Tatiana's Wanderings

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND 2020, EVERYONE! NEW YEAR, NEW DECADE!





FINALLY HOME AFTER A FLIGHT! I left the house with Steph after thumping my suitcase up the stairs from the guestroom, hugged the kids, and Steph noticed Havarti was sad because she knows what a suitcase means. We drove 45 minutes to the airport; why WOULD she take a $20 or $30 toll road to save one minute?! I hugged her goodbye, then got selected for a pat-down because I accidentally left my phone in my pocket. UGH! At least a kind employee got me a zoomer to go all the way to my YYZ gate after the elevator! The flight itself was uneventful - I was seated in front with the babies and children, but played with my new friend, the year-old baby boy next to me.

White Eric picked me up as advertised after I landed at 2 today. Wow, time change! Haha. I had to walk the length and breadth of YVR because the outside exit for domestic arrivals was all the way at the front. Sweating for sure! I was home by 3, and everything seemed okay, but THE MICE MANAGED TO CHEW THROUGH THE STEEL WOOL IN THE BATHROOM?! YUCK!


At 12 AM the night before New Year's Eve, it will be Ramones time. It will be 2020, 24 hours to go. I wanna be sedated!




From The Onett Times: Happy Blue Year!




From Not Always Right: Dilbert says, "I have now officially lost all faith in human intelligence."




Quandae Shanoah Stewart?!




( ONTARIO TRIP! )

DOUBLE COFFEE TIME! Waiting for Auntie Bessy at Kam Do Bakery this morning proved to be a waste of 40 minutes all told. Good thing I just managed to get the 401 on the way there and the 407 on the way back, getting home at 9:40 AM when I'd left at 8:50 AM! Ugh! The Canucks played Winnipeg today at 5, and lost 4-1... ANOTHER EMPTY-NET GOAL?!

I then left at 7:40 to go to the IGA at Garden City Centre at Blundell, but first encountered a lady at the bus stop who somehow just could NOT wait ten minutes for a cigarette! She scrutinized the bus schedule and knew that the 401 would come in four minutes, so what did she do? Why, sat down on the bench and lit up a smoke, of course! Karma came for her in the form of a 401, so she had to butt it out on the bench before she got on the bus and then had a major coughing fit before she and a male companion got off at Minoru, presumably to smoke prior to whatever they REALLY wanted to do!

At least I saw that bus stop advertisement for Ocean's Tuna: Ginger Lemon Sesame, Peri-Peri, and Sundried Tomato Tapenade! Wasted my time at IGA too, since they didn't have the Fresh Gourmet The Better Chip in Jalapeno flavor: "It's a Walmart brand!" they said as I bought NEW Pillsbury Pizza Pops in Double Cheeseburger flavor. I eventually got home at 9:25 after having to kill half an hour at Richmond Centre and buying frozen President's Choice Brussels sprouts and frozen President's Choice broccoli florets.


Witless Bay, Newfoundland?!




From Janina: I relate to the phrase "chilling like a villain." It implies that I'm calm, but ready to murder at any time.




From Youtube: Taffany Shipp?! BAD SPELLING OF TIFFANY!




( Shirt and food! )

It's National Punctuation Day today... MY FAVORITE! After COFFEE TIME, I had to leave at 2 on a 401 and then a 410 (which I just got to on time, no thanks to idiots blocking my path on the sidewalk) for my appointment with Dr. Ruby before I helped with the kids. That was uncomfortable - I also saw a professional Audrey. Also, I had to buy more NEW Beehive Burst Peppermint lip balm at the Dollar Tree since there was no photo online that I could find, so I had to take my own photo. (I had ripped mine open last week before I figured this out...) I was there on time, but STILL had to wait 20 minutes to be seen! UGH! I should have gone to Dollar Tree before rather than after! Then I tried to speedwalk over to Lansdowne station a block and a half away, and just missed a Waterfront train thanks to these two slow ladies on the elevator going down.

When I got to Marine Drive station, I definitely needed a snack, so I went to Tim Horton's. Luckily, there was no lineup, so I got a non-sticky cheese tea biscuit and then got out of there to find that a wheelchair wanted to get on the 3 as well. Then a stroller wanted to get on - at least this one contained a fairly curious kid who growled and made various noises, unlike the other stroller who got on after that one left! After another delay caused by the driver stopping in the middle of the road for five minutes to check an alarm that was going off, I finally got to Mount Pleasant at about 4:20 when I could have been there at 4:05! Too many delays! Yeah, I used Term to complain to via text, haha.

Inside, Penny was just finishing up speech therapy while Beckett was failing at napping again. Almost right after Penny left, it was off to the park across the street because Harmony wanted to walk Beckett around the playground to see if he'd nap then. Spoiler alert: He did not. Ayler asked if I wanted to play tag or Manhunt - no, because I had run out of energy and was like a car which had run out of gas. Hiero asked why I walked how I did, so maybe Jon and Harmony should talk to him about it at some point. Once we got home again after more promises of consequences, I got to play with Beckett for a bit. He liked the baby pop-up toy because it made him laugh more than usual, wanted me to shake my head a lot because it was funny, liked PEEK-A-BOO as per Hiero, tried eating my DRAGON HOODIE strings again, and climbed on me a few times. (he did pull Hiero's hair, though!)

At the same time, Hiero was trying to show me his origami. Blowing up squares to make huge boxes, oh my! Later, I stayed close as Beckett crawled on the couch despite Ayler telling me not to let him do it. Well, you're doing and completing a HUGE connect-the-dots puzzle, so I'll do what I want while keeping Beckett safe in my own way, including trying to put on one of his missing socks. We had salmon, congee, Chinese chicken soup, meatballs with ketchup and barbecue sauce, some veggies, and ridiculous amounts of shredded pork. Then we talked about whether Jon had been shot today at the Downtown Eastside (he was fine and didn't have to lie on the floor as per Hiero's question), why people shoot at each other ("because some people think that the best way to resolve their problems is with guns" and "that's why we don't joke about guns"), my Cactus Club birthday dinner, Ayler seeing Brooke early this morning ("how do you know?"), Hiero doing flips and gymnastics in the elevator earlier and being injured, and how much everyone in the family could eat compared to each other.

After I washed dishes for a bit, I read to Hiero about Optimus Prime and the Decepticons, then listened to Ayler play a boogie on the piano before listening to him read a Level 2 story about polar bears. Sure I had to help him with some words, but that's normal. I left at 7:20, but couldn't get a 3 bus till 7:40 thanks to a couple of buses being out of service! I missed a Brighouse train by five minutes, and JUST managed to get a 407 at Brighouse, no thanks to people blocking my path where I was going to run to the front door of the bus. Do I really have to shove my way past other people all the time to get where I'm going in a timely fashion?! I got home at 8:35, checked my mail, and found Julie's birthday card plus random stuff - yay!


Random stuff: Nathan returning the OUTLANDER novel to me, six packs of Compliments Safeway brand spicy chicken instant noodles, and yet another pair of reading glasses. Good thing I didn't buy the Jergens lotion today because of all the walking I had to do, AND the utter weight of the 650-page paperback book!


From WINGS Restaurants and Pubs: Pumpkin spice chicken wings for fall 2019?! BLEH!




( Peppermint lip balm, birthday swag, Compliments instant noodles, a bunny, construction workers looking out for the baby rabbits, doughnut drawing at the hospital bus stop, Polestar planner )