Tatiana's Wanderings

After COFFEE TIME, I went out at 3:10 on a 407 to help with the kids, bringing along the rest of the Almond Butter Nature Valley granola cups. I had just enough time to stop in at Tim Horton's briefly to buy a Boston Creme doughnut and take a photo for posting purposes, thanks to the lineup inside! Then I quickly left to catch the 3, which is when I finally texted Harmony. When I got to the building, some guy answered when I buzzed to be let in. Luckily, some lady with a stroller was entering the building, so I quickly explained to her what my deal was. Then I took the stairs since the elevator is pretty small, and knocked on the suite's door while explaining to Harmony what was going on. Beckett was awake and standing with the piano bench for support, and was outside the bathroom door when I finished in there. Yes, he was excited to see Auntie! :D

Ayler was playing the piano (telling me about his piano books and music) and putting up with Beckett banging away at the keys he could reach, while Hiero wanted me to read various MR. MEN books to him and see all his paper planes and swords. Beckett wanted to play catch, but then also throw some things around. At least it wasn't as bad as a couple of months ago! He wanted to turn on the printer and play with it, whereupon Ayler showed me where the power button was - SO HELPFUL! Beckett had found his purple and yellow baby pop-up toy, and wanted me to pop the yellow shell right-side up on it: At least he laughed at that after a while, and tried popping it with his finger! Silly Beckett - you're not strong enough for that to work! He turned it upside-down and had fun sticking his finger into the hole. Then he was upset when I was trying to collect the pop-up toy and a couple other toys: he stretched his arms out towards me! So I put the shell on the table temporarily while I picked him up. YAY!

We had squash, purple noodles, soup, kale, salad, and other things for dinner while discussing Kids Night / my NOT being psychic about their Halloween costumes / math quizzes during dinner / the impending bus strike / Rice Krispies not being real food for a meal / hot chocolate sort of being like dessert / what packaging was / less waste. Beckett pointed at the ceiling lights - oh, he'll love Christmastime if he likes babbling at those! Harmony said that Jon was coming home at about 6 so she could go to a school meeting. My nephews were singing "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. If you don't, I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear" at dinner. Oh boy. Then they were asking me what a ding-dong was because an adult asked them if another kid was one for spilling his milk. Yikes.

Later, Beckett ACTUALLY WALKED TEN LITTLE STEPS ALL BY HIMSELF! His motivation was the big bag of toys! I actually saw this, and was surprised as was Harmony. He usually just toddles one or two steps and then falls into her arms. Hiero said, "Text Daddy!" Oh, she did! Later, I told him not to force him to walk - he'll do it at his own speed, and new things can be confusing. WOW, HE CAN ALSO STAND WITHOUT SUPPORT!

Then Beckett was crying and upset and hit his head on the wooden floor when Harmony had to leave (what a delay tactic...), so of course he got comforting (hopefully) cuddles and hugs from me and Harmony! I read to him and tried making him laugh with the orange alphabet and animal sounds board, which at least was a distraction. He liked the shapes and blocks that the older boys used to play with, and showed me how he could put a couple of blocks together and then throw them around. Of course I used his bib to wipe his nose - I'm sure it's had worse on it, so whatever! It's handy! After I left at 7:15 (hearing Beckett babbling to himself in his crib), I wasted time at Save-On because all the exotic pasta was too heavy and somehow didn't photograph well in the brightly-lit store. UGH!

Then the 3 had a few delays, what with the "timing point" for two minutes at 41st and Main, then the bus alarm going off TWICE! (four stops before Marine Drive Station, THEN right before the station at 70th!) Once I finally got to Brighouse, I killed time at Shoppers Drug Mart since the mall was at least warm: NEW President's Choice frozen small sweet green peas / frozen peaches and cream corn, plus NEW on-sale Uncle Ben's Canada wholegrain brown rice! Got home at 9:05 on a 407, and it was definitely time to switch to warm wintry wear like a toque and Grandma's purple lined Alia coat and stash a scarf and mittens in my bag, especially if more walking is on the agenda with this upcoming transit strike...

At home, I had some (After Eight) hot chocolate, which I also need to restock in general. Random stuff from Mom and Dad inside an Indigo, Chapters, and Coles plastic bag: a can of Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, Colgate Cavity Protection toothpaste, and a random pair of thin white socks. I left the socks and plastic bag at the bus stop since I didn't need them. The garbage bags were STILL outside at 10 PM!


From Julie M. and Wish: Spooky grinning skull medieval toilet paper holder for Halloween 2019!




One of my neighbors evidently decided to give up on their garbage bags just outside the front door this afternoon, halfway to the dumpster...




Boston Creme doughnut time at Tim Horton's!




( Shoppers potential purchases! )

Beckett crawled over to me to say hi - CUTE! After COFFEE TIME, I left at 3:15 on a 401 to help with the kids. I got to Marine Drive Station very early, thanks to no stupid delays! Went to T&T to look for hot and sour soup mix (why don't they have any?!), but did get NEW Clear Lime Coca-Cola and NEW Coffee Plus Coca-Cola. Then I went to Shoppers for a box of Peaches and Cream oatmeal for National Oatmeal Day later. Got to Harmony's at 4:45 or so after receiving a call and a text saying they were home now even if I'd tried buzzing in earlier - I was literally walking to her place! When I got in, I heard an awake Beckett, so I mentioned that in a normal volume. Beckett then crawled to me to say hi since he recognized my voice, which is cute!

I played with him for 15 minutes before dinner; he climbed on me (so I took the opportunity for a hug), laughed at the baby pop-up toy, and then was bothering Ayler and Hiero when it was reading time for PLANETS and SUPERMAN. Beckett doesn't know any better - he's a baby, and he's curious about what we're doing! Someone had a tantrum, and Hiero hit me with his fist. What?! Ayler and Hiero also insisted that origami was a bathroom activity - okay, then!

When Beckett was upset later because I took a toy away from an "unsafe" area (not the mat), I took the opportunity for another hug. We had slightly spicy meatball chili, cornbread with butter and honey, beans, and some other stuff for dinner. I said maybe I'd bring crackers next time so Beckett could eat something, and Hiero actually remembered that he'd double-fisted Swiss Cheese crackers recently! Ha, that had been pretty funny! I did get Beckett to "read" word books later, and he was having such a good time with that and his favorite colored ball that he was upset when Harmony took him away from me to sleep.

I left at 7:10 or so since Beckett had had a three-hour nap earlier and Harmony just put him down early for the night shift. Amazingly, there were no delays on the return trip to Marine Drive Station, but I still wanted to get home before 10 PM if possible. I used the 20-minute time between 407 buses to use the wifi at Richmond Centre and text Chinese Eric about tomorrow... then I got home at 8:35! Pretty early! I also tried emailing Jeremy from my phone to wish him a happy birthday on the day, but no go; I did that when I got home instead! Then I found out that all my Facebook accounts can't tag people in photos - WHAT THE FUCK?! Tried clearing my cookies and browsing data, but that didn't work! I was way overdue for that if it had 80,000 items, anyhow. NO MORE JIMMY! Now I gotta sleep because my body is screaming EYESTRAIN at me in a way I haven't had since a week and a half after my eye surgery!


My skeleton and candy corn Ugly Halloween Sweater: GET FREAKY!




( More Halloween and amusements! )

Brian picked me up at about 9 last night from the hospital's main entrance, but I had to take a gigantic huge detour because the construction had blocked off the sidewalks right by my place AGAIN! (going through the parking lot and then find the sidewalk by the pharmacy and then cross THREE crosswalks to get to the hospital) He had joked that it would be like Little Iraq trying to get to my place, and this was about right. The chill get-together was for Paulo's 27th birthday, so of course I was going to come out and meet him. Things were fine until we tried finding Fremlin, but I eventually called Holly (who doesn't have a buzzer system or an elevator in her apartment building?!) when Brian eventually found it. She said that she was going to throw her keys down to us, probably because she was tired of going up and down the stairs for everyone else!

When Brian finally figured out the front door lock (the one in my building is recalcitrant as well), we went upstairs to Holly's suite. We met Paulo, and said hi to Holly and Darryl. Talked about bartending, gin and tonic, red wine, beers, smoking (always someone's choice), travel (Jordan and Egypt and Australia), the leftover pizza with pepperoni and sausage, online people in the other Discord server, Gastown, awful dates, hyphenated names, feminism, the 407, friends being in abusive relationships, weird names like Jesus Condom, the closed sidewalks around my place, (looking for) work, Long Island Iced Teas, (video) interviews, San Francisco, Montreal, fudge Oreos, and my Korean BBQ Kettle chips. Of course I let Holly keep them! Turns out that Paulo lives two minutes from me, which is always good just in case. I let Brian drop me off at Birchwood instead of Dogwood, but I was still with it enough to figure out where I was since things looked different. Got in at midnight, which is fine. Good times with FREEDOM!


From Dragons: Luck of the Irish dragon!




From Brad Jansen: A flying red dragon!




From Julie M. and Realm of the Witch: If you're going to make me out to be something I'm not, it'd be cool if you'd make me a dragon. Thanks.




From Instagram and Kramer's Discord server: Smartmouth Beer released a Lucky Charms-flavored beer on March 2 for St. Patrick's Day 2019?!

From Julie M. and Zulily Canada: Emoji Poop Sheet Set - YAY!

From Julie: Frankenstein dancing!




The FINAL FANTASY V SPOOF party makes it to Dr. Archie Carr's Cave, and comes across these treasure chests. Bartz says, "There's a severed human head inside! Should we take it?" Yes or no? OF COURSE WE SHOULD!




From Vanessa and For Shits and Giggles: Charmin Pumpkin Spice toilet paper! For those special moments in life... when you want your ass to smell like pumpkin spice!

Steph and Fraser called me at about 1:10 PM today, which was at least a fine surprise. Fraser said that he was eating apples and crackers, and could answer "yeah" when prompted to answer my various simple questions about whether he liked the zoo. I said that I would hopefully be having dinner with Chrystal at some point, would go to Jeremy's for that Jacob's Well fundraiser, mentioned that I'd seen a PEPPA THE PIG book at London Drugs (they have a whole set), said that Hiero needs to eat more protein (1.5 tiny mandarin oranges is not really a proper dinner...), said that Ayler now understands the concept of a square root! Steph said that Sandy still had her food truck breakfast business, mentioned that Fraser could definitely go in the pool with help and supervision later in the year (I can see the older kids not paying attention to him!), says that Fraser likes watching the older kids to observe what they do, and had to go when Fraser wondered why Lisa was in the washroom after getting home. At least Fraser seems to be settled in now at his new (smaller) daycare!


From Krista: A dragon in space with a sun flare!




From Dragons and Frenetic Funnies: "That was both disgusting and embarrassing. We breathe fire at our enemies... BREATHE!!!" The red dragon has farted fire at the knight instead, hahaha!