Author: Doris

Yesterday, we spent the day driving to Albany, NY to meet a family who has an eight year old daughter with Rett Syndrome. I got their name through the RETTNET – an online support group for parents.

They were wonderfully generous with their time and information – they’ve lived in Albany for decades and they had us over for lunch and then a babysitter came over to take care of their 4 year old and Vincent while we took Edda and their 8 year old on a drive all over Albany to look at the different neighborhoods. It was nice to get a tour from a native of the area and not a realtor. So we’ve found a neighborhood that we like with a good school system – we’ll just have to find a house there.

The special needs classes for Edda seem to be sprinkled around the area and not so specific to a specific school district. It sounds like it depends a lot on who is teaching the class and who is the child’s 1-on-1 aide.

Their daughter has never been able to walk, but she is able to read and do math on the 2nd grade level (only one year behind), which is so wonderful to see!

Well, It was a fun time in NY. We crashed Times Square after midnight from Choon’s brother’s apartment. It was a mess, and crazy, but I can see how it would be a lot of fun – for maybe the last 2 hours, or at least drunk off your ass. 🙂 The cops were a bit nasty at times, but I can understand. We saw Carson Daly in the NBC booth. We tried to buy some pizza at a place at about 1:30am. It was cold, even tho they had put it in the oven. We didn’t wake up until 1pm. 🙂

Monday was a dreary day in the city. We didn’t do anything, but I had to catch my flight at LGA, which ended up being delayed a half hour due to the rain. This was not good since I had a connecting flight in DC at 9:30. My flight touched down in IAD at 9:18 and it took maybe 8 more minutes to dock the plane and deboard. I was freaking lucky that the SFO flight was the gate straight across the hall from the gate that I deboarded from. The door was closed, but there were a ton of people from Boston begging to be let on the flight. Sigh. So yeah I made it, but my bag didn’t. Hopefully they’ll get it FedExed to me today.

Oh also, there’s a slight possiblilty that I left my Oakleys in NY at Jeremy’s parent’s place. I need to get my bag back to rummage thru it, so don’t go all crazy or anything – it still might be in my bag. I just don’t remember seeing it when I repacked at Choon’s bro’s place…

We just came back around 4:30 PM.

Well, here are my new year’s resolutions:

1. Worry less.
2. Be less judgmental.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.
6. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
7. Exercise more.

There you go, nothing too specific, but hopefully I’ll work on each thing a little bit each day.

Today we went into NYC to visit Arlinda, my cousin. I was taking the whole family into the city for a lunch date and it seemed so silly to go all the way to NYC for just a lunch date, but I hadn’t seen Arlinda in over 8 years and I’m glad that we did it because I had fun and it was a beautiful day and we all ran around Central Park.

(Look at the previous entries – I added some photos to the entries now that I finally have a reliable internet connection.)

Happy new year to all!

Happy New Year!

This morning, we went to Baltimore to see the wife of Mom’s advisor (professor) in graduate school. She has lived alone for quite sometime. On and off, we have visited her so many times during the passed 30+ years. She has cancer right now and walks fairly slowly with a high-tech walker. Her only daughter is living in Albany, NY and visits her monthly. I promised her if I will drive north to see Jeremy and Doris after April, next year, I will pick her up to see her daughter. One stone for two birds, at least.

She was so happy to see us. We were too. We would like to invite her for lunch. But, since she has already missed so many meals in December in her retirment home, instead, she invited us using her leftover meal coupons because they will expire at the end of each month. The food was great. The conversation was great too. Just she is old and repeats the subjects a lot. Other than that, it was just great.

Her place is not that cheap at all. First, she needs to pay down about $250K for one bedroom apartment. Then every month, she needs to pay about $2,500 for meals and services. When she was sick and lived downstairs with extra cares, she had to pay $2,500 in addition. She told us, if she got sick again, she would like to stay upstairs in her apartment. If she is picked by Heaven in her apartment, then it is okay for her. Just too expensive to stay downstairs while sick and feel lonely. We agreed.

Looking at her and younger generations around us, Mom and I both think we are at our cross roads right now. Hope our health will hold up until the last moment. But who knows. We will be the last one lives in an assistance living place. We would rather stay in our house until the last moment.

We drove up from DC to Bard College. I was wedged between the kids, very uncomfortable as Vince squirmed into my personal space threatening to puke and Edda kept slapping me in my head with her arm. We zoomed to Bard with only one major meltdown (Vince sobbed as he realized McDonald’s was not the lunch menu).

Today, Charlotte visited us and we walked to the Hudson River which is a favorite walk of mine. Tonight we wait for Ben, Johanna and Felix for dinner. It is getting more and more crowded here.

Every one in the family was home this Christmas. It was very nice and time flies. To have all of them together is not easy these days, especially Emily, Bob and Katherine were here too. And I had a wonder time of having them celebrating my birthday together. To hear Edda laughing and to see Vincent running around had special feeling for me. The night before their (Jeremy, Doris, Donald, Vincent & Edda) departure to NY I was wild awake writing this paragraph.

Well after Donald won his fantasy football league, it’s pretty much been downhill from there. The Martins left for NYC after a holiday dinner of lamb and spinach/mushroom fritatta. The rest of us went to bed and woke up this morning not really knowing how to celebrate the first day of Kwanzaa.

Well Donald went and hung out with pals, Mom and Dad did errands, and Jeremy, me and the kids went to the mall. We went early enough so there was enough parking.

Tonight we went to Colleen and Eric’s house and had Edda’s favorite dinner – roast beef, mashed potatoes and broccoli. She ate more than the other 3 kids running around.

Yeah yeah, there are presents, and friends, and good food and family. Whatever. 😛

Tonight, I have officially won my Fantasy Football Super Bowl! I stayed up until 11ish waiting out the Miami-NYJ game. haahah!

The Super Bowl MVP is Ron Dayne of the Houston Texans for putting up 30 points for me this week, as my 2 stud running backs, LT2 and Fast Willie Parker, put up a measly 17 points, down from their average of 48. Jeff Garcia of the Philadelphia Eagles put in a respectable performance tonight. I staved off a late game scare from Jerricho Cotchery of the NY Jets, as he put in a 4th quarter TD against the Dolphins tonight, but I had enough points to eek out the win.

Just cause I’m anal… some players that helped the cause..

RB – Ladainian Tomlinson – 470pts – 33 TDs. Enough said. The #2 guys, Larry Johnson, clocked in at 359pts.
RB – Willie Parker – 264pts – 14 TDs. Erratic, either a huge game or nothing. This week, nothing
RB – Warrick Dunn – 165pts – Good first half. terrible second half. used until week 13
RB – Ron Dayne – 114pts – Subbed in in week 14. 71pts came in the last 3 weeks.

QB – Drew Bledsoe – 85pts – par until he got benched for Romo. Should have picked up Romo. sigh
QB – Jon Kitna – 236pts – Second half QB. Great yardage. Good until he started throwing 3 picks a game.
QB – Vince Young – 216pts – Wow. 6 wins in a row. Go Titans. Doubt threat to pass and run. A backup RB basically. Too bad i didn’t play him in the super bowl
QB – Jeff Garcia – 116pts – All in the last 5 weeks. Did philly just win 3 road division games? Wow.

WR – TJ Houshmandzadeh – 199pts – the highest WR average. would have been #1 or #2 WR in the league, if he didnt’ miss 2 games
WR – Wes Welker – 160pts – Mr. Consistency. 10 pts every game. #19 WR. Yea Return yards!
WR – Donte Stallworth – 105pts – Mr. Injury. Hamstring problems and McNabb going down. Huge couple games tho.
WR – Derrick Mason – 113pts – Couldn’t trust him, tho he came up big for me in the first round. TD in garbage time.

TE – Kellen Winslow – 137pts – #6 TE in the league. Kinda slowed down at the end of the season. great wire pickup

K – Nate Kaeding – 139pts – SD’s high powered offense.