India Pale Ale and Jolly Hooligans

Breakfast was okay, even though I had to wait 20 minutes for my family to even show up... I should have split the difference and went out ten minutes later, but I never know when they're actually going to be ON TIME and then yell at me when I'm a couple minutes "late." :P We took our time over breakfast... Bon's is very non-pretentious! Jon told us about the sampler of seven beers that he'd had in Seattle: unlike what someone thought, he did not have three pints of beer! (then he went to a bar with the parents: the waitress wanted to make sure that he was 21... but he was already on his second beer, haha!) Steph then told us about her friend Rachel's birthday party and bubble tea last night: their friend Pei Lyn called her in a sad mood, so she had to get back to her later! The breakfast special at Bon's is very good for $2.99 all day: hash browns, ham / sausage, toast, jam, eggs, and cheap coffee for an extra charge. Our friends could definitely tell that we'd had Bon's since the grease smell is kinda unmistakable... we walked into service 10-15 minutes late, besides! (good thing the Bon's is very close by, haha)

I gave Jen, Chris, and Cindy late Christmas cards (Cindy already emailed me to say thanks since she was in Ottawa and Montreal during Christmas... how sweet!) since I wasn't there last week... I also gave Denise, Rich, and Vania their birthday cards. If Anita hadn't suddenly left later on, I would have given her Esther and Sabrina's birthday cards to give to her sisters for me. Oh well, there's always Friday or Saturday for that! Made sure that Nathan and Eric M. wouldn't abandon me after Sunday School when it was time to go to the Yaletown Brewery for lunch (since even my own sister forgets that I help look after the toddlers at church when my friends go to Sunday School elsewhere!), then talked to Jen and Andrea about Stella's baby shower. I also included "production" in my explanation to Eric as to why I didn't call him on Friday after he left me that MSN message, heh. Maxine's baby Joshua was fussy and wouldn't respond to anybody's attempts to say hi and be cute. I talked to Erin about her move to Langley for her practicum.. it'll be okay despite what her mom thinks, haha. We tried getting Erin and Karen Lew to go to the lunch, but they had another lunch to go to: this one was for the Winter Conference. As Danielle said later, "There's like a bazillion lunches going on! Winter Conference, Jon's thing, the thing your parents are going to at Coal Harbor for Uncle Cho Kai and Auntie Anna's 40th anniversary..."

After Sunday School, I found Jen / Citrus / Danielle / Nathan / Eric / Jon / Christon waiting for me outside. (Citrus wasn't going to lunch, but spent time waiting around with us because of Danielle... awww!) Turns out we had to wait some more since Jon went back into the church to do something. Danielle then said that she and Nathan had been meeting Jon for lunch at 11:30 on Thursday: since Jon called Nathan an hour later to say he'd be late, and then took half an hour returning some book, they finally had lunch at 1:30. Man, they could have done something else with those two hours! (although it was a good thing Danielle didn't have to use the washroom when she was telling us this, since all the church washrooms were out of order for some strange reason) Jen bemoaned Jon's being late, since he'd told everyone that lunch would be at 1:15... it was 1:35 by the time the Richmond Crew got to the brewery, and some time later when the Nathan crew arrived! (it was funny that we beat them there, since we had to circle around back onto the bridge!)

We met Jeremy, Sarah, John Andrew, Tally, and another Erin there: I didn't know that John Andrew was half-Chinese, and I didn't know Tally smoked until after the meal when we were all outside. Jen noticed someone smoking just outside the door, moaned, and got out a cigarette and lighter... Tally had to borrow the lighter and was like: "Oh, thank goodness!" (Nathan then complained: "Awww, now my car will smell!") Lunchtime was much fun: Peking duck pizza, Jolly Hooligan 8.5% beer (which looks almost like wine), lots of digicam shots, India Pale Ale (bitter hops!), wheat beer, Red Truck lager / ale, talk of the pixel million-dollar website, making fun of people (Danielle even made fun of herself!), confusion of nationality, and various other discussion topics. John Andrew has had people ask him whether he's Farsi, Filipino, Spanish / Mexican, and other things! Jon said he owes me a bubble tea since I put slightly too much money down and it was too hard to get change: sounds good to me! Jeremy said that he likes putting a $20 down and not worrying about things: that's why bank machines dispense $20 bills, haha! The ride home was filled with in-jokes and such, mostly about keg parties and delusion... good times, indeed! :D


P.S. Why does Dave's blog take eons to load on my computer, if it ever loads at all?! AIYA. It never USED to have problems...