Mild Amusement

Everyone has their quirks . We are all unique individuals, so we're bound to come up with little things that we do that work for us but that aren't necessarily common. In my particular case, I tend to get very curious about things. If you say something that I've never heard before, I'm going to either ask you about it or look it up myself. There's no real explanation for it, since there's no requirement that I get more information about the topic at hand. It's just how my brain is wired. The interesting thing about this is when my quirk coincides with someone else's quirks. In this particular instance, we're talking about the Mild Wife. She likes to watch YouTube videos of some women in the beauty industry, so I've overheard lots of commentary about things like foundation. It's not immediately applicable to my person, since I don't wear make up. Also, I am entirely ignorant about the finer points of foundation or brushes. However, given...

Language seems to be something of a fluid thing in my life. For one, I have a mixed heritage, so  I speak more than one language . The ability to speak Spanish is just one of those things that I've inherited from my family. Sure, the accent can throw me off , but I figure I'd be fine if I have to be in South America for an extended period of time. Similarly, I've started to learned some Kapampangan from the Mild Wife's side of the family. It's not a language that I'm familiar with, but I'm learning bits of it for the same reason that I learned Spanish: I'm around it quite a bit. Interestingly enough, I've realized that some of it actually sounds vaguely like Cantonese. Kapampangan has an interesting way of explaining family relations, to the point where the same word is used for both "older sister" and "older female cousin." However, the word sounds roughly like "ah-che," while the Cantonese word for "older siste...

The Mild Wife and I have a running joke about the sensuous life . It grew out of a conversation with some friends of ours, and it basically turned into a tongue in cheek remark about trying to inject little touches of flair into our life. If you didn't read that initial post, we're talking about things like buying the dino nuggets instead of the regular, boring chicken nuggets. Let's just say that it involves some chuckling whenever it comes up. Now, it's worth noting that the sensuous life is only remarkable because it's not the norm. If we ate super expensive food every meal and had diamond encrusted items lying around the mansion, that wouldn't be the sensuous life. That'd just be life. It'd be a filthy rich one (and I can't even imagine living like that), but it'd just be what we knew. Basically, we appreciate the sensuous life precisely because it is the spice of life, not the staple of life. In fact, my favorite way to describe our lifest...

The Mild Wife and I are both fairly adventurous eaters. We both like trying new foods, and we're perfectly happy to eat something that we've never eaten before. Hell, we have a favorite squab place . Now, there are some foods that one or two of us doesn't like (in my case, bitter melon  immediately comes to mind), but that list isn't particularly long. I'm also not sure that there are many foods that end up on both of our "don't like" lists, either. The point is, it's usually not a big deal for us to go to a restaurant and see something on the menu that surprises us. Usually, we're willing to give it a shot. In my case, it's often a matter of, "well, when else am I ever going to get to try this?" Maybe I like it, maybe I hate it. However, I'll ultimately know from experience what to think. None of this trying to be a fortune teller with my taste buds, especially if I'm trying to judge combinations of foods and spices tha...

So, there is a common idiom in English about going around in circles . It means roughly that you're not really accomplishing anything because you end up at the same spot you started (that's what happens when you traverse a circle). It's a simple enough notion, and the saying rarely needs explaining. It just sort of makes sense. Well, let me tell you, I have reason to disagree. In my case, I don't mean the sort of hypothetical running around in circles, I mean the literal kind. I have literally gone around in circles and found value in the exercise. It's also worth noting that the act wasn't a way of getting exercise, either. No one would dispute that running laps around a track has its own value (even if you're the type who finds that kind of exercise boring, you can understand the logic behind it). However, in my case, it wasn't a way to get exercise. I have different, more amusing, reasons. In the first case, I was sitting around at home, and I s...

I like pizza. It is one of the items that I can happily eat over and over again, with nary a complaint (burritos are the other item in this category). On some level, it's a simple recipe: bread, sauce, cheese, and toppings. The toppings, it should be noted, don't have to be anything fancy. Sure, some restaurants try to differentiate themselves by using nicer ovens or high-end ingredients. But at its core, you really just need some dough and a few toppings. It's fun in its simplicity. Personally, the reason I like it so much is that it's a hearty food. Let's not forget that the base of this whole thing is basically a really flat bread. That's the sort of food that's meant to provide sustenance. Put another way, I've never seen someone go on a diet and insist that they should eat pizza to get their nutrition for the day (I have seen a salad-heavy rich people diet , though). You just wouldn't describe pizza as a dainty item. Fortunately for me, the ...

A few weeks back, the Mild Wife and I decided to check out the Bay Area Book Festival . It was close enough to us that we figured it'd be fun to check out, and we both do some writing. In my case it's much more of a hobby (you are reading my personal, just-for-funsies blog, after all), but I do like to write nevertheless. Hell, I even write a small piece of fiction every now and then . Basically, we were excited enough about the concept of a bunch of workshops dedicated to books and to writing that we decided to partake in the festival. Now, the festival lasted the whole weekend, so there were quite a few moments that the Mild Wife and I enjoyed from the whole process. Better yet, the Mild Wife and I didn't go to the same sessions all weekend long, so we often had fun comparing notes and reporting amusing anecdotes from our respective experiences. There was one guy who spoke to the Japanese author in Japanese and knew just a tad too much about Japanese literature for it t...