Easter
The kids and I have been just rocking along since I returned from San Antonio. My son’s school let out early Thursday with no extended day program which I depend on. Being out of town I could not make any suitable arrangements, so I took a vacation day. Actually it was a half day too as the College closed at one, so I did not lose too many hours.
Wednesday I had a crushing bit of news so I stayed up until two in the morning to do something I had wanted to do for this friend. Then I slept for four hours and woke up to take the kids to school. Went back home and slept until it was time to pick up the boy.
I decided we would have a boy’s day out. We went home so he could change out of his uniform and then we went to Chili’s for lunch. It was a surprise treat for him. His school work has been sub par lately and it seems like I all I do is punish him. So I wanted to show him he was still my son and loved. I had two free tickets for Ice Age 2 and we took advantage of that. Very cute movie. Though I find kid movies make more sexual references and curse or push the border of cursing more in recent films. Can we allow our children to be innocent a bit longer and just entertain them with good language?
We picked up his sister who had called during the movie. Whoops! Good thing there was only two other people in the theater. We went home and chilled.
Friday I took the kids to see a movie called The Benchwarmers. This is packaged as a kids baseball movie, though I found it to be a vulgar comedy at best. Since when does farting and projectile vomiting become so humorous. This is what I would call locker room humor. There was a decent story here and there. But some of it is just gross and other bits was just vulgar. Again there were a lot of topics I would not young kids to encounter. Again a cry out for innocence.
Went home and the money to pay the taxes arrived. Yay. First I needed to get some more work done on Fire in the Hole. I used the wrong stat block formatting, and I needed to fix it so editing could proceed. I worked on this til the wee hours.
Saturday I woke up and declared it final tax day for me. I needed to get my deposit ready. Then I had to cut the checks for the US Treasury, state of Michigan, and city of Detroit. Yeah I live in Texas, but my missus travels to Detroit often enough that we pay them taxes. What a fucking racket? The mob could not do it better. Checks written I stuffed the envelopes with all the required documentation.
Once I had that done I drove out and deposited the check. I was concerned about the check, since my wife was not there to endorse it. They let me do instead. Phew!!! Don’t know what I would do if they had blocked my deposit. Would have been on a street corner with a cardboard sign with the words written, “need to pay taxes.” The post office was not too bad of a line either. Monday is the deadline for most folks and I expect there to be quite a line then.
Then I went to the Chinese grocery. In Sugar Land there is a road called Highway 6 and it has a dedicated middle lane for cars that turn left. I had my left turn signal blinking and was sitting in wait for the traffic to pass by and allow me to turn. This guy pulls in front of me to turn left. The first thing that comes to mind is kiasu. He pissed me off and he has his family in the car doing this dumb shit. The traffic lets up and he goes. I honked at his dumb ass and was tempted to follow him and tell him what I though of his driving ability. I did not though. He turned left in the parking lot and for the sake of his kids I turned right.
I kind of enjoy going to the Chinese grocery store by myself. Obviously, I stick out like a sore thumb. Inside the store I am the minority. Then I freak people out by buying the Chinese stuff and asking for it in Cantonese. Always get a kick out of watching their facial expressions. I bought some dim sum for lunch and half a roast duck for dinner. Spent 17 bucks on that. Next I went to the Chinese baker and got some of those toasted char siew bao and egg tarts for 6 dollars. So that took care of lunch, dinner and Sunday’s lunch as well.
I have a few pics of the dim sum here:
After lunch I went back to Fire in the Hole. Then I fixed the final creature stats and uploaded the file. After that I tried to catch up my blogging. Really been an off week for me. Supper time came and we watched Narnia while eating roast duck and yams. You can see our dinner here:
My daughter baked some cookies. You can see them. A demonstration on the proper way to eat ice cream is also proviced:
After dinner I finished the second episode of a Liter of Tears. This is a Japanese story and it is very sad. If you go to J’s blog you can watch for yourself. I will not spoil it. Bring lots of tissue and someone you can hug. At least a stuffed animal.
Woke up early this morning. Why? Because I have a free movie ticket and it is the last day before it expires. I used it to see V is for Vendetta. Great flick. I am going to buy the DVD. Though I think Natalie Portman’s attempt to mimic an English accent is horrid at best. Puh-leez. It is a very stirring flick. I walked out wanting to start the revolution. And I recalled someone else saying the same thing to me in a chat. Really that is a dangerous thought in the wrong mind.
As I drove away from the theater and through the mall I was surprised to see the parking lot empty. People actually closed their shops for Easter. That cheered me up. I felt a natural high the entire drive to a hardware store. I noticed Target and Best Buy were closed. I walked into the mall and it seemed like half the people I saw were Chinese or Viet Namese. I kind of drew some comfort from that, though it made me feel lonely as well. I bought my light bulbs and toilet repair kit and went to pay. I almost wiped out this poor woman while I was at the register. She was walking around me and I moved suddenly, totally unaware of her. She was itty bitty and if she had not caught a hold of me she would have been knocked done. She worked for the store and she was apologizing though I was more concerned about her.
Then I got home where I proceeded to kick myself in the butt. I left my phone at home the entire time I was gone. What if the kids had needed me. Jeez. So much for being considered a great Dad. They have been having Easter egg hunts all day and eating some candy. I warmed up our bao and did a few home repairs before writing this.
Tonight I am going to cook some organic whole grain noodles. There will be meatballs and spagetti sauce too. Nuthin much. But the kids will like. Just hope those noodles work out.
