Today it is my favorite sister’s birthday. Out of all my female siblings she ranks #1 in my heart. Now, some of you might argue that I only have 1 sister, but it is still quite the feat. Olivier tells everyone that Xavier is his 3rd favorite brother, so at least I have my sister at #1. As a person though she is pretty damn awesome overall, as she has always offered to help out with anything that I ask of her, whether it is reasonable or not. She will go out of the way at her own expense to help us out and I think that she has been a fantastic mentor for Xavier in his quest to be a professional rich person. Growing up as is Asian tradition, we did not always receive a lot of guidance from my parents.. They worked a lot and provided for us as much as they could. Growing up I do not recall having too many discussion with them about things. Most of my lectures on life came from my parents friends where we would hang out and they would drop words of wisdom for us. I did not sit around much with my parents where they would talk to us like that. I think that part of it might have been a language barrier as it is difficult to drop really good advice when you need to kee the conversation language very simple for me to understand. Interestingly enough though, they would help out my cousin and my parents wou.d go out of their way to help them out with anything that they could. Ever since around Covid though, they have had a bit of falling out as my father is extremely stubborn and holds grudges forever if he deems it has offended the family. Family bonds are extremely important to my father and my generation where I am close to my cousin’s kids and my cousins in BC and the US have basically said that we will not let the drama of our parents impact us. My mother has a very bad habit of calling me when I am busy with things. so when I am not too busy I try and chat with her and I think that she appreciates it. I spoke with her today for about 40 minutes and I was patient with her. Near the end of our conversation for the last 10 minutes she kept on asking me if I had eaten and if I planned to eat soon. I think that she was running out of things to say so she defaulted to Asian parent tradition. Immediately asking whether you have eaten at first sight and making sure that you have a plan to eat before closing out the conversation.
I am not sure what I was talking with when I was on the phone with my mom, but it amused me when she was talking about how it is important to be nice to everyone no matter what. I think it may have been when I was talking about the kids and how they would bicker and my mom correctly identified that Xavier will purposefully cause trouble for Olivier and sometimes he does not care and goes along with it. My mother does not like to bake, but she was impressed that Olivier could bake on his own. I should make more of an effort to spend time to chat with my mother, but on weekends if we are busy it is hard to do so. I had mentioned that Mel had gone to Wonderland with the kids and my mother indicated that the last time we had gone on a trip together Mel had to do evasive maneuvers because someone tried to do a u-turn. I do not remember this incident at all, but she mentioned it and said that Mel drives much faster than I do. As I have gotten older I drive slower now I think. I want to go to the CNE, and asked my parents if they are interested in going. My parents are getting older so they do not want to walk around for lengthy periods of time. I indicated that I can not go for long either, and that I just want to go and try out new foods. My mother said that is all tha she wanted to do as well, so she will talk to my father and we will see if we go or not.
As I am home alone I need to be a bit careful with things. I was taking a bath today and what I realized was that I was getting tired and felt weak, and when I am weak I need to be careful getting out of the bathtub. I struggled a bit to get out and figured that I got out at a good time. If I had waited too long and I slipped Mel and the boys will not be home until most likely after midnight. I am not sure if I will be up when she comes back, but I probably should be as if I do not they will wake me up when I get home anyway. Tomorrow we have nothing planned and I am sure that everyone will end up sleeping in a bit. Xavier will sleep in until maybe 8:30 instead of his 7 and Olivier might sleep in until 10. If Mel has nothing planned she will keep on sleeping until she gets hungry or I bring her some coffee. Ny taste buds are still shot and they are getting better, as it has been over a week now, and textures still mess me up a bit. Meats that have too soft of a texture is not pleasant, but if it has sort of a good sear than it is not too bad. I still have not figured out what this cycle of treatment brings on a week to week basis though or how long things persist for. As each week the drugs change up a bit it will take a bit more time to figure out what the cumulative impacts are. Today has been a relaxing day for me and I appreciated the time alone. I watched a bunch of movies on the TV that I would not necessarily watch if the kids were home and I will watch another before I go to bed tonight perhaps.
Q