Entries Tagged 'Humor' ↓

 
Have your expectations ever led to disappointment? Have they ever led to delightful surprise? I’ve been a lot more pleasantly surprised in life than disappointed. That’s the great advantage of being a pessimist.

What about you?

 
What is Spring (or Fall for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere) like where you are? Here we don’t notice the birds, we notice the wind. Our elevation is over 7200 feet and we’re well aware when the jet stream shifts. I put on my ankle weights when I go for a walk. Can’t take too many chances.

 
Anger may not bring back the baby’s cookie, but it sure is having an effect in the Middle East.

Frame Maker. Creative Commons license.

 
Has anger ever helped you get what you wanted in your life? Occasionally in the past when I wasn’t assertive enough, and people started walking over me, anger helped to get me more respect. Mostly now I try to be “cheerfully firm” before things get out of hand.

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.
 

That works better for me because I hate the feeling of being angry, it makes me feel weak and out of control. But I also know people who feel more powerful when they’re angry. What about you? What role does anger play in your life? Does it get you closer to what you want?

ikoni

 
Ursula has tagged me for the Stylish Blogger Award. The requirements are

1. Link back to her site (done, thanks, Ursula),
2. Tell five things about myself (currently it says seven, but I will go back to the original version of five), and
3. Pass the award on to five other bloggers. Is anyone interested? If so, please let me know. Otherwise I’ll skip the last suggestion.

So, five things about myself:

1. My funny bone is easily tickled. As you can see from the above cartoon the idea of me being stylish cracks me up. My biggest fashion statement is to wear white ankle socks with black sandals. It’s my version of wearing purple.
    
   And apparently I’m not the only one who doesn’t think herself stylish. Last month Lyn wrote a post entitled 7 Reasons Why a Stylish Blogger Award is a HUGE Mistake. She’s a kindred spirit on this topic.
2. I’m curious. After I finished laughing I Googled “stylish blogger award”. The earliest reference I found was
   April 4, 2010, and I found that early recipients blogged about fashion, style and beauty. That made sense. And my reaction illustrates one of the biggest things about me…
3. 
   I’m a nerd. I never cease to be grateful for that. My brain is my favorite toy and playing with ideas, researching facts and solving problems give me great pleasure.
4. I’m a visual thinker. That’s one reason I like blogging, I can add pictures and not just deal in words.
5. I enjoy the process of creating. When I can’t find a cartoon or picture that illustrates the point of a post I create my own on Photoshop. I can spend hours immersed in a project…I feel most fully alive when I completely forget about myself and am in the flow.

What about you? Are you interested in style? What do you love to do?

A recent Newsweek article, High on Anxiety, points out that some people would consciously choose to feel anxious or angry instead of happy. In fact, I’ve known people like that. They felt that if they were too relaxed they would lose their competitive edge. To them the unpleasantness of feeling pressured was more than worth the increase in their productivity and achievement.

I had a boss like that once. He didn’t agree with my philosophy that working at something you loved was the best way to go… you would be totally immersed in a project without the negative effects of stress. He was sure that people worked best if they were afraid of losing their jobs or their prestige. I certainly couldn’t argue with him, he was internationally known in his field and even though he had high blood pressure it hasn’t killed him yet. But when I saw him a few months ago (long after retirement) he was disappointed he hadn’t achieved more in life. And when I remember working in his group I think of it as one of the most rewarding jobs I ever had. Who’s to say? I’m happy with my choice and presumably he would make the same choice if he had to do it over again.

What about you? How important is happiness to you? What else might be more important?

In a recent Dilbert cartoon the pointy-haired boss and Alice are talking:

 
It reminds me of a fellow I once knew. Whenever he made a mistake he managed to point the finger at someone else. Finally in his early 50′s he found himself in a situation where he couldn’t do it. He looked around and everyone looked back at him, knowing full well he couldn’t pin it on them. He looked startled, then said, “I’m wrong! I’m actually wrong!” He paused a moment then shrugged. “Oh well, once in 50 years isn’t too bad.”

Have you ever known someone like that?

 
Have you ever done something like that? I have. Years ago I was on a business trip to Europe and bought an attractive tea-towel calendar (for the following year) for my mother-in-law. Unfortunately it was in the Fall so I decided to give it to her for Christmas. Yeah, sure. I completely forgot about it until the following Spring, when I came across it. I sent it then…it was still relevant for over half a year…but I learned my lesson. I still buy Christmas presents ahead of time, but I store them all in one place.

We read a lot about overcoming procrastination, but sometimes doing things too far ahead can do us in too.

What about you? Do you have any stories to share?

The above cartoon reminds me of my husband’s Christmas stocking, illustrated on the left. One of his childhood traditions was for the family to listen to a record of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on Christmas morning.

When he was younger he was taken by the lines
 
A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December.
 
and
 
Bah, Humbug!

We’ve never made listening to the story a part of our Christmas tradition, but we did buy him a Scrooge stocking which we hang every Christmas Eve. After all these years it’s a lot rattier looking than the picture.

Kaitlin’s stocking looks beat up too, but she protested when I suggested buying her a new one. So her old one gets hung too whenever she and Torben are here at Christmas. In our home sentiment trumps elegance. What about at your place?

Anyway

 
The above cartoon made me wonder if our multitude of modern gadgets have ruined the magic of Santa Claus. This video reassured me:
 

 
What about you? Did you believe in Santa when you were little? Did you put treats out for him and check the next morning to see if he had eaten any? I still remember doing that.

As I mentioned in the comments to last week’s post, we had a bit of a culinary adventure with our supposedly 10-12 pound, precooked Thanksgiving turkey. They didn’t warn us it would be frozen and would need to be defrosted. It would have been nice to know that when we ordered it.

I did manage to get it defrosted in time and we thought it would then be ready to eat. No such luck. It was only partially cooked… blood ran out when we got halfway to the bone. On top of that it was more than 12 pounds…it wouldn’t fit in our roasting pan… so we had to cut it up and finish cooking it in three separate batches. We were more amused than upset but decided we wouldn’t try that again. We were hoping for something a more carefree.

But our experience was nothing compared to the Army cooks in Afghanistan told to deep fry their unit’s Thanksgiving turkey. They had never fried one before so looked on the internet for a recipe. They were greeted by warnings like these:
 


 
They did manage to cook the bird without burning down their little shack of a kitchen and the soldiers loved it. So it was presumably worth the few nervous moments. Still, I’m not about to try it here.

What about you? Have you ever prepared an unusual meal? How did it turn out?