Tatiana's Wanderings

I discovered redrum AGAIN this morning - I THOUGHT I TOOK CARE OF THIS TWO WEEKS AGO! Good thing I didn't bleed onto the bed! Called Shoppers to see if they had a toilet paper shipment, and left right after I got a YES answer at 9:10 on a 401. I remembered the brand new rear-door boarding for buses to protect against the coronavirus, but I was able to get on at the front because I had my Asian shopping cart with me, and "needed" this! While I was waiting, I definitely wanted to "social distance" myself from the smoker on the bench who was horking as well - you're SO GROSS and are MORE likely to get this virus!

I bought on-sale Heinz Zoodles, on-sale Softsoap lavender and chamomile soap refill, on-sale $2 Campbell's Hearty Vegetable Rice soup x2, on-sale $2 Knorr Sidekicks x4 (Fettuccine Alfredo / Creamy Bacon Carbonara / White Cheddar Broccoli / Creamy Parmesan), and the real reasons I went to Shoppers anyway: one small bottle of No Name bleach, President's Choice MAX SOFTNESS toilet paper, and NEW President's Choice Moroccan-Style Mint / Mint Refresher tea. Got home at 11 on a 407, which is fine by me.


Full aisle of paper products, sensibly limited to one per person!




( Zoodles and tea! )


Julie M. was on vacation and saw this map at a Pennsylvania visitor centre: Moscow and DRINKER?!




From Julie: Jacoba?!




From Julie M. and DR. PHIL: Rendy is a girl's name?!




From Julie M. and JUDGE JUDY: Karah Albers?! BAD SPELLING OF KARA! What a screenshot, hahaha!

Today is Mardi Gras 2020! I had some New England Clam Chowder today for National Clam Chowder Day. After COFFEE TIME, I went out at 2:45 on a 401 to help with the kids, but I just missed both buses - UGH! Got to the house, where the kids seemed to be better. Beckett walked around calling for AUNTIE - haha, so cute! He wanted me to OPEN the Play-Doh containers, wanted me to get the balls (BOH-BOH) from under the couch (I made him say "pease"), and then LICKED the Play-Doh lids while looking at me to see how I'd react. He thought it was funny, but I said it was GROSS! Ayler and Hiero wanted to sniff buttcracks - that's not great, but better than Hiero insisting that his hitting my leg was funny and that I thought it was funny too! Never mind "hit your butt!" in Cantonese...

I'm just glad I had time with Beckett, of course! Ayler is encouraging Beckett's words by making him say what certain things are; Beckett just wanted "book" and "apple" (the Bible stories book with the Garden of Eden), and said "eat-eat" and "Poo-poo" and "bye-bye" at certain times. I'm not leaving every time I go to the couch, but I told him BYE-BYE anyway. Not sure what he expects me to do about poo, OR his wanting to eat at 5 PM, but I'm glad he tells me and can communicate. His pronunciation of MAGNET seems to have suffered in the last two weeks, but that's okay.

Harmony had to "remind" me not to take photos of the kids - DOES A STICKY RICE PHOTO LOOK LIKE A PICTURE OF HIERO TO YOU?! One of these weeks, I'm going to lose it. Unlike her, I let Beckett wander the house now as opposed to a few months ago. He can climb on the couch, but I do get him down from there just in case. I wouldn't want anything to happen to him! Ayler told me that I was bald - oh, that's rude for sure!

Ayler says his friends wrote him a letter, and one of the lines was about poop - of course. I should have taken a look at it, but I had already used my reading glasses to read some Ninjago Lego comic to Hiero for a bit, who asked what the BOOM! was on my phone. Just Jeff crashing his Sky Runner into the Threed graveyard on EARTHBOUND, hahaha! I took a list of Penny's list of "good words" on the wall after Ayler said he hated Hiero's crayons or something. It's okay to hate things, but they do need to learn to be kind for sure... it's a process! The Canucks played the Canadiens today at 4, and won 4-3 in overtime! Got home at 8:40 on a 407 - thank goodness the driver actually waited for more than a minute at the Brighouse bus stop!


Random stuff from Mom and Dad: Vifon beef instant noodles x2 with some Czech, (Instantna Rezancova Polievka or Instantni Nudlova Polevka s Prichuti Hovezi), two 40g bags of Old Dutch Salt and Vinegar chips which expired yesterday (so still very fine for eating), and 175g of Cherubin [NOT A TYPO!] hard candy hearts / 120g of Cherubin [NOT A TYPO!] marshmallow hearts from Dollarama for Valentine's Day 2020.


From Julie M. and DR. PHIL: Andromada Deberry?! BAD SPELLING OF ANDROMEDA!




Vifon beef instant noodles with some Czech! Instantna Rezancova Polievka or Instantni Nudlova Polevka s Prichuti Hovezi.




Old Dutch Salt and Vinegar chips!




Not a typo: 120g of Cherubin marshmallow hearts from Dollarama for Valentine's Day 2020!




Not a typo: 175g of Cherubin hard candy hearts from Dollarama for Valentine's Day 2020!




Banana leaf-wrapped sticky rice or joong! I wonder what color it is...




Savory white joong or sticky rice!




They have sweet purple joong or sticky rice now?!




Okay, Google, I'm not a time-traveler here, so there is no way I last visited the Pure Nail Bar website on December 2, 2020. I use month-day-year Date Format as it's less confusing, so the date should be February 12, 2020! I had to fix it by going into my Google settings and choosing the USA as my region... *rolleyes*

From WFLA News Channel 8: What's Your Cupid Name? Happy Love Wings?!




Finally found the 2020 NHL Valentine's Day cards by searching "NHL Reddit Valentines" - the guy's username is Oeuvre!


From Reddit: Happy Valentine's Day 2020 to Anaheim Ducks fans! (Ryan Getzlaf)




( 2020 Reddit NHL Valentine cards! )

I discovered that Andre had unfriended / blocked me on Facebook - WHAT THE HECK?! Eric picked me up at 8:50 AM so I could use church as a vehicle to get to the Osborne Gym at UBC for Hiero's 6th birthday party. It helps that his hockey is all the way out at UBC, too... and it turned out that his hockey building is practically right next to the Robert Osborne building! He said that the LUFIA music sounded like something crazy was going on at my place - HAHAHA! I packed the Creature Chumpers toy (but forgot the birthday card), a bottled water, my Doge bag, and the other Starbucks Cold Brew before putting my boots on just in case of slush. Made my bag heavier, but it was okay. Eric and I listened to the radio for a bit until some guy came on who just monologues at you all the time - not his thing, and not mine either!

When we got to church, there was still plenty of parking across the street. As I thought, the car door went CLONK into a slush accumulation. Luckily, Eric could pull forward a bit so I could go into the nearby parking lot and then cross the street after getting on the clear sidewalk. I waited around outside the sanctuary, saying hey to Joe. When we were allowed to go inside, I said hi to Geoffrey and Sheena, and was respectful of the service. Hiero was there with Jon (who was preaching today), so I asked him if he wanted his birthday gift now or later... of course he chose now, before the Children's Sunday School.

I realized I'd forgotten the birthday card, but I can always give it to him later. He seemed out of it for some reason, but I wouldn't find out why till much later. Then he was trying to get Jon's attention, but he was busy talking to Pastor Dan. When I got back from the handicapped restroom (seeing empty water jugs inside and hoping a grandma didn't have to use it), Hiero had gotten Jon's attention, who told him to say thank you. I said that he already had (when I prompted him), so of course he didn't have to say it again! I did see Uncle Eric and Auntie Brenda at different times, and an uncle said hi to me as well.

Jon had an engaging sermon on Mark and seeds, at least. Even Julie S. agreed with me later on! I said hi to Sam, Auntie Cathy, Auntie Catherine (hug), Auntie Esther (hug), Cordia's mom, Helen C., Joe T., Ivan, Lesley, Dylan / Deb / Declan / Elysse (who thinks it's crazy that Hiero will be her age by next week AND who was eating sugar cubes), Cordia / Amasiah / Julie S. / Denise (who sent a photo of me to Steph) / Julie M., Auntie Susan x2 (Karen Grace's mom and Vivian's mom), Darren L., Martin T., Acer, and others. I could hear Acer swearing in the fellowship hall while talking about DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, but whatever.

Soon enough, it was just a little group of me, Eric, Cordia, Amasiah, their friend Jeremy, and Acer since everyone else was staying for the Larry and Bella Mori missionary lunch before Missions Fest later in the month. Once we were shushed by Auntie Ada (Benedict's mom) since the Cantonese service was going on, we moved to the stairs, where I noticed a few minutes later that we were blocking the way, so we stood around a little outside the sanctuary in the "hall" until the bench cleared up. We still had to watch our volume, though!

Jeremy insisted he wasn't a weeb just because he went to Japan with some guys - including Acer's cousin - and had to translate for the group, Cordia said she's accepted who she is, and said that Amasiah was morbid like me - SWEET! We talked about the Japan trip, Japanese people KNOWING when you're "foreign" to them even if you're Asian and fluent in the language, Sharon's health woes in the Osoyoos (being literally stuck at home), 80 cents for a medium bottle of milk tea in Japan, the Mori kids Timothy and Tiffany, Molly, people following others on Instagram, pressuring Amasiah to buy some Pokemon figurine on Amazon since she didn't in Hong Kong, my trip, the snow and slush, anime / manga, otaku people, Discord, and lunch plans. Eric and I went upstairs to see if we could get some extra $2 sandwiches (Benedict had five pink tickets from his mom!), but he decided not to bother or distract anyone in the rooms, which I noticed are now labelled. They even upgraded the water cooler from a huge jug to a black self-cleaning one!

A few minutes later at 1:25, Eric asked if I was cool with going to Broadway / Cambie instead. Sure, why not? We could get fast food burgers, so we went to A and W where he kindly paid for my Mama Burger and we shared his fries before going to Pacific Spirit Park and a parking garage on UBC campus. He pressed the crosswalk button for me in the rainy weather, and showed me which building to go into. I went into the Robert Osborne building, connected to the Wi-Fi, and looked for a specific gym on the Evite to no avail, so I had to text Harmony about it. "No, gym" is not really a great answer to "should I meet you on the second floor?" when there are at least three gyms and lots of lockers in the entire place... as I told Steph, I wonder how many "where is this place specifically?" calls and texts they got before the birthday party.

Jon and Harmony were actually early with the kids, probably because they had to sign a waiver and were nominally hosting 15 kids and their parents. I showed Beckett the balls that he had dropped in my bag, but he seemed too out of it even for just waking up. He did look at them with widened eyes, but said nothing. After I met Hiero's friends Emmett and Huxley (what a name!), I heard that Hiero had puked on the gymnastics equipment when Harmony was explaining what had happened in Chinese to her parents! IRRESPONSIBLE AND GROSS! WHY WOULD YOU SUBJECT KIDS TO THAT?! Even Ayler was complaining of feeling sick at the end of everything later! While I was there, Chinese Eric replied to my text about the All-Star Game, saying he'd get back to me later. Why don't you figure it out first, man? I'm not like my ex Mike who wants an almost-instant response! Uncle Joe and Auntie Wing ended up driving me home after the refreshments since Costco closes early on Sundays, so I got home at 6:25. AWESOME!


Random stuff from Mom and Dad, who definitely wanted the tiny tote bag back if Mom dug through my bag for it: Cao Is Starvingbase Chongqing instant noodles, Paldo Jjajangmen Chajang instant noodles, Country Life pure soap, a random floral soap circle, Princess Cruises Lotus Spa shower gel x2, a shoe brush, a Bath Aquatics h2O+ bath bar, and Ontrue roasted seaweed x2 in green tea flavor! It's MINE after I put it in my bag - come on now, WAIT FOR ME TO GET BACK FROM THE WASHROOM AND THEN ASK PERMISSION! Even Beckett has more respect than that! When he dropped his balls in my bag, he just stood by the bag and didn't go through it... I'm sure he doesn't have the words to ask about the balls, but that doesn't matter!


The Tiger Tiger Sukiyaki noodles did come with a lot of packets in the bowl with the handy lid, all crammed inside!




( Gummies, water jugs, hot water advisories, and party food! )