Xavier and Mel were making the bed last night and he remembered that when he was a kid, we used to play with his duplo that I would always take the chicken. His characters would have all sorts of crazy super powers and were basically unbeatable. My chicken had 1 power. Instant death if someone looked at him. So I would be playing with the chicken walking around and as soon as he came close my chicken would die. Instantly. This was to combat their ridiculousness. Now he laughs at the memory of me using the chicken and always dying. He also had a red fire hydrant that he called ketchup blaster. I do not recall what the powers were, only that I would always be the chicken while he would build cool robots or something. As soon as we started fighting I would die. He would try different things, but I would inevitably die instantly, because my character was super weak. He eventually started playing where things were more even but I Ioved my instant death chicken. We gave all of the duplo away but I want my chicken back. Xavier wants to go to Walmart and buy the sets as you can get the fire hydrant and the chicken in sets that are $10. Mel disagrees and does not want to allow it in the house. Our birthday’s are coming up and they will probably somehow show up as gifts anonymously. Neither of us have any idea on how they showed up. It does amuse me that the first thing Mel said was they better not show up as she got rid of them all recently. I want the chicken for my desk to remind me of my super power of instant death. The ultimate foil to an all powerful character. Xavier also remembered how I would always choose a girl character as my favorite and how Olivier would get so mad that I chose a girl. He asked me who my favorite superhero was and i said Jean Grey as Phoenix. In reality she was always one of my favorites so it was not a lie. He just did not like that answer. Mel and I never gendered things and I actually had quite a few pink clothing. It amuses me how he developed that viewpoint. I am curious if he remembers and what he would say now if I told him my favorite character was a girl. There are quite a few indie bands that I liked who had female singers. I am curious on his thoughts about that as well.
We have been getting a lot of deliveries in the last couple of days as we prepare for the party this weekend. Today Xavier’s punching bag arrived and I really felt for the guy who had to carry it in by himself. He seemed to struggle a bit with the weight of it and he was out of breath as he came in. When people delivered the pergola they drove into the driveway and kind of dragged it close to the garage and left it there. I got Xavier to bring it into the house. I have a strong dislike for UPS as they keep on delaying deliveries. Their virtual AI assistance is also one of the worst that I have ever interacted with, both with the online chat and with their call in line. I kept on pressing 0 until it decided to connect me with someone after it repeatedly told me that it did not know what I wanted. I have ordered an item from Costco and both times it gets “lost”. I have had other items delivered from UPS from when it is supposed to be delivered during the time that the item was lost. I remarked that this one item has gotten “lost” twice and I have received many items between. Last time I tried to initiate an investigation on why it was lost but to no avail and eventually contacted Costco who gave me a refund. This time the agent put it in the system to do an investigation because I asked why is this the second time that this gets lost. It is god damn lemonade. It does not have that high of a value, but it annoys me that I can not purchase it because it gets delayed and lost in transit. It does not make any sense at all.
This morning I went in to get drained and getting the needle inserted is not too difficult or painful. The radiologist and the tech had said that I had moderate build up of the ascites, but the definition of moderate I think is subjective as the amount that I had drained today was paltry compared to other times. Today they managed to extract a bit over 2 liters, compared to the 7 and 5 liters they did before. The liquid was also not as milky looking as before so that was good to hear. The thing that sucks is now I can feel all of my internal organs shifting about and eating was a bit unpleasant. As I was eating I can feel pressure in my stomach and things moving so I had to stop even though I was not really full. It is quite the odd sensation as things readjust. I am not sure how long it will take before things settle down, as I do not remember how long it took last time. I am quite impressed that this has persisted for so long though. When this all settles I think that I will be able to eat more. When I spoke to my doctor today and mentioned that my oncologist was surprised that he mentioned that we should talk to the doctors in Spain he was a bit surprised. My oncologist cares deeply for his patients and is always concerned with families dumping large sums of money to go somewhere with the promise that it will work, and come back with no discernable results. I think that he was ok and suggested it as there were tangible benefits from going and as he saw my GoFundMe he knew that it would not bankrupt the family. We had the financial resources already setup for it. I think that was reassuring for him and he was more comfortable with us going. He is much more relaxed now when we talk compared to before, even though we do not know what is going on inside. The best way to figure it out is to do a scope, but I do not really want one if they will go in and visually inspect it laproscopic when they do the PIPAC treatment.
When you enter high school, you get a cafeteria that sells food. The food that our cafeteria sold was not hot and you had to then go use the microwave if you wanted to heat something up. I did not always bring a lunch to school and would purchase one some days. What I remember purchasing was the following, a burger that was not great that you would microwave and put some ketchup, mustard and relish on. They were cheap and had a distinctive taste to it. When I was working at Vale we went to Deluxe one day for lunch and I had ordered my usual as well as a hamburger. One of my colleagues asked me if their burgers were good, and I replied no, but they reminded me of the burgers in high school. If you love Deluxe burgers I apologize for saying they are not “good”. I still order them once in awhile as they remind me of when I was younger. I would sometimes get a bagel with 2 cream cheese, one for each side. They came untoasted and you had no option to toast them, but I liked them. The other main meal I would buy was a sub with italian dressing to put onto it. It was a cold cut sub with lettuce, tomatoe and onions and it was tasty enough when you put on the dressing. Another popular item was the honey bun and ringalos. Those were the things that I would buy at least once a week. They were inexpensive and I was provided with an allowance for my own discretionary spending. If we did not work, my father gave us a weekly allowance. It was not a ton of money but when I look back and think it was probably pretty substantial over the course of a month as he gave it to all 3 kids. I think I got the most money, but it was enough to fund my ridiculousness and to lend money to others. We do not give the kids an allowance as Mel does not really believe in it too much, but I slip the kids money every now and then. Or I dump money into their accounts. I hate change so I will always give any change away to whomever is closest to me. They always ask what it is for and I tell them that i do not like to jingle. Some times I like to eat food that reminds me of certain situations. I would love to go back to Amsterdam and find that one restaurant that had the best burger I ever had. It should be super easy to find, it was at the corner near the water. There can not be more than 500 different restaurants that fit that description. I am known as being quite the food snob, but really sometimes I want that really crappy version. Like when you have a craving for KD when you can have a so much better version. You want to remember your childhood, though we did not eat KD as that is a Canadian thing. When I was younger if we had KD I would alter it and add cheese and other things. After school we would hang out at various houses. One of our most common snacks was microwaved nachos made with havarti cheese and salsa. I am sure that we also used other cheeses as we used whatever the house had, but I always remember using havarti. Some of my favorite things to eat are the simple things and not always complex hard to make things. I want street meat sometimes and you just need to not think about cleanliness or anything like that and just enjoy the moment. That is the most important thing in life, savour the small moments, and that is probably something that Mel does really well and what I love the most about her. She will get great joy from small fleeting moments. With how fast things are in our current life, we need to slow down at times and appreciate the now.
Quoc Hao