Randy was scheduled to present his talk in September of 2007. But that August, he was diagonised a second time with pancreatic cancer and that he should expect to only have three to six months of good health left. Despite this news, Randy prepared and presented his Last Lecture during his scheduled slot. His main reason for doing so was simply to have a recorded memory of his best advice so that his kids (at that point his oldest child was aged 6) could see their dad in his best element.

His amazing story comes with many lessons that we can take away into our every day lives. He tells this story about how he wanted to take this job outside of the university that was quite difficult for him to obtain. And the lesson was that there are always brick walls in life. Brick walls are there to show yourself how truly bad you want something; it’s to filter out those who aren’t as passionate. How amazing! How many times have I looked at a daunting task and turned the other way because I felt my efforts would get me nowhere? How fantastic it is to have this lesson retaught to us – I know I forget this sort of thing in every day life.

Randy also wrote a book before he passed away in July of 2008. The book is also entitled The Last Lecture, and I’m only half-way through reading it but I love it. The day the doctor told him that his time left was less than a year, he and his wife cried in the doctor’s office. After all the discussions, they left together and Randy thought about what he had told his wife just before going into the appointment:

“Even if the scan results are bad tomorrow, I just want you to know that it feels great to be alive, and to be here today, alive with you. Whatever news we get about the scans, I’m not going to die when we hear it. I won’t die the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. So today, right now, well this is a wonderful day. And I want you to know how much I’m enjoying it.”

I want this to be how I live my life, every day. And while I work towards this, I will also look to finding a brick wall I feel is worth it for me to climb over.

Please watch the lecture if you haven’t already.

“It’s coming all over the place!!”
- Elaine, referring to her veil not staying in place and the fact that it was windy outside.

“I’m so happy my daughter has finally found the white man”
- Elaine’s dad, whose Chinese accent had us all cracking up at the head table as he described Nathan to be the right man for his daughter.

All in all it was a great wedding. It was probably one of the few times I actually got to see her new husband three days in a row (usually I’d see him… never), and it’s been years since I’ve seen Ivano. I also got to see the newlywed couple the next day and boy were they hungover. And it’s really amusing to see a bunch of peppy old Chinese people, and a bunch of young hungover adults trying to eat lunch together at a busy dim sum restaurant. Congratulations to the new Mr. & Mrs.!

When I fly out on Wednesday, I will have spent a total of 2 weeks in Toronto, with almost all of it being vacation. During my time here, I got to not only help Elaine out during her wedding, but I’ve also had the opportunity meet with a few friends who I hardly get to see and spend time talking to my parents. Usually when I book a trip back home, I complain that it’s not really a vacation because I usually work out of Toronto to save my vacation days, and I don’t have a lot of time to see other people, but with two weeks here and me actually making an effort to meet up with people, I feel that this trip has been truly a great experience. Every now and then people need to take that step away from their regular path and look sideways and see what’s passing by.

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to meet one on one with Ken and Derek, both friends whom I’ve known since high school and elementary school respectively. They’ve both moved out of their North York homes and into downtown (and fairly close to each other – I walked from one persons place to the other!) and I both are getting married within the year. These are two people that I grew old and grew up with and having this time to sit and talk with them about what they’re doing and how they’re doing was like opening half-closed doors again.

When I look at both of them as they tell me their new life, I can’t help but remember the fourteen year old boy who I hung out with at the park back in the day, or the boy in grade two I used to be really mean to. Ken has since met this wonderful person while I was in Vancouver, and now he’s going to marry her! And while I live my mundane life on the other side of the country, I feel like so many things are happening everywhere, and I want to be a part of it! But I have blinders on, and I just look forward at this line that’s leading me to some hazy destination I can’t figure out yet, and all these things are passing me by. All these people are growing up, and I’m not around to see it and to be a part of it. I’m not there to celebrate in the joys, and to cry in the disappointments. How lonely a life can be when you live for yourself!

This isn’t to say that my life with lonely with A. I am very much in love and happy with my relationship. But I feel as though I haven’t moved anywhere in my life – Derek says I’ve been driving on a highway without knowing the destination for the last four years. And now that I look back I see all the things I’ve missed and all the relationships I’ve let slide, and the worst part is I don’t know what for because I don’t know what my end goal is. Today I have pulled over to the side of the road and looked back at all the exits I could’ve taken as a detour and asked myself why. What am I moving towards? What am I passionate about so much that I’ve given up all these other opportunities. While this answer hasn’t come to me yet, I’ve become aware of the fact that I truly do need to know this in order to feel okay about moving forward again.

So, how does one find their passion?

My brain has been telling me that the world is a scary place. Everywhere I stand, I’m constantly checking my body, assessing the danger factors around me, and worrying. In a world where everything is supposedly easier, I’m bombarded by a sudden urgency to make decisions about the rest of my life – where to have children, when to have children, living arrangements, timelines, caretaking. I moved to Vancouver and lived in a bubble of teenage bliss – the kind where you are young and carefree and don’t need to worry about anything because you just want to experience life and not have to make adult decisions. But the time to be an adult is slowly creeping up on me and I don’t feel ready. I come home hoping for the comforts of being a child and I see my beautiful family aging before me. I come home and I don’t recognize streets anymore, I see massive developments where small houses used to be, I see new restaurants where old ones once stood, and I feel like I’ve been sitting in an anchored boat that’s lost in a sea of change. I have a lot of grown up decisions to make, and I need to start sailing forward. It scares me.

I’m waiting for the terrible weather here to turn into weather that’s suitable for the clothes I brought home. I’m waiting for the sun to start peeking out again and the skies to clear up so I can stand beneath the chestnut tree in my front yard and stare up into the sky and think about how the tree looks just like it did when I first moved into the house twenty years ago. Saying that makes me feel old already…

I have agoraphobia. And it is recent. Like within the last month recent. And even talking about it now is making me a little anxious. I get worried that I’m not getting enough air. My muscles tense up, I feel like I should run away, and my heart feels like it’s being squeezed by a giant hand. If I get really scared I start shaking, and I probably have the expression of some caged animal, and I hyperventilate which probably doesn’t help. I feel like I’m going to go aboslutely crazy and I’ll explode and will have to be carried away to a crazy house.

Some nights I would walk circles around my apartment, get fully dressed at 2am and wake A up to tell him I need to go to the lobby. I would listen to the street and scare myself with the thought that a car might run into our building and it would topple over. I would listen for noise on the floor and wonder if I were to get into the elevator to go down, what if I got stuck? What if I took the stairwell but something happened and no one would find me until the next morning? What if what if what if.

I got on a crowded bus once on the way back from shopping in West Vancouver and it was absolutely packed with people going home and there was traffic on the Lions Gate. And every time the bus jerked forward and stopped again my heart would go crazy. I couldn’t breath properly, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be stuck on the bus for, I felt like I was going to pee my pants. I had to be let off at some random emergency bus stop and wait an hour for the traffic over the bridge to start flowing properly before I felt well enough to get back on a bus to go home.

100 meters away from the dock, I demanded to be taken back to shore in the OC6 because I couldn’t imagine going out into the open water. One time I was out there and it was wavy and I comtemplated jumping out of the boat and swimming to shore, I was so desparate to get to safety. My world was being thrown upside down and I felt like I was drowning in a life that I had always lived. I was upset and sad and fustrated with myself.

Finally I did one of the hardest things ever. I admitted I had a big problem. Not just to me, but to my family. To everyone I knew, not just A and John. But to as many people as I could tell. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I felt like I needed as much support as I possibly could get. And I went to see a psychiatrist. I needed someone to help me with this problem, because I didn’t understand what was happening to me. And while I haven’t found an answer yet, I have found ways to help me cope with my anxiety. I slept well for the first time in almost a month. I felt comfortable in my home. And while I still have trouble riding the train, I continue to force myself onto it even if it means I have to wait for the next one. I’m by no means the same person I used to be – I’m still constantly nervous, and constantly analysing the environment around me looking for key safety triggers – but I’m slowly working my way back to a better person than I was a month ago.

So how do I cope? I focus on my 5 senses. It’s a great technique that my psychiatrist told me about, and it really does work if you focus hard.

Find 5 things you see. Don’t make it something that will make you feel even more stressed out (ie. don’t look at the skytrain doors closing all the time, or how many people are on the train). Focus on smaller things, such as “the girl is wearing a nice pair of shoes. They’re purple with a mid-heel and they have a little bow detail in the front.” or “the man infront of me has a strange hair cut, and he styled it funny so it looks like his hair is all blown to the left” (this one was my thought this morning). Talk to yourself about them and describe them in detail.
Find 4 things you can touch. This is to be done within reason, of course. I tend to focus on my jacket and I tell myself “my jacket is made of wool so it’s a little rough but it’s got a soft smooth lining inside and it’s very flexible”. Other acceptable examples may include the chair you’re sitting on, any bags you’re holding, the wall beside you, pieces of jewelry, etc.
Find 3 things you can hear. This one is sometimes difficult, especially when you’re sitting close to some really mundane conversation as I was on the bus the other day. It makes it a lot harder to focus if the conversation is really all you hear (and when you’re nervous, all your senses are on alert so the conversation seemed a lot louder in my head than it really was). But if you can, focus on a few other things like the sound of the train moving, the rustling of newpapers, the opening and closing of zippers or velcro.
Find 2 things you can smell. I try to do this one first because I find it hard to find different smells when I’m in an enclosed space. My psychiatrist also recommended I carry something like a satchel of lavender or something just to use it as a distraction. But when I do notice a smell, I focus on it for as long as I can smell it. Unless it smells bad. :\
Find 1 thing you can taste. Nowadays I try to carry a bottle of water or a mint or something. Focus on the cold water going down your throat and into your stomach. Focus on the mint as it cools in your mouth and swish it around so you can feel it against your cheek or your gums.

I know this all sounds crazy to someone who doesn’t have this anxiety, but it really does help for those who do. I’ve also taken to playing a muscle relaxation tape to help me sleep, and if I wake up randomly at night all nervous, I just hit the play button again and it’ll put me back out. Also, my headphones act as ear plugs so it muffles out a lot of the random noise.

Still, it’s a little sad when I can’t watch interesting movies anymore because the soundtracks might have super dramatic music in it and it will make me feel scared. And when I have trouble riding the train and need to hop off. It’s difficult for me, and it’s also difficult for those who have to put up with me (namely A), but I’m excited for the day when I can ride a train all the way to Richmond and back and not be scared. And when I can go out in the ocean and enjoy myself. And when (hopefully really soon) I can get on a plane and not freak out.

Hope you all are doing well!

A10 - $7.25

The Crispy Salty Peppery Chicken and Noodle in Soup is a delicious dish for anyone looking for some deep fried goodness. The noodles comes in a clear broth that is a perfect complement to the chicken, although I required plenty of water to even out the MSG.

A01 - $6.95

The beef brisket noodle in soup is also a regular item at the Noodle House, so J went with his favourite choice. I say the food here is very comparable to its sister restaurant – the beef was delicious and the soup was very thick and flavourful. and actually enjoy it here a little bit better since there’s much more seating room and a lot less noisy. My friend C and I decided to split a five spice beef in Chinese pancake as well.

F02 - $5.50

This was quite good as well – I’m never a fan of raw green onions so I had to pick out the ones in the middle since the roll otherwise is too strong for me, but the whole pancake had just the right amount of sauce and held together quite well. I do wish the pancake itself was a bit more crispy though. Overall, I’m happy I finally got to try this place since the other location is much further away from me and not as easily accessible by transit. And since I always crave crispy salty peppery chicken, I have a feeling I’ll be heading back here a few times in the near future. Now to find a good place that makes deep fried squid tentacles close to the downtown core. Mmmm…

Beefy Beef Noodle House
http://www.jpnoodle.com

4063 Main Street, Vancouver
(604) 568-6821

Sun to Thu 11:00am – 12:00am
Fri to Sat 11:00am – 2:00am

Seating interior at Shizenya

They also have seasonal speciality menu items (mangoes are currently readily available in most groceries stores as they’re now in season in Mexico).

Daily specials at Shizenya

As I was going to bring the food home to eat, I requested no chopsticks and no soya sauce – my kitchen is stocked with both those items and I always try to avoid getting more of them. I eagerly took my sushi home, and opened up the bag. As I normally order my take-out sushi from Samurai, I’m very pleased they Shizenya doesn’t use styrofoam packaging.

Takeout Packaging at Shizenya

I was pretty hesitant about brown-rice rolls, but they were all extremely delicious. The Sakura Blossom, one of Shizenya’s speciality rolls, features fresh crab (with mayo), spicy albacore tuna, cucumber and avacado wrapped up with wild sockeye salmon. It comes with some salad in the middle and is all drizzled with a creamy maple dressing. This roll was amazing! The fresh crab meat was a delight, and the spicy tuna really added a lot of flavour to the roll – and the salad dressing kept everything in check. I loved it!

Sakura Blossom Roll - Ingredients

Sakura Blossom Roll - $12.95/10pc

The simpler rolls are very reasonably priced at Shizenya. I also ordered a Dynamite Roll and a Wild Samon and Avocado Roll. The tempura was not fresh out of the fryer, but the roll itself still had a bit of crunch to it, and overall it was quite flavourful but it had a bit too much rice. The salmon and avocado roll was a delight – the seaweed was perfect and the salmon was delicious.

Dynamite Roll - $4.45/6pcs

Salmon & Avocado Roll - $2.95/6pcs

Overall, the food here was really quite good for a Japanese restaurant using brown rice. They also have a few other items that I’m hoping to try the next time I go back, including the wild sockeye salmon tataki salad ($9.95) and the Natural Bomber Roll ($11.95/10pcs) – tiger prawn tempura, fresh crab, and organic spring mix topped with avacado.

Shizenya
http://www.shizenya.ca

985 Hornby Street, Vancouver
(604) 568-0013

Mon to Fri 11:30am – 8:00pm
Sat to Sun 11:30am – 6:00pm

]]> http://tetleytee.com/?feed=rss2&p=2225 0 http://tetleytee.com/?p=2219 http://tetleytee.com/?p=2219#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:40:23 +0000 admin http://tetleytee.com/?p=2219 On New Years Eve in 1996, my brother and I had dinner with our family and then quickly begged to be dropped off at Mel Lastman Square. To help ring in the new year the city was throwing a free concert performed by the Foo Fighters, and I wanted to be there so badly. I remember discussing a designated meeting area, taking off my glasses and putting them in my pocket for safe-keeping, and charging into that mosh pit as a fearless little asian kid. Elaine and I squirmed our way to the front, jumped around a whole lot, and then did some crowd surfing. Somewhere along the way, I lost my glasses and no one showed up to the meeting area, but I was okay because I stumbled my way blindly to a payphone and pumped in a quarter and fumbled with the home phone number to get my daddy to pick me up. And I had a blast. The joy of being in a concert with all that live music, of being with a bunch of people who were there to enjoy it as much as you, it was thrilling!

Two months ago, I took a trip to Mexico with my husband. We travelled around the Mayan Riviera, exploring ruins and snorkeling in caves, and swimming to find turtles in Akumal Bay. And while I was scared, I tried my hand at scuba diving. It required a lot of patience on the first day, but I was able to complete all the tasks in the pool – clearing water from my mask, finding my regulator airsupply mouthpiece if it fell out, lowering and raising myself in the water, how to breath properly. That isn’t to say that this took effort – the lesson was supposed to last 3 hours and I was there for 6 because I just couldn’t make my way to the deep end of the swimming pool. I kept stopping and scrambling back to the surface, fearing my air supply would suddenly fail me and I’d die a death of suffocation if I couldn’t make it back to the top in time. But with a lot of work, I did it. And I was so proud. I went back to the resort feeling like I’d accomplished something amazing and that I’d conquered my fear.

The next day of certification, we got into a little fisherman boat and made our way out over the choppy water to a popular first-time diver site. It was 10m deep, and pretty wavy on the top. The short ride there was enough to get all the butterflies going in my stomach, and the second I put on all the gear and the weight belt, I felt certain I would drown at the bottom of the ocean. With a lot of coaxing, I was little pushed over the side of the boat and flopped down on the water in my inflated vest, clinging wildly to the old Mexican fisherman captain in a speedo named Alberto. No amount of encouragement could make me go any deeper into the water than just the surface. The open ocean frightened me so much – I feared getting swept out into nowhere by a rogue current, I feared getting eaten by some quickmoving fish (or shark!), I feared just taking in a gulp of water and choking and no one could save me fast enough. My head was full of uncertainties and just thinking of all the possible ways I could die made my breathing shallow and nerves frayed. I was having a massive panic attack. I never let go of Alberto my first time down, and begged to be let back on the boat but everyone insisted that I just needed to get used to the idea of breathing through these tubes submerged under water. How does that NOT sound like certain death people?! Eventually I forced my brain to focus, and began to slow my breathing down. The water was clear, the current wasn’t too bad, and before I knew it, Alberto had slowly deflated my vest a little bit so my head was just inches under the water. And I was okay. My head was in a constant battle with some subconcious that I was going to die, but it seemed under control. I was over the moon with joy.

But trying to get down to 10m, that was a huge struggle. The further down I went the more scared I became. Every time I looked up and saw the surface of the water further away, I knew inside that I was moving further away from being able to breath freely and became more dependent on this piece of equipment that was my only air supply. And to make matters worse, I still had to complete all the same drills I had done the day before in the pool – remove my mouthpiece and find it again, fill my goggles with water and clear it out, control my breathing so as not to bob in the water, constantly remember to breath out when the mouthpiece is removed to ensure my lungs won’t collapse, it was all a lot to take in for my poor body that was already having a freakout. In my state, the proudest moment was when I actually touched the floor of the ocean 10m down. I looked up, had a freak out, calmed myself down but I never let go of my instructor’s arm. I clung onto him for dear life. I just couldn’t enjoy scuba diving because I was constantly afraid I would die somehow. It’s truly a horrible feeling, when you’re given this amazing opportunity to experience something new but you’re just too afraid to try. In the end, I couldn’t shake the fear (I couldn’t breath properly, I was queezy the whole time, and I just looked like I was going to cry constantly), so I insisted on being taken back to the surface. Where I proceeded to throw up constantly due to the boat rocking.

Last week, I got the chance to volunteer as an athlete stand-in for the Opening Ceremonies with two friends. It was the last dress rehearsal before the real deal, so they had a ton of lucky people who got tickets to come see the rehearsal as audience members and a bunch of people to pretend to be athletes so that VANOC could do a full run-through end to end without stops. It was very exciting to get to walk in as a member of team Canada, and even more exciting when we saw the Great One himself down in the holding area. What fun! The show was fabulous, we got to see all the performers live and I felt awesome when everyone cheered as we walked into the stadium! At the end of the show, the organizers asked the athlete stand-ins to wait in their seats for a while to let the rest of the crowds clear out. We stayed an extra half an hour until the stadium had cleared before we got the okay to move out, but it turns out the crowds were still outside and the organizers hadn’t directed the leaving audience as to where the possible exit paths were. People were piling out into the open night outside BC Place but immediately became stuck because they didn’t know where the best exit was to get them to the sky train, or to downtown, or to the parking lots. It wasn’t chaos because no one was shouting, but it became crammed really quickly. To the point where we all just started getting more and more squished as more people piled out of the stadium with nowhere to go. I stood there, short and unable to see any exit paths, being shuffled more closely into the people surrounding me, and with no possible moves my brain began to fire warning signs: no one knows where to go! what if a riot ensues due to all these fustrated people? can this platform hold the weight of all these people here? if I lose my friends I’ll just be pushed around forever before finding a way out. I could get crushed if I trip over something and fall. there’s not a lot of fresh air here with all these people surrounding me who are taller than me. The fears and concerns continued to pile up on me and I felt the familiar tensing in my chest. My breathing became shallow as my friends discussed an exit strategy. I grabbed wildly to Heather’s jacket and she immediately sensed my fear: “hey, how are you doing? look at me, it’s okay. stand a little taller, on your tippie-toes. wes is going to find us a way out, we’re starting to move.” I immediately tried to get taller for some fresh air, and once we started moving, I felt better. But it wasn’t until we were not only unstuck, but far from the crowds in Heather’s apartment that my chest stopped squeezing me and my brain had calmed down. I felt embarassed that my friends had to witness this side of me, and fustrated that this fear was slowly taking over me.

On the night of the Opening Ceremonies, I boarded a bus at midnight with A to get ourselves home after the festivities. Two stops from our apartment, the bus suddenly filled up with drunken partiers who were making their way home as well. And when I say filled up, I mean filled. It was rammed. A and I had a seat but it was facing all the standing people and they were loud and rowdy and sometimes unstable and suddenly my head started swimming with fears again. I gripped A’s hand tightly and tried to take deep breathes from the stuffy air until it was our stop. After squirming out of the bus, A looked at me with concern but I couldn’t really explain it. I know it makes no sense logically – I used to be fine with crowds. I used to love rushing into a mosh pit, I’d willingly brave hordes of people for free samples and crammed subways after concerts back home were all part of the norm.

Yesterday I demanded we leave early from the Our Lady Peace concert in Richmond because I was worried the skytrain would be packed if we left at concert end. Who does that! But even though A and I made it onto the subway platform early, it seemed quite a few people had the same thought in mind and were headed downtown to continue the party. Drats! I told A I needed a seat by the window that wouldn’t allow people to be hovering over us, and shoved him forward the second the train opened its doors (before the people even started coming out, I know I’m awful) to secure me said seat. He did a good job though, my husband, and as I sat down and the train filled up with happy concert-goers and Canadian fans (we had won a medal earlier that day), I put on my headphones and began to watch on old episode of Grey’s Anatomy on my video player with my head down to avoid looking at the crowd. The air was warm to begin with because the train was heated but it took a lot of effort to control my panic attack and I constantly felt like I was going to throw up. When the crowd started singing or chanting, I squeezed A’s hand and turned my player louder to drown out the noise. When my brain somehow thought about my fears, I was sent into shivers so badly my whole body shook and I couldn’t see my little video screen because my hand was moving so much.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, or why this fear has suddenly taken over my life – right when the city has become the most crowded too, how unfortunate! It makes me fustrated when I think about it and how it’s affecting me; I can’t get onto the skytrain now without my brain having to be actively trying to calm me down. I just want to be the girl who can go into crowds again.

What's this?

Hurray! A post-it note surprise! Once upon a time when the hubs and I were first going out he used to leave me post-it notes all the time on my dorm door. And because I love notes, our 9 month anniversary consisted of a whole room full of post-its saying “I Love You”. I love the sappiness.

But these weren’t just any post-its (‘don’t forget to do the dishes, thx.’ – kidding, he’d never leave me those I’d kill him), These had a great message on them:

Hey Tee, Here's a game for ya. You can think of this as one of those "random clicking" games that you like to play online, but better b/c you get real stuff instead of a jpeg of it (or useless points). You will be rewarded so...

The goal of the game is to find all 5 items. Here's the clue: !(Microloft and Kevin's Place). DeMorgan's Law might help: !A union !B = !(A and B). From our conversation last night.

Now a lot of people might be all “what in the” but the boy is a nerd and I love that he’s a nerd, and he loves that I’m not a nerd, so he included an answer sheet just in case. I love that man!

Hurray for an answer sheet!

So eagerly I entered my apartment, threw down my bag and began hunting! My first stop was to survey the room.  Like any good point and click game strategy, you need to first view your surroundings for anything that could look out of place. I did this also because I couldn’t understand what the clue was.  I honestly tried to solve it too, I stared at it for a long time.

What’s not a microloft and also not Kevin’s place? Well, they’re both studios but a microloft is 270sqft and Kevin’s place was about 400sqft.  So OUR place is not a microloft and not Kevin’s place. But clearly that logic doesn’t help me any way.

So when a strategy fails, I basically resort to where would the hubs hide me presents? My first obvious spot was the bed, since it was actually made and my bear with sitting in the middle. Sneaky!

Hi Bear!

Cookie!

Hurray! A cookie!! Now that I knew my prizes, I was eager to find the rest of them. Who can say no to cookies! So I wandered to the bathroom. A good point and click game will spread out the items in the different surroundings, so I figured the bed area was done. In the bathroom, I had no luck with the cupboards so I took a peek into the bathtub.

Thank goodness he decided to put the cookies in ziploc bags. Phew!

While munching down on a cookie (brain food?) I went to the kitchen to see what I could find. I opened the fridge and rummaged through the contents. I opened all the cupboards and shifted to the pantry drawer. The cutlery drawer. Below the sink. Inside the oven. Inside the toaster oven. Inside the microwave. Inside my pots and pans. I was started to get fustrated (and worked up a sweat – who know finding random items in the house like this would actually be more work than playing point and click games on the computer!) when I lifted up our chef pan and found another cookie. Huzzah! (I forgot to take a picture here)

With three down and two to go, I decided I had scoured every area except the desk. So I shuffled through all the papers, all the clothes on the chairs, all the binders on the shelves under the table, inside the boxes, and behind my plant. I came up empty handed, so I became confused and started scouring through my clothes drawers and closet, his closet and his clothes, the shoe rack, basically everything. In a point and click game, when you get stuck and don’t know what else to do, you always just start randomly clicking on things. Don’t say you don’t, I won’t believe you. Fustrated and already down to one cookie after eating the other two, I gave up and went downstairs to the lounge in our building where the hubs was patiently waiting for me.

“If you were a cookie, where would you be?”

A came back upstairs with me to survey my findings: two empty ziploc bags and a half-eaten cookie. We went through the clue again, and while it made so much more sense to me when he explained it, I’ll spare you guys the details because it involves actually being around to listen to the conversation we had the previous night. So after thinking through the clue (and him being extremely impressed I found three cookies by sheer brute force method with no logic whatever), he told me that one of them was under the table. When I told him I had already looked under the table, he said “no really. like UNDER the table.” Like, taped to the bottom of the table. I did not think to crawl under the table and then look upwards because that’s a lot of effort and who does that!!

Under the table?! Really?!

The last one was kind of a cheat too, because microlofts do not have a storage unit, but ours does. Except our storage unit requires a separate key because it’s in a separate room on the other side of our floor. I honestly would’ve never figured that one out. But off I went to the storage room to retrieve my last lost cookie. Hurray!

Storage Room Cookie!

Thanks hubs for the fun game. I love post-it surprises, and I love baked goods.

tee: ‘bat leen ho cup’?
a: ‘bat leen ho hup‘
tee: what does that mean?
a: a hundred years of being together
tee: give me another sentence with the word ‘hup’ in it
a: um…
tee: ‘hup an fun’? (which means to sleep)
a: … yes. may you sleep for a hundred years.

100 done, another … 60 or so more to go. Oh boy.