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Ah, what a couple of weeks of eating everything in sight, watching movies, playing with the dog and not going to school will do for the soul. The mainlandie relatives are still here -- some anyway, which is nice because it's sadder when everyone ups and leaves all at once and then life's ordinary again, leftovers for dinner and brown tree in the corner.

I decided that not making resolutions "because New Year's resolutions are hypocritical and doomed to fail" was stupid, and resolved to save money, talk to myself more regularly, and buy a reading light. So far I've bought a reading light.

I guess a constant resolutions of mine is to be nicer to Eugene's Brother -- like offer to drive more often (or at least not grouse so much when he asks me to drive), stop taking his Christmas presents, things like that.

I ended up getting Vice City for E's B. He's currently trying to obtain counterfeit money plates. Ghastly. But so hard to put down the controller, I'll admit.

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Went out to Haleiwa and I'm still tasting my lunch (garlic shrimp from the shrimp truck!) Yeah, that's a little yucky. I'm sorry. It was tasty, though. We also feasted on Eugene's Brother's homestyle Ham-BLT's on toast. Had lunch at Torito's with D a couple of days ago and he recommended Cholo's in one of the little marketplaces, but it looked crowded when we drove by. Actually, everywhere was crowded. The road, the shrimp truck, Matsumoto's, the stores ... We ate on the wall at ... what's that beach. Waimea? And ate and ate. I took a nap ... E's B let me use his lap as a pillow even though I kept making shrimp jokes and stuff. Then we drove to McDonald's because I had to use the bathroom, and refused to fight the traffic back in to get shave ice, so we left and went to pet stores instead -- stopped in Mililani, Pearl City ... Bentley got more presents (a can of Eukanuba, which I bought mainly because of the plastic lid that will snap on to any open can of food, great for refrigerating leftovers!, and a box of puppy biscuits, and a pig ear -- finally broke down and bought him one of those disgusting things, which he took to immediately.) TOmorrow we're going to Home Depot to fix Shumai a real reptile light. No one else gets anythign special for awhile, though. But everyone got Christmas presents -- TJ got seafood teasers, Djali got another 5 pounds of food (OK, that one was lame but at least there was something under the tree for her), Coco got some cookies, as well as a nice donation to the Humane Society in his name from Melissa, and Bentley got a cannister of Greenie bits.

Been spending a ton of time with the clan, and the last few mainlandies are leaving tomorrow. But my grandfather's cousin and other assorted relatives just arrived from Hong Kong and so we're still cleanign the house and eating Chinese food and oh gawd, new year's eve leftovers. Still.

I feel like I've had kids in my lap for the past two weeks. That was nice. Now there's jus tBentley ... he's so cute, if you sit down on the floor he will immediately jump into your lap and mold himself to it. I can't bring myself to curb this behavior even though when he is 60 pounds if he still fancies himself a lapdog it could be hazardous to our lives. He's just so cute. He also likes to be handfed, one kibble at a time.

Babysat yesterday and the day before. My friend Kevin came to the zoo with me yesterday, but I was on my own the day before at the Children's Discovery Center. It's a really cool place, with kid-sized (but otherwise realistic) replicas of a supermarket, a city bus, a post-office, a fire station, a plane, a courthouse, etc., with uniforms donated by HFD, times, Aloha airlines ... THere are also little cultural centers you can visit with artifacts and costumes and even some pretend food. It's a really good idea, but I think it's sensory overload for the little ones, because everythign is sort of crammed together and they don't know where to start, they get all overwhelmed and they run from station to station which is hard when you have two kids to watch.

So, back to "real" work tomorrow, which I'm not particularly looking forward to, but it's a PE day so I'm sure the blues will fall off as soon as the blood gets pumping. Hope. Work, deposit check @ bank, go to Home Depot and Costco (and try my darnedest not to make stupid impulse purchases now that I think I'm in the financial clear for Feb trip), have HK relatives for dinner. That's tomorrow. Oops, can't forget to feed the cats at the House, and wrap gifts from "Santa" -- I was appointed Santa by their mom, so I have to set up the brand-new bikes, stuff the stockings, and drink the champagne they left for Saint Nick ... tough job, but someone's got to do it. Yay, I guess Christmas won't really be over till they get back.