Oreo white chocolate

Thanks Miki for this one! Japanese winter limited edition. The chocolate cookie crumbs are inside this bite size portion. We had this for breakfast and snack on the go during our trip. Taste... not bad, despite my dislike of white chocolate. The cookie crumbs must have offset the sweetness. Or, I might simply be hungry.

Sakura

Full bloom. Kitsilano, Main and Broadway, South Hill.
Argh! Not a single one has a Pinky! Actually these are from the past few days.

Dollar store

Found a bunch of relatively rare craft supply at the dollar store across from Michael's in North Van. Or has my timing been bad so the good stuff are sold out in my neighborhood branch?
Sakura at Main and 16th.

Sakura

Blooming...
If memory serves me right, all the sakura were gone by mid to late April... There's something wrong with the weather, or the world. It's gonna get hot soon, and the flowering season is shortened. Will there be enough time for bees to make honey and to fertilize plants to produce fruits?

Beads

The Michaels' in North Van seems to have better selection on sale than the one in Richmond. Or maybe the good stuff are usually gone by the time I get there.

Neck

Did a lot of cutting and furniture lining yesterday. My neck is killing me... (T_T)

No brain, no wash

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Well, I haven't caught dad drying used toilet paper anymore, but he's definitely loosing his mind. Mom asked him to get chicken legs from the freezer, and defrost half of them. He defrosted them all. Somehow he managed to put into the recycling box a palm melon plant that mom was going to plant, and of course someone took it. Possibly a neighbour. Dad also isn't washing himself properly. He doesn't wash his legs and feet. Mom found that out because he stinks too much. Now she has to aid his shower. Then she found out one more thing. His dick becomes so short, it virtually disappears. How does he pee, then? It sticks out when he needs to pee, he said. All these, I didn't want to hear and don't want to know. Sigh...

Rash

Looks like that rash around my mouth I had last summer is coming back. It might have been my very last SebaMed lip balm that I try so hard to use up every last bit. Somehow it's not sold in Canada anymore. (T_T) Yeah, this last stick may be a bit old. It could have expired. Don't know without an expiry date, though.

The other reason might be the Shiseido skin care product sample I got from my Japanese trip. It's supposed to be good stuff, but a bit too weak while the heat is still running 4 in the morning. And, it doesn't have any SPF.

My, my, the Japanese are so generous. In here when you get a sample, it's a tiny tin foil pack no bigger than a one-tea-spoon sugar pack. Over there, they give you a whole week's supply, completed with toner, lotion, and facial cotton. All in its own specially designed package. Nice! (Well... who pays for that? Of course, whoever buys the product.)

Either way, I'm using the medicated ointment from last year's dermatologist visit. Hope it works.

Time for daiper?

Dad started to wet his pants. No, it's not like he can't hold it, but he spills when he goes. According to mom, his dick only has one inch left, so he can't aim well. (I didn't want to hear that and have no intention to verify it. Guess this is due to his prostate condition.) Somehow he dislike using the hand-held urinal and still pees directly into the toilet. He'd rather use the small tea cup which he puts his pre-torn toilet paper squares in. Of course it's not big enough to hold all the pee. When it fills up, he tries to empty it quickly. But need me say more? He doesn't stop the flow when emptying the tea cup, thus of course wetting his pants. Solution? Put the tea cup away.

Dad needs to get up and pee about 3 times throughout the night. Last night he seemed to have wet all of his pants. Instead of washing them, he just hung them to dry in the laundry room. Super gross! Mom woke up to find dad wearing summer pants while today's high is 8 degrees. All his winter pants are used up.

I've never seen mom this frustrated. Dad is like a walking zombie. Not much brain is left. Whatever he does, he screws up and you must clean up after him. Whatever you tell him to do, he doesn't listen and keep doing things his way. Mom even said, get me when you need to go pee, and I'll hold the urinal for you. But I'll be spending all my time and energy cleaning up after you, I can't do anything else.

Dad also has this weird thing about "making things more convenient". Upper picture: bottles of junk food for him. Notice the cracker being extracted out of the can and put on top of a jar. Lower picture: water storage. Notice he extracted a piece of napkin and placed it on top of the container. Both pictures: his obsession on glass jars and bottles. I hate it with all my heart.

Daigaku Imo Kitkat

Daigaku Imo... Imo is potato and daigaku means university. I kept thinking it's some kind of special potato dish that you only get at university open house or something. Like those food vendors in front of temples. (Haha...) Actually this is a kind of Japanese treat made with fried sweet potato and syrup.

Enough said. Back to the review. You can smell and taste the sweet potato alright. It's kind of strange when you realize this is chocolate. But somehow it works and actually quite nice.

Did not expect to see it locally, but yes, Candyland imported a shipment.

Patterns

Not going too well... Don't understand some of the patterns. (T_T) Miki is too busy to talk to me. Phoned her long distance but got chased away. (T_T) Help...

Happy birthday Andrew...

Mini Kitkat

Thanks Sora again! Oops! there was an even smaller one but I ate it without taking a picture. Sorry!

Tastes exactly like regular Kitkat, but super cute. You can eat the whole box and not feel guilty.

(Photo taken when I was in Japan. January 2009, Nakano.)

Sakura

Left: sakura at Oakridge Mall. (Oops, these pictures are from 2 days ago.)

Below: more sakura at 51st and Ross.

Picture renaming

Am I just tired or plain stupid? Or is the Photobucket interface poorly designed? Took me forever to find the rename option. I was about to give up. Found it while preparing the image for this post.

More running around

Was going to look into my cell phone problem, but was solicited by mom to lunch with some family friends. (When I drive them to the restaurant, I get to eat there too.) Got some cheap material at a nearby dollar store. Tried to get help at the closest Fido store, but the guy couldn't help me although denying not being a customer here has nothing to do with it. Instead, he pointed me to Oakridge. It definitely beats going all the way to Metrotwon and worth a try. And it did not disappoint me. What was my problem? Here goes.

My last bill was $4.65 after some kind of (referral?) discount. I've set up auto payment on my credit card, so I usually don't read the statement carefully. (And let them charge me the $2 paper fee, jerks!) This month's bill, however, has that $4.65 listed as last month's balance! How could this be? Can this affect my credit rating? Yikes!!!!

Calling the 1-800 number on the bill didn't help. It's all recordings and no options suits me. And it's absolutely impossible to talk to a real person. I was climbing up the walls!!! Grrr!!! The free 611 call from the cell phone is exactly the same as the 1-800, so it's useless too. The "pressing 0 at certain timing" trick also didn't work. Anything outside the given options only repeats the recordings, and after 3 or 4 times, it hangs up on you. Grrrr!!!!!!

So I had to go to a branch to talk to a real person to get things sorted out.

(1) No, this doesn't affect my credit rating.
(2) They can't charge last then $5 on a credit card, so last month's $4.65 was pushed forward to this month's bill. No interest was charged either.

After running around for 3 day, I'm just glad this is over.

Running around

Dropped off some toys and book, and had lunch with some ex-colleagues. Went to the tax guy to sign some documents. Had a chiropractor's appointment. Stopped by a dollar store to pick up cheap material, then London Drugs for Easter leftovers. Fell asleep at the desk after dinner as usual. Why am I so tired?

Sakura

In front of Michael's in Richmond.

Toilet paper 2

How many times have we told dad not to reuse toilet paper? Now he hides it in the cabinet that stores new rolls of new toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes!
Gross!
I can't deal with him anymore!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! (^_^)

Peeps

There are tons of junk food reviews lined up, but since it's Easter, I'm letting this jump the line.

Peeps are yellow marshmallow chicks. Wow, they have their own page on Wiki! Not sure if it's an Easter special since I haven't seen them locally until now. Or maybe I simply wasn't paying attention? I remember seeing something on TV a few years ago... perhaps on Food Network? Some kind of special truck passing them out for free or something. They looked good and must be good! But... but... Aaargh!!! It's a trap!!! I was soooo disappointed. It's too sweet with no flavour. Not even sure if it's sugar or corn syrup. Nothing special. The yellow dye turns me off too. By the way, the marshmallow is white. The yellow comes from coloured sugar sprinkled on the outside. Here's a tour of the Peeps factory if you're interested... and here's a Peeps lip balm. Hmm... looks like it's kind of famous.

Good Friday

Nope, I didn't go to Aberdeen Center. This was taken a few days ago.

Ophthalmologist

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Took dad to his ophthalmologist appointment today and found out he's got age-related macular degeneration. Well... he's 86 after all. Apparently his condition was bad enough for the doctor to give him laser treatment right away. After that, the 2 small bottles of eye drops he needs cost just under $80. Robbery!

The clinic was disproportionally short in chairs with mostly seniors waiting. The wait time was over half an hour. I was uncomfortable hanging around and ended up walking across the street to a dollar store in Metrotown, to continue hunting for cheap material for Miki's doll stuff. All the info about dad was related to me through mom later, but she tends to exaggerate. Hmm... perhaps I should have stayed.

Dad was reusing toilet paper again. How many time have we told him not to? Does he just not want to listen, or completely forgotten common sense?

And... he answered a phone call (a very rare thing) with the caller asking for mom. She was out picking up the eye drops. Dad seemed to know the caller and talked for a bit. 5 minutes later I asked him who called. He couldn't remember.

And... somehow he cut all the bananas loose. Don't know why. Now we can't hang them. Great...

He has the weird habit of opening the front door and look outside for a bit before locking the door every night. Tonight he did it twice.

Yesterday mom asked him to hang the finished laundry on the laundry line, but he put everything back into the washing machine instead.

Sigh... the fact that he's still up and running is amazing for his age, but all these things are too much for me to deal with.

Airport

Had to make a detour to pick up the bee stuff at the office, so things didn't go as planned. Nevertheless managed to use up all the 50% off Michael's coupons. Thanks Andrew! (^_^)

Didn't know that you can get coins from a bank machine.

There's a dollar store named Everything Under a Dollar. (Not at the airport, though.)

Strawberry cheese cake Kitkat

Thanks Sora again! Very similar to the blueberry flavour, this one tastes more like cough syrup. (Actually the blueberry does too, but only a tiny little bit.)

Blueberry cheese cake Kitkat

Special report from Tokyo. Thanks Sora for the treats! They turn into our breakfast. (^_^) (Nope, I'm back long time ago. These picture were taken in Tokyo, though.)
This blueberry flavour, unfortunately, is white. Which means, it cannot escape the excess sweetness. There is also the saltiness from the cheese cake, making it very heavy. I guess for breakfast, this is OK. Plus, the size is smaller than regular Kitkat, so everything works out fine.

Vancouver Convention Center

Lunch at Urban Fair. The curry chicken salad was delicious, and portion was huge too!

Went to the open house of the Vancouver Convention Center afterward. Personally, that place was disappointing. I guess I was expecting Star Trek but found 50's retro instead. The walls were covered with ceder blocks without finish. The carpet was brownish orange (different colour combo at different parts, but just as bad). Hanging yellowish cylindrical lamp shades. Not enough escalators. I'm sorry, this is supposed to be brand new, how come it looks like it's got 40 years of wear?

Well... The view was awesome, though. For today's occasion, there were performances to entertain the crowd. Insane line up for balloons for your kids. I didn't see any cafeteria. Instead, there was a table with bags of chips and cans of drink. Not free, alas. Same price as vending machine. At least it's good that they didn't jack up the price.

The basement was quite big. A+B+C hall all together add up to about the same size as Big Sigh's east hall in Japan.

Poor Andrew forgot his keys...

Zakushi (Thanks!)

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Lost my change purse. It was a souvenir from my brother's honey moon in Thailand over 18 years ago. It had to be at Zakushi last night since I dug out everything from my purse to find the camera. Without giving it much hope, I phoned up the restaurant. Amazingly, they had my change purse! The customers sitting next to us found it and turn it over to the staff. Thank God thank God Thank God!!! This really makes me think that there's still hope in this world.

Zakushi

Drove downtown / Kisilano / Burnaby. Had dinner at Zakushi. (Japanese tapas.)

Nice parking (Richmond)

Dr. Battery...
... and nice parking.

Cross-border shopping

Hitched a ride with my brother to Bellingham. He was there to buy fire extingushers but the US standard is different from Canada's so he ended up not buying any. His goal switched to buying shoes for my older niece since she needs new ones. I was hoping to find materials for Miki's doll clothes but nothing was on sale. Only got a bunch of buttons. Didn't expect to buy a pair of shoes myself but found one at 75% off. (US$82 to $22.) Good deal even after the exchange rate.

April fool

No pranks, yay~!

So inconvenient without a thumb...

Dad left the edge of the shower curtain outside when he showered, so he flooded a good portion of our basement. This really happened. No joke.