Carol Archives - Page 12 of 18 - Ramblin' with Roger

Romance redux (because I love the word redux)

“You were comfortable to be around, smart, funny, not bad looking and there was great chemistry.”

So I answer New York Erratic’s question about romance, about me being a good listener. Yet I seem to have disappointed: “That wasn’t the answer I was expecting for the ‘getting girls’ question, but it makes tremendous sense when I think about it.” But I wasn’t some smooth talkin’ dude.

Still, I wrote, in an e-mail titled I’ll take another shot if you give me parameters: “Not sure what kind of answer I could give you about romance. Among other things, I hardly ever pursued a woman, because I’m painfully shy. So she had to be a friend at some level first…” (Indeed, Dustbury speaks well of the anxiety guys like me experienced all the time.)

The reply: “I think you gave a great answer, but I was thinking more like skills or knowledge. Music always thrills me, as does trivia and poetry. 🙂 I know you don’t write poetry, but hasn’t any girl ever said ‘Wow, I love your ___________’ or ‘I think it’s so cool you know _________’?”

Well, not to my recollection. Although “OK. But the air guitar really did lead me to one girlfriend!”

“:-) Humor counts.”

So I asked my wife. She said it was because I was (and apparently still am) so expressive when I sing in the church choir, and that was what made her first notice me.

Then I asked an ex. She wrote: “You grew on me over time. Not very much time, it is true, but sometimes. You were comfortable to be around, smart, funny, not bad looking and there was great chemistry.” She later added: “It wasn’t really a conscious process. I just fell in love.”

I can guess another ex was taken by my love for the Academy Awards and the soap opera Another World. But maybe humor, too, although I cannot give you details. (I DO have some limits.)

I got nothing else, short of asking more exes, and I’m kind of disinclined to do that.
***
On a related topic, NYE: I overheard this conversation in the work cafeteria. The young woman broke up with her girlfriend, who had seemed to be devoted to her, perhaps overly so. She was telling her friend how unnerved by the fact that her ex was now seeing someone else. I restrained myself from telling her that I knew EXACTLY how she felt because I HAVE been there.

Dinosaurs, candy, kissing, travel

It was this red shoestring licorice we bought about two blocks from the school

Got a bunch of questions, great questions. Gracias. I’ve been thinking about them, some of them A LOT, but some are going to require longer answers than others, and I’ll have more time in the next week or two (I hope).

In the meanwhilst, here’s a few from New York Erratic:

Were you ever into fossils or dinosaurs? What is your favorite dinosaur?

Not in any kind of systematic way. I mean they were collectively cool, but I didn’t study them very thoroughly. I got frustrated that several of the ones I knew as a child have totally different names, and theories as to their origins are different. Some are now birds that were thought to have been reptiles, etc. Rather like the planets of our solar system, where I once knew how many moons each planet had, but no longer. I’ll pick T-Rex; always liked Bang A Gong [LISTEN].

Have you ever had your IQ tested? When? What was your IQ?

Yeah, at least a couple of times, but they never told us. Once in fifth or sixth grade, some of my classmates discovered our scores but no names were attached. Someone was in the 140s, and we all figured it was friend Carol (not my wife Carol). There were three or four in the 130s, which we surmised were friends Karen, Bill, and me. But we really had no idea.

Did you ice skate as a kid?

I don’t believe so. I have no recollection of it. And not as an adult except once, and it involved wooing Carol (my now-wife).

How do you memorize skits for plays? (This one is fairly urgent… 😛 )

Repetition, optimally with another person, or persons, reading the other parts. But I HATE doing long speeches, soliloquies because I have a hard time memorizing them. Unless they’re poetic, and I can make a song out of them.
***
SamuraiFrog wants to know:

At what age did you feel like you became an adult?

62. (Not entirely false.)

I suppose it was when I bought a house, and I was 47. Not sure I like this growing-up stuff.
***
Jaquandor, who is in the midst of answering MY questions to him, wants to know:

You’re given enough money for a road trip someplace in the US…not enough to fly anywhere in the world, but enough that you can pay for gas, food, and lodging someplace in this country. Where do you go?

I’d do a bunch of baseball parks by train. But if we’re talking a single location, I’ll pick Juneau, Alaska, because it’s the farthest state capital one can get to by land. If I’m limited to the continental US, then Seattle, WA, or Portland, OR, because I’ve never been to either of them, and they are in states as far from me as possible.

***
Tom the Mayor, my FantaCo colleague, asked:

What was the first comic you remember reading? And the first book?

The first comic I have no idea. It may have been Archie, or Richie Rich, or some other Harvey Comic. The first superhero comic was almost certainly DC, Legion, or maybe Justice League.

I had these Golden Books, but I don’t quite remember them individually. I also had the Golden Book Encyclopedias, and those I remember reading voraciously.

What was the first movie your parents took you to?

Not sure. Can’t remember seeing any movies with my father except for the drive-in. Maybe it was the 1960’s version of State Fair; or did I go without my mother? 101 Dalmatians? Early on, it was West Side Story.

What was your favorite candy as a kid?

It was this red shoestring licorice we bought about two blocks from the school, right across the street from friend Bill’s house.

Do you Kiss your wife and daughter in public? Did your parents kiss you in public?

Yes, and The Daughter still lets me! Not that I can recall, and I don’t know if they kissed my sisters either.
***
You can still Ask Roger Anything.

I blame Joe Biden

It’s interesting to me that a lot of people I know did not know that Joe Biden was even coming to town.

The Wife was driving me to work last Tuesday afternoon when we were rear-ended by a car. We all were a little sore, and I, more than a little irritable about it.

My spouse blamed the other driver, very rational since that person, in fact, did drive into us, fortunately, not going very fast.

My daughter blames the superintendent of the Albany school district, for she had canceled school on a day no other district in the area had done so, though there had been delays elsewhere. If the Albany district were open, The Wife wouldn’t have been driving me at that hour.

However, I blame Vice-President Joe Biden, in Albany that day to meet with Governor Andrew Cuomo about disaster preparedness in the wake of climate change.

Just before we turned northbound on Everett Road, we see a low-flying helicopter, a tipoff that the VP was on the move. One could not actually travel across the Everett Road I-90 overpass, so the eastbound cars exiting I-90 at Everett could only turn right towards Albany, or go straight, right back onto I-90. We were stuck waiting for cars to reenter I-90 when we felt that familiar sound, and moreover, feeling of the vehicle you’re in being hit from behind.

This was The Daughter’s first car accident, and while a relatively minor event, I know *I* felt achy in my head and lower back for hours. The Wife was likewise affected, and the Daughter was mostly complaining about pain in her shoulders.

Ironically, by the time phone numbers had been exchanged, the Biden contingent had passed and Everett Road was clear again.

It’s interesting to me that a lot of people I know did not know that Biden was even coming to town. I was reminded by Megan Cruz of Channel 9 ~~YNN~~ Time Warner Cable News that morning, who was out doing a stand-up in the bitter cold, for no newsworthy reason, and one could tell she was freezing; it was about zero Fahrenheit, or below. She needed a hat.

The buses were rerouted several times that morning, apparently. The police had blocked I-787 for a time, by plows and when my colleague tried to come back to work after lunch, ended up taking city streets instead.

There’s lots of speculation that Biden and Cuomo are vying for the 2016 Democratic nomination for President, but its WAY too early for me to care.

Unexpected “vacation” day

The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife DOES go to work because her districts weren’t even delayed, *I* DON’T go to work.

Going to bed the night before a major weather pattern, I figure on one of these three scenarios, given that The Wife is a teacher at BOCES, an educational consortium, working several suburban or rural districts, and The Daughter is a student in the Albany school district.

1. The Daughter goes to school, whether The Wife goes to work or not doesn’t matter, I go to work.

2. The Daughter’s school is delayed, the Wife’s schools are delayed, I go to work.

3. The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife doesn’t work, I go to work.
What I DON’T figure on:

4. The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife DOES go to work because her districts weren’t even delayed, I DON’T go to work.

Now, I HAVE said to The Wife that, as a matter of practicality, if the fourth setting ever came to pass, I’d stay home. But I didn’t think it would REALLY happen.

Although I should have gotten an inkling a few days ago, before a wind advisory, when I was on a bus with some young man from one of our charter schools, who seemed to believe there would be no school for him today.

This leads me to believe that the Albany school superintendent is in touch with the heads of the charter schools regarding the weather, but perhaps NOT with the other district fellow wizards. There have been another time or two when Albany closed and other schools didn’t, around the time one of the hurricanes last year was not a real weather event in the city.

It’s a peculiar way to burn a vacation day. Then again, I didn’t REALLY want to be out there waiting for two buses each way, when it was below zero Fahrenheit, did I?

The Lydster, Part 115: Honesty

The Daughter has a very strong sense of fairness and justice.

My wife, when some bit of my loose change would fall on the floor, would claim it as her own, if I didn’t pick it up in time, and put it in her change jar. It was this little game of hers and I didn’t much mind, though it’s not as though she needed the money; she now makes more than I do.

I would start getting a bit irritated, though, when I’d leave change on the table or the bed or my dresser, usually in order to take it out of one pair of pants, before putting it into another. Somehow, this was the game taken too far, and I said as much. Not only was it boring, but it also made being home a bit less of the sanctuary I wanted it to be.

The practice stopped, though, only when, at some point a few months ago, the Daughter was staying a couple of nights at her maternal grandparents’ house. She told them that Mama was always stealing from Papa (her current terms of endearment for us). My wife’s mother then relayed this message to her daughter. The Wife realized that, perhaps, she was not offering HER daughter the best role model, even in jest.

The Daughter has a very strong sense of fairness and justice, and by her taking the situation to a higher court, this worked out well for me also.