Departure

Not sure what I did before sleeping at 4... or was it 5? It was that bad. Alarm was set at 8, but mom bang on my door at 7. Was she holding a grudge against me for not waking me up yesterday???? Hey, I was the victim! I don't even have any energy to confront her anymore. (T_T)

Cousin B and S has a 3-hour jet-lag, so when they usually get up at 8 AM, it's 5 AM here. I was barely functional.

E-mailed M (cousin W's son) around 7:50 to let him know that we were up. S called their hotel room at 8:15. No one was there. Turn out they've gone downstairs for breakfast, and decided to have morning dim sum at a different place which opens at 10. Cousin B wanted to maximize her time with dad, so we went to the original restaurant which opens at 9.

We arrived at 8:50. Sat in the car until 9. Went in, and were shocked to see someone already sitting at a table. (So we were the 2nd.) 2 of the dishes we ordered were not available because not all the kitchen staff were there yet. The food was good. B and S liked it very much. They ordered extra to take to dad.

Brother kept calling. He wanted to meet with us but he also needed to run a bunch of errands. Looking back now, it was pointless because he wouldn't have enough time anyway. Hmmm...

Arrived at the nursing home at 10:30. Dad was sleeping half-naked in his room. Cousin B took him to the garden like yesterday, and fed him the dim sum. She still thought dad was very capable. Sigh...

Cousin H and W (with his family) showed up at around noon, with more food of course. Dad ate almost everything and skipped the nursing home's meal. K (cousin W's wife) looked like she was certain that we were being cruel by sending dad there. She kept trying to give him her own glasses. We stopped her because it will for sure go missing and turn into a meaningless waste. She ended up giving him her magnifying glass. Sigh... This woman is an occult level Buddhist freak who would rather spend time praying at the temple than taking care of her home. (She also has chanting monks audio tapes playing in both living room and dinning room at home 24 hours a day. She is not normal, period.) Of course she has that "I'm superior than you" mentality, telling us what we "should do". I snapped. I'm sick and tired of people who knows nothing about my condition and telling me what I "should do". S I C K - A N D - T I R E D !!!!

It was a really weird sight. First, cousin B being so "sweet" to my dad, stayed 10 thousand miles away when he went to number 2. Mom was aiding him. Like, dealing with his diapers. If cousin B was so "loving", why did she help mom? It was all on the surface, wasn't it? Then all the others (4 of them) competed to "be nice" to dad. It was almost like a bunch of kids trying to gain affection form a pet or something, tempting it with food and toys. Of course they didn't believe how bad dad actually is and how he would drive me and mom off the cliff.

My parking expired at 12:35 and the cousins want to be at the cruise port around 1. Yet they took forever to say bye. Luckily the parking rule was slack. M made a gas stop on the way. Following another car (or being followed) always makes me nervous. On top of that, we ran into street closures near Chinatown! Took a few more turns and a few more minutes, we managed to arrive in one piece. H went with M to return the rental car while the rest of them checked in. I followed them so I could drop them off at the port after the car-return.

OMG... downtown was impossible! One-way streets and volume are already bad enough, there were constructions, lane closures, pedestrians, and the worst of all, no right turns!!!!! I couldn't believe it!!!! Looks like ever since they added those bike lanes, we can't turn right on some intersections!!!! We couldn't get there without going in big circles. And still, every turn, there was something.

M was leading me to the car rental place. The office was in a hotel building, and traffic could not get any worse!!!!! There was no where to stop. I was instructed to wait in the ally while M went inside. Luckily H got out to mark the location for both of us. Turns out the car-return was 6 (or was it 8?) floors underground! Took a while for M to come back. He was pretty shock and shaken by the traffic, and didn't check the bill. He was charged way more. (It was supposed to be $19.99 or something, but he ended up paying 40-something.) I offered to turn around, but he said he could deal with it later.

Just when I thought things would go smooth, the street was broken! It was not downtown anymore, yet I had to go around and around to connect back to the right street. Sigh... (T_T) My condition was deteriorating fast. Almost ran a stop sign on a major street. (Saw the other side with red lights and automatically assumed I had a green light... but noooo I had a stop sign!)

For the second time, I went to the port. (That was actually a container shipping port. I wonder if the cruise company saved money by using such a dingy port.) We beat the 3 PM deadline with ease. After saying goodbye, mom and I went home.

I was still very full from brunch and only ate a few bites. Then I'm not sure why, I started scrubbing the kitchen sink. OK the sink grinder was clogged and it all began with flushing it. Then auto pilot took over. Deep in my heart, I wanted to shoot some more photos of the accessories... but it go too dark from the clouds. Plus, my body was feeling so wrong, I couldn't even think. (My left femur had not ached like this since a few years ago!)

Finally, sat down in front of my desk and started cleaning up e-mails. Downloaded today's photo but didn't get to process them. The only accomplishment was sending an inquiry about my mysteriously delayed Amazon order. Can't believe it took me hours! (Well, of course, I was dosing off at the same time.) Even more amazingly, I got a reply fast!!! I'm so glad they could replace the delayed item with something else. Or else I'll risk getting charged shipping on the already delivered item.

Sorry, A, I didn't have any more energy for the logo tonight. Neither am I finished with your camera. I'm so sorry... (T_T)