Today is Friday and it seems that most of the major effects have now gone away and I will have some normalcy for 4 days before I begin treatment again. My taste buds seem to be getting better but really it is a bit hard to say for sure. Energy levels today have not been too bad but I am still a bit tired from my shenanigans and gallivanting yesterday. Today we decided to have a fire and to cool our dinner over the fire. I did not realize how tiring it was for get wood for the firepit. We have a stack of hardwood by our shed, but it is covered by a tarp. Logically that means that I needed to go into the area behind our house and find a dead tree and chop some wood. When Mel and I first started dating and we were camping, I went to gather wood with her uncle and he chopped up wood and I would then take it and toss it in the truck. As a city boy I was not completely useless and managed to keep up with the French Canadians. Watching him cut down trees back then I learned a lot. A couple of years ago we purchased our own chainsaw and i remembered my first lesson. Amateurs should not cut down trees. We used ours mainly for small bushes and nothing too large. Mel’s uncle is awesome with his tools and quite experienced. So I went into the backyard where the trees are and tried to find a dead tree to cut down. Alas, I could not find one to apply the lessons learned from an earlier time and used the woodpile by the shed. The firepit is a fair size and we needed lots of coal to cook our dinner so I threw what felt like a couple hundred quarter pieces of wood over to the firepit area. Since I am so weak and fragile it only amounted to about 8 pieces of wood. Xavier eventually came out and grabbed more for me. I enjoy eating Coney Island hot dogs so earlier in the day I had gone to Tarini’s to buy some beef as well as a couple pounds of bacon. We like to have frozen bacon in the fridge for the kids to use for their meals. They can use them for breakfast or snacks. Olivier likes to embed it into his pancakes. After dinner our family fire lasted all of 45 minutes. The kids finished their spiced apple cider heated up over the firepit and then went in to play on their various electronics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Family has always been super important to both myself and Mel. By the time that Mel met me, all of my grandparents had passed away and my uncle in Toronto was quite old and living in a nursing home. We spent more time with her side of the family as her maternal grandmother had a lot of siblings in the area. I remember biking to her grandparents place from her parents and her grandfather would always push me to have a Pepsi until I finally agreed. For some reason there was always some sort of fresh treats available as well so we would go inside and have some treats and then continue on our journey. Mel’s grandfather reminded me of my own dad growing up where the focus was on working and providing for the family. He did not spend time playing with me or entertaining me. It was amusing that when Xavier was born, he was the first great grandchild and the way that Mel’s grandfather and my father interacted with the kids was so different. They would both play with the kids and do things that we did not always see. My parents spoiled our kids to a ridiculous degree and even to this day they do. Xavier’s Cantonese is far superior to Olivier’s, as he can understand what is said, he just can not talk back. Early on in our relationship my aunt had died and we went to Toronto for the funeral and it was done in the traditional Buddhist tradition. The amount of rules and steps involved were dizzying. You had to do things based on your birthday year and whether your astrological sign aligned with the person dying. I remember my cousin moving Mel around getting her to do something, realizing she had calculated something wrong and then rushing back to Mel and turning her around so she did not face the coffin. Mel had no clue what was going on and would just go with whatever she was told. Everyone she met had loved her and how she would respect a culture that she has no clue about. Mel and I were dating when I was a Master’s student and I use to run really long experiments spanning months that would take 10 to 12 hours a day. I had missed so many holiday family events at the time. It was not a big deal for my family as they did not care, but it was to such an extent that Academia was not a career that Mel was too keen on me pursuing. One of my first encounters with her family, her uncle whom I had just met seconds ago wrapped me up in a big hug. At this time I had a very strong dislike of being touched. I had to just get my teeth and endure it as it was her uncle. Mel knew that I did not like it, it was also common knowledge amongst my friends and they would try and touch me all of the time to annoy me. Thinking back on all of the random encounters that we had with both sides of the family I think it helped strengthen our relationship as we saw the odd quirks from both sides. Tonight Mel and I sat by our fire in the beauty of our backyard. Worries from the past disappeared as we appreciated what we have built with our lives so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Q<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is Friday and it seems that most of the major effects have now gone away and I will have some normalcy for 4 days before I begin treatment again. My taste buds seem to be getting better but really it is a bit hard to say for sure. Energy levels today have not been…<\/p>\n