Lucky Star

That’s what I born under, a lucky star.  I’ve always been lucky—I often credit that to having the best guardian angel ever.  Fate has put me into some odd situations (the stalking, the gun pointing, etc.) and I’ve put myself into a few too.  But things always work out (knock on wood).  It started the day I was born. 

Roughly seven weeks before I was due, my mom caught the flu.  I thought that’s what caused my early arrival.  But my mom shared with a sister-in-law (who was studying nursing) that it was a placental abruption that actually caused the emergency.  It’s odd my parents never told me that, but not surprising.  They weren’t much on sharing information or explaining whatever was going on.  I believe my SIL because the parts of the story I did know made more sense once I heard that. 

Of course dad rushed mom to the hospital (a small, private hospital).  Her regular doctor wasn’t there.  A doctor they didn't know was on duty—Dr. Shadow (I didn’t change his name for this story—the dude’s name was Dr. Shadow).  After examining mom, the doctor told dad it didn’t look good.  He didn’t think he could save us both.  He asked dad to make a choice.  As I am the youngest of 6 children, my parents already had 5 kids at home.  They needed their mother.  Dad made the only choice he could.  He asked Dr. Shadow to save his wife.

(Side-story:  When I announced I was getting married, my parent's neighbor, MrsB, wanted to help with the wedding.  She said I always seemed more like one of her kids (and less like my siblings), because I didn’t wait around for someone to do things for me.  I just did what I needed to do on my own.  That too started the day I was born.)

When the doctor returned to my mom, I had taken control of the situation—by being well on my way to being born.  Fortunately the doctor had been wrong.  He was able to save us both.  It was touch and go for my mom, but she pulled through.  Upon hearing he had a new son, my dad had his one and only hot flash.  He thought that meant I was going to be someone special, like a priest.  That didn’t work out for him—but I am more than willing to hear your confessions.  :)

My mom’s recovery was slow.  She was sickly for years.  I spent my first six months living with an aunt (who apparently spoiled me rotten and tried to keep me).  By the time I was six years-old, my mom was doing much better.  Then she had another health problem, which left her sickly for the next six or seven years.  The poor woman recovered just in time to be upset that I was openly interested in girls and they were calling me at home.  She really hated that.  LOL


PS – It may not be clear why, but the circumstances of my birth set me at odds with my siblings.  Among the five of them, they were mad at me for several different reasons.  Mostly due to misunderstandings which were easily avoidable.  Have I mentioned my parents were not great communicators?

Oh, I forgot to mention something—my parents never saw Dr. Shadow again.

**dunt**dunt**dun*!!!  :)

Happy 237th!

My country 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!

USA!  USA!  USA!

PS - The Washington Monument is having a little work done this year.  It survived the East Coast Earthquake, but was damaged.  Soon its cracks will be repaired and it will be good as new!  I hope the same will be true for all the cracks in the US. 








Edit:  There are people on Twitter congratulating the US on turning 2,013!!! 

Tactical Mistake

Does this sound familiar?  You notice a dog in your neighborhood.  He probably belongs to a neighbor.  You don't recognize him, but he seems friendly...maybe a little wary?  You start to see him more often.  He wags his tail when he sees you and it's clear he has a sweet disposition.  You get used to him being around and you start talking to him when you see him--he almost seems to understand what you're saying.  Dogs are fun that way.  Then one day you see him defend an elderly neighbor by getting between her and a group of rowdy teenagers--and growling at them.  You think, "That's a good dog" and decide to give him Thursday's leftover meatloaf (you were just going to throw it out anyway). 

Mistake!!!  You fed him!  Now you can't get rid of him.  Sure, he's an okay dog, but do you want him hanging around all the time??? 

That's happened to me twice--I once got a dog that way* AND my friend Rooth recently fed me, now she's never going to get rid of me!!!  lol

But she's smart.  Hopefully she knew what she was getting into when sent me an irresistible treat--chocolate-filled croissants.  She'd paid attention to my babbling and knew they're a favorite of mine.  I love croissants, adding chocolate to them makes me giddy!  They arrived frozen from William-Sonoma.  Frozen, they looked small.  Thanks to the magic of rising dough, they're pretty big--I was only able to eat four this weekend.  I mean two, I ate two!!!  Eating four would just be silly and wrong  (okay, I ate four--I'm not proud, but they're so good).  I shared them with my family--my daughter is a fan too.  My wife and son both passed on the offer.  More for me.  Oh, I mean more for me and my daughter.  ;)

Thank you, Rooth, for being a good, thoughtful friend--and kind enough to feed a stray.  :)

* I was 11 and a dog started hanging around our house.  It was a different time and place.  Dogs roamed loose where I grew up.  Today when we see a stray, we immediately take it in and try to find the owner.

Giveaway Winners

Summer is officially here today, so it's time to announce our giveaway winners. As usual, I used the random number generation feature in Excel to assign numbers to each entry, with the lowest numbers being the winners. The sort revealed our Grand Prize winners and runners-up (also winners) are (highlighted in yellow): 

 

Justine is the Herro Hachi Grand prize winner and Yi-chia (of Always Maylee) is the Olive and Piper Grand Prize winner!  In case you can't see it, Elle, Kathy, Thanh Thao and Stiletto Girl have also won Herro Hachi items.  (When I made the picture bigger, it went off the screen!)

The Herro Hachi winners need to e-mail Kym (kym@herrohachi.com) your selections and mailing addresses.  Yi-chia, there's a $25 O&P gift coupon code for you.  I'll be e-mailing it soon!

Thank you all for visiting, I truly appreciate it--you're among the great people who make blogging fun. Also, a special thank you to HH and P&O for making the giveaway so easy for me. 

I hope this weekend is the start of a great summer for all of us (and a great winter for those of you in the southern hemisphere)!!!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads, fathers-in-law, grandfathers and surrogate dads out there!

And a special happy Father's Day to my dad.  I hope he checks in on me once in a while.  He had an interesting life (I've posted a few of his stories) and had his share of obstacles to overcome.  As for those moments when I may have frustrated him...well, he taught me not to do something "just because someone told me to".  I'm sure he didn't expect me to ever apply that to him, but of course I did.  lol

He taught me plenty of other things too--some were useful, some were interesting and some were just odd.  I devoted a previous Father's Day post to some of his tidbits of information.

http://ricademus.blogspot.com/2011/06/happy-fathers-day.html

I'm pretty sure "how to get a dog to go for my throat" was the weirdest thing I learned from my dad (what were the odds a situation would ever come up to prompt him to share that?).  Remembering that always inspires me to ask what is the strangest bit of advice you've ever received???

Also, it has become tradition for me to buy myself a Father's Day gift that's actually for my wife.  The past two years the gifts have been pieces of furniture (a curio cabinet and an end table w/two glass doors on the top--it's really an old display table).  This year I bought jewelry--earrings from Olive and Piper.  I think I did good!  :)






PS - The Olive and Piper and Herro Hachi  giveaway closes Monday at midnight (US Pacific time zone). 

No one asked, but... (and a giveaway)

I feel like over-sharing.

Am I a nerd?

I love Star Trek, Doctor Who, LOTR, The Big Bang Theory and Jeopardy, but I don't think I'm smart enough to be an actual nerd.  I do have nerd-like tendencies, though.  While watching The Walking Dead, I became annoyed when humans entered a Southern Baptist church and discovered zombies sitting quietly in pews looking towards a huge crucifix.  That was just ridiculous!  Everyone knows Southern Baptists use a plain cross, not a crucifix.  It made the entire episode completely unbelieveable.  :P

Do I have odd habits?

I say no.  My family says yes.  Early in my career I used to have lunch in my office's tiny lunch room.  The vending machine in the room stocked a variety of Pepperidge Farm cookies--for a great price.  I discovered they were cheap because they were hard as rocks.  To get around that, I dunked them in my drink.  Water!  I liked what water did to the cookies.  It softened them, but unlike milk it did not change the flavor--and it made the water taste like cookies.  I don't do it often, but every once in a while I still dunk cookies in water.  Chocolate chip cookies work the best.

I could have listed any one of many things in this section (for example, my wife says I dry off in an odd way after a shower, I get into bed funny, I eat M&M's in a weird way, etc., etc.). But this one is on my mind because over the weekend my daughter saw me dunk a cookie is water and she asked, "Do your teeth hurt???"  LOL!

Do I appreciate your comments?

YES!!!  And since I made a big deal about appreciate being an action verb (in a previous post), it's time for a reader appreciation giveaway.  Herro Hachi and Olive and Piper have offered to help me celebrate your blog friendship.  We're giving away Herro Hachi items (of your choice) AND an Olive and Piper $25 gift certificate.  To enter, please visit their websites, identify your favorite item on each site and mention them in a comment to this post.  That's one entry.  For a second (and third) entry, tweet about your favorite items (and comment that you tweeted!).  There will be more than two winners!

Well, you're all winners--the giveaway winners will be announced next week.  I've ordered from both companies and all I can say is they're the best.  Products, customer service, everything!  I'm sure you will like them as much as I do. 


Edit:  The giveaway is open to everyone!

Delayed announcement

I was planning to make an announcemen today, but Friday is the worst day for that sort of thing.  Unless you're firing someone.  Friday is perfect for that.  But I'm not firing anyone, so the announcement will have to wait.

Instead, I'd like to re-share a vacation story.  Lisa (from expandng) got me thinking about vacations.

Who doesn’t love summer vacation??? Whether you’re a child or adult (or a little of both), it’s something to look forward to. Each year during my dad’s summer vacation we would have a Sunday picnic next to the creek on his family farm; we’d spend an evening at a carnival (funnel cake!!!) and we would spend one day at a beach on the Chesapeake Bay. The rest of the week we would do one special project or another. One year we built a carport.  Other years we shingled the roof, dug ditches, built sheds, cleared a field on the farm...well, you get the idea.

But this isn’t a story about work. It’s about the annual trip to the beach on which I learned to swim. It was a great little beach. There were trees close to the sand, so you could sit in the shade on cool grass if you got overheated.  There were inexpensive arcade games and skee ball. Aunts and uncles joined us and they usually had good food to share.

The year I turned seven, my dad took me out in the water to teach me to swim. He pointed to an aunt floating by (on her back) to convince me that people float and swimming was easy. He held me at water level so I could practice—I worked my arms and legs like a pro. He kept saying he wasn't going to let go, I should just keep paddling and kicking.

Then, of course, he let go. I kept working my arms and legs…and I sank like a stone. Within seconds I could feel that I had settled on the bottom and I was lying on my dad’s feet. But I was still paddling and kicking!!! Eventually he reached down to pull me up and we made our way back to shore. I took my little bucket and shovel to a different part of the beach so he wouldn’t get the idea to try to teach me to swim a second time—I thought he was just a little too slow pulling me up that first time. LOL!

Okay, so this wasn’t really a story about me learning to swim.  It was a story about me learning to sink! But I was REALLY good at it.  :D  I did learn to swim two years later, in a pool.

Soooo, how did you learn to swim???