I remember I had a conversation with Carol a while back about the fact that at some of those
newer fast food places they should reserve those very
few dark tables for people like me instead of letting just anybody sit
at those tables while again most other people like the brighter
tables. They just don’t think about handicapped people at all, the
tables in the cafeteria at the school where Carol works, Earl Marriott Secondary, can’t
accommodate wheelchairs. These are the older tables with a bench attached on each side (I
don’t know what you’d call these, if there even is a name for this kind of table), there is room
at each end of the table to park only one wheelchair comfortably while there are four wheelchair
kids in the BASES program where Carol is a teacher’s assistant and Carol thought that someone
should put in a requisition for the newer kind of tables that are more wheelchair accessible. I
remember you thought that they should have a Dairy Queen in the Semiahmoo Mall food court so
that on the afternoons when I want either a drink from Orange Julius or something from A&W
for my snack (either onion rings or a cookie), you can get your Caramel Sundae from DQ. And
I remember you said that you too prefer just simple faucets in public washrooms to the motion
sensors ones that 1) don’t let you change the temperature and 2) don’t stay on
long enough for the correct amount of time
whereas you have to keep waving your
hands underneath in just that right spot. I
know you’d especially want to be sure that you’re hand washing for the correct (long
enough) amount of time especially after you’ve been to a public place.
I’m not sure whether or not I do prefer Dairy Queen’s onion rings
to A&W’s, it’s kind of a tough call. I don’t mind the crumbly batter. Again, I thought that
A&W’s onion rings tasted good two days ago when I had them though a few hours later and just
before you left, I thought about it and thought that DQ’s onion rings might’ve tasted better. I
told you before that I thought the onion rings that my mom use to buy from the “M&M Meat Shop”
tasted a lot like DQ’s though I’m not 100% sure. That was only our second onion ring
taste-test on Monday two days ago, we still have yet to try onion rings at White Spot, Ricky's,
Boston Pizza, and the “Knight & Day.” Maybe you’ll have to bring me an onion ring from each of
those places and then blindfold
me
, you can’t tell me
which place you got which onion ring from until after I tell you which one of the six or however
many you bring me to try is my preference. And BTW, just like you I myself do not prefer KETCHUP
with my onion rings and prefer to have my onion rings just plain. I prefer to have KETCHUP only
with fries.
One time a few years ago when I had lunch with my dad at the A&W on 72nd Avenue near Scott
Road, they were late bringing us our food so they gave us one Apple Turnover which is exactly
the same thing you had two days ago when I had my onion rings. I let my dad have it because you
know I don’t like pastries.
I told my mom your idea that you didn’t think of until while you were on your way over here
two days ago about the possibility of you and Dianne surviving on just one vehicle after you
retire your Camry, she (my mom) then said she knows that you and Di have to go out a lot.
You asked me if I had ever been on a motorcycle before, just on my dad’s a few times when I was
little. We didn’t go any further than just around the cul-de-sac and I hadn’t been on a
motorcycle again since because I found it was just too noisy. I guess you could let Dianne have
the van even if I wanted to go out for a snack on any of the nicer days, park a motorbike or a
scooter at my place, and then we’d go out on the tandem bike though I hope you
do decide to buy a nice new car
someday. And then if you do and you end up with one
that has leather seats, you don’t have to lie to me by covering them up with cloth and then tell
me that they are cloth. I didn’t remember until just after you left that I think you need
to know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle in order to drive a motorbike, so I
confirmed this by asking my dad and he thought that
most of the motorbikes have manual transmissions though he also thought that it shouldn’t be as
hard to drive a motorbike as it is to drive a manual transmission car. I remember you told me
that Dianne knows how to drive a manual trans and you don’t, but I don’t
know...for all I know maybe you already know how to
drive a motorbike and have driven one before. There’s another thing I didn’t think to ask you,
have you ever been on or driven a motorbike? And if Carol was still coming here now and I
never met up with you, I know that she would never drive over here on a motorbike or a scooter.
She’s not one to ride a motorbike.
We ourselves were a one car family for many years until we bought the 2001 Honda. We just had
the 1986 Honda which my mom drove me to and from school in everyday while my dad had to always
take the bus to work until he decided that the buses weren’t as clean and that’s when he decided
to join his carpool. Once we got our 2001 Honda, my dad let my mom have that one and we kept our
old Honda so that my dad could have his own turn driving the carpool a couple days every week.
It was around the same time my dad got his Subaru when Debbie, the lady who use to drive the
carpool all the time, left the carpool, and since she left my dad’s been driving everyday
for almost the last two years. Also, Carol and her tenant, Pete, each have their own car. You
know with Carol living on her own and not with her ex-husband, she doesn’t have to worry about
being a one car family (or “person”
).
You asked me when you were here two days ago if I knew what I was going to have for supper
that night. My mom picked up barbeque salmon, RESERS RAINBOW GELATIN salad, and a coleslaw when
she was at the little Safeway in Ocean Park that afternoon. I had all three of those things for
my supper and then I had a piece of the chocolate fudge cake for dessert. There are now two
pieces left. I had planned for my mom to make a confetti Angel food cake for Mother’s Day until
this last weekend when I didn’t think I would want another cake for a few weeks after I finish
the chocolate fudge one so I suggested to my mom that maybe we could make a confetti Angel food
cake the next weekend which is the Victoria Day long weekend. I will now tell you about my
snacks for the last few days:
• Saturday Apr.26, 2008 - evening snack: I finished off the Easter jelly beans.
• Sunday Apr.27, 2008 - afternoon snack: I finished off the Purdys foil wrapped chocolate
eggs and the milk chocolate eggshell that they were in. My mom unwrapped all of the foil eggs
that were left before she gave them to me in a dish with the rest of the eggshell.
• Sunday Apr.27, 2008 - evening snack: I finished off some Trophy Whole Cashews that I told
you we had in the cupboard.
• My mom was cleaning out the kitchen cupboard while I was having my lunch yesterday.
I had three more of the Danish cookies for my dessert after yesterday’s lunch, one white and two
chocolate, and then my mom gave me a dark chocolate polar ice chocolate that she found in the
cupboard after I had my cookies. This is the only dark chocolate one my mom found yesterday
after I said in the message I sent you on Sunday
Mar.30,2008 that I don’t remember finishing the dark chocolate
polar ice chocolates though my mom couldn’t find any then.
Also when my mom was busy cleaning out cupboards
yesterday, she dumped out the rest of that Lime Crush that I told you in the message I sent you
on Wednesday Mar.19,2008 I already had the first half of. She had to dump it after it had been
sitting around for a while, I am disappointed that I never felt up to drinking it in time
because I kept having upset stomachs.
I finally went to sleep before 3AM last night for the first time in several days. Infact, I
think it was before midnight when I fell asleep last night. I didn’t fall asleep until 3AM
again the night of “Saturday evening/Sunday morning” and my mom didn’t fall asleep until
1AM that night. The next night (the one before you came), I didn’t fall asleep until 4AM
and my mom didn’t fall asleep until 2AM. Just before I fell asleep at 4AM, Chloe had a throw up
on my bedroom carpet but right next to my computer chair mat so I had to wake up my dad
to come clean it up. And I didn’t fall asleep until 3AM the night before last night. I noticed
that some of those nights when I didn’t fall asleep until it was really late
were the nights when I was up late with an upset
stomach, especially the night before last night when I had gone upstairs to go to bed at 10PM on
Monday evening but ended up spending the next hour and a half on the toilet. I hope that my
stomach upset the night before last night wasn’t because of the onion rings by the way. You
thought that those A&W onion rings shouldn’t be as hard on our stomachs as the DQ ones and
remember that I didn’t get fries with the ones I had at A&W earlier that same day. Anyway, I ran
out of wipes when I was half way through my hour and a half on the toilet so I had to run
downstairs naked to get some more wipes. I didn’t have any really bad stomach problems last
night before I went to bed, so maybe I’ll sleep good again tonight as long as I don’t have
stomach problems again.
Now the cat stories for the last little bit:
• One evening last week when my mom went to bed
early and Izzy went to bed with her, my dad stayed up and was sitting in our family room
downstairs which is right underneath he and my mom’s bedroom when his cell phone rang. I guess
the sound of the ring carried through the floor and
my mom told me that Izzy jumped and growled as soon as she heard the ring.
• At around five after noon (12PM) yesterday, Izzy came to the deck door with another
dead bird. My mom wouldn’t let her in until she dropped the bird. Not long after this, Chloe
went outside and then both cats had the dead bird on the lawn and were both sitting there
admiring it. Remember I said the last time that we didn’t know if the bird was already dead when
she found it or if Izzy had actually killed it, because this has happened so many times lately
my mom’s starting to think that maybe Izzy’s killing these birds.
• Before my mom could put her shoes on before leaving to get the mail
yesterday afternoon, she discovered that Izzy had
untied the laces.
• I watched Adopt-A-Pet at the end of yesterday’s Noon News for the first time since before
Christmas after my mom told me that she saw a black cat before the commercial break that looks
just like Izzy. This one was a male cat. And I learned that there is now a new person doing the
weather on Global’s Noon News Hour (and I think she also does the weather on their
Morning News), Wesla Wong. Her first day at
Global was Monday two days ago and she is taking the place of
Rena
who moved to CTV a few months ago.
• Just after I came out of my shower last night, my mom said that she was tired and she asked
me to fill up Chloe’s food dish in my bedroom for her. I did it and this was the first time I
did so since before Christmas.
My mom told me last Saturday (the 26th) that she saw the story on the news about the
floor collapsing at a church in Abbotsford during a concert that took place in the evening of
the day before (Friday the 25th). Nobody was killed, but more than 40 people were
injured.
My mom found part of a cat toy that you hung on the wall above one of the fish tanks. She
also found the two ping pong balls, one underneath each of the cat’s front feet on top of the
cat post.
Other points about last weekend and the last few days following that:
• This isn’t the best news but the biggest highlight for this
message is about when my cousin, Jenny, phoned us last night to tell
us that two more kids want to come live with Judy who Jenny currently lives with. Judy’s
thinking about giving Jenny’s bedroom to one of those two kids and then building a new shed in
the backyard and fixing it up for Jenny. I know that this is illegal though Judy probably
doesn’t care and wants to foster more kids even if she doesn’t have room for them just so she
can make extra money. My mom says that Jenny sounds excited about the idea while my dad says
that they’re probably trying to make this sound exciting to her so that she’ll let these kids
move in just so Judy can make money. Jenny did say that they plan to fix up the shed for her,
insolate it, etc, but my mom who is trying to look out for Jenny says that even she
herself (my mom) wouldn’t feel safe in a shed by herself at night because:
1) say if Jenny had to go to the bathroom at night, then she would have to go outside to the
house
2) what if somebody finds out that Jenny is living out there and then some stranger sneaks into
the backyard in the middle of the night.
Again, this is illegal, what might happen if the city or the welfare people find out about this.
Jenny’s on disability just like I am. At least I know that Carol isn't
like this and wouldn’t make me live in a shed if
I could live with her.
• Saturday Apr.26,2008 - afternoon: My dad drove over to the Art Knapps on King George to see
if they had floating pond plants, they didn’t have any of those but they were giving away free
boxes of Dare brand crackers so my dad brought home a box of those. And remember that Dare is
the same brand who makes the “juicy jubes” and the
“REALFRUIT Gummies.” You asked me one time a few months ago if I remember Dare cookies and after
I said to you that I never heard of them you then thought that maybe they were discontinued. I
don’t think they’re discontinued, I asked my mom since that time a few months ago and she told
me that she still sees them in the stores. She also thinks that I probably had some kinds of
Dare cookies in the past but I probably don’t remember them, my mom told me that Dare makes lots
of different kinds of cookies.
• The next morning (on Sunday Apr.27,2008), my dad went out to Abbotsford and saw
my grandparents (his parents). My grandma told him that she won $600 at the casino
sometime not too long ago, as soon as my mom heard about this after my dad got home she said
quote “why can’t I be that lucky.” My dad took my grandparents out for lunch at “Jojo's Fish &
Chips Bana Restaurant” which my dad said “isn’t too far from their apartment complex” and where
they serve breakfast specials all day, all three of them (my dad and both of my
grandparents) had the breakfast special. My cousin, Paul, was working out in their area one day
last week and when he was out there he took my grandparents out for lunch at that same place and
all three of them had fish and chips on that day. Paul had fish and chips too, he’ll eat fish
even though he’s a vegetarian.
• Sunday Apr.27,2008 - afternoon: Later that same day (Sunday), my dad went out again
in the afternoon after he got home from seeing my grandparents. He went out to this botanical
place in Richmond on Westminster Highway near No. 6 Road to see if they had any floating pond
plants. I don’t know if this is the one called “Hawaiian Botanicals,” my dad doesn’t know the
name of the place he went to. They didn’t have any floating pond plants either, he then went to
the Starlight Casino. He came out of there with $50 less under the amount he went in with. My
dad told me about his gambling strategies later that day after he got home from the casino
whereas whenever he wins $50 or $100 he’ll “cash out” which means that instead of taking the
receipt from the machine that he won on and then putting the receipt into another machine, he’ll
put the receipt in his pocket and instead put a new $20 bill either in the machine where he won
the money or in a different machine. And then he’ll just keep playing with the $20 bill and then
he’ll leave as soon as that runs out. He says that it’s just a way to safeguard yourself.
• It’s not because I lost my confidence in going out into the community why my mom is looking
around for my sandals, I’m looking for a pair that’s hard to find and I don’t like
shopping much. I told you that I hope to get out in the community with my dad sometime within
the next few weeks and do some Mother’s Day shopping. On my mom’s way home two days ago after
she left the Ocean Park Safeway, she saw that the
Christophers store is now open in its new location. She said that it’s sort of hard to tell
while you’re driving by but it looked like maybe this one’s smaller than their previous
location. And before she came back to South Surrey to do her stuff in Ocean Park, the weather
was nice for her while she browsed around a few garden stores and then it started to just spit
rain not long after you left.
• You know that I share a VISA credit card with
my dad. Both my dad and myself got new VISA cards in the mail last week because both of our
previous cards expire next month (in May of 2008). And when my dad phoned last Sunday
afternoon (the 27th) to activate our new cards, he phoned to activate his card first. This
first time when he phoned, it was an automated process where he could just type in his number to
activate his new card and he didn’t have to talk to anyone. He had to make a separate call and
phone them again to activate my card after he activated his, but this time his call went
directly to a person. My dad thought maybe the reason why they make you do a separate phone call
for each card if you have more than one credit card to activate is because they want to sell you
stuff, the guy was trying to sell my dad insurance incase he gets laid off. He obviously doesn’t
need anything like that because he’s worked for BC Hydro for at least the last twenty years and
he’s almost retired now.
• Did you say that Jason has the same birthday as Scott coming up on this Saturday
(the 3rd)? I do remember you said that his mom’s going to have a little party for him, I wonder
if his birthday cake will be another ice cream one from Dairy Queen! And by the way, Carol’s
birthday is tomorrow (on May 1st) speaking about birthdays.
• One evening a few days ago, my dad went online and signed up for a membership on Safeway’s
website after he read somewhere that you get 100 free Air Miles points if you sign up for a
membership. I asked my mom if you receive any other benefits (besides the 100 points) while
having an online membership and she thought they might send you coupons.
And the latest excerpts that you misread:
• I never said that Kermit wasn’t on Hollywood Squares, I did see him on there
a few times but he was
never in the center square
and I
myself had wondered why he was never in the
center square. Miss Piggy and Kermit shared a
square for one Hollywood Squares “Tournament of Champions” week, one episode during which Piggy
abandoned Kermit in the corner square while she shared the center square with Whoopi. BTW,
here
is a complete list of celebrities who appeared in the center square on Hollywood Squares:
> ...one question that I thought of and isn’t on either survey, “who would you like to see in
the center
> square?” Of course I would’ve liked to see “Kermit the Frog” in the center square. Who would
you
> like to see in the center square, John...
I remember two candidates who you thought might’ve been good center squares were Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Jim Carrey. And if you make it onto that site one day when you have time and
take those two surveys, you can write out your answers as you take the survey and then send a
copy of your answers to me if you want to.
• You told me the last time when you were here two days ago about the Scrabble game on
Facebook, that was the second time you told me about that and after the first time you told me
about it was why I wrote in the last message that I have a Scrabble PC game.
> You asked me if I like the board game “Scrabble,” my parents have the board game
(remember, they
> have a Scrabble dictionary) but I haven’t played for a long time. I also remember you told me
about
> the Scrabble game on Facebook, I have a Scrabble PC
game made by Hasbro Interactive...
And I might have my own page on Facebook sometime if I ever
do decide to start that club on there one day, unless one already exists,
again called either “I hate the PT Cruiser,” “we hate the PT Cruiser,” “I don’t like the PT
Cruiser,” or “we don’t like the PT Cruiser.”
• My mom told me she saw that long pipe along 16th Avenue, but I don’t know if my dad’s ever
saw it. And you asked me when we where driving by there two days ago if I knew what they were
doing, I already told you in the last message what my dad thought they might be doing:
> ...I asked my dad if he knew what they were doing and he thinks
that they’re putting in a new pipe
> and that this might be them continuing with the same work that they
were doing earlier this
> year when they had 142nd Street dug up in
front of the elementary school.
• At one spot in the last message where I gave a previous excerpt, you read that excerpt
again when you read the last message and thought that we found a dead fish at the bottom of my
32 gallon (this is my one sword that died) on
last Friday (the 25th). The message where I had originally first wrote about that was in
the message I sent you on Sunday Apr.20,2008, it was two days before on Friday the 18th when we
found my dead sword.
• When you first came here two days ago, I asked you if you remembered what I said I wanted
to do that afternoon. You for some reason thought that I said in the last E-mail that I wanted
to look up Ray Charles on YouTube, I said that I wanted to see if we
could find that song that The Count sings:
> ...And then when we come back to my place after A&W, maybe we
could see if we can find
> that song on YouTube that I heard you sing two days ago while you
were in my downstairs
> bathroom. You know, the one you told me The Count
sings. And I don’t remember what the
> song’s called but I remember hearing you sing something like “English Country Garden.”
I remember you corrected me and told me you thought that song you were singing in my bathroom
is called “Rose Garden.” Now here is the
comment I wrote in the last message above the Ray Charles image, and also keep in mind that the
Ray Charles image was not one of the
ones in that message that you could click on:
> This image of Ray Charles was featured on the Telus site last Monday (the 21st), he
is yet another one
> of the artists who I like and I have one of his CDs...
And here are all of the videos we looked at on Monday in the same order that we watched
them:
• The Count Sketches - Songs: Count Up To Nine
• The Count Sketches - Songs: The Batty Bat
• The Count Sketches - Songs: Bones (Inside Of You)
• The Count Sketches - Miscellaneous: The Count counts flowers
• The Count Sketches - Castle: The Count hires Ernie to answer his phone
• Kermit Sketches - Sesame Street News Flash: The Count counts the Three Little Pigs
• Sesame Street Sketches - Sesame Street Songs: The Count goes shopping
• The Count puts the bite on Miss Piggy
• Muppet & Kid Moments - The Count: Sesame Street with The Count [The sound is so quiet.]
• Muppets / Celebrity: The Count and Harry Belafonte
• The Count Sketches - Songs: Song Of The Count
• The Count Sketches - Castle: The Count's Rocket Ship
• The Count Sketches - Songs: I Love a Waltz
• The Count Sketches - Miscellaneous: The Count counts Ernie’s Blocks (better quality copy)
• The Count Sketches - Miscellaneous: Counting Apples [Cookie Monster eat all the apples!!!]
• Jim Carrey at Meryl Streep's AFI tribute [Hilarious!]
• Jim Carrey: THE FUNNIEST Video
• Jim Carrey: I believe I can fly
• Jim Carrey: The Rubber Man
• Jim Carrey: Impulses
I think we saw of all The Count videos that are on YouTube, I guess these two songs that
we couldn’t find (“Count von Count's Continuous Country Cookin' Downhome Diner” and “Rose
Garden”) are not on YouTube. The Count must be your favorite muppet and Cookie Monster only your
second favorite if you didn’t care to look at any of those Cookie Monster videos that were on
the “Related Videos” list after we saw all of The Count ones. I didn’t realize until after you
left two days ago that we had watched all of the above videos in Netscape that afternoon,
strange that it’s now working again after I sent you a message a few weeks before with
a copy of the error
message that I would get whenever I tried to watch
a YouTube video while using Netscape. I guess I
forgot about that on Monday and opened up YouTube in Netscape instead of launching it in Mozilla
Firefox.
Now when Serena first got here today, she had me type “relaxation” into the keyword search on
YouTube’s main page. Here are the results that we got:
• Relaxation Therapy
• Amazon Rainforest Relaxation Video
*
• Instant Relaxation
• WATER CRYSTAL RELAXATION HEALING 512KPS HEALTH MEDITATION
*
• Chakra Meditation
*
• Relaxation Video
*
• Relaxation with Colours of the Flowers and Music (7 minutes)
*
• Relaxation video 2
*
• Dr. B's 5-minute relaxation video
And then after watching all of the above videos, we went back to the search and this time she
had me type "breathing exercises." Nothing that caught our interest came up for “breathing
exercises" so we then tried "deep breathing exercises," but nothing came up for that either so
then we tried "diaphragm breathing" and we found just
this one video called
“Diaphragmatic Breathing.”
Now all of the ones on the above list that I marked with a star (*) denote all of the
ones that we decided to turn off because I didn’t find they helped me relax as much as the ones
that don’t have stars beside them. I’m not into Yoga or any other type of
meditation, Serena booked another visit for Wednesday May 28th from 1 to 2PM and before that
visit she wants me to rate all of the videos on the above list so that she’ll know which ones I
might like to watch again. And then when I send you the message with my comments about the above
videos sometime before Serena’s next visit on the 28th, you can forward that E-mail to her. At
first she just told me that she had appointments either for Monday the 26th at 1PM or Wednesday
the 28th at 2PM. I first told her that 1PM would
probably work better for me because I usually have my lunch about an hour before then and then I
have my afternoon snack most days at 2PM and that I would reschedule with you, and after I said
this was when Serena told me she did also have 1PM available on the 28th so that I don’t have to
reschedule with you. And I should tell you that after today’s visit I’m still not sure if I’m
keen about the idea of seeing a behavioral specialist on a regular basis, I especially don’t
feel it necessary if she’s going to be working on relaxation stuff with me. You and I can look
at the above videos tomorrow anyway after we get back from Dairy Queen. My dad’s taking tomorrow
afternoon off work, he wants to pick up a few things at Spagnols on Annacis Island and then
they’ll spend the rest of the afternoon at the Starlight Casino.
When Serena was here earlier today, I learned that she has a Keyless Entry remote for her
car. Also speaking about cars...When my mom was watching “Moving Up” on TLC last
Friday evening (the 25th), I caught a commercial for the “Mercury Sable” that played a
Stevie Wonder song. I think the song was “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I`m Yours.” And I’ll tell
you that Stevie Wonder is yet another one of the artists who I like and I also have one of his
CDs.
See you tomorrow at 1PM.
-Neil
P.S. Here are the links from the above message:
Arikah page: List of Hollywood Squares center squares (entry in Arikah online encyclopedia)
Global BC weather forecaster: Rena Daya [She works at CTV now.]
Global BC weather forecaster: Wesla Wong
Reality television show / Home renovation television show: Moving Up (on TLC)