Almost Summer Giveaway

I'm overdue to show my blog friends appreciation for your visits, comments, and also making me feel welcome on your blogs.  So it's time for a summer (northern hemisphere) giveaway—one that includes t-shirts and food!  Is there ever a bad time for free t-shirts and food???

The giveaway is open to anyone, but current followers and commenters will receive additional entries.

What can you win?  The t-shirts are very cool Herro Hachi (Making Funny fashionable) originals and the food is from the amazing menu at Flo Tea Room (in Vancouver and Richmond, BC).  T-shirt winners will be able to select the shirt of their choice from Herro Hachi and the Food winners will receive a gift certificate for Flo Tea Room.  I live roughly 2,900 miles (4,670 kilometers) away from the closest FTR, so I won't be able to join you.  Maybe next year!  =) 

Entry Rules:
1)  (One entry) Leave a comment saying you want to enter—and please specify if you’re entering for the shirts, the food, or both.  You lucky people who live in the Vancouver area or are planning to visit there (or have a friend there who could use a good meal) can enter for both.

2)  (Bonus entry) Tweet “Win giveaway from @herrohachi and @flotearoom http://ricademus.blogspot.com/2012/06/giveaway-summertime-and-winnin-is-easy.html” and put a link to your Twitter page in a comment below.  (I'm an existentialist--if I can't see the tweet, it doesn't exist. ;P)

There will be multiple winners of both, so the odds are good that YOU will be one of them.  When you win, I'll ask you to send your contact information directly to Kym (HH) or Harmony (FTR) and they will send out your prizes.

Entries must be in by midnight (Pacific time) on June 20th.  The winners will be announced June 22nd.

Blog Talk

Do you talk with people about your blog?  I do, but only a select few.  The first time I mention the blog to someone, he or she usually tries (and fails) to hide their surprise and, perhaps, confusion.  One exception is my birthday twin.  I call her that because we share a birthday and (surprise) she has a twin.  LOL, I know, I wasn't very original on that. We don't see each other often, but we make sure to get together for lunch at least once a year (guess when).  She works in publishing and is interested in "new media". 

Anyway, last year she was working on a project with a former boss of mine and we invited him to join us.  During lunch she asked if I was still blogging, so I gave her a quick update.  The former boss was amused.  At first he didn't say anything.  Then he said he thought it was great, in a smiling, mocking way that told you he meant the opposite.  I didn't react because he almost always lobs up a big softball for me to hit when we talk.  I waited and before long, he delivered.  He said he didn't understand why people would embarrass themselves by writing a blog.

My reply:  "It could be a little embarrassing.  That's why I blog under your name."  *evil grin*

He was taking a bite at the time and nearly choked on a tasty piece of chicken satay.

How do your non-blogging friends react when you talk about your blog???


PS - My wife is the only real-life person I'm sure reads my blog.  She's my fact-checker, making sure my stories are accurate (and don't make her look bad).  :P

Looking up!

Looking up is such a positive expression and I have to admit I really enjoy actually looking up--at clouds, trees, mountains, the moon and the stars.  Just the thought makes me smile.  But in this post I mean looking up as in getting better, moving in a positive direction.  I received a sign yesterday that my luck is going to be really good in the coming weeks.

For the first time in my life, a bird pooped on me! 

As I walked back to my office from a meeting yesterday I saw something out of the corner of my eye.  I looked down to discover a bird had gotten me on my left shirt sleeve, at bicep level.  I keep a spare shirt in my office (wasn't a boy scout, but I try to be prepared), so I did not have to wear the soiled shirt the rest of the day.  I washed the sleeve pretty thoroughly before putting the shirt in a bag.  My daughter was happy to hear about this--birds have gotten her twice.  Now she's not the only target in the family.

I have heard it's supposed to be a sign of good luck in your future.  But honestly, I generally have pretty good luck anyway.  And I was VERY lucky yesterday--lucky I wasn't looking up and standing two inches to the left when the bird fired at me.  LOL!

So, have birds ever shared "luck" with you????


Have a great weekend, folks!  :)

Another Grandma Story

My grandmother, the one I lived with off-and-on when I was little, was born in May.  So this time of year I find myself recalling fond memories of her a little more often than usual.  I hope you have memories of a grandmother.  Mine was a story teller. 

She was one of 11 children. Her dad died when she was very young and her family was really poor. Their house was just a step above a shack.  One of her jobs growing up was to walk along the train tracks near her house and pick up pieces of coal.  Her family used the coal to cook and to heat their house in the winter.  Even today, coal falls out of the coal cars as the trains rumble along.

I was 6 or 7 when she told me about the coal.  It got me thinking.  What if we got snowed in and needed to heat our house?  What would we do?  I grabbed a bucket and started walking the rails, collecting coal.  I piled the nuggets in the nook of a hollowed-out tree and promptly forgot about them.  A year later I stumbled across them and was embarrassed--my parent's house had oil heat and no fireplace.  There was absolutely no way to burn coal in their house without burning it down.  It was silly of me to collect it in the first place!  But then I got an idea.  I piled really heavy sandstones on top of the coal.  Then all I had to do was wait. 

Not long after that I was working in the woods with my dad.  He noticed the pile of stones and asked if I knew why it was there.  Instead of sharing the embarrassing reason why I had I gathered the coal, I shared why I put heavy sandstones on top of it--I was a little proud.  I told him I was making diamonds for Mom and Nanny!!! (That's what we called my grandmother)

I had no idea why he sighed and shook his head.  Maybe he wanted a diamond too.  ;P

Favorite Barbecue Sauce???

For the past month or so I've been trying different barbecue sauces in hopes of finding a new favorite.  So far no luck.  We used Sweet Baby Ray's for quite a while, but I don't like it anymore.

Any suggestions?  Do you have a favorite barbecue sauce???  Or perhaps a secret family recipe you'd like to share?  I promise not to tell anyone about it.  It'll be our secret!!!

My mom had a great recipe, but I have no idea what was in it.  I only know I used to cut fresh mint for my dad to use to brush it on whatever he was grilling.  She probably got the recipe from the back of a worcestershire sauce bottle...or perhaps worcester sauce. =)

It's Memorial Day weekend in the US, a time for barbecues, honoring those who have given their lives for our country, and paying respects to deceased loved ones.  Weather permitting, I like to carry on my dad's tradition of sprucing up our family gravesites on M-Day, making sure the markers remain visible.  It's a small thing, but important.

Have a good weekend!


PS - With summer about to return to the northern hemisphere, we're seeing the usual increase in petty street crime in DC--mostly teens snatching phones, iPods, etc.  That made my commute home tonight more exciting than it needed to be,  When you're out, remember to pay at least as much attention to your surroundings as to your gadgets.

Things I Suck At

Drawing, sewing, painting--anything that requires good "fine-motor" skills.  It could be that I don't have the patience to practice/develop the skills, but I don't think that's it.  Especially considering the patience I showed as a kid spending hours learning to balance on top of a barrel while rolling it around the neighborhood with my feet--a useful skill if I'd grown up to be a circus bear.  ;P

I also don't do well in one-way relationships, of any kind.  I believe that friends don't keep score and 50/50 is an unreasonable myth--all relationships naturally ebb and flow.  But when it becomes completely one-sided, eventually I stop putting in effort.  And by "eventually", I mean when I notice (which can take a while). 

I used to be fairly close with one of my sisters.  She's 9 years older, but once I got out on my own  we never went more than a few weeks without one of us calling the other (that's as close as it gets in my family).  Then she started calling more often because she thought her hubby was cheating.  We talked a lot and she cried a lot.  Before long the crisis passed and we went back to talking just every few weeks. 

Three years later I realized she hadn't called me in three years!  I was the only one working at keeping in touch.  Maybe she was embarrassed I knew what happened? (no one else did)  Maybe she was embarrassed about crying? (after all, we are German)  I decided to ask her about it.  At first she denied it and then had a dozen excuses--none of which kept her from keeping in touch with our 2 sisters.  So while 50/50 is a myth, I decided it was time to give my sister a chance to keep in touch with me.  Our only contact since then has revolved around our dad's estate. 

My wife is pleased about it because that sister got hit by both of our family curses--she lost her sense of humor and became extremely arrogant.  She now hates it when she's not the smartest person in the room, so naturally having me around is difficult for her.  LOL!  We'll see what the future brings.

How patient are you with family and friends who expect you to do all the heavy lifting in maintaining the relationship???

PS - When a friendship becomes completely one-sided, I think it's called stalking.  So it's good to move on--and much more quickly than I did with my sister. =)

Heading out on my own...

I tried my hand at running away from home only once, I was 5 or 6.  Several other times I stowed away in the backseat of my oldest sister's car, but that wasn't running away.  That was hoping for a sleep-over. 

It was triggered by a little thing.  I got caught retaliating against an older sibling and was the only one to get in trouble.  Does being told you will be sent to your room immediately after dinner count as getting in trouble?  More so back then versus today (the only electronic device in the room was the light fixture on the ceiling).  In any case, I was offended and made plans to escape after dinner, no point in hitting the road on an empty stomach.

The plan was to go to my room and then climb out the window.  My room was on the 1st floor, but since our basement windows were above ground on that side of the house, it was too high to just jump (for a six-year-old).  So before dinner I took an old sliding-board ladder from behind our shed and placed it under my window.  Then I gathered a few keepsakes and placed them inside a kerchief, tied it up at the corners and attached it to a stick--my hobo bag.  LOL!  I was going to ride the rails.  But unlike a true hobo, I was going to have money.  I was taking my plastic Mickey Mouse bank.  It was shaped like a book, so no one would even know I had money.  (Note: It was made out of hard plastic, contained only coins, and  made a terrible racket when I moved it--but still, I thought it would be my secret.)

With everything in place, after dinner I dutifully marched off to my bedroom--which was on the other side of a wall from the dining room.  As I carefully unlocked and pushed up the screen, I heard a sister ask "What's he doing in there?" ("Perfect", I thought, "They have no idea what I'm doing.")  I grabbed my stuff, scampered down the ladder, and headed towards the railroad tracks.  That took me past our dining room windows and SOMEHOW my family saw me.  I could hear them, "What's he doing? He's outside!"  ("Ha, they still haven't figured it out!!!" I told myself.)  I made a run for it as 3 of my siblings came out the backdoor.  The sister who once encouraged me to leave, sat quietly finishing her dinner. ;P

They cut off my route to the train tracks, but I "showed them a leg" (according to my dad, old football slang for faking one direction and going another), zigged and zagged and headed for the woods.  With all the changes in direction, I'm not sure how far I ran, but they cornered me about 50 yards from home.  As they escorted me back to the house I noticed the secret slide on my plastic bank was open and I'd lost my grubstake.  Broke!  It would be a while before I could try again.

Of course I never tried again.  I was only melodramatic enough to attempt that once.  And running away, well, I quickly learned it just wasn't for me. 

So, did you ever think about running away when you were a child?  Have your kids tried it???