Despite Gmail ads, I am NOT a cougar mascot! / Korey pics

As soon as I got to church this morning, Chuck started in on teasing me about Korey. Meh, you're not even CLOSE with what you hypothesize... even if you call me a ROOKIE because we call each other almost every day! Went over to see Hannah and Priscilla, who told me that they hadn't won Bible Quiz yesterday - NO! I saw Jackie, so gave her a birthday card for Wednesday: she hugged me, and said I was SO GOOD with birthdays! Hey, I like remembering my friends' birthdays, and everyone knows it! In fact, Eric sent me an email at 4 on behalf of my friends in the fellowship committee saying that I must know Jeremy's birthday - since it wasn't listed in the directory, I was definitely glad to help!

At Auntie Esther's sentimental request, Darren played violin on Chris' last Sunday here before he goes to Carleton on Tuesday night... we'll miss him for sure! (and Darren when he goes to Ireland!) Made sure to talk to Chris later on, too - he better keep in touch while studying journalism, OR ELSE! At least Steph has his email address! Perhaps Stanley or Jeremy will take over drumming duties, heh. Shared various bits of amusement with Nathan and Jeremy: a repeating Flash video for 40 Days of Community, Stanley thinking that Jeremy could surely turn water into wine (Jer says it's not possible - something to do with ethanol?), Darren not being able to finish a Guinness last night according to Joey (Jon finished it for him), Joey reading a bit too far verse-wise in the Scripture reading, the "benediction as seminary student speech" joke, etc.

After service, I talked to Sheena / Chalaine / Randal / Karen Chan / Phil / Grace / David / Ian / various kids / Tim / Maxine / Joshua / Keenan / Kevin / Jen / Jeremy / Tony / Billy / Benjamin / Peter / Daniel / Eric. Waved bye to David and his son Ian, and talked to Randal about what he did yesterday: dinner with his parents, reading, other stuff he can't remember. Jen says that her blog's been empty for a while, but that's okay - I really should check others' blogs, yikes! Benjamin and Joshua were so cute running around, and Joshua initially refused his own birthday card - silly boy! When he said "no" and tried to bat it away, I told him to give it to Mommy (Maxine) then since Daddy (Tim) was busy registering for the walkathon. His little brother Keenan looked so cute in his baby carrier, so I joined Sheena and Chalaine in cooing over him. We joked that he could stay under the red cover for a week - he even had a blue octopus to look at for entertainment! (the rest of the cage had a BIT of cover provided by blue tarps, but it wasn't much) He squeezed my finger and seemed to respond to what we were saying to him - he had cute pants, all right! Talked to Billy about Stella expecting another kid around December 29: Benjamin will probably be jealous! Peter gave Benjamin a Skagway (Alaska) train whistle from Lesley; he tried blowing in it to produce noise, but only came close once. Lung power will take time to develop, I think! (he's not even two yet)

Jeremy says he'll try making olive oil-jasmine soap next week, and will cook a lot tonight so he has leftovers as a break from pork fluff on rice. I know what he means when he says it's good for one night, but not all the time! Gave Kevin his birthday card, and talked about friends for a bit. Tony asked if people were back from Mexico yet (he probably wanted to see my sister), so I said they'd been back for two weeks. He hasn't been around since he's been working a lot, so it's understandable that he doesn't know! Eventually, we all went off to Sunday School - a tired Maxine told Joshua to thank me for the birthday card, and also to give me a hug. He's so cute, and Maxine's tired since her kids are keeping her up at night!

Went to the toddler Sunday School, where everyone was back - three of them (Wilson / Rachel / Sean) will graduate pretty soon, leaving Amanda by herself! (although I think toddler Amos will join her, being two now) Sean was most amused by the drawing on their homework: bricks of the Jericho wall tumbling down after people marched around it! "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! HAHAHAHA!" We had green frog candies for snack again, and I had to eat Sean's after he tasted it and decided it wasn't for him. (I know autistic people sometimes have texture issues...) At least this time, I didn't have to get my fingers all sticky after prying it out of his hand! I asked Rachel if she remembered my friend from last week; when she said she did, I then asked if she liked him wearing her bead necklace. She said yes, and added that it was funny. That would have made an interesting picture, haha. (like him trying on my glasses at Eric's later!) After that, I heard Sean's big brother Ian singing a nonsense song about his cheese crackers - he showed me the crackers, and told me that Sean was four now. Cute kids, for sure!

Talked to Jeff, Anita, and Joey for a while afterwards. Jeff mentioned that he'd seen my boyfriend last week, Anita offered me a cupcake, and we talked about Michelle still being sick from Mexico - Jeff joked that he should send her a message asking if this were a nine-month virus that would last a lifetime! (it would be funny if this pregnancy joke actually turned out to be TRUE, haha!) Anita and I reminisced about our Daniel camps (TENTING AND OUTHOUSES, JOEY - NO LODGES WITH WASHROOMS!) and said that Joe and Jason had been bad boys then: capsizing canoes, dunking Stella near a wall, etc. Those were definitely good times! Joey talked to Anita about a "psycho" kid named Jordan who seems overly clingy and emotional. ("You can't get an Awana dollar since you haven't done five sections!" "Give me the dollar and I'll do them later!" "It doesn't work that way." "Fine, I won't do them then!" *kid cries and clings to Anita, while she thinks GET OFF ME!*) Summertime Awana must be a barrel of laughs with these kids around, haha. Anita said that she could feel her stomach moving as the baby kicked, and mentioned that Emily L. thought it looked unsettling: it probably does! Oh well, at least it's alive in there and will come out around November 27!

Dodged Samantha, Ryan, Ethan, Rosanna, and Alina on the way upstairs - I went outside, where Steph was surprised to see me since she thought I'd gone to Pho already. (I'd seen Mom while talking to Jeff / Anita / Joey, and she said we were going to Pho - if she expected me to follow after her, she was mistaken!) Nope, I was just talking to good friends for a while! Tony and Jon joined us a bit later - #24 for me and sister, #9 for Jon, and Karen's carrot soup / rice / meat thing for Tony... then we introduced him to our unique (?) way of showing sibling affection: FISTS AND DEATH THREATS! I remembered that Stanley wanted to do a version of DINE AND DASH on Friday, but Eric and I dissuaded him from it - we have an interesting comical relationship with this restaurant, and they KNOW we come from the church just two doors down! Good thing they didn't have the durian shake he wanted! Steph mentioned that Grandma had seen me and Eric at the Pho place on Friday night, and Jon said that she'd interrupted their committee meeting just afterwards because she wanted to give him some food that she didn't like! Ah, what can you do about old ladies? She probably thought it was a big group of friends just hanging out downstairs in the basement, so there wasn't anything wrong with interrupting them! Crazy Big G! Jon also fielded a call from Christon: guitar group is canceled tomorrow, despite Erin's wish that it wouldn't be! Of course, Darren can also learn on his own if he's motivated enough!

Talked about Tony overworking himself at Wal-Mart, even with the two weeks notice: guess he's a self-imposed sucker for punishment if the manager can persuade him to work overtime AND if he doesn't allow himself to eat in eight straight hours of action! (for example, he just had a bowl of noodles for the entire day yesterday!) He cares about the people in his job, unfortunately! My siblings and I all gave him various suggestions: water, a granola bar, bananas (even if Wal-Mart doesn't sell produce), forcing himself to take at least a five-minute break to eat SOMETHING, etc. Next weekend will be epic for him: he goes to work at Wal-Mart in New West at 4 on Saturday, somehow has to teleport himself to Crystal Mall in Burnaby by 10:30 for his overnight security job, go to church in uniform (DON'T STAY AT THE BACK DOOR!) and not fall asleep during service, then go to Wal-Mart afterwards and not collapse there. We figure he can die on Monday instead, haha.

At least with September coming up, he'll have school and Awana - he's done Awana before, with 150 to 200 kids! Crazy club numbers... he'll know me, Melia, Joey, and I'm not sure who else. I recalled Andrew's MSN message asking about Awana's start date: Steph thinks she overheard Auntie Rebecca saying it started the week after the walkathon (Sept. 15), which is probably a good thing since it conflicted with that event last year! I don't think I went to the first Awana meeting last year because Sam's family was going to the walkathon and would be out all day. Gotta get something into gear in the next three weeks! RICHMOND PEOPLE, WHERE ARE YOU?! Haha. (I could bus like I did a few years back, too... we'll see!)

After lunch, Jon went off to beer / the PNE while my sister and I went to Uncle Sam's mom's house (really Auntie Kathy's place) and feigned polite interest in her health issues and this HUGE 2-kilogram container of whey protein. The Winnie the Pooh doll with a diaper on it was amusing, though! We also entertained ourselves by doing some more sibling affection acts, and hitting each other (playfighting!) with the blue / Tigger massagers. Steph said that she was one of the offering counters today, and saw two cheques for rather sizable amounts: hey, if you can do that from the right place, go right ahead! Mom wanted to get beef jerky after spending an hour sitting around discussing health / whey protein / lack of appetite, but Steph wanted to get to the South Arm gym, which closes at 5 on Sundays.

It was 3:30 when I got home to a bunch of Farrah email mixed in with everything else! Eric had sent me two "Cougar and Cougee" pictures from last week's "lunch of doom" - in my reply to him, I had to comment on Gmail's targeted ads. One of them was for a cougar mascot costume, so I wrote: "Before you get any ideas in your head, I AM NOT A COUGAR MASCOT!!! It's bad enough that my mom wanted to buy some leopard thing for me from the dollar store recently!" (she ended up not buying it because she was confused about the difference between cougars and leopards - same family, but not the same thing!)

P.S. Like Diven's, my toilet has issues. Stupid water refills and tanks... not an emergency, but I let people KNOW! AIYOH!


Picture time!

A cute picture of Korey and me at the church grad banquet last week:




These other two are from the "lunch of doom" last week: