A Late Night Hodgepodge

A hodgepodge is a jumble or assortment of things that might not appear to belong together. Joyce at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly link-up called Wednesday Hodgepodge that is a little collection of questions for bloggers to answer just for fun and to get to know each other. I always look forward to chatting with friends over coffee, so pour a cup of your favorite and let's visit for a few minutes!

Here are this week's questions - and my answers - for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1.  What does adventure mean to you?

 

Doing something new that involves stepping out of a comfort zone or taking a risk. It's the things you see in wilderness survival stories, but I think that anything that stretches you or challenges you can be viewed as an adventure too. Going away to college, getting married, becoming a parent, launching a new career or venture, moving to a new place . . . all of these are adventures I've been on, and I think retirement is one of the adventures still awaiting me. 

Also, it's much more positive to frame a big or scary change in your life as an "adventure" instead of a "crisis". 

 

2. What are your thoughts on tipping? What businesses or service providers do you regularly tip? Do you resent being asked if you'd like to add a tip? What about when a suggested amount is presented?

I like to tip well when I'm provided with excellent service, but only in business sectors where it's long been accepted that a tip is appropriate. So at full service restaurants, obviously. My hairdresser. It's been absolute ages since we had pizza delivered, like way before DoorDash was even a thing, but we did tip the pizza delivery guy. I do not typically add a tip at counter service restaurants. I don't think it happens very often that I'm asked if I'd like to add a tip . . . other than the options that appear on the screen. Those are easy to ignore. If it's a full service restaurant but you pay at the counter, then I don't mind at all if the cashier asks about a tip, but I do think it's presumptuous to have tip options on absolutely every screen. I do like having a tip amount calculated on a restaurant receipt so I don't have to do quick math in my head or whip out the calculator on my phone. 

 3. I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream . . . do we? Is ice cream a favorite treat at your house? What's your favorite flavor? Regular, soft serve, gelato, sherbet, or some sort of non-dairy version of ice cream . . . what's your pleasure?

 Oh yes, we sure love ice cream here! Other than licorice, I think I enjoy every flavor, so I have a hard time saying which one is my favorite. In the running would be Moose Tracks or anything similar, Cookies n Cream, Black Cherry, and of course any coffee flavored ice cream. We usually go for regular ice cream, but soft serve or frozen yogurt is fine as well. I seldom choose gelato or sherbet but I do like both. 

This was soon after we moved. Hubby and I saw no
point in dirtying extra dishes since it's just the two 
of us, so we ate ice cream right out of the container!
We really felt like we were getting away with
something!

4. What's your 'back in my day, we ____________________' story or saying?

 I should have asked my kids if I have a go-to anecdote. I don't know if I have one I bring up regularly as a judgey thing (though they might correct me on that), but I think I do comparison type things often. Like it amazes me how easy it is to stay in touch with people that live far away now that we have unlimited calling and texting on our smartphones, and email, and video calling and more. And when I was a kid, we hand-wrote letters to mail to grandparents; and we carefully planned for when and how long we would talk on the phone with distant loved ones, because long distance was cheaper at certain times. 

My truly curmudgeonly "back in my day" saying used to be about weather-related school closings. I don't have as much opportunity to regale family with this one any more, but it goes something like this: When I was in school, we almost never closed the school or had a shortened day because of the weather. In fact, in twelve years of public school in Calgary, I don't remember ever being sent home early or having school closed because of snow. Not even once. The only time I remember school closing for weather was one time when we had really high winds and there were tornado warnings. They closed the school early and sent everyone home, mostly so that the buses could finish the routes before the wind got too bad. The funny thing is, I bet most of us that usually walked home from school walked that day too. 

To be fair, although we had a lot of snow, it was pretty much always powdery, not the heavy wet stuff that we get in the east, and we never had an ice storm.  

 

5.  Somehow this is our last Hodgepodge in the month of June. Next week's Hodgepodge lands in July. Wow. Sum up your June using three adjectives.

 

 Busy. Expensive. Hot.

 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

We are still trying to decide whether we'll stay home or go visit the kids over the Independence Day weekend. I really want to go visit them, because when a movable holiday like the 4th lands on a Friday, it feels wrong to NOT take advantage of the long weekend opportunity, am I right? But there are Independence Day things to do here too, and it is a long drive . . . I just don't know. But if we're going, we need to decide soon!

Since Independence Day is coming up next week (and so is Canada Day), we chose Patriotism for our current Wednesday Quotes link-up theme. I would love to have you stop by and read, and I hope you'll join in too. You can find it here: WQ - Patriotism

 

  

It's almost midnight so I need to post while it's still Wednesday! What's your idea of adventure? Leave a comment and let me know!

I'm sharing in this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

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