"I'm in yelling mode, just so you know!"

I called Eric at 7:15, who answered the phone in Spanish. According to his instructions, I went out in five minutes to wait for him, and he was STILL late-ish! Oh well, it was an interesting car ride. He thought I was responsible for whatever happened in the end zone during the football game, and had to tell me that BC had in fact scored a touchdown while I was busy talking over the radio. (1-0 after the first quarter is a hockey score... so good thing they made it 8-0!) He also wondered if I had any secret plans regarding passion - I don't think popcorn counts, haha. When we got out of the car, there was an ad for Dairyland dragonfruit yogurt - I told Eric that it would be great to have since I'm a dragon. (hehe)

Got to the basement and stood around to sing stuff - we sat near Ada (her sons Ian and Sean liked Playland and camping!), Jen, Karen, and Ivan. He put "Spartacus" on his name tag, which caused Mike to do 300 impressions later: "SPARTA!!!!" (Mike's apparently seen the movie quite a few times) It was an interesting talk on friendship, touching on purity and passion just a bit. Vania's question about just having lots of close friends and not dating was somewhat amusing! Henry wondered why the Houstons had an orange wedge in their water when it was usually a lemon slice - maybe it was a change! He's still thinking about doing Awana in September because it's too far for his nieces. Fair enough! Met a new guy called Kevin, who found our church via the website of his former Chinatown church and Youtube. Had a very interesting conversation with him about our new church building, his impressions of service / Friday programs so far, the Youtube video (Jon didn't know about it because he was possibly in Toronto at the time), and how Steph was our sister. Christon told him that she managed the Daniel Fellowship email list, and should be back after Timothy camp to put him on there, heh.

Michelle, Joey, Sam, Benedict, and others all expressed distaste when Jon put broccoli into the chocolate fondue fountain. Then Mike joked about flinging feces in the basement since monkeys do that - yeah, but are you really a monkey, dude? Benedict told me about how an Awana kid named Jordan frustrated Lawrence while doing crafts last week during the summer Awana - he wanted various colors of yarn, but then told Lawrence that he didn't like them after they were cut! ("I don't like brown!" "[thinking] Gee, you could have told me that BEFORE!") He also expressed trepidation about teaching the kids how to cook next week - I can imagine that Eric and Matthew will get into everything and just be disruptive! Apparently, there are a lot more leaders than kids - good thing I'm not there, haha. I didn't do it last year, either - didn't appear to be a shortage then, either! He agreed with me that it was nice to have friends visit.. yeah, especially if they're only here a short time! (haha, this is a burden already?! Kidding!)

Talked to Jen, Danielle, Frances, Sheena, Chuck, Karen, Daniel, Cindy, Randal, Sam, Joey, and Michelle about driver's licenses / professional writing diploma at Douglas College / our weeks / popcorn / yelling / chips / fruit / other such mundane stuff. Dylan wanted to know how I liked the talk, and that led us to discuss being transparent with people. It's a problem for us since we don't necessarily want to tell everyone all the little details of our lives, but sometimes we might have to in order for more spiritual friendships to develop. Guess we'll have to really think about it, for sure. Jon mentioned something about going to the Night Market tomorrow to celebrate Nathan's birthday - I know Jeremy's going, and I'm probably in even if I don't think I have any cash. (but I could go to the bank before 3 tomorrow and cash a cheque)

Citrus said that he'd played hockey, and they didn't have a full team: guess you have to suck it up then! He also pulled both calf muscles at once since they contracted at the same time - he definitely needed to go home and massage them! Poor guy! Jeremy did a lot of physical warehouse work in the heat because of sick / vacationing workers, and he didn't get enough sleep since his apartment cools down at midnight! (that doesn't sound good if he has to work in Richmond at 7 AM) After a failed bid to find Joey's Nalgene water bottle (along with a discussion of James S. and Facebook and a second kid for him and Sanne), we were finally off. My back was killing me (but feeling better now), probably because I was carrying two knapsacks at once - Eric joked that he put stones in his. Thanks, dude... Chuck said that I looked ready to go camping! Not surprised, my friend. Eric was impatient to find out the BC Lions score... turns out we won 42-12 over the Roughriders in Regina. (the Hamilton Ti-Cats are bad if they have 33 more losses than we do over a four-year period!)

We discussed Dallas going to church, gas prices, Wesley's talk about Haiti on Sunday, Eric going to a swim club person's party that isn't clubbing, smelling skunk TWICE (they're in Richmond?!), the Grouse Grind on Sunday (NOT Tuesday as per Jon's slip since it's not open for services), Fidela, doing the Grind in flip-flops (Jackie would...), Megan, and Harmony's sleep issues. Jon tried singing her some nursery rhymes or lullabies, but Eric and I pointed out that it probably wouldn't help if he was laughing at the end of every line. He wishes he could do something about it, but he can't. I said that warm milk helped, but she's tried that - and the only milk she had was sour. No warm sour expired milk for US, thanks... even if it went sour before the expiration date! Now, THAT really sucks! He was tormenting me by putting his bare foot almost in my face while Eric was trying to drive - THAT won't help her sleep, either! I was most concerned about these chocolate and strawberry stains on my clothes, which were NOT caused by dropping fruit when I looked at a certain person! I was still in "crowded basement mode," which meant that I yelled almost every other sentence at the guys, heh. You gotta do that in order to be heard over 50 people, haha!


I'm tired now, but I still have to finish the laundry and do something else before I sleep. Should definitely call Jon tomorrow afternoon, and have made a note to this effect. Wouldn't do to forget, after all. :D