JAN: Mooching Off of Alec, Parents Visiting, Interviews, Dad's Surgery, Grandpa's Funeral, Family Reunion, Cousin Hangouts, Hiking

January was impactful. Last month was full of ups and downs.

I started off the year still mooching off of Alec at his house. We hungout all weekend lazing around and doing errands. Then, I worked remotely in his dining room while he alternated from working remotely and going back to the office. I guess recruiters were hiring in full force in the beginning of the year, because I had at least one interview almost every day that week.

Then, we drove back to my house Friday night, since my parents were coming up to visit on Saturday. They wanted to visit since they were also doing errands in Atlanta, so they bought dinner and we ended up watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Then, we had mom open her birthday present that I kept on hinting towards for the past month lol. 

I found out that my mom really enjoys the anticipation and surprise of receiving a present, because she would not stop laughing every time I told her that I wouldn't spoil the surprise whenever she asked. Either way, she loved the Chanel bag and wallet we got her. I just can't believe how poor I instantly became after paying Shelle my half of the present lol. All of my extra spending money was gone in a second. D: 

Lol but it's okay because it was really nice surprising my parents with designer stuff. I definitely felt like I was a qualified adult that my parents raised me to be since I made enough money to be able to buy them stuff like this. (Dad didn't know that we were planning on buying him a designer belt for his birthday in a few weeks either lol)

That Thursday, I drove down to help take care of my dad. He was scheduled to have knee surgery Friday morning, so I took the day off to take him to the hospital. The surgery went fine, but because the hospital was at tier 4 because of the high amounts of Covid patients, they told me that I wouldn't be able to see my dad after he was moved to his recover room, so I went home after giving them my phone number to call me once they moved him.

So a couple of hours later, I got a call from the hospital saying that he was moved into a room and that he was only allowed one visitor for the day, so my mom told me to go visit dad and give him his clothes and phone, since I had to take it back with me when he left for his surgery. Then, I got there and ran into a problem with the front desk who told me that he already had one visitor for the day, which was me earlier that morning. So I had to wait for a nurse to call back and confirm things and FINALLY got to see dad. 

There was just a lot of miscommunication and issues with the hospital. When I got there, it was already six, and the nurse who was giving dad some medicine said that they should be giving food to the patients at this time, so dad should have dinner soon. When I left his room around 6:45 (since visitor hours ended at 7:00), I saw that a nurse was pushing around the food cart not far from dad's room, so I assumed that he would get his dinner soon. But then, Shelle called us and said that she just called dad and heard that he didn't get his dinner yet, so she eventually called the hospital and told them the issue. Dad eventually got a cold sandwich for dinner around nine. Like wtf.

Then, the next day, I drove to the hospital to give dad some toiletries and found out that the entrance I went in yesterday was closed. This other lady who arrived at the same time as me and I walked around trying to figure out why both entrances nearby were closed and had to drive around the other side of the hospital to find a working entrance. That's when we found out that they shut down all visitors because the hospital was at tier 4 emergency. We could only visit them if they're being discharged, so I had to wait for dad to finish his physical therapy goals before they would discharge him.

Luckily, as I was driving back home, dad called me and said that he finished walking 300 ft without help, so he could be discharged in a couple of hours. I went home and waited for the hospital to call, and went back with Brian to help pickup dad. Unfortunately, his pain meds wore off around that time when we picked him up, so he was in a lot of pain the whole time getting in and out of the car. Luckily, his prescriptions were ready to be picked up in an hour, so he wasn't in pain for too long.

That following Monday was MLK, so I had the day off. I had a call with a hiring manager who rejected me because he offered to provide feedback on why I didn't get the role and interview feedback in general, which was really nice of him. I got a lot of tips and have been implementing it in my interviews since. But halfway through our call, my phone started blowing up. 

I saw afterwards that our grandpa died, and my cousins group chat exploded. Since this was my mom's dad, I immediately went to check on my mom who already found out about the news. She was surprisingly calm and was basically on the phone for the rest of the night because everyone kept on calling her. Our uncle was trying to see if it was possible to fly back to Vietnam in time for the funeral, but because of all of the mandatory quarantines, it wasn't possible. 

Everyone talked in the next couple of days and decided to hold a funeral at our uncle's house in Georgia starting that Friday afternoon. We weren't sure if our family should go or not since a lot of people were flying in for the funeral and because mom has a low immune system and dad just had knee surgery and couldn't handle sitting in a car for that long let alone walk well. In the end, we compromised and had Kyle and Shelle drive down to take care of dad since Shelle couldn't go anyway (she's pregnant, which is unlucky for the baby) while Brian, mom, and I would drive to our uncle's house on Friday morning and come back Saturday night.

We got there in the afternoon and saw half of the family. Everyone else arrived a couple of hours later. Almost all of the cousins were there, while most of the aunts and uncles came, so it was basically a family reunion. 

I got to see baby Margaux for the first time in two years! The last time we all saw her was right before the pandemic started during her 100th day anniversary. It's been so long! She so cute and smart! The only issue is that she gets FOMO and can't sleep when lots of people are over, so Carol has to take her out on a drive for her to take a nap lol. That's how a bunch of the cousins took three cars to go out and get ice cream from DQ at night after we started the funeral ceremony of wearing white headbands and praying and bowing in front of the alter. It also started snowing at night, so there was a lot going on lol.

We went out to the lake nearby the next day to let Margaux work off some excess energy. She got addicted to throwing stuff into the water thanks to Mei Mei lol. She's just so cute in her tiny puffy jacket and boots!

Even though we got together for grandpa's funeral, it was nice hanging out with everyone and catching up since it's been so long since we last saw each other. 

Brian drove us back home later that night, and we hungout with the whole family until the next afternoon. James and Mei Mei were flying back home on Tuesday and Wednesday, so they made plans to spend a few days with us at Kyle and Shelle's house, since they didn't want to spend their whole time at our uncle's house out in the boondocks. They originally were going to come over on Sunday but changed it to Monday night since our aunt was sad that they were leaving so soon lol. 

Since they weren't coming over immediately that Sunday and because I drove down separately in my own car, I decided to leave my parents' house early and go visit Alec since I hadn't seen him for a few weeks. I was originally gonna go home at night but since I already had my work laptop and everything with me, I just spent the night at his place and drove home after work the next day in time to get dinner with everyone. We took them to the Chinese hand-pulled noodles place close to home and ordered a feast! 

The next day, James left for his flight in the afternoon while Mei Mei borrowed my car and went out shopping and trying bubble tea places while the rest of us worked. After work, we went to Ponce City Market to meet up with our cousin An Binh and her boyfriend for dinner. Ponce has a large selection of restaurants and shops inside, which perfectly fits Mei Mei's foodie lifestyle. I think we bought food from four or five places and tried everything lol.

The next day, Shelle and I got off work early and drove Mei Mei to the airport. 

The day after that, I drove over to Alec's house to spend the weekend with him. We had already made plans to go hiking on Saturday at Arabia Mountain. You can read more about it here. 

I ended up staying until Monday night to spend more time with him since was he cooking delicious food Sunday night and I'm weak lol. 

But yeah, this month was super busy and intense. In between all of these events, I had multiple interviews and a project to work on. I don't really know how I survived this month thb. That's probably why it took me so long to write this post lol. But here we are, finally at the end! :)