"Starbucks by day, and something else by night"

I can be a bit self-centred sometimes, but that doesn't necessitate complaining familial lectures or in-fighting. I'm perfectly willing to compromise for the greater good... all I need to do is practice applying that to my life, heh. Changing your thoughts and your actions can be very challenging!

With that said, let's get on to the tale of my day so far. I talked to Alan before service about family, plans, and his girlfriend Tracy who's in Ohio now and experiencing some frustration with furniture / Internet access (not till August!?) / settling in. I said bye to Michelle and Sheena, who are going to Mexico this week for some short-term missions work. My sister wanted to have lunch with the worship team, but I told her to have some sense and think of me with our parents. Jon was hauling a box of Bruce Waltke books on Proverbs around, but he didn't buy one himself: he can go over to Erin's anytime and borrow their copies, since they buy things and never open them. (sounds like me with my books, eep... he was also wondering who / where some dude named Tommy Yee was, who's paid for his book anyway!) She hasn't touched her guitar since whenever the last time was that my brother came over: Brian helped her pick it out, too! Imagine her being possessive over it last summer: "Wash your hands before you touch it!" At least my brother was right about her losing that sense of ownership soon... yet another Erin story to add to the rapidly-growing collection, haha. (one wrong note threw her off in service today, too.. she got lost and screwed up, self-admittedly)

Sunday School with the toddlers today was draining. We had half the number of kids, but little Gwyneth will do anything for attention / rebellion. She wanted us to help her with her lollipop, she wouldn't listen, she got in Frances' way during storytime, she crawled under the table, she wanted various things RIGHT NOW... eeep. I took her and her sister Evelyn's lollipops, toy camera, toys, and milk in a sippy cup away: the toys belonged to the toddler room, and I gave them their stuff back except for the milk since I forgot about it. (once I got home, I threw the curdled milk away... I'll give the cup back next week if I remember) Frances and I don't know why she's like this!

Afterwards, my sister informed me that a bunch of us (her / Jon / Eric M. / Karen / Nathan / Jen / Ricky / me) would be going to Milestone's for lunch... that suited me just fine! Eric T. thanked me for the book that his brother Stanley had given him: Bathroom Readers are good fun, haha! I wasted five minutes looking for my parents so I could tell them: it turns out Jon had told them already. But I did get to see my friend Jennifer's new baby Amos: his big brother Rick (who used to slap me on the butt :P) thinks he's great as a new toy, haha. Speaking of babies, my sister spotted newly-married Anita outside with Karen Chan / Randal / Maxine (hugely pregnant) / Sophia (fairly pregnant). She pantomimed as if she were pregnant, and jokingly asked when Anita would be having a baby since her biological clock was ticking! (she did the same thing to me last week, the brat :P) Anita just pretended to slap her and say: "Not that soon!" Steph thinks their kids will be good friends later on... or maybe it'll be because Uncle Jeff (Anita's husband now.. whoa, feels strange writing that :P) is a cop, haha! Since she and Maxine were both wearing pink tops and white bottoms, Steph told her that she had a nice outfit. Man, all my friends are getting married or having babies... chop chop, indeed. *sigh*

In due time, we all went to Milestone's: sitting in a black car on a hot day isn't good! Karen brought up the latest trend in cheating on school exams: using your camera phone to take pictures of the completed test, and sending it over to your friends. My sister sat in on the Gr. 11 / 12 Sunday School class today, and noted that everyone had their cell phones out to text friends when they weren't talking all the time! We were all brats then, sure... but not to that extent! We joked around a lot about Josh Groban, since Erin thinks some song of his would be perfect for worship lead-in. That reminded me of the time my mom thought Joan Osborne's One of Us ("What if God was one of us / Just a slob like one of us") would be perfect for God's Faithful Singers. (the church kids choir we had at the time) She'd said to me, "Ask Byron if you guys can sing it! It would be perfect!" I just gave her a very dubious look: it would make a good sermon topic, but not an offering in song! (I can just imagine people's reactions, oh no...) We noted that Pastor Edward was really "on crack" (not literally :P) today, and couldn't stop himself once he got on a roll. He liked using my brother as an illustration, and said that his water was on the other side of the sanctuary: when someone went to get it, he said he'd drink it later! (so why bring it up in the first place? who knows...)

Someone brought up Wedding Crashers, so we discussed that and Team America: no, we're not replacing all the swear words in the theme song with "Jesus," as that would be almost blasphemous! Jen brought up 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. as another example of a song we should never attempt to do in church service. My sister remembered the time we watched movies as a family, and someone chose Bad Boys 2 (not as good as Bad Boys 1): that was awkward, especially because my mom was cringing at all the swearing! Then there was the time we watched Pulp Fiction or the Bruce Willis Die Hard 1-3 movies, and attempted to keep a running tally of all the swear words: that proved pretty much impossible, as we quickly lost track of them! We discussed Jennifer Lopez movies, because the girls were feeling left out of the discussion. Then we made fun of my drunken stories, ordering alcohol, "going wild," and not knowing how to drink beer / wine. Steph wanted us to have another Richmond hangout involving siu long bao soon... sounds good to me! Then we got into her love of country music / Tina Turner / her Oregon road trip (sand dunes!) with Vivian S. and Rachel next week / PNE work.. interesting times! (B-4 4 and other boy bands, Cantopop, easy jobs, supervisors, retarded customers, reading / playing cards / napping on the job... hahaha)

The whole table had a laugh when my sister wondered just what Jen did: "Starbucks by day and something else by night..." Just what was she trying to imply? For the record, it's Starbucks and Staples. It came time to pray for the meal, and everyone wanted someone else to pray. Nathan finally decided that it was Jon by default, so he got us during the (funny?) prayer: "Dear Lord, we thank you for the food. Help these weak brothers and sisters pray to you, and thank you that we're able to joke around too!" (that elicited an "aiya" reaction) We really got going when someone brought up the 1000 free Transforming Friendship books that James Houston was donating to our church, the Swarovski Crystal bling that someone else was donating through freewill offering next week, the chicken egg pastries ($5 a bag) that people made, and other such church building fundraising efforts. Someone jokingly brought up going to Wreck Beach (clothing-optional) and using this rationale: "Why spend money on bathing suits when you can go to Wreck Beach and give that bathing suit money to the church building fund?" (based on Pastor Edward's rationale of "Save the money you would spend on coffee in a piggy bank or small jar... why buy that when you can donate to the building fund?") That attracted attention from another table: "Did you hear that?!" Eeek, they were probably thinking, "What kind of church do THEY go to?!"

Jon brought up durian beer, polyamory, polygamy, bigamy, beer with pearls, shark's fin Pho, prime rib Pho, Jeremy's expensive organic meat Pho, and the three Pho restaurants within walking distance of the church. Pho Song Huong (the one across the street near the 7-11) is okay, but their service is slow. Jon's favorite story there involves the time he ordered a large bowl, but they gave him a small bowl. He brought it up, so the waitress went to the kitchen and came back to slide the large bowl across the table: of course we noticed that the bowl just contained the contents of the small bowl, but didn't want to say anything after that. Then there's the dodgy one (Pho 888) with the smelly incense and repetitive music that drove Nathan nuts: that's also the one where Adela and Andy saw the guy with the gun recently. Our favorite is the one that used to be the You and Me Café, except when that one waitress seems to be really ditzy as you order food. (I remember a story I heard once where Erin entered the place for a meeting lunch with people, then loudly proclaimed: "My dad HATES this place!" Hahaha! Oh, Erin!)

I asked Nathan whether he'd read the Bathroom Readers I'd given him yet: he'd read one page on failures, and one involved some teacher who thought a swastika flag would be a good idea for a historical assembly, so he got cans thrown at him by the audience. He read it in the bathroom, and is still cashing in on his birthday! Jon brought up the street church on the Downtown Eastside that he'd be helping at later before the Sufjan Stevens concert: it's a CRU thing, so Jeremy and Ty will be there. (so will Alan and Eric, and others that I obviously don't know) It's something I've never done before, but I might just do it, heh. I also JUST noticed Eric's Homestar Runner keychain, which he's had for years: I am so clueless, eep. That sparked a discussion of the Peasant's Quest game, Trogdor, Scalding Lake, and other such things. Good times today, except for dithering over using pennies as very partial payment for your restaurant bill. Is that inherently rude? I have no idea. Ah well, I'll change soon enough! We also talked to Chuck and Andrea, and discussed Jon's book about Rwanda genocide stories. Looks interesting!