Jeremy left for Japan today. He is giving a talk tomorrow. The last time I helped him prepare for a talk was in 1998 when he gave his dissertation. He is a much better public speaker now.
Before he left, Mom cooked a fabulous dinner with all the wet market ingredients:
Today, Mom went to Edda’s school and we hung around at home. Library books were read aloud:
I am glad to see those frogs. I thought all the frogs died out because of the deteriorating environments.
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Mom arrived yesterday afternoon and we all hugged her and trundled to our car and brought her straight to the Lot 1 Shoppers Mall. We ate at the food court and Mom marveled at the food and the prices.
On our Sunday date, we took Mom to Chinatown to see all the Moon Festival decorations. We bought lots of good food for dinner at the wet market.
We did not purchase any live frogs for dinner.
Ramadan starts tomorrow. I’m giving up my car for the month. We’ll see how it goes. In celebration, however, I’ve bought another bicycle – a Gary Fisher Mullet.
I’ll use that as my campus bike, along with an Urban/Freeride bike to go downhilling with those crazy early 20 something friends of mine.
That brings my bike total up to an embarassing number – 4.
Sigh…
We played broomball tonight at about 10pm. This was something that my friend, Anna invited me to, and then she backed out this week cause she’s been super sick. I didn’t feel like ditching since it seemed like nobody was committing to it, so I went anyways.
Actually I did know some people there. As it turns out Lee, the organizer and his gf Amy were there and I had met them before at one of Anna’s gatherings.
Anyways so we start playing and we’re doing pretty well, and of course I’m in super competitive mode and I’m going after the ball on the ice. So I manage to free the ball from a whole bunch of defenders and end up charging up the rink chasing after the ball. While I’m doing this, Amy is rushing over to try to take the ball before I can get there, and of course, none of us can stop on the ice and her right cheek ends up in my left shoulder. Now, I’m 175, and she’s a thin short asian woman, who can’t have been more than 105. So of course she ends up bouncing off of me.
She’s okay which was a good thing, but she ended up with a cut lip. I felt really bad about it. So I sat out the rest of the game. Some dude came up to scold me about “It’s not a competition, and you’re going way too fast”. I suppose it’s true, but his tone pissed me off. But yeah, the good thing is that she’s okay. I think Amy’s going to try to recruit me to do AACO events. I suppose I can’t refuse now…
We are patiently awaiting Mom’s arrival.
In the meantime, I’m trying to practice some piano. Today I actually practiced at my music school.
Vince went on a field trip to a fish farm. He aquired 2 new members of the family – Crash and Boom.
We got invited to Mr. Sherwin’s (an OT at Edda’s school) birthday party. A lot of the staff from Edda’s school were there. It was such a nice BBQ.
We stayed for 3 hours, which was longer than I thought we would stay. I was waiting for Jeremy to come to the party from work, but he had to work a bit later than usual. The kids were almost all worn out by the time he arrived. Here’s Edda and Ms. Lisa – Edda is about ready to fall asleep.
I’ve held out most of my life here, but I think it’s time I actaully get some contact lenses. I know, I know. This means that I’ll end up touching my eyeballs, which can’t be a good thing. But I think it would help me out a ton doing “active” things that have the potential to ruin my nice eye glasses.
I would still wear my glasses 95% of the time. I’ll probably pick up a set of prescription sunglasses to ride with. But there are occasions where I’d want the contact – swimming, surfing, etc…
Plus. I’ve got about $500 in a health care spending account that I have to burn before the end of the year.
For the past 6 months, I’ve been bringing Vince with me to Edda’s therapy appointments. Edda goes with a therapist to a room upstairs and we hang out in the waiting room; I used to go with her, but often she cries and whimpers for me to save her from the evil balance board practice.
Vince and I used to sneak into the other empty rooms and play on all the equipment – ladders, swings, trampolines, mats, balls. Sometimes we would convice other kids in the waiting room to come and play with us. It was great fun. But, we’ve been soundly scolded for using the equipment without a supervising therapist. Boo hoo. So now, for the last 15 minutes of Edda’s appointment, we go into her room and play.
Diane and Edda
Last night, Colleen (Jeremy’s cousin Eric’s wife) came over for dinner. She brought a friend – Ena. They were here for the IMF/World Bank meeting. Both Colleen adn Ena have 2 young kids. For a year they have been planning that after the meeting, they would fly to Bangkok and have a great girls vacation. Of course, on the last day of the meeting, the military coup happened in Thailand. Colleen was going to go anyway, but Eric talked her out of it. They went to Manila instead. Somehow less exciting than Bangkok, but perhaps no tanks are there.
I am ready heading for Singapore tomorrow morning. Can not wait to see you guys!
I cooked following items for Daddy: a whole turkey with stuffing; a bowl of meat balls; a bowl of noodles; chicken drums; a carrots cake; Sammon steak & smoked fish fillet.
The kids have been threatening to get sick. Vince has a tinge of a cough and Edda has been sneezing and her nose has wisps of snot every once in a while.
We have been lucky with our long run of good health. It’ll just be my luck that both the kids will fall sick just as soon as Mom comes into town and Jeremy has to leave for a conference.