. First of all, I was toying with the idea of getting a different scent. I like the scent I have now, but I've been wearing it for a while. Maybe it was a grass-is-always-greener thing, or maybe my natural curiosity was kicking in. Either way, I was thinking of trying something else, so I mentioned it to the Mild Girlfriend while we were out shopping. It turned out that she liked my cologne more than I did, so her vote was to keep going with the current scent. In fact, she dubbed it my "signature scent" (hence the title of this post). Well, then. If you put it like that, I pretty m...

If you've shared a meal with me, there are about 50/50 odds that you've heard some variation of the " come y calla " story. It just sort of naturally comes up, because I do eat pretty much anything. And heck, it's a funny story. On the other hand, there are some folks who are picky about their food. As you can imagine, it gets very interesting when these people get paired up with me or my siblings. Well, guess what? My brother and sister both married people who are somewhat picky eaters. I sort of take it for granted that we're going to have a broader palette than most people, but they're also on the other side of the norm. So, if we're below average in terms of being exacting about our food, they're both above average. As you can imagine, this has led to a few amusing exchanges. Now, both of my siblings' spouses recognize that they don't eat the same things that we do. They also have senses of humor about the whole thing, so they poke ...