Preamble: While planning for this trip to Vancouver & Victoria I’ve noticed that yes, obviously, a lot has changed (duh) & a lot of the places (cafés, neighborhoods, parks) I want to visit are definitely tied to nostalgia and memories (and facing ghosts from past life)

{aside: finding nostalgia for Vancouver past is more potent than thoughts and plans for Vancouver present – neighbourhoods once loved now “not recommended (esp with a toddler who like to pick things up off sidewalk”), no more dim sum carts, hotels with endless extra taxes and fees, restaurants are expensive + tipping, complicated transit zones schemes persist, old haunts gone, so we go one}

Dear Diary:

10:45 in bed eating granola and medications, wife outside running woodchipper, grateful for noise-cancelling headphones.

Today’s “must-do” is organizing 70 days of meds in fishing tackle box.

Ok bye

Anyway, in the meanwhile… I’ve got out of bed, put on the clothes, now going to fold some laundry, rock the dishwasher, and organize some meds before he comes… (Actually looking at the clock I will do 1.5 of those tasks)

37% of me wants to go back to bed, another 15% of me wants to make a video to remind folks about my limitations for BC trip (i.e.: “I/we can’t meet you at *fancy place* at 7 PM for dinner but hey, we’re on a picnic blanket at a park from 11AM till 2PM with a thermos of coffee”)

Otherwise: So now, this is the last week of Ichiro school / the school year begins and ends in March in Japan so there was just graduations and he moved up to the next class which he will only be in for about two weeks total.

We pull him out and then stretch run for getting a whole ton of stuff ready for Canada… Not just the suitcase of medications, the suitcase of gifts (possibly two suitcases), various clothes for rainy weather but also doing all the stuff to get the house in “stand-by mode“ which includes standing up mattresses and fumigations (we’re going into the season of the bugs), having mosquito nets ready for when we come back, packing up the futons and the bags with the “bugs don’t eat me” devices inside plus… Of course the wife needs to renew her drivers license (her birthday is while we are in Canada) and…

We’re hosting a little pizza party as a post show celebration for the bands concert two weeks ago (because yes, we need something else to do), plus a retirement for another pal and “safe pregnancy” for another and i guess “bon voyage” for us. First time to have more than a few folks over, including several kids.

As such, finding a new school for Ichiro to start in September (looking into two or three days a week more nature and fun and free play-based environment… yesterday wife investigated a YMCA program which looked really good except it’s about a 40 minute drive away which is kind of a drag to do but I was able to tell her about the importance of the YMCA in my Dad’s life… Child of a poor single mother in Regina Saskatchewan, that was his hang out and finally charted his career path and his first job out of university was a program Director at YMCA, of course I have the business card).

There’s also the saga of the piano player from our wedding whose husband died recently suddenly (my age, a heart attack) and we’re going tomorrow with the little dump truck to help haul some stuff away… Specifically including a stone specially made for pounding rice in the mochi / no, you can’t make this up. But, we have a dump truck and my wife is endlessly supportive, creative and nothing is impossible so… I just ride along and pretend to help.

So, were less than two weeks out and have too many tasks but what gets done gets done… Yesterday I organized medications and labeled everything, today I am going to try to bang out a little profile for open medicine foundation (you know this group/organization right?) for awareness and *yikes* share my story just as i hit 10 years since “sick day”.

There’s also a call for submissions for University of Idaho in Boise for mail art collage and… I mean, no one ever asks for this kind of stuff specifically so I really feel like I should make something but, maybe I’ll do that on the 9th, mail it on the 10th and fly out on the 11th… Maybe mail it from the airport as a bonus. I have a dear friend who lives in Boise who will be able to go see it in real life… Maybe take her husband and kids (they are adults now) that would make it kind of fun for me.

Also, 1 more round of injection, 1 more setai treatment, and a haircut for me and Ichiro so we are rolling sharp.

I also remind myself that six months ago or a year ago or two years ago I couldn’t do a quarter of what I’m doing now. I am grateful but so anxious.

{gonna be a lot of picnics in parks and when using hotels, booked rooms with kitchenette / going April May will be better cost than July/ August but still, i’m a medically-retired pensioner so gotta be frugal while still showing wife and kiddo funtimes}

Bonus:

My kid got up in his “moose suit” fleece romper, checked out his new art gallery we hung up yesterday, set out granola and bowls for the family, & tuned the radio to Peter Barakan’s NHK radio show playing Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones’” sung by Warren Zevon (I’m pretty sure) #Parenting