The Road to 40 Day 145/365: Just Dad Things Wednesday

This week has been pretty slow for me, with mostly unproductive mornings leading to busy afternoons.

On this day, I thought about starting strong. After dropping Vino off to school, I went to the nearby grocery store to buy dinner. We don’t have much in the freezer now, because I told Che that it would be better to feel out our dinner than buy it for a week and not follow through on the planned meals.

This way, we could cook according to the weather or our preferences, unless we had something we craved for the week. Case in point, the galbijjim was planned for last week, but I only cooked it this week.

We talked about adding fish to our diet, which I agree we aren’t having too much of. I don’t have a wide range of fish dishes in my arsenal, so the easiest one I thought of was saba fish. I imagined the kailan being on the side, but I couldn’t find one.

Instead, I got pechay. Now, the dish I cook with it involves some meat, which would defeat the purpose of the fish dish. So I got some tofu, and will substitute that for meat later on. I got myself some soya milk while waiting for the bus.

Back home, I crashed on the sofa. There’s this one side of the sofa that’s near the dining table where I usually sit when I’m alone at home. I am aiming to watch all the Running Man episodes so that I will be all caught up when we’re in Korea two weeks from now. I was about 20 or so episodes back because I haven’t been watching it lately. Even the episodes on the plane were already new for me.

I wanted to watch one episode, then start moving. Unfortunately, I fell asleep in my spot. I got up and decided I’ll eat lunch first. I don’t like keeping food too long in the fridge, so I finished the remaining galbijjim from the night before.

At this time, I regretted that I didn’t add all the mushrooms and carrots because they soaked up the sauce well and helped balance out the flavor.

I had a bit of free time because Vino had CCA today, which meant I could leave past 3pm. He told me he lost his hat again. This irked me because he’s lost more things now in the first term of this school year compared to his first three years in primary school.

I don’t know if someone is deliberately taking his things, if this is a culture within the school, or if he’s just careless with things. But I don’t believe it’s just one of those things – it’s probably a combination of two or all those.

Regardless, I took Vino’s side and emailed his homeroom teacher to help investigate these missing things. I know I can’t protect Vino from everything, but this is not an environment I want him to grow up in if it is widely accepted in their school.

I was drafting the email while Vino ate his snack at the hawker center. After my lengthy letter, we went to ride the bus to the training grounds. We’re finally getting the timing right, so we went straight inside.
It was a nice, sunny afternoon, so after watching them train a bit, I went on to play basketball by myself.

I’ve been confident about my shooting, especially when training alone. However, I figured I need to be more consistent so I can use it in games. I want to say the balls we use in games give a different feeling than the one I use for training, but I think if I have good habits, it should carry over no matter what kind of ball I have.

Instead of finding a rhythym, I think I got worse, though. I found it difficult to string baskets together, when I’ve been consistently hitting three, maybe four straight shots the previous weeks I was shooting.

It started to drizzle a bit, so one of the dads, who was running around the court, told me to take our kids’ bags so that they don’t get wet.

Soon, the rain got harder and the school lit up the lightning warning alarm. This meant everyone had to take shelter and games were suspended.

The kids stayed under the shade while still hoping they could play a match. It didn’t look like they wer going to be able to play considering the rain, but it cleared up about 15 minutes before the session was done.

They were able to play a quick game. I don’t usually bring Vino’s shin guards, but I consciously got it today. It was a good thing too, because he got hit there twice during this session, and it helped protect him.

Back home Che ordered some 4Fingers for a quick dinner. I didn’t cook the fish because I thought it was best eaten when it’s freshly cooked. If I prepared it early before 3pm, the fish and the veggies weren’t going to be nice when we got back at around 8:30pm.

We had a nice dinner while watching our K-Drama, and by the time we got to the room, it was time for bed already. Che couldn’t watch anymore, as she was tired from work, so I got another episode of Running Man in before watching the latest episode of Gen V.

Vino slept on our bed again today, which was sweet, until I saw him elbow Che in the face while both of them unconsciously moved.

It feels like all my worries about sleeping beside someone are all being manifested by Vino in real life. I don’t know if I should be worried or proud.