Mild Amusement

The Mild Fiancée and I like to listen to music. We don't have a TV in the house , so it's not uncommon for us to fire up a laptop to play some background music. The particular music changes from time to time, but we both appreciate having something playing while we cook, for example. It just makes the house a little more lively while we're going about our day. Now, we don't like the exact same music all the time, but our tastes do overlap quite a bit. We both grew up with R&B, hip hop, and rap from the same time (we're only about a year apart in age), so it's not uncommon for both of us to recognize a song or an artist from that period. We're no strangers to Tupac . Or Elvis Crespo , for that matter (as an aside, we had some friends over, and we all unanimously decided that the video I linked to was one of the worst we've ever seen). However, there are places where our music tastes diverge. It's never a problem, since variations on things we ...

Most everyone I know enjoys Chinese food of some sort. Sure, you may not like every single dish, but there's usually something that you enjoy. Maybe it's as simple as broccoli with beef, or maybe you like something like  Mapo tofu  (one of my personal favorites). Either way, there's usually something on the menu for everyone. Heck, I even know folks who like the highly Americanized, fake-Chinese food. Now, if you don't quite know the difference, maybe an analogy with Mexican food will help: If you don't already know what "chingaderas" mean, don't look it up at work Basically, the stuff that is often sold commercially has been drastically, drastically altered in order to sell. In the example above, real tacos don't have nearly as much seasoning as the commercial versions. Similarly, the tortillas are a vessel for eating your food, not an invitation for 3-D food sculptures. Chinese food suffers from the very same alteration. There is no su...

This story starts, as many of mine do, with a conversation. Specifically, I was chatting over IM with a coworker buddy of mine. We were talking about a bunch of stuff, though most of it was work related (no surprise there). Of course, the whole thing took a very interesting turn that made us both laugh. Without giving away the details, this friend had a bit of a complicated decision to make. I'm not exactly the most knowledgable in that particular area, but I at least knew what he was talking about. I'm also halfway decent at listening to stuff (as I like to say, I do a halfway decent impression of a wall), so the conversation went smoothly enough. At some point about halfway through, this exchange happened: Him: "Man, I wish I didn't agonize about this stuff so much." Me: "Meh, it happens. We all have our quirks." Him: "Oh yeah? What's yours?" Me: "Haha. Take your pick. There's a bunch." Yup, we all have our lit...

Summer time in the new digs has been interesting. I grew up where temperature swings were pretty mild, so I've never really had to deal with actual seasons. I don't own a large number of shorts, nor do I have a winter coat. I basically have clothes that I wear all year round, and I stack/layer them as necessary. It works out fine most of the time, but I still don't think about these things reflexively. The Mild Fiancée, on the other hand, grew up where summer time temperatures would routinely reach triple digits. That sort of weather makes an impression on you, and it teaches you some habits. From what I understand, some days were spent doing as little as humanly possible to try to minimize any sweating or humidity loss. The pertinent part of this story, however, is that she dresses according to the seasons. Summer dresses are a thing for her. Well, I happened to get her a dress for her birthday. It was actually a bit of a failure on my part, because the brick and mort...

So, I attended a wedding for some family recently. Unfortunately, the Mild Fiancée was out of town for a previous engagement, so she couldn't make it. Luckily for me, I was at a table with my siblings, cousins, and family friends. Basically, people I've known for a while and around whom I am very comfortable.  Better yet, these are also folks who are around the same age. So, to recap: similar age, very comfortable around each other, happy occasion, gathered to celebrate. I knew it was going to be an interesting night based on the beverages alone. For starters, there was a bottle of soda at every table, and this is how someone at our table decided that they were going to drink said soda: That's Coca Cola in a tea cup. Yup, table 6 was fancy like that Yes, rather than use a glass, or find a glass, the solution was to use a tea cup. Note the unused wine glass sitting next to the open soda bottle. Now I'm not sure that I would've used the wine glass for soda, eit...

This year, for my birthday, the Mild Fiancée got me an honest-to-God CrossFit class at a local gym. For all that I've done CrossFit-like work outs all these years, I've never actually made it out to one of the local boxes. And since the Mild Fiancée knows that I enjoy this activity, she worked it out so that I could give it a shot. That's when the fun began. First of all, it was supposed to be a surprise. Remember, I have friends who own a CrossFit gym, so this seemed like a pretty good way to make this happen. She emailed back and forth with them secretly, so as to surprise me. However, an unrelated scheduling quirk inadvertently tipped me off. We needed to reschedule a dance class, and the lady offered up a Saturday morning. I checked our calendar and noted that we didn't have anything planned at that time, but the Mild Fiancée immediately replied that we couldn't make that morning. Apparently she noticed the actual arching of my eye brows at that point. When we...

Do you remember when I learned to crochet a baby beanie ? I was happy to pick up a new skill, but it almost felt like a parlor trick. I mean, it's not like I was going to start making beanies left and right. Right? Heck, I even finished that blog post with a joking recommendation for people I know to have more babies precisely because I figured it was a one-off type occurrence. Well, the universe has a quirky sense of humor. As it turns out, I now have FOUR close friends and family who are all pregnant. What's more, they are all due around the same time. What are the odds? I can understand four such people being pregnant at the same time, or even being pregnant in the same year (I'm at that age). But four people all due within a month or so of each other? What are the odds? One of those people just so happens to be my sister. She is the first of us siblings to have a kid, so it's an extra special big deal. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to make her ki...