Over the weekend I told Xavier that I was going to start working out again and today was the first day. I did not manage to make it through all of the exercises that he wanrtd to do because I got too tired and did not end up doing any back exercises. I could only lift the bar during the bench press and for every other exercise I could only do 10lbs. There were times that I tried to do a heavier weight and realized that I could not do it. The doctors before told me not to lift anything heavier than 10-15lbs. My wheelchair is probably the limit of what I can do and it is about 35lbs or so with both batteries on it and I do not necessarily do it easily, I struggle a bit with it. When I use to work out I use to be able to do so much more weight. While we were doing some of the exercises like incline bench press, Xavier is using the 60lb dumbbells while I use 10lb. Mel can lift more than I can in a lot of exercises. I also get quite fatigued standing there waiting to do the next exercise. I am going to need to take my time and slowly get into the rhythm of doing it. After doing the weights I can feel it in my arms, but also in my legs as we went shopping prior where I did not use my wheelchair and then I was standing around waiting for my turn. The combination of both fatigued my legs as I was standing for quite some time. I managed to eat well today though but what I really have a craving for is an original chicken sandwich from Burger King. When you think of amazing chicken sandwiches it is not the first thing that comes to mind, but it reminds me of my childhood and when I was younger. Mel’s cousin and I use to get a Whopper, chicken sandwich and fries when we would visit them in Whitby or he came here for a visit. It is a bit late in the night to go now, but I think one of these days I am going to grab it for lunch or for a late night snack. Just not after a workout when I am tired. I requested some more tofu for myself and some congee for Xavier as he had his braces tightened. We told my mother that we ate pho in Barrie and she asked us whether it was good or not. I told her it was ok but we would not go back so she is going to make some pho for us next week.
Xavier is going to be on the ice with his private sessions at RHP after they moved. He has a session on Wednesday and there are so many things that he needs to correct. He is relying too much on his athletic ability to recover from some things instead of anticipating things. His goalie coach I think will help out with some of the things he is doing which is making saves far more dramatic then they need to be instead of moving in a controlled manner. When he is playing at the top of his game he is boring and this weekend he was anything but boring. Some of it was because of our team, but some of the things he was doing he had an improper save selection I believe. I will let his coach correct him this week. I have some shooters for him this week and hopefully they will challenge him. I told him he should go to the U18AA tryouts for the ice time and to face better shooters, but he does not think that they are that great and is hesitant to go. He also thinks that his school will favour legacy students who have played over bringing him in, as he thinks that they care more about playing seniors as opposed to trying to win. I think that the coaches will want to win and will just carry multiple goalies and figure it out as they go. You need to think long term and not just this season.
When I think back on my childhood, we did not eat out often, but occasionally my parents would bring home food from KFC or Burger King. My mom always thought that the meat in a whopper was better than the meat that they would have in the burger or cheeseburger. I remember them coming home with those food on occasion. Most of the time they would cook at home though. My father brought hi mother to come and live with us when we were fairly young. This resulted in my sister, my brother and i sharing a room and she had her own room. My sister would get mad at my brother that always snored and he would end up sleeping on the floor in my parents room for a couple of years. My brother can basically sleep on any material now as he is used to anything. We shared the master bedroom which was fairly large and was capable of fitting three single beds in there. As I grew older I took over the whole basement as my bedroom instead. I am not sure the exact age that happened, but it resulted in my sister having the biggest room in the house to herself, but I think that all of the beds still remained in there. I can not remember where my brother slept, if my sister permitted him to sleep in there or not. When my grandmother was younger, which was when she was in her 80’s she would cook some things at home for us. She was actually a fantastic cook and there are some dishes that she made that my parents have never been able to replicate. One of them was really small pork cubes, that were almost minced with a sauce that I think was soy sauce based with lots of black pepper and some chili peppers. My mom said that the key to making it delicious was to put in a lot of black pepper, but when my parents make it, it is not the same. My grandmother also always told me that stolen food from the kitchen while cooking always tasted better than when things were done at the end. I always steal food from my mom when she is cooking and she would get mad at me telling me that the food was too hot to eat. Xavier is just as bad now and will shove very hot food in his mouth and just swallow it. Some times he will burn himself and regret it, but he will still do it. Xavier and I still eat food as soon as it comes and it might be hot. We have a technique on how to eat super hot food, even though I did not teach him, we clearly have genes that naturally tell us what to do. I use to really enjoy eating shrimp that my parents make, but the last couple of times I have eaten shrimp the texture just throws me off a lot so I have told them not to make it for me. Some of the smaller shrimp are fine, but the ones with the heads are larger and the texture is a bit different. I love them, but I can not eat them right now. There are some dishes that I need to learn how to cook from my parents. I think that my sister knows how to cook some of the things that I do not and I think that I can figure some of it out on my own if I do not know exactly how to do it. I also need to pass on to my kids how to cook things so that they can continue our legacy.
Q