Pokemon Tournament

Dad and I are running the biggest Pokemon tournament ever. We put together 16 decks including a bunch that we constructed ourselves. I made one crazy deck that is half Pokemon and half energy. Amazingly, it managed to win in the first round of the competition. I like constructing my own decks. For awhile, I was afraid to do it because I thought I would do it wrong, but now I'm gaining confidence in my skills. Of the 8 decks remaining after the first round, three are homemade. One, called Fight Club, was constructed by Daddy while the other two, Call of Legends (pictured above) and Electrifying Psychic Energy were my constructions. The Pokemon card game is such fun. I'm always surprised people who collect the cards but don't play the game. I can often find good trades with them. I exchange cool looking but weak Pokemon for strong but less cool looking ones from them.

I wonder who will win the tournament? Stay tuned.

Cap Gun Wars

I really like old school toys. Many of my favorite toys are not the latest high-tech things, but older toys that Mom and Dad used to play with. For example, I like old school little people a lot more than new ones. I love the green Aidans. I like how they don't have names and that they're smaller and more vsersatile. The new ones are all doing specific things. For example, one of my Sonya Lee's is handing money to someone. While this is fine when handing money makes sense, there are lots of situations where it doesn't. And I don't really like that she already has a name. I want to name her.

Another example is army men. Sure there are more high tech guys that are bigger and poseable, but I prefer the anonymous green (and gray and tan) guys. You get a lot more of them, and they're a lot more fun to have wars with.

I recently discovered another old school treat--cap guns. These guns and their ammo are hard to find in the Bay area. Lots of people are anti-gun, and they don't want kids to have fun pretending to shoot stuff (and other people). While a lot of things are the same with these uns compared to the ones Daddy had growing up, one thing is different. The new ones all have bright orange covers over the end of them. This is so that police will not mistake a cap gun for the real thing and accidentally shoot a kid (or adult) waving one of these things. The picture above is my favorite cap gun--an old west 6 shooter. I also prefer old school caps, the ones that come in a red roll of paper, to new ones that come in a plastic circle. For one thing, the old school ones produce a lot more smoke and sparks.

Over the weekend, the whole family--even Mom---were running around the house and the yard having cap gun fights. This was super fun.

Weird but Good

Normally, when Dad comes home from work, he's totally destroyed. He'll often head straight to bed to rest his back. Sometimes, he cannot even sit during dinner. He has to stand because sitting leaves him in so much pain. On these days, I really wish he didn't feel so bad. But we still have fun. He'll read me stories or play Pokemon cards with me while he lies in bed.

But today was different. In fact, today was pretty weird. Dad came home from work today in good shape physically. And it wasn't even because he took painkillers early, which he sometimes does when going out with Mom. (Dad says this isn't a good thing since the painkillers then run out in the middle of the night and leave him immobile by morning.) Sometimes this happens but the goodness only lasts a short time. But not tonight. Tonight was weird...but in a good way. He played toy car racing with me up until bedtime. Toy car racing is an activity reserved only for the times Dad is in good shape. It involves bending and crouching over the track, and that can be really hard on him. Tonight, there were no problems at all.

Dad is on a new, much higher does of a neuro suppressant called Gabapentin (generic Neurontin he says to tell you). This drug makes him really sleepy. In fact, he told a funny story about work today. Apparently, it makes him so sleepty that he was falling asleep all the time during work. To try to combat the effects, he ran around his office and did jumping jacks. That must have looked really silly to the people passing by his door. Then he did work standing up. But the drug made him so sleepy that he fell asleep standing up and plummeted to the ground. On his way down, he woke up and managed to slow his fall enough that he only banged his head off his desk a little bit. He's got a little mark on his forehead from this. I feel sorry for him though I cannot imagine falling asleep standing up.

At any rate, maybe the new drugs are working because I cannot remember the last time Dad was in such good shape in the evening. He seems more hopeful too. It would be great if I could have my old Dad back although the new one is super fun as well. In some ways, the new one is even better since he doesn't pester me to run around outside like the old Dad used to. Anyway, I hope this means he's getting better.

Wish I were well

I've been home with a fever these last two days. On top of that, I have a headache that will never stop. I also have allergies that cause me to have to clear my throat all the time. The throat-clearing is driving my classmates nuts. Well, here's a news flash---it's driving me nuts too. I'm taking zyrtec and nasonex for the allergy problem but it's not of much use. What a pain in the neck. I like being home from school...but not when I feel like this!

Toy Car Racing

I really love toy cars. I got several in Easter eggs delivered by the Easter bunny and found this one as I was clearing out my Easter basket long after the holiday. (While I love chocolate, I eat it only slowly.) This car is an Austen-Healey, a British car that Daddy espeically likes. I haven't taken it out on the track to compete, but it sure looks cool. Lately, I've gotten several new toy cars and it's opened up the field for a lot of first-time winners in the gravity cup series. It's no longer the case that there are only about 6 cars that can ever win, now it's more like 20-30 cars, so the field has gotten a lot deeper. I especially like making up tournament brackets and then running the cars through the brackets to determine a winner. While I can do regular single elmination brackets, I have also done brackets with all sorts of different byes, consolation rounds, and so on. I'm now a bracket-making expert.

Another Reading Project

As I mentioned previously, I'm totally fascinated with the game The Legend of Drzzt. The main character, Drzzt, is a dark elf also called a Drow. It turns out that he and all the other characters in the game are based on a series of books by RA Salvatore. Over the weekend, we visited Barnes and Noble and picked up an anthology of Drzzt stories. They are extremely exciting with their many battles and adventures. The last few days, Daddy has been reading me these stories, and we act them out with stuffed animals. I have a nice green triceratops that plays the role of Drzzt. For longer books like the Bible, stuffy acting really makes them come alive. I love to choose different stuffies to represent the characters and then acting through the stories with them. Last night Drzzt took on a group of orcs and ogres. The ogres consisted of a pair of colorful frogs, a T-Rex, and the most evil character, a Care Bear with a pair of lollipops on his tummy. We've done several stories with this Care Bear. In all of them, he's an evil genius who tries to take over the world. I like the ridiculousness of having a Care Bear, which I give a sweet, soft voice, making plans to destroy everyone and everything. Stuffy theater is one of my favorite things to do in the evening.

Drzzt

About two weeks ago, Daddy picked up a new game, the Legend of Drzzt. It's a Dungeons and Dragons board game. There are a number of great things about this game. First, it's really strategic. You have to manage your characters, decide who to attack, decide when to heal, and so on. I really like strategy games. Also, it's really exciting. We've managed to get out of some tough situations where we were surrounded by monsters. But the best part is that, unlike regular D&D where Daddy is a dungeon master, here we get to play cooperatively to try to beat the dungeon together. Daddy is a very good strategist, so I'm glad to have him on my team!