Mild Amusement

If you've been following any of my posts lately, there's a good chance you've heard me talk about cooking more often lately. Not surprisingly, my real-life conversations involve the same topic (I'm nothing if not consistent). The part that I especially like to point out is that I like plating the food, usually with the joke that "I get to play with the food." In some ways, this is a bit of a departure for me. I haven't traditionally spent tons of time in the kitchen, so it's not like I've had tons of opportunity to realize that I enjoy this. So, in some ways, it amuses people because it is new and different for me. Hell, I'm amused by all of this for the same basic reason. Now, by itself, that would all be just an amusing factoid. However, apparently I've mentioned that I like plating the food enough times that my siblings and their spouses all decided that my birthday gift should revolve around this. They got me precision tools in ord...

A little while back, the Mild Girlfriend and I started taking dance classes. It was just one of those things we decided to for a date night, and we've both been enjoying it quite a bit. I'm not exactly a stranger to dancing, and I even have a war story or two to tell about salsa class . Still, it's been many, many years since I've done any kind of ballroom dancing, and I was legitimately worried about rust. After all, much of the guy's part is about timing and thinking ahead to make sure things work out well. Luckily for us, we had a good instructor, and the timing started to come back after a couple of lessons. Now, these classes involved a combination of dances, so I was learning quite a bit (look, Ma, I can sort of cha cha now). In hindsight, learning the different styles all at once was actually kind of helpful; it forced me to focus on both the similarities and differences. In its own way, it taught me what was important, almost by contrast, so I was able to ...

The Mild Girlfriend and I recently went to Costco to develop a bunch of photos we had taken. They actually did something weird with them, so that half of them ended up cropped in unexpected ways. That, however, was not the interesting bit (we're basically going to get those re-done). The interesting bit was the pictures themselves. As we were going through them, I was reminded of several funny events: The "I took this one of you guys" sunrise picture So, the Mild Girlfriend and I were moving a bunch of her stuff a few months back. We had to be out of the apartment pretty darn early, so we had gotten up early to pack stuff into cars. It was early enough that by the time we finished putting everything away, it was time for breakfast . We were both a bit tired, so we figured we'd just munch on some snacks in front of our cars. Now, our cars just so happened to be near the beach (this was Santa Cruz, after all), so we basically had breakfast while watching the water. N...

So, the Mild Girlfriend and I moved in together a little while back. It's been all sorts of fun, but it also means that she has more opportunity to trick me into cooking foods she likes  or figure out that I really shouldn't have dessert right before bed . However, there has been one very surprising aspect of all of this. Since we're cooking together a lot more often now , that means my diet has effectively changed. Since I'm involved in the actual preparation process, this doesn't feel particularly weird or anything. Sure, I eat more grapefruit now than I used to, but that has its own set of funny stories tied to it . All in all, I really don't mind. It works out pretty well for me. The only thing I can really point to that has changed is that I bring lunch more often now. It's just a little bit easier to pack lunch when we're both directly in control of the food in the fridge. All it really takes is making a tiny bit more when we cook, so that some...

I've written about playing basketball a couple of times , so it should come as no surprise that I enjoy watching professional basketball. As far as I'm concerned, it's a fun sport regardless of whether I'm watching or playing the game. This, however, was not the case for the Mild Girlfriend. She had a passing understanding of the game, but it's not like she was a huge fan. As you can probably guess, this led to a few laughs along the way. To make sense of this coming story, let me go on a small tangent. My cousin is dating a girl who isn't really into sports, either. A while back, however, she posted Facebook pictures of the two of them at a Warriors game. That's the local team, and they're pretty good this year, so it didn't surprise me at all that they were at a game. However, what did catch my attention was the caption. I don't remember the exact wording of it all, but I distinctly remember the phrase "the things I do for love" i...

I had to go to Las Vegas for a work conference recently. Yes, everyone gave me all manner of crap for going there for work (I think my favorite version of that involved the words "poor baby"). Still, that was all before the trip even started. Sure, it was funny, but it didn't even hold a candle to the things that came out of people's mouths during the trip. Now, some of you might be thinking that posting funny things that people said in Vegas is cheating. All of these comments were from people who were sober. They were not the result of a long night of drinking, nor were they uttered while a scantily clad person distracted the person. Nope, this was all stuff that people had no excuse for. The location and its reputation for debauchery had nothing to do with all this. So, without further ado, I present a small collection of things that people said on this trip: Kid: "They should make a building for children and adults that has all the medicine in it....

I've mentioned it a few times lately, but the Mild Girlfriend and I like to cook . This is a bit of a change for me, since I traditionally looked at cooking as a necessary evil. I always said that I could stave off starvation if left to my own devices, and that was good enough for me. That was always the plan, you know? Well, life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls. At this point, I have a couple of dishes that I could make if pressed to bring something to a pot luck. Now, getting those dishes to the point where I wouldn't be ashamed to bring them has involved help from both the Mild Girlfriend and family , at times. Either way, I can actually make a dish or two on my own. I find this quite amusing in its own right, but that's not even close to where the story ends. The Mild Girlfriend finds all of this just as amusing as I do, but she always points out that I should know how to cook things that I would happily eat. In particular, she goes one farther: she thin...