Birth Order

Warning: This story could be cute or inappropriate--but it's funny!

My parents raised 6 kids. They had 3 girls, followed closely by 3 boys. I'm the youngest. Supposedly, birth order affects our personality—as does whether any older/younger siblings are brothers or sisters. I’m skeptical, because there are so many variables. In my family, for example, my oldest brother is sort of like Fredo in “The Godfather” and my middle brother much like Sonny—the oldest in the movie. So that makes me…um, oh…never mind. This post isn’t really about that anyway. It’s about my eldest brother (let’s call him Fredo) and why I’m glad I was NOT the first-born male.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I have good timing. Despite having no one to hand my chores over to as I grew, I lucked out in the birth order dept. Two of toddler Fredo’s sisters were only a little older than he was—18 months older and 3 years older. They were going through a “playing doctor” phase. It was obvious to the young doctors that something was wrong with their brother. But what was it? A hernia? An odd growth of some sort? To be safe, they decided to wrap it in bandages. All they had was scotch tape. It would just have to do. They wrapped his little toddler pee-pee up like a mummy—in scotch tape.

When I came along 6 years later, those same sisters were in a school teacher phase. So, I was able to read, write and do simple math long before I started school...and scotch tape was only used to fix rips in sheets of paper. I'm very happy with my place in the birth order.

PS – Fredo has the WORST luck with women. I’m not saying that’s related to anything, but…

PSS - Cute or Inappropriate????

A Missed Tradition

I messed up a tradition this Christmas Eve. It's been a long month! My father-in-law had knee surgery at the start of the month and just got out of the rehab center this afternoon. So it was a month spent going back and forth to visit him every day (but 2) and also spending time at his house every day to take care of his cat (a cat allergy exempted me from that).

Now that I've gotten one excuse on the table, I can admit my failure. I finished wrapping presents and arranged them under the tree around 11:30. Then I looked up and saw the stockings over the fireplace. The STOCKINGS! Argh! Every year we put oranges, walnuts, Kisses, and candy canes in the stockings...along with some practical items. This year I forgot to buy those things. I usually pick them up at the grocery store after work on Xmas Eve--I feel like Bob Cratchit getting the "special pippens" (in the 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol"--and only that version). This year the office was closed, so no stop on the way home from work. Plus, I've got a bug, probably just a cold. Going to the store never crossed my mind.

Oh well, at least we had our traditional Chinese takeout for dinner. Maybe the kids won't mind finding apples, Moose Munch taffy, and 1 candy cane each (leftover from last year I think--I found them in a drawer) in their stockings. I'm sure they won't. As much as we love our traditions, they know it's not what tomorrow is all about--they've heard Linus' explanation, "That's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown." =)

I wish you the peace and love of the season, my friends!

Christmas Past

Every year my dad put our tree up on Christmas Eve. He would wrestle it into the stand while speaking the same strange language as the dad in "The Christmas Story." I always helped decorate the tree. After arranging ornaments, we placed tinsel on the tree one strand at a time. Our tree topper is to the right—the beard hair came from Santa himself (haircut clippings).

One year we went caroling. My dad and sisters always went to midnight Mass--they were in the church choir. After my chores, I made macaroni bracelets (or something like that) for my sisters, cards for my parents, and tried to play Christmas music on my grandpa’s ancient electric organ (we had a “by the numbers” guide). A turkey was usually soaking in salt water.

Since Santa had so much ground to cover, my folks told him not to wrap our presents. He created a pile for each person--so the excitement was figuring out which pile was yours. Every year I got a some combination of pants, a shirt, socks or underwear—somehow Santa always knew what I needed most. And there would be THE present. One year it was a doctor's kit. One year a plastic trumpet (no parent would give a noise-maker like that to their son). When I got older, one year I received a chess set.

We visited family during the holidays, including my dad's sister. She made amazing homemade cookies. But at her house the kids had to sit and listen to the adults talk for what seemed like hours…often debating the shortest route to places I'd never been. Snore!

Favorite Christmas Memory:
Instead of going to midnight Mass one year, I stayed home with my mom. We watched "A Christmas Carol" (1938 version). She let me have eggnog and fruitcake. I like eggnog. I like fruitcake. But combined they made me sick. Despite the upset stomach, that night with my mom is one of my favorite Christmas memories.

Least Favorite Christmas Memory:
Taking tinsel off the tree! My father wanted to keep the tinsel to reuse the next year. So we had to take it all off one strand at a time. The tinsel was older than I was.

Christmas as an Adult:
The tree goes up mid-month with no hassle--not until the 18th this year. Santa always wraps my kids' presents, even though I've asked him not to. When we get together with family I always start a conversation about the best way to get to a particular place…to keep the tradition alive and to annoy the kids a little. They’ve heard the story and know why I do it.

Hopefully this Christmas season will create new fond memories for my family and I hope it does the same for all of my friends. Whether you celebrate or not, I wish you and your loved ones the peace and joy of the season!!!


PS - When I was 15 I asked my mom for another doctor's kit. I told her ALL teenage boys enjoy playing doctor!!! She didn't think that was funny.

Pronouns: Friend or Foe?

I've watched too many episodes of "How I Met Your Mother". Roma commented on my last post that she wouldn't be surprised if I did a post on pronouns. After I read that, I heard myself say, "Challenge accepted!" So here goes...

Pronoun: The part of speech that substitutes for nouns or noun phrases and designates persons or things asked for, previously specified, or understood from the context.

Thanks to that last part, "understood from the context", the pronoun can be the most helpful or most dangerous part of speech. Helpful because sometimes we like to be vague ("we broke your window") and dangerous because sometimes people try to mislead us.

Imagine a guy approaching a female co-worker and saying, "Hey, we're going to happy hour. Can you make it?" Just exactly who is this "we"? Is he talking about himself and the 3 other people who live inside his head? Are other co-workers really going? Or is this a sly attempt to get the girl to have a drink with him?

If it's the 3rd possibility and the person asking is Itchy McScratchy (the office oddball), the girl will likely be on guard and ask who is going. That is how it should be. But if the person asking is the handsome, witty, single guy in her office, she might just say yes w/out checking. That could be bad--he could be the one with 3 other people living inside his brain.

So, when it comes to the use of pronouns, feel free to be vague when you need to be, but don't let others get away with it. ALWAYS confirm what's being implied. Don't be a pronoun victim!!!

PS - I hope to do a post soon on the ways in which I'm high maintenance, not bitchy. I don't want to rush that and paint the wrong picture. =)

It was a typo

Have I commented to you that, "I hope you sin!"?

Or that, "The food looks greta in your pictures"?

Or, "It's aobut time for me to change jobs"?

Those are some of my more common typos. It's not my fault the "w" and the "s" are so close to each other on the keyboard. Hopefully you knew I wanted you to win, not sin. That one-key over (or up or down) error always produces strange results.

Almost as embarrassing are the times I type the wrong, there, their, or they're. I know the difference. When I'm composing I think the correct version, but on occasion my fingers go rogue. I can't explain the disconnect between brain and fingers. Once in a great while I type a completely random word in place of what I meant to type (i.e, make instead of like).

I'm not sure why I so often type the "t" before the "a" in great, but it happens almost every time. I'm really not trying to invent a new adjective. If "great" appears correctly in a comment or post, it's probably because I caught the mistake in editing. Same goes for "aobut".

We all commit typos, right?

Okay, that's it for my biannual typo disclaimer. If you see a typo or a misplaced word in one of my posts or comments, please remember that grunting was my first language and I probably did know the correct spelling or word to use (probably), it just didn't make it onto the page.

Happy Wednesday!

I need the mirror

One gray, overcast day, a former boss of mine (a guy) and one of his female peers had to attend a meeting across town. It was drizzling a little when the meeting ended. Neither had an umbrella. They had to decide whether to walk to the subway station (about a block) or wait 15 minutes for our shuttle to swing around on it's neverending circuit (it ends at 4pm).

Girl: Let's walk to the subway, I don't care if my hair gets a little wet.
Guy: Maybe you don't, but I spent a lot of time on my hair this morning.

My old boss was VERY fussy about his hair. It had to spike in just the right way. He and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the amount of time we put into our appearance. I've had the same hairstyle (with only the length varying) since the 5th grade--when my dad stopped giving me the buzz cut you see in my profile picture. If my comb comes out of my pocket more than once a day, it must be a windy day.

Anyway, the lady who told me the story above, also said she didn't like men who spent more time on their appearance than she does. How about you? Do you prefer men who primp, lotion and pluck or guys who shower and go--and can walk by a mirror without looking into it???


Edit: That boss said he was going to turn my going away party into a roast. I thanked him and said that would give me an opportunity to share the "hair" story with everyone. He didn't roast me. LOL!

Working together

In some families, teaming up to prepare a single dish can be fun. It's become a holiday tradition for Kristieinbc's family. But it doesn't quite work for us. Thursday night my wife and I collaborated on a simple tuna salad for dinner. I didn't put in enough mayonnaise and she put in too much celery. It's an old story for us. We do better when we split work up into discrete efforts. As an example, for holiday dinners, I make the stuffing while she makes the yams. One chef per dish is the way to go for us.

We've had similar experiences outside the kitchen. When we moved into our house, it had an above-ground pool. We winterized it after our first summer and something unfortunate happened. For those who've had a pool, you know that you need to empty some of the water, add a HUGE amount of chemicals to the remaining water, place a float (inner tube) in the center, and cover it all up until summer. I handled all the preliminary work, but needed my wife's help pulling the cover on the pool. She was on one side and I was on the other. It sounds simple, but the cover kept getting caught on the inner tube.

We agreed to both lift on the count of 3, but lifted at different times. I tried counting, she tried counting, but we just couldn't coordinate our efforts. We tried 5 times, 10 times, 15 times and failed over and over. Finally, I knew what I had to do. I jumped into the pool, despite all the chemicals. It was then a simple matter for me to lift the cover over the float and lock it down tight after I got out (so no one could get in over the winter).

Because of the chemicals, I hoped I might develop super-powers...and my wife thought it would be a good idea if we didn't have any more children!

Gosh, I forgot my point. Oh yeah, try to be flexible in dealing with others and learn to work together or you too may end up in a toxic stew. Even a metaphorical toxic stew is no fun.


PS - Splitting up projects and working on them seperately IS a form of teamwork. It's the American football version of teamwork--offense, defense, and special teams, all important, all part of the team, but never on the field at the same time. ;P

PSS - I always open and drain the tuna when we have it. My contribution usually stops there.

That was my idea!

Have you ever had a good idea or what you were sure was an original thought, only to discover that someone beat you to it? I hate it when that happens! I don’t have any crazy claims like, “the toilet was my idea,” but I have experienced this.

One idea was the Paleolithic diet. A college friend argued that humans are herbivores and we were never meant to eat meat. I replied that humans are omnivores—seeing me prowl the kitchen after dark proves that. I conceded we (in the US) eat too much meat, the quality is questionable, and we could probably get along fine without it. But our ancestors who started hunting in the Paleolithic period definitely ate meat. I suggested we might be healthier if we stuck to a Paleolithic-style diet. {Light Bulb} What a great idea! Unfortunately I was not the first to think of it. The Paleolithic diet was already a real thing.

But today I had an idea that may be original—I don’t see a lot of evidence of it on the internet. The idea is to teach people to control their spending the same way they control their calorie intake (except more successfully). A large percentage of girls can tell you how hard it is to work off calories (if you eat an Oreo, you’ll have to pull a plow 12 hours to work it off), but do many girls think of their fashion/accessory purchases in terms of how many hours they’d need to work to pay for it? I'm just using women as an example, it applies to guys too. I thought a brief book on the subject (targeted to the 17-to-22 age group) might sell. What do you think???

Happy Thursday!

What about the dad???

While I can tend to be overly optimistic, I don't walk around with my head in the clouds--I live in the real world. I know that my dog is always going to get more attention than I do. I teased eQ recently about putting her fella ahead of her pup on her list of things for which she is thankful. But it truly was just teasing, her list was not a ranking. Life's not a competition, and yet, within my household I do occasionally wonder, "What about me?" Here are stories my son likes to retell about two such occasions.

Last summer I started digging up old metal fence posts. It was really hot that day. My wife suggested I wait, but I wanted to get at least one out of the ground--whoever installed them used a ton of concrete. She said she would keep an eye on me, just in case. I dug up 2 and kept going. I started on the 3rd post, digging, shaking the post, digging some more. Quite unexpectedly, the 3rd metal post snapped off in my hand as I pulled on it.  I fell backwards and landed in the grass. I refocused within a few seconds and noticed the clouds were very pretty, so I decided to lay there in the shade until my wife came to check on me. I always liked looking at the sky (day and night). I'll make a long story a little shorter and just tell you no one ever came to check--and I was feeling pretty stubborn about it, so I stayed there quite a while. When I finally went into the house to get a drink, my wife and kids were playing with the dog. They said, "Look what Bandit's doing!"

Last winter we had a lot of snow in DC, with back-to-back record-breaking storms. I worried about the weight of the snow accumulating on the roof. During the 2nd storm, I broke a snow dam from the roof. When I did that, it was like a mini-avalanche all around me. I might have worried a little, but I knew my wife and son were on the back porch watching in case I needed help. As I fought through the snow and finally emerged, I could hear them laughing. But they weren't laughing at me. They had let the dog out and were completely captivated by the sight of him frolicking in the snow. When I joined them on the porch they again said, "Look what Bandit's doing!"

When my son tells either of those stories, he finishes them with the line I said on both occasions: "The dog! What about the dad???" and he laughs.

But seriously, look at Bandit. He's so cute and I DO understand. I would have been watching him instead of me too. LOL!

Random Ramblings

This was a long week, very tiring, with good moments and bad. Before I go any farther, I want to share that I received my annual performance evaluation at work. My boss wrote in it, "Rick is the most patient person I know." Granted, she doesn't get out much, but still, it means something.

I shared that because I found myself having to bite my tongue this week. One evening after work I was standing behind a fellow on the escalator down into the subway station. He was looking down and I thought he was paying attention. The bottom of an escalator makes no attempt to sneak up on you. It pretty much just sits there. But he was not paying attention, he was texting. He had a case of some sort sitting one step ahead of him and he got tangled up with it when it caught on the lip of the escalator's base plate. I managed to jump to the left to avoid rear-ending him, but he caused the tourists behind him to pile-up and some fell. No one got hurt. I moved his case so people could get past and then started to say, "I hope that's not the smartest thing you've done today," but I bit my tongue because I could see he was shaken. Hopefully he realized it was dumb to put his case down so he could text during a 15 second escalator ride.

The next morning on the train a young man (maybe 16?) was loudly mumbling along with the song he was listening to on his iPod. Many DC children use the subway to get to school. As he and I exited the train together, a comment popped into my head, "I hope what you're listening to sounds better than what you shared with us." But again, I bit my tongue...he was just a kid and I knew I was overly tired and in a mood.

I was out of sorts because I worked way too many hours this week and my organization's senior management made a decision to throw away a HUGE amount of money on an IT system. I told our budget director that unless the system will be programmed to steal money from people's bank accounts, there's no way it will be worth the investment. He agreed, but no one listened to him either. Hopefully our Board will kill the idea when it's presented to them.

Okay, other than that it was a good week. My father-in-law's knee surgery went well and everyone is healthy...so no more grumpy-gus--or Mr. Wilson (from Dennis the Menace).

It's the weekend, so smiles all around!!! =)