Shanghai Wind and the Whip: flames, Bible Study, church issues, and more!

Note to self: STOP DOING THINGS TO YOUR HAIR! IT IS NOT GOOD!

Steph picked me up, and we discussed our grandma's big mouth when it came to Christmas presents and books on toilets. We don't think she really understands that gifts are supposed to be a SURPRISE here... then again, we discussed a certain person's cluelessness when it came to someone's special diet. You'd think he would KNOW given that they've known each other for years at church! I told her what Dad had said about her being bad on Saturday when Harmony's coming over: Steph and I both figure that there ARE other times to see her during the two weeks she'll be here for the holidays! (I might skip out on that too, haha) Stateside trips with people are not quite so plentiful, heh. Then we discussed being in the same small group as a sibling: there ARE things you might not want to share with a brother or sister around, for sure! (it could be about them, or just simply not something they need to know!)

Met Jon, Dylan, Alan, and Liz at Shanghai Wind: Jeremy came in after we'd settled down. We had a good discussion over four steamers of SLB, hot and sour soup, veggies, and Shanghai noodles. Alan and Liz were shocked when we told them that we had 21 steamers last time divided among a few people! Discussed our reactions to alcohol (Liz and I are similar in that we're either happy / hyper or tired!), tolerance, my New Year's story (SHUT UP!), vomit stories, keg parties, clean-up, half an Earl's margarita, the cold, affirmation of men pouring tea and stuff (Steph's male co-workers aren't good Asians OR good men!), calling people useless, etc. Jeremy was amused when Steph told him that our grandma knows him as "bearded man" since Eric was the first white kid. Alan figured that "Wu So Lo" made Jeremy distantly related to Han Solo, haha. Quote of the dinner: Russell Peters' "Someone's gonna get a hurting REAL bad!" (complete with fist shaking)

I found a nickel on the floor of the apartment lobby before heading out, and Grandma gave me $20 earlier... that was enough to cover both my and Steph's portions of the bill. That meant I didn't have any money left when we went to the Whip afterwards, but Jeremy kindly offered to buy me a beer: I'll pay him back when I see him, of course. He knows I'm good for it since the $2 was cool. If I could carry $100 and change in my jacket pocket for two weeks, I can carry $5 and change around for that time! (actually, I had more than $10 in coins in my jacket pocket recently too...)

Before we went our separate directions since Dylan and Steph had to buy things for the root beer floats at dessert night, Steph had to take a picture of the five of us all crammed into the rental Toyota Yaris. Definitely a small car, that one! We discussed marriage banns and gay unions, Ivan proposing to Karen during worship service and having to apologize the week afterwards, and various other people practically doing the same thing. ("I have a question about the sermon... will you marry me?") Jon requested Velvet Underground (Heroin could be misconstrued if he ever preached about that!), and asked how Alan and Liz liked Bob Dylan and R.E.M.: some of it was too mellow, heh.

At the Whip, we ordered Black Plague / Blanche de Chambly / Red Devil Ale / some other thing that the server described as "a pale ale which is actually more like a dark ale or a stout, but I don't know who brews it." Jeremy thought they needed to educate the servers better, while Jon wondered about their cask nights. Just don't go on Wednesday nights for that: Tuesdays should still be fine, haha. We had a good discussion about how a certain person was with Bible Study. Facilitating discussion there should be a goal, not taking over like 90% of the time. Someone figures he'll ask what other people think, and if they don't have anything to say at that point, they should ask someone else in the group... be aggressive before a certain someone has a chance to jump in and take over stuff again! Good idea, and one I should remember in January! Jeremy confirmed that he really did want to hear more from me... well, it's not like I have anything great to say, but you never know! But he's right: I did spend time preparing for the study as he had, and I could have brought up some things. Voicing unvoiced opinions and being a shit-disturber is something Liz does best, heh. (perspective from non-Christians' views)

From there, we talked about church things in general. Sharing is good, heh. Certain fundamentalist people are divergent from us, of course. Vancouver is pretty liberal, and while we ourselves don't support same-sex marriage, Alan at least would welcome a gay couple if they came into his service and wanted to listen! I think I might too, but our parents and their generation would definitely NOT! Jeremy brought up blue hair and Halloween in a Christian school: one teacher said it was fine for that day only, while another one said the opposite. No unity in theology there... junior high is where it's black-and-white, and university has everyone from wildly different backgrounds! In a secular school, you'd know where the boundaries were with right and wrong, but not necessarily in a Christian school with certain grey areas! (the divorce rate for Christian couples is only a couple percentage points higher than the national average, too...)

We discussed God being a pyromaniac since we were all warming our hands with the candle at our table: Moses and the burning bush, anyone? Jeremy looked up Elijah at Mount Carmel and Jesus being taken up in his Bible: the tongues of fire were at Pentecost, not Jesus being taken up WITH fire! (which never happened) Somehow, we managed to burn out one candle, which quickly got replaced. Jeremy wondered how the flame worked with the wick since it was blue at the base, and wouldn't go everywhere. We told him to look it up on Google and Wikipedia: there IS a changelog at Wiki, and it's more error-free than the Encyclopedia Brittanica! (errors corrected once a year vs. instantly or something like that, even with obscure topics)

Then we talked about blogging: apparently, Alan and Liz heard that they were mentioned on my Blogspot blog. Steph has a Xanga, and so we explained to Alan what the difference was between Blogspot and Xanga / LiveJournal / similar blogging sites (it's the community / blogring aspect!), plus how Geocities was IN ten years ago or so! Jeremy remembered that he'd found mine through Googling his name. ("somehow Jeremy ended up on the Richmond Crew") He didn't seem to mind, but I thought he did when we first talked with Nathan about Googling your name. Phew! (Nathan thought it was very cool, and said so!)

Definitely a good time of sharing and fellowship over beer, which I guess helps loosen inhibitions! Just don't bring it to church events, but to other people's houses! Jon started talking to Harmony on the way home (Jeremy walked home), and Alan had to wonder who he was talking to! Who do you THINK?! Alan also thinks Jon should move out, but living rent-free DOES have its perks: the only chore he's set to do is the dishes whenever he's home. Mom always threatens to set up a schedule for housework (which he has no excuse NOT to do now), but she always forgets what she says. Jon's just looking forward to not having six hours of sleep a day, and not having to worry about school stuff till the second week of January. Nathan was joking earlier today about skipping Sunday School: his excuse COULD be that he has to pack for his trip to Hong Kong, haha!

Fred's "sharing underwear" joke was brought up again while Harmony apparently was wondering what to pack: Jon said that she should pack like a guy and wonder about it an hour before she had to be at the airport! Then he shared an embarrassing story about surplus underwear differences between living here and living in Toronto... Liz was zoning out from the food / beer / warmth, heh. She mentioned that she'd seen my old acquaintance Deanna Baker (now living in Toronto), who used to do physio at the hospital right across the street from where I live. Cool stuff!