Friday, January 2nd, 2009: - New Years and Resolutions

 

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 to Tuesday, February 3rd 2009:

The year of 2009 started and it remained same in my household as it nothing has happened. However, about a week after that, I was having a conversation with my father and he asked my question. He asked "How would you like to take a trip to New York?" I answered him honestly and said " I would love to go to New York but..." as I just kinda mumbled on from there. Then from there on we said nothing more of it but I kept it in the back of my mind. As I figured, about a week later, he came and told that he booked the tickets for the trip to New York. What came to surprise to me was that we where spending a whole week in New York unlike the last trip was only for a few days back in August. I planned my trip activities and packed my bags for a few days before we actually departed on the plane to New York. But, I think that's enough of the back story of my first trip of 2009 and perhaps of several more.

 

 

After having a nice breakfast and a rough ride in the car, we got to the airport around 8am. We then spent the next hour and a half waiting for the plane as it was rather foggy out which lead to poor visibility. Which lead to landing problems and delayed our flight slightly. It wasn't enough of a delay to damper out spirits as we boarded the plane about 15 minutes late. After we took off and got above the clouds, we relaxed as ride went smoothly to whole time. It felt great to be flying again. I guess, that maybe flying isn't only for the birds. Once we landed, we got rushed to get our bags and out of the airport to a cab. We landed around noon, so LaGaurdia airport was a little more busy them usual. The sudden rush of busy people with depressing demeanors was the sure sign that we were back in New York. We took a cab to my Aunt's house, where we stay for a little lunch and getting caught up. It was a little awkward at first considering I haven't seen her in about a year now. After lunch, I grabbed a box I had sent before we flew to New York and we hopped into her car. She gave us a ride to my mother's apartment and dropped me off along with my bags and box. And thank goodness she did, those things were heavy as I was getting worn out from just carrying them from the car and down a slim staircase.

 

"Mommy, I'm Home!" was the first thing I said as I slid the glass door open and made my way in with my luggage. I dropped my stuff and with a big smile on our faces, we hugged like we used to do every time I used to visit on the weekend. Then, and only, I knew I was at home while I was in New York. As you can guess, I spent the next hour unpacking my bags and box as we chatted and occasionally question something I pulled out of my bag. Most of the stuff I unpacked my either clothing or stuff I was storing at my mother for safekeeping. Most of it was either video games like my Nintendo 64 and Wii or DVD collections. You see, have gotten a little shakey, financially, at South Carolina home and I no longer safe keeping them there. So, this vacation had a little secondary work to it but everything in life does. Anyway, I finished unpacking my bags and finally settled down to spend time with Mom. Of course, not until after she showed me all the food she got me like Rye Toast, Tomato Juice, Moose Track Ice Cream and Valentine Cookies. I was in a snack and pleasure food heaven. She also left up her Christmas Tree and decorations for me to see and I certainly enjoyed them. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about how our lives have been. Her with her crazy job and me with life over 600 miles away from her and watching the Food channel. Later in the evening, we ordered out for dinner and I got extra large pizza with extra cheese, meatballs and chicken plus Garlic Knots and some pasta and bread for her. There is nothing like a NY Style Pizza made in New York. We also watched a movie called Haunted Forest which was an odd but kinda interesting horror movie about a restless revenge-seeking native American spirit. After a bit of rest, I took a look at Mom's new DVD player that she got from her job that recently for being with the company so long. She couldn't hook it up and neither could her boyfriend when he came to visit after she got it. It's a cheap model DVD player and it needed an RF Modulator to connect to her little bedroom TV. We spent the rest of the evening watching the Food Channel, some Looney Tunes I have on DVD and chatting until about 2am in the morning. Then I made my couch and got ready for bed as she tucked me in. She surprised me a bit when she decided to stay home from work since I was here and the fact it was going to snow a lot. I wish that she would told me that earlier for a reason...

 

The reason I wish she had told me that earlier was that I had been planning to spend the day with Roger, my best friend. Plus, it snowing quite a bit when she told and it kept going until late into the morning.I could have spent the day with her and saved Roger from having to drive around extra in the snow. However, it was already a little too to cancel. And my mother had not problem with me going to Roger. So, anyway, I got a few hours of sleep before I had to hop out of bed and head out of the door after breakfast. My buddy, Roger, picked me up after he dropped his mother off at work and headed back to his place. But we made a quick side trip to pick up chips, soda and snack cakes to keep our old visit traditions alive. Within a few minutes, we were in his place and his cats ran to greet me. Of course, it was Maya first followed by TK and Misty. We then spent the day playing video games, watching TV and just joking around. A few games played were Mario Kart Wii, Boom Blox and of course, Super Smash Brother Brawl. We did have to take a trip out to visit his aunt's to drop off some papers. Meanwhile, I got to finally meet his aunt's kitten, Holly. He was so cute with his little white sneaker like paws. Just so adorable. Later on, His Mom got a ride home from work because of the heavy snow outside and felt it was safer that way. We ordered a few personal pizzas from Pizzeria nearby his apartment and I enjoyed it. We got a hamburger pizza, a BBQ chicken pizza and free plain pizza too. There is nothing like a NY Style Pizza made in New York. I stayed over until about 7pm and had them drop me off at my Mom's house for the evening since Mom was still home as she took the day off. And the rest of evening was the same as the day before with watching cooking shows and just chatting into the late hours of the night. All of this was really nostalgic for as this was what everyday Saturday was like before I moved to South Carolina last year.

 

After having a quick bagel sandwich breakfast, I grabbed my bag and I headed out the door, early in the morning again. I woke up Mom and said Good-Bye before I left, so that she wouldn't worry when she gets up for work in a few hours. Roger picked me up and after a quick stop at the deli for refills on chips and soda, we made it to his apartment. We spent most of the remaining morning playing Cel Damage, a really wonderful but oddball cartoony-combat-car-driving game. All the characters so unique but my favorite had to be Fowl Mouth, a 1930's Mafia Gangster Duck. Roger passed out for a nap for a while and I just spent it watching Tom and Jerry until about an hour later, when we had to leave to do a few things. The first place we spotted was Game Crazy which was by his old house where our visits took place for a majority of our friendship from when it started waaaaaaaaayyyyy back in high school. After shopping around for a bit, I picked up a Brand New Copy of the original Animal Crossing, and a used copy of Professor Layton. The odd thing about the copy I brought was that it was so like new that it was unplayed and all the booklet were in brand new condition. Roger pre-ordered a few Wii games, so I ended spending more then he did. We started to worry about running late to pick up his Mom for work, so we rush over to the school. Ironically, we spent the next 20 minutes sitting in the car waiting and change a parking label. And I actually learned something for that experience, Windex can freeze. Seriously, I never knew that. Shortly after 3 o'clock, Roger's mom got in the car and we made our way to our next appointment. It was Doctor's appointment for Roger. His mother and I sat and chatted about college and her cats. Afterwards, we headed to the awesome Chinese food buffet which I love going to so much because of all the variety they have. While we stuffed our faces, we spend most of time discussing our Chinese astrology aka Chinese Zodiac which was on our placement. Once we finished, we went back to his place for couple of hours where we played Brawl and New Super Mario Brothers. I spend the rest of the evening at home waiting for Mom to come home from work, spending some time together and catching a few Z's. I, also, cleaned up her apartment a little which surprised her, so it was worth the effort.

 

 

If I was to write what happened in the morning, you would be getting some Deja Vu right now. Let's skip ahead to after I arrived at his apartment, shall we? We spent most of the morning playing Magic for old time's sake which ended with us each winning a match. It was some of my favorite decks going at it, Blue-Green Madness versus Token. We played more video games for most of the afternoon until it around the time to pick up his mother from work again. We, also, did go see Holly again while we ran an errand. So Cute! But, before we did that, we snuck over to Toys 'R' Us in Douglaston to look around for while. I haven't been there since I was a kid, so it was a really nice retro feeling even if the place didn't have the same layout anymore. After all, that's where my family used to do all of my birthday shopping from the day I was born until I was like 11. They didn't have much that I would get but they had a few nice things like several Dr. Seuss books a few games I've thought of buying but I never did get. We walked out empty-handed which was alright since we went to look around anyway. We picked up his mother at work and ran a few errands including food shopping. We mostly picked up stuff for that night's dinner, ice cream and cat food. I had no problem at all help out as they have been generous hosts these last few days and the following one. After help unloading the bags and a box, we stay out of their way as they made dinner. Dinner was Cheeseburger Hamburger Helper with Potatoes and it was delicious. It was so good that I ended up having 2 large helpings of it. We cleaned up and then Roger and I settle in for a little more Brawl. Then we had a movie night starting of with the redubbed verison of The Mastermind of Mirage Pokemon which was... Hey Look! It's a Mew! Then we watched Super Mario Bros. (the movie) as we ate our Butterfinger Ice Cream brought earlier in the day. It was odd to watch such an unusual movie with someone considering I've only seen it twice before in my life. But we still had a blast watching it and then we headed to sleep so that we had energy for the next morning. Why? Because something we been waiting to air on TV for while was finally going to air.

 

 

We start off our morning playing Brawl from with a short while of waking up until it was time for Pokemon at 9. Being the Pokemon fans we are, we were really looking forward to this episodes as it centered on our favorite characters, Team Rocket, and had several throwbacks to the original appearance of Team Rocket back in Season 1. Or about 11 years ago for those you how don't follow Pokemon. Not to mention a funny training montage. After watching Pokemon, we had breakfast in the living as we watch some weird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon that place them in a MMORPG. But the 6 bowls of Reese's Puffs made it so worth it. We spent the rest of the morning playing video games. Thankfully, Roger gets the western coast feed in addition to his regular feed, so we got to rewatch the Pokemon episode at Noon and it was still just as awesome. Roger started to nod off again and so he napped while I played Mario Kart Wii for a hour or so. Once he woke up, his mother and us took at ride over to Walmart, the one that the guy got killed on Black Friday, at ironically enough. We check the DVD and Video Game section which had slim pickings and nothing all that exciting to get. When we got to the toy section, that's a different story. We spotted a plush box with several Pokemon plushies and a surprising Mario Brothers plushies of Petey Piranha. After having hard time picking and even having Roger's Mom join in the conversation, I almost ended up with a Wobbuffet plushie. But shortly after, Roger's Mom decided that I could get both of them and that she would pay for both of them. I kept thanking her as we made out of to the register and out to the car. Roger decide we should go to another Toys R Us that was nearby which also turned out to another on that I used to go to as a kid. The only thing is that I remember having to drive up a spiraling ramp in order to get to the entrance. We headed straight to the video game section where Roger picked up a Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. (Lucky Bastard) Then, we went to IHOP for dinner as Roger and I had the All The Pancakes You Can Eat specials and stuff ourselves almost sick. I had my pancakes with the sampler special, chocolate milk and Blueberry syrup. And I just made myself hungry. We head back to his house for while where I used the computer and finally told Roger that I got in contact with an old friend of ours in RFK, Samantha. Which was, of course, a surprise to both of us.

 

After playing a few more matches in Brawl, when I finally returned home to Mom, I spend the next few hours I had to waiting packing up my bags, snacking and I hooking up my Wii. You would think I would have done it earlier in the visit but I was there to spend time with 2 of the people who mean the most to me, not play video games and ignore the world around me. So, I played Animal Crossing: City Folk until she came home from work. When she came in, she had a nice surprise for me in a bag. A box of Entenmann's Valentine's day cupcakes with cute red and pink heart sprinkles. We just then spent the rest of the night catching up on what we were doing for the past 2 days before I started to nod off to sleep and went to bed.

 

 

Finally, for the first time since before the vacation started, I slept in until about 2 when my father called and threw both me and mother out of bed. I forgot to put the phone on vibrate so that if he did call, he wouldn't wake us up. I made myself a huge breakfast of buttered rye toast, a bagel sandwich, pizza pockets, chips and a slice of old chocolate birthday cake. You see, I spend so much time away, that I ended up not eating much of the food that Mom brought for me while I was staying over for the week. While I ate myself buffet-like breakfast and had my Tomato Juice, we watched a few more cooking shows until later on in the evening. After our restful, Mom did her laundry and I played Animal Crossing: City Folk on my Wii for the next couple of hours. I showed her just about everything I could like the layout of my houses, my museum, and the newest addition to the series, the City. We even sat and watch few K.K. Slider concerts in the cafe. The best of it was that most of the time, she was the one playing and she picked up the controls quickly. She even did one of her favorite activities, fishing, with the new controls and she got a rare Stringfish. I could tell by the look on her face that was really she enjoying it very much. We tried to find one of her favorite characters, Wisp, but we never found him. Once we finished playing City Folk, we sat down with our Chinese Food and I played the original Animal Crossing, Mom's copy, to do Wisp there instead. We found him easily but it took forever to find the little spirit I had to pick up for him. While I was finding the the little spirits for Wisp, Mom told me some shocking and depressing news. It was that she really doesn't played it (The original Animal Crossing) anymore as her glasses are so badly scratched that she can't use them anymore. Which is a huge shame as she loves it and has played almost nonstop for like the last 3 and 1/2 years that she has had it.

 

Little did I know, That was just the start of the bad evening we ended up having. After we finished eating, we decide to watch my Looney Tunes DVDs that I brought with me. Mom had popped the disc in the player and left the remote on top of the player. Then she stepped away to start cleaning up our dishes from dinner as I finished up my food. When she stepped back, the DVD player remote went missing and she got upset. And quickly, she started to blame me and started yelling at me. Unknowingly, I started to yell back at her which ended up making things worse and we ended up yelling at each other for about an hour while pulling the room apart trying to find the DVD player remote. She eventually just pulled the disc out of the play but she bended it and slight scratched it, which didn't help but I now realize it was an accident. Once I calmed down, I pulled out my flashlight from my bag and checked under her bed. It turned out the remote slid of the DVD player's rounded edge, bounce off the bed, and slide behind her handbag causing it to land in the blind spot under the bed. I gave back the remote back to Mom and we just sat and watch normal TV very quietly until I went to bed. Before I feel asleep, we apologized to each other for getting and fighting.

 

 

As you can guess, I didn't sleep too well with the guilt of the argument on my conscience. Once I woke up around 10, I couldn't fall back to sleep even after a few snacks. So, I spent most of the morning playing Professor Layton until Mom finally woke up. She seem to be fine about the night before and I joined her after making my huge breakfast again. We spent of the afternoon and early evening watching court shows and wedding cake competitions. Her boyfriend, Ruben, came by for a visit, so I spent that time playing Animal Crossing: City Folk, one last time before packing the system up and not seeing for some really unknown long, amount of time. Ironically, it was one of better playing sessions considering I got 2 Sliver Nets and a few items, plus it gave me a chance to say goodbye to say goodbye to some of my favorite neighbors like Mitzi and Chief. Shortly after Ruben left, I showed Mom the game's strategy guides that I borrowed from Roger the other day. She loved all the new characters and furniture that I couldn't show her in game, like the Eggy furniture. Afterwards, we watched an awesome BBQ convention on the Food Channel and Antiques Roadshow where a guy had a mini-desk worth over $100,000. Of course, we kept up the old tradition and yelled "SELL!" when we heard the price. Mom and I headed back into the living where Mom started to cook a special dinner she has planned for a few weeks now and watched a Magic show while I spent a little more time with AC: City Folk. I did flip over the channel to watch the magic show a few times but it really wasn't anything too impressive for an older audience since the trick are fairly simple to figure out. Mom kept on cooking and I stayed out from underneath her feet, she hate when people get in her way when she's trying to cooking.

 

Around half hour to midnight, Dinner was ready and it look delicious. This was also special it was the first Mom has cooked a meal for since before I moved to South Carolina. She made turkey breasts with mashed potatoes and homemade gravy and garlic bread. I had forgotten that my mother can cook such wonderful things and I just devoured it down like a monster. Of course, I waited to sit down and join me. She didn't eat much as she tends to sample as she cooks but she did steal a bit of food from my plate. As we ate my dinner, we finally sat down and watched the Looney Tunes as we planned to do the night before. And this time, we certainly made sure not to lose the remote. It was great as it had several of our favorite Looney Tunes cartoons like "Bugs and Thugs" which featured Bugs Bunny at the end pretending to an stereotypical Irish cop to trick Rocky and Mugsy pulling off the oven gag. That was one of my Mom's favorite growing up as a kid. One of mine personal favorites that she also liked was "Feed the Kitty" which was about a bulldog that adopts a adorable kitten and ends up trying to bring it home. While we were watching them, I did enjoy a nice snack of the Valentine's Cupcakes, Valentine Cookies and the last piece of my birthday cake with a nice cold glass of milk. We spent several hours just watching them a laughing our silly to point where our lungs started to hurt. I knew that life couldn't get much better then this for us.

 

Sadly, The day for all of the these wonderful visitations to end has finally come. Mom and I got both got up at the same time. I made myself breakfast as Mom got ready for work. I sat and ate with her as she watched her morning Jerry Springer. As she finished getting ready to leave for work, I made my couch/bed and packed up the last of my stuff in my bag. She left her normal time for work around Noon, so I hugged her goodbye and watched her leave from our front door. It killed me inside to see her go as It's going to several months before I get to see her again. I went back in and added the finishing touch when Roger called to let me know he was outside. So, after locking the place up, I hopped in the car with Roger and we made our way to McDonald's. We had a nice lunch of Angus Burgers, McNuggets, Fries and McFlurries. We sat around and joked for while before the place became packed and decided to leave. We head to another Toys R Us but this one was different because this was the one where I used to work at back in College. The store itself was generally the same but I saw three people I knew but, Thankfully, I didn't have to talk to any of them. Personally, I just glad that I just didn't have to use the restroom considering that where my best work was done when I was still employed with them. After hitting the board game section, we left and Roger dropped me off back at my mother's apartment.My aunt and father decided to pick me up from my Mother's apartment as we had to make a quick detour before we head to the airport. While I awaited for them to arrive, I shoveled a path to the front of the house, so that Mom would have a easier time getting in from work later on that night. It was snowing most of the day sine I got up. And it didn't look like it was going to lighten up anytime soon, so I figured it would help kill a few minutes and it made feel a little better know that I left trying to do the right thing.

 

Shortly after finishing shoveling, my aunt pulled up and I threw my bags in the car and we left. We had to stop at my grandmother's for a little while I as haven't seen her in over a year. It was nice to see her again but you can see that the old age has finally caught up to her after all these years. There also was box of my old stuff that was found in the basement, after disappearing for several years. I had to go and pick out the things I wanted and threw away the rest. Surprisingly, Most of the stuff in the box were things that I've been missing for several years, like my old Digimon tapes and a few old game guides. After separating the stuff, I packed up what I still wanted into my luggage back and we stayed for a little tea and cookies. After the snack, my father, my aunt and I hopped back in the car and made out way to the airport. My aunt dropped us off and as you can guess, we had to play the "Check in and Go thought Security" game. Not surprisingly, our flight got delayed several time due to the snow and loss of visibility. Lucky for us, the delays didn't last as long as the trip back to South Carolina in August. Instead of boarding the plane at 6:30, we instead got on around 10:30 and took off at 11. Most of that extra 4 hours of waiting time, I spent playing Professor Layton or reading a book. We, finally, landing in Myrtle Beach around 12:30 where my stepmother picked us from airport and drove us home. After the terrible ride home, which I wouldn't go into details about, we got home where my puppy, Berta was waiting for me. After spending a few minutes with Berta, I went upstairs to unpack my bags and eventually went to bed. Because, tomorrow was back to reality, unfortunately.

 

(Turns out this was 7 pages in Word, Wow...)

The 2009 New Years Resolutions Follow-up Post:

 

Sunday: Janurary 18th, 2009:

 

It's been 3 weeks since the New Year started and let's see how I'm doing so far!

 

1) GET A JOB!

Not much luck here. I've applied for over 150+ jobs in the last 2 months and nothing much yet. I heard back from Carolina First Bank for a assesstment and waiting to hear back about that.

2) Start saving money for a trip to New York.

Kinda need to work to make money to save with. However, I'm taking a trip at the end of Janurary to NY anyway, thanks to my Father.

Again, I don't have much money and I'll be lucky if I have my Wii by the end of the year considering the family's finanical situation...

4) Stop impulse shopping and become a better shopper.

I'm really trying hard on this one and it's mostly working but I have give in once or twice. But I'm completely done with online shopping for a LONG time.

5) Improve personal hygiene (Brushing, Washing, Shaving etc.)

I call this one successful so far.

6) Spend more time with Berta. (Possibly even outside)

Okay, Not outside as she doesn't like being outside much. But I am spending more with her while I still got the chance. =(

7) Call Richie & Maria at least once a week AND Email Joey at least once a month.

My sister, Maria, and I now call each once a week on Fridays. My brother, Richie is very buzy, it's been been tough but we spoke once or twice. And I have e-mail Joey a few time already.

9) Reorganize, decorate, and clean room at least once a month.

Again, I'll started that AFTER I get back from my trip to NY at the end of the month.

10) Sell some unwanted stuff on Amazon or eBay.

I'm not likely going to get around to this considering I may have to abandon most of my possession depending on my family's finanical situation in another month or so.

11) Working on completing incomplete DVD collections.

I'm probalby going end up losing most of my DVD collections as part of the whole possession abandonment that my family may have to do soon.

12) Keep and Complete 3/4ths of these Resolutions.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

 

This is so not going to be a good year for me but I'll guess I'll survive...