Chemistry

Before I got lucky and met my wife, I had mixed experiences with the opposite sex. 

Some girls I liked saw me as just a friend.
Some girls who liked me, I saw just as friends.
Some mutual attractions ended horribly.
Some mutual attractions ended amicably (but their friends got mad).

All pretty typical stuff (except, perhaps, for the friends yelling at me?).

At one point, after a weird sequence of events, I started running into the "prettiest girl in school" almost everywhere I went--no, I wasn't stalking her!  (I put that in quotes because while I remember her resembling a teenage Brittany Spears, she may have looked more like a Brittany Spaniel--who knows with teenage boys!)  And suddenly she wanted to talk to me.  I was pretty sure we had chemistry. 

We flirted a little. I think. She was very, very pretty (to me), so I may have misinterpreted.  But I quickly realized I really didn't enjoy spending time with her.  I didn't like her personality.  She was more than a little stuck on herself and her sense of humor centered mostly on putting down others.  One day I bumped into her at my grandmother's store.  We chatted for a minute and then she said something like, "I'm not sure if you're my type or not."  She said it teasingly, but it gave me a perfect opening to put an end to our...whatever it was.  I laughed and said, "Trust me, I'm not your type."  Then I turned and walked away.  I never spoke to her again.  She was shiny, but not the one for me.

Years later I saw her at one of my son's back-to-school nights.  She gave me the stink eye.  At that moment I thought about how lucky I was that I didn't waste any time on her.  Thanks to that I was unattached when I met my wife a few months later.  It's funny how things work out. 

Why did I share this story?  I'm not 100% sure why I share any of them.  But in this case it's just as a reminder that we need to get to know people before we build them up in our minds as something special OR dismiss them as not worth our time.  People have a way of surprising you.

Let yourself be surprised--but always in a safe, well lit place with lots of other people around.  :D


PS - Brittany Spaniel is a dog breed. 

"What did he do???"

What he did was have flowers delivered to his wife at her office.

 

And that brought out all the cynics. 

 

"What did he do?"
"Is he in trouble?"
"Did he forget an anniversary?"

 

Nothing.  No.  And no.

Sometimes it's just because.

Don't be a cynic.

Well, don't always be a cynic--sometimes you just can't help it. 
Sometimes I can't help it.  :)

Happy Thursday!  Have a great weekend.

 

 

Old post getting traffic???

A really old post of mine, "It's the fuzz!  Or is it???" has been getting a lot of traffic this week.  I'm not sure why.  Do people want to read about one of the dumbest things I've done?  Or are people googling "the fuzz"???  Regardless, I've decided to re-post it.  It took place this time of year, so the timing is appropriate.  Here goes: 

I was driving my girl home one night after a date. We were 18. Like me, she lived in a somewhat secluded area…no street lights and lots of room between houses. As I made the turn into her neighborhood, police lights started to flash behind us. I stopped.

The light from my brakes allowed me to get somewhat of a look at the car behind me.  It didn't look like a police car—not even an unmarked one. I got suspicious, but wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to sit there and wait for a maniac to walk up to the car. I also didn’t want to drive off, leading that maniac to my GF's house—or have it appear I was running from the police. What to do??? I came up with an idea (a terrible one). Like my father, I kept a baseball bat (and tools, a snow shovel, a blanket, etc) in my car, just in case. You never know what you’ll need!!!

I grabbed the bat and told my GF to get in the driver’s seat, keep the doors locked, and keep an eye on me in the mirror. If it was not a policeman, she should drive someplace safe. (Why didn’t I just do that?) Anyway, I got out of the car and walked at an angle towards the middle of the road and back towards the “police” car. I didn’t want to get too close to it. Soon I could see there were three guys in the car, but not their faces.

Me: Is there a problem officer?
Guys in car: What are you doing with that bat?
Me: It depends if you’re policemen or not.
Guys in car: {lots of laughter}

Then they turned on the car’s interior light and I could see a friend sitting in the back seat. He was out with two guys (who had a flashing light for some reason???) and convinced them to play a little joke when he spotted my car. We chatted for a few minutes. Before I left I told them they were lucky my dad wasn't driving my car, he would have shot them. He would NOT have done that, but I wanted to give them something to think about before they considered playing that potentially dangerous joke again.

Moral of the story: I got lucky. I never, never, NEVER should have gotten out of the car. I should have done what I wanted my GF to do—drive to a well lit, populated area. I hope none of you are ever in that position. But if you are, don’t get out of the car—even if you do have a baseball bat. =)

The "real" thing!

There can be only one.

That was true in the Highlander and it applies to other things as well.  In this case I'm talking about tea--which is shocking to me.  I'm not really a tea drinker. 

Of course, there are many different types of tea.  But I've discovered that for me there is only one "real" tea.  Red Rose (original black tea).  My parents and grandparents drank Red Rose.  When I had iced tea as a child (which was every day during the summer), it was Red Rose.  When I needed a hot tea bag to hold over an eye, it was Red Rose.  When I had to make...well, you get the picture.

I had a cup of Red Rose recently, for the first time in many years.  It was oddly satisfying.  The taste brought back a lot of memories.  It tasted like home.  I've tried lots of different brands and varieties over the years (while treating sore throats, colds, etc.).   Some were better than others.  But Red Rose is the one.  I'm glad I found that out.  I may be a tea drinker yet.  :)


PS - I never imagined that tea could ever inspire me to write a blog post.  Ever.

Childhood Summer Vacations

During my youth, my dad usually took a one week summer vacation each year.  The first weekend we might have a picnic by the creek on his family farm.  Or maybe go to a carnival.  On Monday we'd go to a beach on the Chesapeake Bay--aunts and uncles and cousins were usually there too.  That's where my dad tried to teach me to swim (I sank instead--but I did learn to swim later).  Those first 3 days of his vacations were usually fun.

The rest of the week felt something like this:

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get

    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
    I owe my soul to the company store
   (because I got no allowance :)

The lyrics are from the song "16 Tons".  I'm being a little melodramatic here, but only a little.  The rest of the week was taken up by one physically demanding project or another.  There was lots of digging and sawing and hauling.  One year we dug a trench (down past the basement to install drainage tiles) all the way around our house.  Another year we built a 2-car car port.  We dug shallow drainage ditches all around the edges of the property.  Shingled the house roof.  Built a shed.  Built another shed.  Every year (usually twice a year) we did pick and shovel work to smooth out the dirt road that connected our little neighborhood to the county road....hauling gravel where it was needed. 

 

That was in addition to the regular chores.  We did chores year round, but the work really ramped up during my dad's summer vacation.  If I could go back and skip all of that, I wouldn't.  I can't say it was fun, but it was educational.  Plus, we accomplished a lot with our own hands and that's always a nice feeling.


I need to be a better dad--by working my kids much harder, so they can have that nice feeling too!  :)

 

 

Summer Memory

Hopefully we all have nice memories of past summers, happy times with family and friends.  I found myself reminiscing this morning about one of those times.

As I've mentioned, my grandmother ran a tiny grocery store in our neighborhood.  One summer we had a long power outage.  She bought dry ice in an attempt to save her frozen items.  But eventually she realized it was a lost cause.  Sounds bad, right?  And it may have been for her (I hope she had insurance).  But for the neighborhood kids it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  My grandmother was giving away ice cream!!!

We could have whatever we wanted.  The ice cream-on-a-stick selections were too far gone at that point.  So we each took a half gallon.  Chocolate chip was my favorite at the time, so I chose that.  I joined the neighborhood kids standing out in the grass, eating our huge containers of ice cream with those little wooden spoons. 

That was FUN!  And messy.  Messier than the times we ate fresh-cut watermelon outside in the yard--spitting seeds at each other.  Boys!

I hope we all have some messy fun before summer ends.  Maybe this weekend.

Have a great weekend folks!

Food poisoning!

That's what happened to me.  Or I had a bad stomach bug (there is one going around DC).  It was definitely one of those two things.  It was the worst stomach "thing" I've had since the time I got sick in NYC and ended up evading security officers. 

That's a story for another day.  Today I'm just whining about having been sick.

Whatever it was, it knocked me off my feet for 3 days and I didn't feel normal for close to 2 weeks.  On the bright side, I couldn't eat much on July 4th.  That saved me a few calories.

But I really like our traditional cookout food:  grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, boneless chicken and, this year, cedar plank salmon; potato salad; cole slaw; cucumber salad; fresh tomatoes; baked beans (with lots of bacon and a little mustard). 

And brownies and strawberry cake.

Oh well, there's always next year.

Did I miss anything while I was away?  Is your summer off to a better start than mine???