Mild Amusement

Lately, I've been on something of a salsa kick when I listen to music. I don't know what started it exactly, but I suspect it was one of those YouTube recommendations that led me to discover a video/song that I didn't know before. As is wont to happen to me , I ended up listening to one of those songs a few times, but the novelty never quite wore off. So, YouTube did what YouTube does, and it recommended more songs along those lines to me. Next thing I knew, I was knee-deep in salsa music. Now, it's interesting that I happened to land on some Peruvian salsa artists. I didn't exactly go looking for them, but I think Tony Succar happens to be Peruvian and happens to be pretty well-known, so I inevitably came across one of his songs. In fact, one of the remixes that he and Tito Nieves did of a Michael Jackson song still regularly makes its way into my rotation. Like I said, one recommendation followed another, and soon I had a few new fun songs that made their way int...

I have another story to add to the continuing saga of brewing kombucha at home. It's a much shorter story, but it's still a fun one. This time around, the flavor and carbonation of the kombucha come into play. This is not a repeat of the kombucha geyser story , I promise. I should probably mention that we're on our fifth or sixth batch of kombucha at this point, so the home brewing is definitely going full force. By that point in our brewing, though, we've more or less gotten comfortable with the process. To me, that means that seems like a good time to start experimenting and tinkering. Sure, I could keep making the exact same thing over and over again, but it's fun to try new flavors, new teas, or new sources of secondary fermentation. Basically, you never quite know if there's some new process that will make things taste that much better, so it's worth the tinkering. In this case, the Mild Wife and I decided to make our own ginger tea. I don't mean th...

When the pandemic started in our area, the Mild Wife had no idea how things would change. At the time, it seemed like the quarantine might last a few weeks, possibly a month. Now that the quarantine measures have been going for several months, however, it's easier to look back and spot some of the changes that have popped up in our lives. One of the most obvious places to spot the changes is in our meals. In a previous post, I mentioned that the Mild Wife quipped that some of our early adjustments were " struggle meals " because we ended up eating large quantities of basic staples. However, this also started bleeding over into the rest of my day, not just the three main meals. As you can probably guess from the title of the post, I'm talking about the fact that I have been eating a lot more peanut butter lately. Once we'd found a way to make sure we had basic nutrition covered, we started to add on a few more embellishments here and there. It started out as a simp...

Today's story starts with something that has become very common these days: a delivery. Since the Mild Wife and I are trying to limit contact with other people as much as possible, we're often having things delivered to the house. We've found a way to do most of our grocery shopping online, so we stick to what works. It's not quite the same as going to the store, but in some ways it's simpler because we have pared down the providers and we can change our minds about items without having to trek across a store. In this particular case, we put in an order from Costco to get a few items delivered. We do generally prefer buying items in bulk from Costco, because that's largely what their business model revolves around. There's probably a bit of inertia, too, since we used to shop at Costco before the social distancing and quarantining started to become a thing. Regardless, we ordered a few items from them, including a set of tuna cans. We like putting tuna into ...

As the days of COVID-19 are dragging on, we are having to make more adjustments to our usual routines. Some of these changes are so mundane that I haven't mentioned them at all in this blog, while others have lead to some pretty funny anecdotes . That's probably par for the course, since you wouldn't expect a global pandemic to be all giggles. As it turns out, however, not all of the anecdotes happen to us directly. Having to socially distance and remotely do things has actually led to at least one goofy episode that we found out from afar. You see, it was our niece's birthday recently, but we couldn't visit her because of the aforementioned social distancing. So, we figured we'd ship her a present and call her on her birthday. We couldn't be there in person, but we could still wish her well and try to make her feel special on her birthday. Given that shipping times have been erratic the last few months, we ordered the present with plenty of time, and it arr...

I mentioned a while ago that a few of us had started doing push ups as a bit of a game . It was mostly just a way to add a bit of fun and poke fun at each other as a team-building thing, but at some point, it sort of ran its course. It wasn't going to be novel forever, and at some point, we realized that for some people it might actually impede their work day. So, we switched it up. Instead, the members of push up club changed the format: we had to do push ups every hour during the work day. Not everyone works the same schedule, so we stuck to the hours when we knew that everyone was in the office. That worked out to 8 hours during the day, so that meant 8 sets of push ups. The actual number of reps changed over time, and we also adjusted it for each person to account for different levels of strength. So, every now and then, you would hear someone say, "okay, it's almost 9AM. Push up time!" as a few people dropped down to do their hourly push ups. That format actually...

Now that the Mild Wife and I have started making our own kombucha , the whole process has led to a steady stream of laughs. We mostly started it as a way to try to save some money, but it has led to a whole mess of chuckles throughout the whole process. It has been quite the pleasant surprise, I have to say. First of all, I should point out that I generally don't like getting my hands dirty. I don't know why, but this has been one of those things that's always been part of my personality. You know how some kids would play in mud or get stains on stuff throughout the house? Generally speaking, I stopped doing that by the time I hit elementary school. I can deal with it if my hands are sticky or greasy, but it's not my favorite feeling in the world. I usually end up washing my hands shortly thereafter. I mention this because when you brew kombucha, you have to scoop out the SCOBY from your brew jar at some point. The SCOBY is the culture that ultimately turns sweet tea in...