The return of the hockey pool, and birthday cards / wishes galore

Okay... I've been out all day, and I hope this is going to be a relatively short update because I need to sleep soon! (Eric the Butterfly Chicken Rainbow says so, haha... don't ask why I call him that, since you're better off not knowing)

I saw Eric on the way into church service, and he asked if I'd eaten any stinky tofu last night. Nope, that was strictly Jeremy's province, although I think Jon had one cube! When I told Jeremy last night about the stinky tofu my mom used to make, he didn't seem surprised that it would stink up the whole house even from downstairs! I wished Jeremy a happy birthday when he sat down next to me, and he thanked me for it. Cindy passed me a late birthday card from her and Dianne: it had CUTE puppies on the front! Once I saw my sister sit down beside Margaret (who was on my other side), I gave her a pile of birthday cards to sign when the sermon started. She did well on those, finishing before it had even ended... it was amusing as usual from Pastor Edward! I noticed a typo on Daniel's PowerPoint when we sang MARVELOUS LIGHT: "Sin has lost it's power / Death has lost it's sting." ARGH... he's even an ENGLISH TEACHER! That doesn't mean I love him any less, though! (Sam to Christon during the handshaking part of service: "I don't shake hands with opponents!" THIS HOCKEY POOL MEANS WAR!!!)

After service, I handed Jeremy his birthday card from the pile that my sister had just signed, and told him that we took every opportunity to sign cards: during service, on the way over to church, the rare times when we're together as a family at dinner or something... he got the idea! Later, he told me that my sister had written something about not having enough room to write stuff: I hogged one side, and Jon got half of the other because of stickers and such. I got Jon to pass Christon's card to him, and then Andrea gave me a late birthday gift of a pen and friendship paper holder (with a verse from Ecclesiastes on it) plus some Zen Tazo herbal infusion green tea. How nice! When I went outside after service, I gave birthday cards to Mike / both Anitas / Citrus while listening to various people discuss the hockey pool draft which they'd done at 6:30 AM. (Mike wondered what his card was, haha) I saw Randal, but didn't get a chance to talk to him about my blog and such: maybe on Friday!

I talked to Kevin, Nathan, and Jeremy for a while before heading off to the toddler Sunday School. We talked about chicken, our busy weekends, Buddha's Delight, black fungus, baby corn, tiger lilies, wheat gluten, and various other things. Once I got to the toddlers, I thought I heard little Sean muttering to himself as usual, but this babbling appeared to contain actual letters of the alphabet! He was putting letters into their slots in this foam board thing, and saying the letters to himself... he did the same to the number board. I praised him and relearned that he liked rainbows later on, since he loved the rainbow sticker on Auntie Fonda's Chinese Bible. (I see rainbow stickers in this kid's future, haha)

After Sunday School, I met various people outside who wanted to go to Pho. Since that dovetailed neatly with my previous plans, I said I'd go first. While we were discussing various quick lunch options, Jasmine and Teunis showed up. Everyone said hi while talking about McDonalds / the shady Pho (NO WAY!) and such.. no introductions needed to be made since everyone knew everyone else already! (or could guess who was who, haha) After the Pho owner said the food would take a while, Jon left. Steph, Danielle, and Mom also decamped while Jeremy elected simply to go home. I joked that we'd roast him tonight for his birthday at the dinner; he laughed, and said he'd see me later. Then the three of us decided we'd go to Chongqing on Commercial / 12th, so climbed into the pickup truck and off we went.

We had a good time with beef, tan tan noodles / pork, fortune cookies (I need to post those things / show them to Jeremy later... SO GROSS when you add the "in bed" phrase to 'em!), and discussing Discordia / milk / food reactions / my thoughts that I talked too much / pork / Sunday dinners / fuel issues and natural gas / various friends of Teunis' / pet clothing at the Night Market. (at least he'd had a good time at my birthday party) During lunch, Teunis received a call from some dude named Matthew (and discussed people named Brandy / Norman / Alicia)... seems this dude likes books too. Always a good quality to have in your friends, although if they want you out for some unexplainable reason, that's when you cut ties with 'em! ;) Then we went to Jasmine's where Teunis attempted to fix her wireless network issues. That took longer than expected, but at least I could read my urban legends book to stave off boredom! (apologies were cool, too!) They said they had a good time today (as did I), so that was cool.

This post will probably have to be continued later, since I do need sleep! Stay tuned tomorrow!