Two Changes Of Plans

So I was plotting out which days I would eat out and which I would stay in and eat leftovers.  Specifically, because I wanted to finally pay for limes and lemons for the cocktails I am going to make this weekend, and since they're discounted on Tuesdays, I would eat out today/Tuesday and, to make up for it, eat in tomorrow/Wednesday.

But those plans blew up.  While at work, I got this text from ****e saying that she and ***i* are having a party tomorrow/Wednesday.  Then, she texted ominously, "Last chance."  Last chance for what?  Will I not be invited anymore if I don't come?  Are they hanging up the wanking lifestyle?  Is one of the two women going to die soon?  I don't know what she meant by that, but it has been a long, long time since I got serviced by either babe, so I decided I am going to this house party on tomorrow/Wednesday.  And since I'm spending money then, I might as well eat out then, too.

Then, I got another text, this time from my aunt.  She wanted to know when I was going to be home because she made food for me.  Then I remembered that around the Chinese/Lunar New Year, she has always come over to give me food she made for the holiday.  Very sweet of her, and it allows me to eat in several days over the next week.  And it would make sense, then, that one of those days would be today/Tuesday.  It's a lot of food, and I should get on it in an effort to eat it all before it goes bad.  And yes, this blows up my idea of getting citrus for my cocktails, but hey, I can make cocktails without lemon or lime juice, and besides, there's a good chance I will be out both days this weekend.

So, to sum up, I went from eating out tonight/Tuesday night to staying in, and I went from staying in tomorrow/Wednesday night to eating out.  And for once, these changes aren't frustrating to me.  It just necessitates a change of plans -- two changes of plans, in fact.

I confess that I have fears that my parents are going to come home suddenly.  Not necessarily without telling me, like that bullshit years ago.  But my cousin is worried about her mother, who is my aunt, who recently fell.  My cousin thinks she's "the next to go," and that's kind of harsh to say, I think (then again, I don't know the details of my cousin's relationship with her mother).  But I have texted my cousin's brother -- also my cousin, of course -- lately and when I've asked about him and his mother/my aunt, he hasn't mentioned her.  My aunt seemed to be in good spirits and in a good mental frame of mind, but I do find him not saying anything about my aunt kind of suspicious.

And if for some reason my folks have to come home suddenly, I'll be caught with my pants down.  My stuff is literally everywhere, and I haven't really started to go through it.  Also, while I cleaned some of the dishes, I haven't cleaned them all.  And everything is dirty.  I remember back in March when I was told my uncle died, and Father said he was coming home from Las Vegas that night.  No way I could've done everything I should have done to tidy up the house, plus I was working at Target Center till the afternoon, so all I had time for was throwing all my crap back in storage.  I don't think I can do that again.

With that said, I think I will take a nap.

Realized I Am Doing Stuff Every Day (Just About)

I am working the Golden Gophers Game, well, this/Saturday afternoon, and I am supposed to come in way earlier than I think I should.  That makes me think I am actually doing a job contrary to the one I was initially asked to do.  Oh, well, although my alma mater is playing late in the evening.  I thought I would have plenty of time to get to that Game after leaving the one I worked.  But if I am going to be worked over like a mule, there's a chance I'll have to miss it.

And then, while I was out last/Saturday night, my cousin texted me saying that his mother (my aunt) wants to visit my other aunt as she's doing rehab.  I was the one who thought it would be a good idea to see her now that she's rebuilding her strength, but then I totally forgot I did when I got so bummed out when he said he wanted to see her.  It's probably for the best, but I had plans to, well, do nothing.

And nothing is not what I will be doing for some time.  I work, of course.  Next weekend I have to take my parents to the airport and work the Vikings.  The weekend after that I have to go into work to cover for someone and work that Week's Vikings Game.  In the following weekend, I have that huge annual Arrows watch/dinner with my friends.  I have nothing to do the day after, but knowing my luck that's when a blizzard will hit and I will be busy plowing and shoveling.

Now, yes, there is Thanksgiving this week.  Also, I think it's a relative slow day if all I do is go to and come from work.  But dammit, I just want to ... not do anything for one day.  No work, no chores, and even no pleasure.  And that won't be happening for some time.

Aunt's Not Doing Good

Huge family gathering at the cemetery this afternoon.  Ironic, sadly so, because my aunt isn't doing good.  Her son/My cousin says that since she slipped and fell, she hasn't been eating.  And when he answered my question, he looked worried.  Plus, my sister noticed that he was crying.

I don't want to come back to this cemetery so soon.

Aunt Is Hurt

And I heard this morning that my aunt's in the hospital.  Fell and broke her back.  She's got a lot of rehab ahead of her.  How does someone in her eighties do rehab?

Anyway, we are driving down to Carver County, I think right now, to see her.  It's obvious.  But I have to leave in the early evening, get to downtown Minneapolis to make sure the Game is on for all my alumni buddies, than head on over to Midway for the United Match.  And there's also dinner.  And I have about four hours to do this all.  By the way, yes, the car is getting taxed today.  It needs to, also obvious, but considering that I took this to the airport this morning and my sister and brother-in-law are taking it to Carver County tomorrow, this is exactly the work and wear I was afraid the car was going to go through.

Not At My Best Last/Wednesday Night

Yeah, I continue to get drowsy the hour before I go to lunch at work.  Need to work on that, maybe.

I have this OCD thing where ... well, a long time ago, my parents (actually Father) widened our driveway from two car lengths to three.  I think he wanted to be able to park three cars at our house.  It's actually a good thing; when it comes to trash and recycling day (and they come at the same day for us), we can put the bins at the edge of the driveway at the "lane" besides the ones our cars are in.  One time (and this is when the driveway was three car lengths wide) my sister was going out to work and I forgot that the recycling bin was behind her car at the end of the driveway.  She bowled the bin over.  She was already acting as though she was going to be late, so I felt bad that I made her more late by 1) putting the bin there and 2) not telling her.

Anyway, my OCD is that of the two cars that are now there, when I use both, I park back in the lane that was empty.  Know what I mean?  I want all the parts of the driveway to be used evenly.  Well, I drove my car out to work and back.  When I returned, I parked in the middle "lane," the one from which I backed out in the morning.  I didn't pay attention to which "lane" I had left from, so I made a guess that I was parked in the rightmost one in the morning.  I know I was wrong because, after I parked, I saw a spot of oil on the rightmost lane, and I remembered seeing that spot (I'm guessing it's from my parents' minivan, which I have been using while they've been gone) when I went out in the morning.

So for today/Thursday, I have to park on the other one, the rightmost one.  And I get to "make up for it" because I have to use my car twice, to work and then to see a screening of The Palm Beach Story.  I would alternate spots on my driveway, but to make things right (at least in my OCD-addled brain), I drive out of the middle "lane," drive back home from work (and, well, I need to get groceries and Father's medicine, too) and park in the right "lane," leave to go to the movie, and then come back (after getting Chick-Fil-A) and park in the right "lane" again.  To assist in that, I have put the trash bin at the bottom of the right "lane."  I sometimes use it as a marker on trash day; I won't run into it in the morning because I'm in a different lane, but when I come back from work and shopping, I will drive around the (empty I assume) trash bin and park in that same "lane."

I have to do that to make up for my mistake.

---

I am somewhat concerned about COVID, especially since my parents are coming home from safari.  Moreover, I still have a lot of those tests you could get for free.  I have no idea if they're any good or if they're expired, but I plan on using all but one (I probably will save that one for safekeeping).

I used one last/Wednesday night because I have been out and about.  I wanted to see if I had it.  You know they tell you (at least for the version of test I have) that once you put the swab in place, wait between 15 and 30 minutes for the results?  Well, I forgot that.  I was doing the laundry and irrigating my nose, and then I was on my roller to break up my fascia, and then I realized I still had the test to look at, but it was about, oh, about 20 minutes after I "can" look at my results before it apparently is unreliable.  It's negative, but I'm not supposed to be able to trust it.  So I have to take out the other test in the box and use that one tonight/Thursday night.  So stupid, and it's my fault.

---

Oh yeah, I didn't follow instructions to turn inside out a shirt I needed to wash last/Wednesday night.  It was one my aunt (whose husband, my uncle, died in March) bought for me last year when she and her sister (I guess my other aunt) went to Australia to visit her side of the family as a present and gift for taking them to the airport.  I remember looking at the wash tag, but I probably looked at "wash inside out" and then completely forgot about it.

Now, there's a chance that I did in fact turn it inside out before I washed it.  And besides, every single piece of clothing I have has not been washed (nor dried) per instructions every single time.  My Father continues to wash my clothes since he has nothing else to do while he's here, and I'm sure he's a wash hot/dry high kind of guy, so all my clothes are beat up like that.  Still, it was the first time I was washing this pretty nice polo, and it would have been nice to wash it how I was supposed to.

---

Damn.  This evening has not lived up to my standards.  I need to expect better of myself.

Finally Going To See My Aunt Today

For the first time since my uncle died, I finally am able to keep my promise and visit my aunt this afternoon.  I'm terrified.  I have no idea what's going to happen, nor what I am going to say.  Hell, I don't know how long I will stay.  I don't want to just stand by the door and chit-chat so quickly that I could just keep my car running.  At the same time, I know my awkward ass could draw out the agony by asking dumber and dumber questions and overstaying my welcome because I want to look "concerned."  I think I need to go to the library tomorrow afternoon, and I'm still figuring if I should go before or after seeing my aunt, which I'm supposed to see at a specific time.  Even fretting about that makes me feel like a colossal dick.

I don't know what I should wear.  I don't know how to behave.  I don't know if I should go in for a hug, for God's sake.  I don't want to be too forward that I invade her personal space, and yet I don't want to be so reserved that I come off as cold.  I don't want to pry if my aunt's feelings remain raw, but I don't want to sound so distant that she thinks I'm trying to leave early.

Oh, God.  I know I have to do this.  I just don't know how to do it.

Aunt Is Doing ... OK? (I, However, May Be A Prick)

I will confess: Once I heard that my uncle had died, I harkened back to the time about six weeks ago, when my aunt dropped by the house and told me not to talk to him because he hadn't been feeling well, and if I asked him how he was doing, he was not going to tell me the truth.

I regret not talking to him to this day, and it will haunt me forever, just like I regret not ever visiting my friend who was convalescing out in Edina for months and who died after having surgery.  In the aftermath of knowing he had passed, I wondered about the conversation we had.  She's a little daft, and I didn't quite understand why she told me not to speak with him.  In fact, I had wondered if she had been hiding the full extent of the deterioration of his health.  If, for example, he had been in the hospital for a couple weeks and didn't tell me or the rest of the family, I would be very, very upset.  I had asked that if things went south with my father to let me know ASAP.  And a part of me, to be honest, didn't think she did.

But then I scrolled through my Google Voice messages Wednesday night and saw that my aunt did in fact leave a VM for me.  There were two reasons I didn't get it till now: 1) she called me overnight Saturday/Sunday, which was when I got back from the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament around 9, crawled into bed around 9:30, woke up around 5 or so, then immediately drove back to work at Target Center; and 2) how I set up Google Voice means I don't get voicemail through the phone.  Any messages left for me I need to go through my Mail app to get, and that's if I remember to hear them, and seeing as how I come across half a dozen messages from time to time, I don't remember a whole lot.

Anyway, she said that she needed to get ahold of Father ASAP because my uncle ... well, you know.  Eventually Father heard about his little brother -- not by me, of course -- so she was able to reach him like she wanted to.  But beyond not seeing him before he died, I really, really hate myself for not answering my aunt's VM when I should have.  And now that what's done is done, I didn't think reaching out to her now is the best idea.

Eventually, however, I had to -- not only to let my aunt know I did get her voicemail, and not only because contacting her is the right thing to do, but because my sister asked me to.  The shoe is now on the other foot; instead of me being mad at her, she now had every right to be mad at me.  I really didn't want to get yelled at, but it isn't grown-up of me to complete avoid her upon one of the worst moments in her life.

I really should visit her at their house.  I think a call would be in order.  But I had to buy pizza and get home last/Thursday night in time for dinner with Father.  I need to take some time talking with my aunt, and I couldn't do it if I was racing home.  But, I split the difference and texted her while I was at Target Center in the afternoon.  I didn't hear from her.  I thought it was either she was still in mourning and/or she was still pissed at me.  However, after I got home, I got a text from her saying she was fine.  And I noticed that she was liberally using the exclamation point.  Maybe it's nothing, but from the tone of her messages back to me, she didn't quite sound like she was depressed over losing her husband of over 40 years on Sunday.

I said I wanted to talk to her.  She gave a time of tomorrow at 2.  That doesn't work, for I am back at Target Center for the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament this weekend, and then I work in The Fourth Department all next week, and then Mother comes home Thursday night and I have to pick her up, and then there's that huge alumni thing Saturday afternoon ... and yet I said I will try for next week.  And that seems to be a "promise" I will have to push back to the following week.

You know, the more I write up how I'm dealing with my uncle's death, the more disappointed in myself I become.

I'm Ghosting My Uncle

So about a month ago, on a Saturday, I heard the doorbell ring.  I assume it's one of those, like, garbage company or roofing company people trying to sell us something, so like what we and many other people usually do when their privacy is invaded, I ignored the person, assuming he'll eventually go away.

He didn't.  And, he is a she.  And that she is my aunt.  After ringing, she knocked vigorously.  At this point I figure either it's a family member or this guy needed to bug out harshly, so I answered the door.  My aunt thrusted a bag of food in my hand, then barged into the house.  She's kind of a bitch when she wants to be; she invited herself in, then looked around and saw all my crap on the stairs and on the landing, and instead of immediately going into what she wanted to talk to me about, she took a beat and said, "Huh."  Not a fan of how I leave things around the house?  That ain't none of her goddamn business, is it?  Oy, she is very judgemental and sometimes gives no fucks about who knows it.  When my uncle died -- have I blog posted about this before? -- she forced my cousin (my uncle's son) to kneel at the coffin in obedience.  She forcefully grabbed the arm of my other cousin (my uncle's daughter), but she buckled because she said she had surgery on it and wasn't supposed to move.

Anyway, there was a reason she dropped by, and it's something I alluded to in a previous blog post and wanted to circle back to it in a bit more detail: Apparently, my uncle isn't doing so well.  He has been in deteriorating health for some time, and he was in the hospital for a spell around the holidays, and as she tells it, he is up and down health-wise since coming home.  And then she asks me not to talk to him.  Why?  She says that if I ask him the generic, "Hey, how are things going?" he is going to lie to me.  I should say that my aunt dropped by a week before the Lunar New Year.  You are supposed to, on that day, contact everyone you know, especially family, and say "Happy New Year!" to them.  I should have asked her what I should do in the wake of such an occasion, but it didn't occur to me then.

I acceded to her wishes and did not call her husband/my uncle.  In fact, I haven't contacted him at all.  And I don't know why in the fuck I haven't done so.  I did tell her that if my uncle takes a turn for the worse, all bets are off; she needs to tell me, and I have to tell my uncle's brother, my father, and if that prompts them to come home from where they were (Asia a month ago, Las Vegas now), well, so be it.  I want to think that her not dropping by means that my uncle is in a holding pattern.  Still, I haven't spoken to him, and it bothers me.  I mean, what if I "disobey" my aunt and, say, text my uncle?  Sure, he might lie to me, but I think the important thing is that I at least reached out to him, so so what?  I know the truth, and again, if the worst-case scenario happens, we will all know about it.

So why in the hell did my aunt tell me not to speak to my uncle?  I don't know how, but I wonder if this is some secret power move my aunt is pulling on me so that, if my uncle (Buddha forbid) passes away, she can somehow blame me or make me look bad to my folks, like I wasn't there for my uncle in his time of need.  She might be devious enough to tell my parents I made the house dirty while they were gone.  Fuckin' Christ, she fucking barged through the door like she owns the house.

I don't want to run afoul of my aunt because she can really fuck things up in my life, but I am essentially giving my uncle the silent treatment.  If he is in ill health, I think it makes sense for me to talk to him.  The more I think about it, the more I hate myself for following what my aunt says.  I should go to talk to him, and damn the consequences.  And I should do that ... before he dies.

When I Really Think About It, Yesterday/Saturday Was One Hell Of A Day ...

... and I really didn't have to do anything.  I did a lot of things, though, and dammit, a lot of things happened to me.  I felt very happy and very sad, very hopeful and very doubtful, and there were things to be proud of and things to be worried over.

I need to throw one thing from yesterday/Saturday on this blog post, some meat on the bone to justify it, so I'll probably mention the most important thing: My aunt came over the house in the late afternoon to tell me my uncle (her husband) was in the hospital over the holiday for over a week.  He's back home now, but he is very, very frail.  I don't know if she was trying to tell me without trying to tell me, but I'm scared that ... well, I don't want to say, but you know ...

I think that's all I want to share right now.  Maybe later today I'll blog post about other, less important, more hopeful things that happened to me yesterday/Saturday.

So Now I'm Taking Lactase Pills

All the times I've felt bloated that had to rush to the toilet a few times a night to evacuate my bowels as if my life depended on it ... I had enough.  It seemed to be acutely bad the last few times I had ice cream.  And I love ice cream, and have forever, even through previous bouts of bad diarrhea.  Maybe I finally paid attention, but over this spring and summer, I had ice cream, and then I needed to eventually crap it out, and then some, and I felt miserable well after.  And it kept happening.  No more.

I tried lactose-free milk, and even though it went down OK, I sometimes feel OK after drinking regular milk too, so I'm not sure if that solved my lactose intolerance for good.  I finally got around to researching lactase enzyme pills, and a couple weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and bought a box for the first time ever.

I have used it several times now, but not yet for ice cream.  I don't remember the first time I used it, but it may have been for the cake Mother made.  I had it Saturday afternoon for a malt from Bebe Zito.  And then yesterday/Sunday afternoon I took one before drinking a shake (but after eating chili) at Potbelly.  No gas or bloating, and no attacks in my gut.  I did have a chocolate-dipped ice cream cone yesterday at DQ after coming home from dropping off my aunts, but I did not take a Lactase beforehand.  I feel OK, and it's been about four hours since I ate it, and I haven't felt bloated or (too) gassy, and I haven't had to run to the pooper, so ... I don't know.  I will say that I don't remember ever needing to crap badly after eating an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen.

At some point I need to commit to the experiment and take a pill before eating ice cream, and from one of the places I remember getting diarrhea from at that.  That's when I'll know if these things work, and whether I truly have found a "cure" for my lactose intolerance.

Don't tell anybody, but I'm supposed to take my aunt and her sister -- which I guess makes her my aunt too -- to the airport today.  I am not supposed to tell my folks.  I can do that.  I hope that it somehow doesn't make it back to them.

The problem is the luggage.  I have not asked how long they'll be gone (my aunt's son, my cousin, will pick them up), but I had to ask how many suitcases they are bringing.  I think it's four, and I think -- I think -- I'll be able to shove them all into my small car.

They offered the use of their car, which is a bit bigger.  I told them that's a problem because I have a barbecue to go to after that.  That's not necessarily true; I plan on having dinner close to the Megamall after this, just in case their flight gets cancelled.  I'm scared that the luggage in fact won't fit.  I'll gladly take their car to "the barbecue," if they're cool with it; I'll just pray the car isn't too tall for me to drive.  I just won't drive their car there and back because, well, I want to eat stuff on my own today.

We'll see.

Another Surplus Of Food

So by my count, there are 11 servings of frozen meat that my parents left for me just before Labor Day that I haven't eaten yet.  I think there were at least twice that amount, maybe a little more.  Eleven is a lot, and I'm currently sweating whether I'll be able to consume them all before they come home.  I could just eat them eleven days in a row, but that would be boring as shit.  That's why I've left so many three months after they were frozen -- I wanted to eat other food, like fast food and, uh, fast food.

But the big variable is when they're coming home.  They say March, and I think that's a fair guess.  But at its earliest, they're back in six weeks.  That means I'll have to eat two of these a week to make them all disappear.  That's a fucking lot.  Maybe too much.  And then they'll ask, "You had six months to eat all the stuff we left you ... and you haven't eaten them all?!"  My God, I wish they were dead.

On top of that, I keep taking, and being given, free food.  I brought home a salad after the Vikings upset Loss yesterday/Sunday.  But some guy I was working for for the Game gave me a snack pack of nuts.  And then, after that emasculating defeat, I got a text from my uncle saying to call him.  I am not a guy who calls up his family to chit-chat, so whenever I get a text from a family member telling them to call them, I assume the worst.  But it was my aunt who picked up my uncle's phone saying that she dropped off some food in celebration of Chinese New Year.

So I have a big salad, a snack pack of nuts, and several take-home containers of food on top of the frozen stuff my parents left for me.  And now I am scared as hell that I can't eat this all.  Because on top of all that, I bought bread, cold cuts and cheese for sandwiches.  Oh, and I bought jelly for PB&J sandwiches.  And I bought ice cream to eat, just because.  And the liquor I have is another thing altogether.  So I have a bunch of perishable shit that I need to eat.  And guess what?  For tonight, I plan on not eating any of that because I want to grab some Pizza Hut.  Hey, Monday Night Football is on!

I don't know why in the hell I care what my parents think about the food they left for me.  But I do.  And that's a personal defect of mine.

Getting Stalked Isn't My Main Worry Anymore

Nothing like hearing that your aunt and cousin have to move from their apartment of more than four decades, and then being warned to learn the business your parents have thrown on your lap -- have I told you I was told this bullshit from My Fucking Father on a car ride last night? -- to make you stop worrying that some money-grubbing, bucktoothed whore knows your license plate and will find out where you live.

It always seems as if the problems that plague me pile on top of one another.  If I have a crisis that I think will ruin my life, no, there quickly will be another one that makes me forget about the first one.

Tell you all about it soon.  Maybe.  I think.  I'll see if there are more problems later today that I'll need to blog post about.

Death Is Paying Another Visit

Things are getting very scary for me again.  Sad, too.

So the stripper girlfriend whom I have known, and who has jerked me off, the most, ***e*, lost her father last week.  I don't want to pry by asking details, but I assume it was sudden.  She had just recently moved into a basement apartment.  The apartment directly above hers opened up.  It had larger space for two bedrooms, so she took that one ... and kept the basement one so her father could move in.  I'm guessing he was there for a couple days, maybe less, before he died.

Despite my superficial misgiving, I still went over to her place (to her new apartment, right above her old one to which I paid a visit a week before) so she and ******e could double-team me for a handjob.  But of course I held her when I first saw her.  And then, as we were about to leave, we went down to the laundry room.  She was peering out from the basement window to the grass to the side of the apartment.  "That's where my father played with my kids," ***e* said, and for the first time ever I felt as if her eyes and thoughts became distant, trying to will her dad back to life by imagining him, in his folding chair, holding her two babies.  All I could do was put my hand on her shoulder.

I don't know what else I could do for her, but I care for her, so I am trying to volunteer what I can do if she needs anything.  I texted her last night and she said there's a possibility that she needs help moving.  Too many bad memories, she said.  I understand, even though this will be yet another move and she looked really, really happy there.

---

Yesterday after dinner, and after I went into my bedroom, Father knocked on my door.  I hate that he does that because ... well, I don't want him bothering me.  But he told me, in typical blindside fashion, that he and Mother went to my aunt's place to drop off a chicken and my cousin who has gone AWOL from the family opened the door and said my aunt was sick.  Father told me to get ahold of the cousin who lives with her.

I text him about once a month to see how they're doing.  My cousin always replies back that they're OK.  I wonder if they're lonely.  Do they live their lives resigned to just hanging out with each other?  Or are they content?  I hope it's the latter, but it's not as if I can do anything if it's the former.

Turns out there is something wrong with my aunt, something I kind of wish I had known before: She has kidney disease.  She's been living with this for a while, now, but lately it's advanced to a worse stage.  I think she's at home, and my cuz says she's not in pain but monitoring numbers.

I had been free from the clutches of Death for a long time now, so I fear that this visit is due.  I am scared for her, I am scared at how my cousin would feel living life without her.  And, to be honest, I have had passing thoughts on the deaths of my parents, in particular Father.  They remain in great health, but for a millisecond here or there over the past few weeks I have thought that one of them might not wake up in the morning, or I will get a text during the day to come home quick because something happened.  Well, something is happening.  Death surrounds me again.  And I hate it.

That Light Is Getting Bigger And Brighter

Good news on the vaccination front.  With some cajoling from Mother, I finally eschewed going through Walgreens online to try and set up a second shot for her and just started freakin' calling pharmacies myself.  On her advice I tried one in a suburb, and that pharmacist (or assistant) highly recommended I go back to the pharmacy that gave Mother her first shot.  So I called them ... and they said she can come in when she's supposed to, later this month.  There was no reservation that was made for her; the person I spoke to noted that she was there last month, so she can just come in exactly 28 days later (yep, she's Moderna) and she'll get her shot.  Damn, that was so simple!  I was getting so pissed with seeing "no shots available within 25 miles for the next 3 days" bullcrap on the Walgreens webpage, and I all had to do was pick up the phone!

The elders in the family are falling into place, too.  My aunt got her first yesterday, so says my cousin -- Pfizer.  My other cousin finally got his mother (my other aunt) signed up for her first, although he's still having trouble lining up his father (my uncle), which I find very odd because he is as immuno-compromised as one can get.  My brother-in-law's parents got their firsts last month.  And, shockingly, my sister told me when I came home from work on Monday that she got her first shot that day!  I didn't know she is considered a lecturer, and so technically she could jump the line and get a vaccine!  Huh!

I might be getting ahead of myself, but I see tangible evidence to feel ... optimistic.

It's A COVID Coincidence!

Now that a lot of my anxieties have been assuaged because both of my parents are now on track to get their shots, I can now stick my head above water and start asking other members of my extended family if our elders are in line, too.

After dinner, I texted both of my cousins to see if their parents/my uncle and aunts gotten appointments yet.  And sure enough, after I fired off a text to my second cousin, I received a text message from my sister-in-law asking if my parents are getting their shots.

We're all concerned!!  And at the same time!!!

Forgot My Aunt

This is a good time to talk to everyone.  And it's high time that I talk to my aunt -- as in, the one who stayed with us, inexplicably, for two weeks.  She gave me her personal information before she left because she wanted to keep in touch, and even though I didn't think she should have stayed her for two damn weeks, I wanted to be nice to her because I don't think either of my parents were nice to her while she was here.

I swear I threw that information in my desk.  But I haven't found it, and so calling her slipped my mind (although, to be fair, I kind of forgot to speak to her after she left, disappearing info or no).  And although I have had a fleeting thought of, "Hey, you know, maybe I should speak to my aunt!" from time to time, I have yet to speak to her in the, uh, 18 Months since she left.

About a year ago I was at my aunt and uncle's place for dinner, and I told them about calling her, and my aunt said that she will give me her number … but she didn't think it was the right time to give it to me then, and I haven't asked for it since.

Had a thought to call her … well, now.  But I tried looking for her number and it's still lost.  And since my parents don't want me to speak to her, if I do get my aunt's number, I'll have to call her while I'm out of the house, and since I'm only out of the house (at least for now) in the daytime, I'm not sure if I can call her in Hong Kong.  But shoot, I need to call her.  It's beyond time.

I hope she can forgive me.  I hope she can remember me, heck. ...

Maybe I Should Just Turn In My Chinese Card

Just realized this this past week.

So I had that early Chinese New Year's dinner at my aunt and uncle's place, right?  Well, as we were leaving, I said "Happy New Year!" to my aunt in Chinese.

Except that I didn't say it.  Turns out, I realized this past week, I wished my aunt, "Merry Christmas!"

So that's why she hesitated just for a nanosecond before wishing me a Happy Chinese New Year.

My cousin and his (Chinese) friend were there, too.  They knew I fucked up.

I might as well just turn in my Chinese card now.

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Oh, Merry Christmas Happy Lunar New Year, everybody.

A Little Wine

Drinking a bottle of wine because ... well, I might flesh out the reason some other time.  Anyway, I had a glass to go with leftovers from the dinner I had at my aunt's place back on Saturday, which was an early Chinese New Year's dinner.  And since I had an early shift yesterday, and I didn't take a nap after I got home from work, I was hoping that the wine, you know, would make me sleepy.

And it did.  Ate my dinner late, around 8:30, maybe a little later.  Got done, felt, uh, dizzy, around 9:30, so I went to bed.  Woke up at 4:30, according to my watch, but I went back to bed, and before I knew it, I heard my alarm at 6.

So the wine did its job.  And you know what else knocks you out good?  NyQuil.  I don't think I need it, even though I've felt sort-of foggy a couple times so far this winter.  But really, if you take it, it'll knock you out cold for a good night's sleep.  It's probably not good to be dependent on wine and NyQuil to go to sleep, but it works!