Mild Amusement

Sunscreen and I have an interesting relationship. On the one hand, I am fully aware of the value of sunscreen and the dangers of melanoma . I get that I should wear sunscreen, and I accept this fact. If I know I'm going to be out in the blazing sun for a whole day or even an afternoon, I will put on sunscreen. I don't gripe about it, I just do it. It's what you're supposed to to to protect yourself from prolonged exposure, so I do so. On the other hand, I have had quite a few adventures with a lack of sunscreen. In one case, I ended up with a farmer's tan because I didn't reapply the sunscreen when hanging out with a friend . In another, I ended up with a sunburn on the inside of my knees because I almost  covered every part of my body, but didn't quite manage to do so. Essentially, I'm not meticulous about the process, oftentimes with hilarious results. If I'm really honest, I think part of that is because I don't really like the process of app...

I have a bad habit of forgetting to check the expiration date on some things. It's not that I'm trying to hold on to items for longer than they are useful, it's just that I forget that they're there. For example, I used to keep some allergy meds in my backpack back when I was going to the office. It wasn't that I needed them all the time, but I didn't want to take a stroll outside and then spend the rest of the day being unfit to be around people. So, I took a precaution by keeping some meds on me. However, I didn't need them very often, so they just sort of sat there for months. And then the Mild Wife would notice a long time after that, and exclaim that I had expired allergy medicine. You get the idea. The same was true for a pack of gum that I used to keep in my lunch bag. It was there mostly as a precaution when I was packing lunch and bringing it to the office . I didn't have pungent foods for lunch very often, so it mostly sat there unused. From wh...

I once mentioned, a while back, that I sometimes have difficulty finding items that have been moved slightly, even if they are in a clear, transparent container . The Mild Wife has largely solved this problem by labelling the jars, so as to provide visual hints. Still, it's not a foolproof method. You can't realistically label the fridge shelves, for example. And no matter how clever the system, there are bound to be brain farts that mess up the system. In essence, a sufficiently talented fool can always defeat a fool-proof system. That, my friends, is why the Mild Home has recently had an uptick in the phrase, " look with your eyes, not with your mouth ." From what I understand, this is a fairly common saying in some Asian households, so the Mild Wife recalls it vividly from her childhood. It was not so common a saying in my own household as I was growing up, so it is still somewhat novel to me. Incidentally, that also makes it a little more amusing to me. The joke ...

Every so often, a random topic of conversation makes its way through the Mild Home. There is no real rhyme or reason to it, it just sort of happens. It can be about just about anything, and, in all honesty, it's part of the fun of conversations between the Mild Wife and I. I mean, imagine if you're just sitting there on a random Thursday afternoon, and then suddenly you find yourself cackling at the notion of someone in the family might have two cats . That's spice of life type stuff, you know? Anyhow, I have a new addition to this random assortment of musings from the Mild Home. In this case, we're going to revisit a childhood lullaby, Baby Beluga . Now, it has been many, many years since I have sung that particular song, so I don't remember all of the lyrics off the top of my head. All I really remember is "baby Belua in the deep blue sea, swim so wild and swim so free." I actually suspect I'm not alone in this, either, because that's arguably t...

A while back, my trusty cell phone needed to be replaced, so I purchased a new Moto G Stylus on sale. In fact, the only reason I got that phone was that it was a pretty hefty sale, so I paid less than half the usual price for it. I'm not about to complain if I can get a smart phone for less than one hundred dollars. As it is, I'm not a huge gadget guy, so I don't need a top of the line device. I just want something that takes phone calls, sends and receives text messages, and lets me connect to a few applications. It's a pretty simple list of requirements. Since this particular device checked all of those boxes, I was pretty happy to find this particular deal. When I first got it, I noticed that it had a different charger than my previous phone, so I had to switch over to the new one. My new phone had a USB-C port (the one that looks like a flat, symmetrical oval), while my old one did not. Well, they sent a charger with the phone, so I just plugged it in. When I did ...

When the pandemic hit and everyone was forced to work from home, we ended up changing quite a few things around the Mild Home. I mean, how could we not? For example, I now had to sit in a chair in front of a laptop for hours at a time. That thought had just plain never occurred to me. The idea was that I would do my work in the office and if I occasionally needed to put in a long day, I could do a couple of hours at most from home. There's a big difference between a chair that's acceptable for two hours and a chair that's acceptable for eight hours. One of the other notable changes was in my morning routine. Notably, we invested in an exercise bike so that the Mild Wife and I could still get some cardio from home. Sure, we could run outside, but between the worry of masking up and the weather being chilly for good chunks of that time, it never seemed like a fully reliable option. As a result, I ended up using the exercise bike for roughly enough time to finish a couple of q...

For the most part, daily life is pretty mundane. I mean, it's not like you win a million dollars every other day, and most people don't get married twice a month. Sure, those exciting things happen to people, but they are the exception, not the rule. On the daily, I get up early , make and consume breakfast , go to work , have lunch , hang out with the Mild Wife , have dinner , and go to bed . Sure, I have fun during those events, but it's basically a lot of the same, over and over again. The interesting thing about that all is that it is not at all boring. For all that much of it is repetitive, the company makes a huge difference, and we managed to find our chuckles throughout it all. Heck, this blog is a testament to the fact that we can still find a little bit of amusement at least once a week . Today's post is a prime example of that. The Mild Wife and I were having dinner, just going through the motions of eating and chatting. She handed me a bowl of food, much li...