Hurricane Durian's name IS funny... Jeremy's proven it!

Note to self: Semagic does NOT autosave your entry, so you're really inconvenienced when your computer stalls / crashes. Now I have to retype the whole beginning paragraphs out again! Not cool, especially since I should be in bed by now!

I was properly attired in my Santa hat when Eric pulled in a couple minutes after I left my apartment. He'd have been there sooner from his workplace, but there was a lot of traffic volume for some reason. When we passed Burkeville by the airport on the way into Vancouver, they had no power... and still had none when we went by it on the way back from Nathan's past 1 in the morning! I asked Eric if he had any cash, since he was asking me to feed him with steak. He had 75 cents, which is not enough for Pho! I told him that I'd buy him a grilled pork thing and he could pay me back later. Of course, I was random with certain things... and he was lucky since I'd put on Purell before leaving home!

At Pho, I saw Karen Choo and Jen, who invited me to sit with them. We were talking about what Jen wants to do now she's finished her transitions course (writing for non-profits) and Karen's wanting to get published in VOGUE even though it's glamorous. Jon, Alan, and Liz came in... I said hi to them, and Karen wondered to me whether Liz was Jon's girlfriend. I think Alan would have something to say about that! Liz told me that she was still wearing multiple layers of clothing: I guess she's still cold despite having had some time to get used to these temperatures versus those in Malaysia! Karen insisted on paying for my meal, which I accepted while being Chinese about it. For some reason, she thought it was sweet what I was doing for Eric: "I never get to see this side of you! That's SO SWEET!" Jen took a more chill approach, saying that she could see Eric saying "Feed me!" to him. The dude needed to eat, too!

Went to the basement and gave Eric his food while talking to Jeremy and others about his office being without power: only the server room had some, heh. Not good if everyone works with computers! He saw flying dumpsters as a result of the windstorm at 3:30 AM... oh my! Bible Study was interesting: we spent some time talking about our Bible Study outing on the 29th (which Jon later told Harmony that she was welcome to) and about the ESC Christmas dinner next week. (note to self: BUY $5 DINNER TICKET TOMORROW / SUNDAY!) There was some good discussion, but we haven't picked a dinner place yet... plenty of time for that, though! We discovered that Dylan didn't know about Harmony OR about Eric's special diet.. HUH?! ("... yeah, we all have relationship pasts... what?! Jon has one in the present, and that's why Jen's staring at him?! Dude, I have to talk to you about it later! ... what do you mean, you have to have dinner where Eric can eat the food?! He's eating white rice now since he has no choice and the stuff that comes with it is the stuff he CAN eat on the Pho menu?! WHAT?!") Later, he and Jon were having a discussion about her at Dragon Ball, so I suspect that he's in the loop now.

Dylan said that Pastor Edward wanted us out at 10 because we really get in the janitors' way on Friday nights. He tried hard to lobby for us, but no go. Someone brought up Dragon Ball, so we all agreed on that. I asked Randal whether he was going, which he was: he then asked if I had a ride there, because he could drive me if I didn't. Of course I had a ride there: Eric! After Randal left, I told Eric about this (we'd discussed what I should do to him on the way over :P), and he jokingly denied that he was my ride to bubble tea. Uh, yeah... I don't THINK so! We talked about tomorrow's prayer meeting / Floodlight practice / Floodlight songs before going to Dragon Ball. While there, we looked through magazines and talked about Google Video documentaries on Powerpoint and other things / turkey / Christmas dinner / meeting people ("some other white guy!" haha), and general Christmas plans. At least Jeremy can spend almost four days with his family, and not have to worry about working 13 hours on Boxing Day this year! Then we talked about Netspeak, "pwned," "lol," and leet speak for a while... it seems that nobody would tell Vivian what leet speak was for a LONG time! I should send 'em all Spoz's rant about it, haha. Dylan wondered where all the cards were, but we were having good conversations... no need to play cards and talk about the game! Jon noticed that Dragon Ball had brought the little stools back: YAY!

After I'd received my second free bubble tea (Jeremy had to use Eric's stamp card) of the month, Karen told us that Adela's mom makes yams with marshmallows. Interesting combo... then Jeremy told Karen how to make claypot chicken, and how salty chicken worked. Just marinate it in salt?! Oh my! I told Jeremy and Jon about HURRICANE DURIAN... Jeremy reacted how I'd expected him to, with immense laughter. Jon had heard about it from Dad, Eric thought I meant Hurricane DORIAN since they name them after people, and Jeremy laughed a LOT since he hadn't heard about it. Then they laughed at what a real durian hurricane would entail: "Ow! I just got hit by spiky fruit! Ew! It stinks!" See?! I told you it would be funny! :D (not that we're laughing about the possible DEAD / MISSING people in the hurricane... it's just the name! :P )

Harmony called Jon in the middle of all this, so Jon tried to hold a conversation with her while still being engaged with us in some way. I asked Eric why on earth I carried my bag in when I should have just left it in the car, so he tried to tell me that I was a fool. At least he watched my bag for me, and carried it on the way out. Jon said that they used starfruit syrup instead of the real thing tonight: Dylan, Jen, and I tried his starfruit-strawberry bubble tea (I had pudding-honeydew) and found it kinda sour. Randal was too put off to try it, heh. Vivian asked me whether I remembered our Sunday School Christmas brunches of long ago, since her sister Karen and Vania didn't. I definitely remembered, and tested her theory of "they're too young to remember" by asking Jon who was still discussing Harmony with Dylan. He didn't either, but responded "Uh.. sure?" to my reminder attempts. Jen was amused, since that seemed like he'd agree to whatever I said, haha. We got into a discussion of gas prices and the 39.9¢ gas war of years ago... the Shell was selling it for 107.3, and the Esso right across the street was selling it for 102.3! Jeremy joked that the Shell had filled their quota and had better brand-name recognition anyhow.

After some time, our car went to Nathan's. Jon let us in, and we were saying hi to Isabel (and marveling over how clean her room looked / laughing at the sign on the door telling people to STOP!) when Nathan came downstairs: "Hi, kids!" Jon tried to contextualize his jokes with us for Harmony ("kick him in the nards! ... you don't want to know!"), and I'm not sure how well that worked! Jeremy told people that nobody at Dragon Ball really asked whether he and Jon were sure that they wanted to try some weird flavor anymore! (it's passed on to me since I don't get asked that question!) They DID get a lot of weird looks and questions in the beginning of this COMBO kick, but not anymore! (Jon had durian-coffee bubble tea in Toronto once... ewww!) Eric found a weird Japanese PS2 game called OKAMI, and tried playing it. The intro was EXTREMELY LONG and featured very weird sound effects, repeated in-game whenever the characters talked. It was distracting Jon from his phone call, haha.

Jeremy went upstairs to use the washroom (we didn't want to use Isabel's) and came downstairs practically in hysterics. The NATIONAL POST newspaper was on the counter, and he read one headline promoting CHARLOTTE'S WEB the movie. ("Don't forget to bring your Kleenex!") He warned us that we might not find it as funny as he did, but the first thing he thought of was "Quick! I gotta kill a spider with a Kleenex since I found one here!" even if it meant that it was probably a sad movie. It was amusing me and Eric enough, though! At about 12:35, I told Jon that he may as well let Harmony sleep since it was 3:35 AM for her. Nathan chose that moment to listen in and thought it was 3:35 AM here ("where did the three hours go?!"), so we had to explain that we meant Toronto Eastern Standard Time, not Pacific Standard Time! Harmony now knows (among other things) that Nathan's inhibitions are lessened in the morning, and that Mom gets drunk on three sips of beer. Of course Jon isn't going to joke about certain things in front of her parents when he does meet them, heh. That would be BAD, haha. Apparently, Mom wants to have a family day with her on the 23rd, and wondered if she wanted any other people along: who knows, so we'll see. Dallas will be gone by then: his seeming "prim and proper" attitude is why my parents like him... Steph and I like him too, but not necessarily because of that.

Nathan shared some chocolate with us, and asked if anyone wanted a box of frozen cream puffs: I took him up on that offer when we were getting ready to leave, heh. He has too much stuff, so why not help him out? On the way home, Alan called Jon to say that nobody was answering Steph's phone, and they didn't want to wake Mom and Dad up to let them in since it was past 1 AM. Jon had no idea what he and Liz could do to chill, but advised them to just stay there since we were dropping Jeremy off. We noticed people sleeping in store doorways, planned stuff for Floodlight (Powerpoint backgrounds are COOL AS HECK!), and wondered where the snow was. It came after we'd dropped Jeremy off, and started sticking when we were in Richmond. Man, it snowed fast! Now, I'm going to bed since I've been up for FAR longer than I thought I'd be! (stupid computer... *grumble*)


International House of Pancakes Pumpkin Pancakes

During the holiday season, this particular pancake flavor sells like... well, you know. It's one of 16 varieties of pancakes served at this national casual diner chain. You can make your own version of these delicious flapjacks with a little canned pumpkin, some spices and traditional buttermilk pancake ingredients. Get out the mixer, fire up the stove, track down the syrup.

2 eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons canned pumpkin
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1. Preheat a skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with oil cooking spray.
2. Combine eggs, buttermilk, butter, pumpkin, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to blend ingredients.
3. Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and blend with mixer until smooth.
4. Pour the batter in 1/4 cup portions into the hot pan. Should form 5-inch circles.
4. When the batter stops bubbling and edges begin to harden, flip the pancakes. They should be dark brown. This will take 1 to 2 minutes.
5. Flip the pancakes and cook the other side for the same amount of time, until dark brown. Serves 3 to 4.