Dad actually got Mom flowers?! *falls over dead*

Note: LJ Norse Pantheon / LJ Gift List / LJ Yugi-Oh Characters blogquizzes. (by enigma_prime, Rachael, and yami)


Vivian and Steph picked me up soon after that last post, and Steph told me that Dad had actually bought Mom flowers! She noticed them on the dining room table at dinner, and wondered who they were from. So Mom told her in this shocked voice that he'd bought her some for their anniversary. In all their 31 years of marriage and 2 years of dating, he's NEVER bought her any flowers or candy! Any of that had to come from the three of us... even any office candy my dad had went to us three! Dad wasn't too impressed by the questions Steph asked, heh. ("Hmph.. I bought her flowers! Now stop asking your mom questions!") Steph suspects that Pastor Edward (who's more sappy than Dad) advised him to do it, haha. Then we talked about Bookworm and Summer Conference planning: Mom's going to retire after this year, and is grooming Auntie Ronne (Ivan's mom) to be chair since Rich and Katherine are on every single church committee already. (she's good, Steph says...) Vivian mentioned her dad's BAD 70s fashion: open shirts, blue tux, and blue bellbottoms.. cradle robber / player, he is! :P

Steph, Vivian, Ceci, Angela and I had a rather amusing time at Dragon Ball. First, we discussed how we were all still so full from yesterday: we burped a lot and didn't eat much today! (strawberry milk, seaweed, crackers, soup, doughnuts, etc.) Vivian told us how her mom thought she smelled badly like onion and garlic... when your own mother doesn't want to be close to you, you know it's bad! :P Ceci and Angela said that their parents wanted to go to Shanghai Wind for dinner tonight, but they didn't have a reservation and had to wait an hour, so somewhere else it was! (it's normally PACKED, just like Dragon Ball usually is on summer nights!)

Steph and I told the girls how the counter people at Dragon Ball knew my brother since he went there three times a week when he was in town. At Christmas break last year, they asked him where he'd been, so Jon had to tell them that he was in Toronto! (as Ceci put it: "they had to make sure he wasn't dead!") My sister did an imprression of the older woman at the counter: "Purnopur? That means PEARLS OR NO PEARLS! The first time I went there, I was like WHAT?!"

When we got to Dragon Ball, there was only one or two people in the lineup and the place was sparsely inhabited. Good thing we got a table and ordered when we did, since there was a real lineup by the time we all sat down after ordering. I got a starfruit with coconut jelly, Steph got a Chinese pear with pearls, Vivian got a peach with coconut jelly (which Steph and I helped her finish), and the Mok sisters split a green tea ice cream. That all translated into four stamps on my bubble tea stamp card. :D

We talked about Toronto, Victoria, plans, Steph and Vivian watching some Chinese serial last summer (literal translations of Chinese characters on screen) and other things. When Ceci mentioned the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Steph brought up the incident a few years ago where some crazy lady dropped her baby off the bridge. Angela then mentioned that they'd seen a sign about a girl who'd died accidentally while sunbathing at Lynn Canyon. o_O

Then we saw a Chinese real estate newspaper on our table, and initially looked at it to decipher Chinese characters... and then the Ming Pao Property Gold Pages was the source of much amusement for the five of us! We looked at the expensive prices for housing (more than $3 million for certain places!), and recognized houses in certain areas of town. There was Parker Place, Fidela's neighbors, Shaughnessy, Ironwood, and Coal Harbour, where the construction workers smoke a LOT of pot! [according to my sister on her work lunch breaks] :P) Steph likes looking at floor plans... apparently, some new houses now have a closet leading to the BATHROOM?! I can imagine when you have guests over: "Oh yeah. Don't mind what's hanging up there on your way to the bathroom..." Eep, haha.

We were greatly amused by the way certain real estate agents looked... black-and-white pictures, combovers, old photos, etc. Steph noticed an ad with the logo being the word "flo" in some brushy font. She made a comment like "Yes, I want to flow!" and I immediately responded with "Yeah, but I don't want to know in which way you'd flow!" which got laughter. Then she told Ceci and Angela: "See?! It runs in the family!" (yes, we are weird perverts at heart, haha)

Then we got onto the topic of unusual names: I once knew a Chinese girl called Meloney, and Vivian said she'd met a Russian (?) guy called Gleb the other day. The only other place I recall seeing THAT name is in Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra... Tsarevich Alexei's doctor's son Gleb Botkin had a sister called Tatiana. Some of the real estate agents' names were HILARIOUS! (index on pages 86 and 87... I took the paper home, haha!)

* Wanni Yau (a guy... I've seen his signs around Richmond)
* Portia Lau (another guy!)
* Kandy Ma (yet another guy!)
* Caan Chen (a guy)
* Schumann Li (a woman)
* Standy Chu (a guy... see what happens when people choose their own names?! :P)
* Boniface Lau (a guy... like St. Boniface!)
* Pacita Chua (being half-Mexican, Vivian could tell us that Pacita meant "a little raisin," hahaha!)
* Carolus Mak (yes, I know it's an OLD Latin name.. but still unusual enough for us to have a chuckle at :P)
* Emmy Pang (not a funny name, but notable because I knew a girl with this name in junior high school)
* Patsy Hui (not a funny name, but I knew her kids Denise and Aaron in elementary school)
* probably more examples too!


We also noted the changed cup liddish things. They used to be Japanese anime, but are now representations of various animals: unicorns, serpents, horses, etc. Steph thought the unicorn would be perfect for me, since it DOES have a horn... and I'm born in the year of the dragon! At about 11:50, we left and went home. Vivian's excited about her trip to Israel in early July, and says her friends will wander around after the two weeks in hotels and such. She's not too keen on that idea, and neither are her parents. Before that, she'll sleep over at Steph's so she won't be alone while our parents are out of town. They can certainly go crazy then, haha! Steph expressed concern that Eric and I worked out our Fellowship plans on Friday afternoons (the day of the program!)... it works for us, even though it might be too last-minute for her! :P (her small group's hanging out and playing games like Dutch Blitz at Vanessa's tomorrow) Good times, indeed. :D