Is it really The Year of the Asthmatic Cat?!

Eric called to say that I had ten minutes to get outside, so I woke up from my mini-nap and reflected that it was a good thing I'd had THAT because I'd be really dragging otherwise! We discussed what we'd done during the afternoon (WARCRAFT?!), and he joked that he wanted every detail of the conversation I'd had with the girls - even if you do want them, you aren't getting them! He said he'd talked to K earlier, and asked if I'd talked to him - not since I'd woke up, no! That led him to think that I'd been talking to him in my sleep - as far as I know, he is WRONG on that one! I hadn't talked to him since about 3:35 AM, so saying that I hadn't talked to him all day would technically also be wrong! (K says I snore and fart in my sleep - but that's not what Eric asked about! :P) I said I'd get the Committee stuff done as reports later on in the week when I'd recovered from all this going out - he wanted to make sure I had notes and the old format to work with / from, which I did. Discussed the usual weird jokes, too.

At Jeremy's, I actually remembered the buzzer number - of course the number is unoccupied, which is wrong! Ray answered and let us in, saying hey to me when we did enter the apartment. He was busy trying to fold laundry from this monster load while Jon was looking stuff up on his computer. We looked at the mortar and pestle, printed out a recipe which Jeremy was approximately doubling, monitored the soup and curry, and stayed away when the mustard seeds began to pop. Raymond had just worked out at the gym; that reminds me that my sister and her friends personify the gym as "Jim" by saying things like "Jim hasn't seen me in so long! He must think I'm cheating on him!" That also reminds me of the guy we saw this afternoon carrying a flower bouquet: "Aww! You're so sweet - unless you're cheating on someone and giving them to someone who isn't your wife or girlfriend! ... I must be watching way too many soap operas and reality TV shows..."

Nathan, Isabel, and Chinese Eric came by with Fanta and such after Jon went down to the cellar with Jeremy's beer cellar key, with Ray to lead the way since he was taking out garbage. He discovered that he had to buy toilet paper and paper towels - Shoppers WAS open till midnight! I asked how much toilet paper he had left: three rolls should be sufficient till tomorrow, but Ray still jokingly warned us not to use the bathroom too much tonight! We discussed EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND - Ray hated that show since Ray Romano wasn't a good actor in his opinion. "If I wanted something to get angry about, I'd watch that show!" Haha. While remarking that he hadn't used the qualifiers "white Eric" or "Chinese Eric" for some time, Jon wondered how we would distinguish Ray and Raymond. I just call one "Ray" and the other "Raymond," but I guess "calm Raymond" and "angry / loud / obnoxious Raymond" (joke!) works for the guys, hahaha. I asked Isabel where Julie was - turns out she couldn't find her way to Jeremy's. Fair enough!

The squash / yam soup was a hit for the third time, and Ray remarked that the turducken (turkey stuffed in duck stuffed in chicken) smell was still evident in their oven - it had suddenly appeared one day in the fridge, haha. Someone (not me!) made a morbid joke about the chicken coming from Robert Pickton's farm - unlike certain people I used to know, everyone there REALIZED it was a joke, and responded accordingly. ("Eww! Yeah, Jeremy will have to answer questions from the police now even if Willy Pickton's farm was a PIG farm!") Then that joke led to a discussion of the case, maximum sentences, legalities, one trial for six women / another for twenty women, etc. Jeremy doesn't use ice unless he's making beer, but has managed to eliminate even that with some cool copper tubing that wraps around the keg. (I asked...) He liked my dragon hat, and wondered where I got it - my mom bought it at a thrift shop since I am a dragon in the Chinese zodiac! I seemed to have less trouble with the word than I had on Saturday with Auntie Wing, at least. Raymond remarked that he was a Tiger, and I countered that I'm a FIRE DRAGON even! I know Nathan's a Metal Phoenix because of an MSN name he'd had once - speaking of Nathan, he brought his work with him and told us all to complete his emoticon survey! 120 people with an extra ten or thirty? Sure, professor! (Cindy had trouble with it, she told us at lunch) Isabel and I had already done it, so we were very special good people! Someone wondered what would happen if we just tried to answer it randomly, but Nate said that wouldn't work.

The guys were also trying to book Dine Out Vancouver online, with extra points given to Nathan if he did so! Gastropods on the 17th it is, at 9 since it's doable! Then Nathan wanted to know about free voice lessons, audits, and worth in terms of free stuff. Jon put on some experimental Sufjan Stevens music, his second album (ENJOY YOUR RABBIT) before he went all folk. Isabel and I were amused at the song titles, which were mostly years of the Chinese Zodiac - but you won't find "Year of the Asthmatic Cat" on any Chinese zodiac ANYWHERE! Talked about Terra Breads, bus fares going up, U-Pass, Britney Spears' breakdown, my semantics in insisting that my bus pass wasn't FREE (it costs $45 a year!), money changing hands (I didn't mind if Jeremy didn't give me back exact change from my $20 for my $5 Sunday Dinner costs!), beer, hops, sweetness, church stuff, food quality testing in Hong Kong, Tuesday night (Chinese Eric will drive me after 6 since Jon has to talk with Mark Ho), Fay, MSN / email updates (of COURSE!), no time to tell me (I understand!), and other such stuff.

A while later, someone brought up the word LUG, so Nathan looked it up on Facebook (groups and people) / Wikipedia (I knew it was slang for "ear," even if white Eric didn't believe me!) / Google Linux User Group!) / the Jargon Files) / Urban Dictionary (Lesbians Until Graduation!) / other weird sites. We told Nathan that he wasn't supposed to be on Facebook while he was supposed to be doing work on his applications to several places. (including Ontario) He claimed he was spreading the word about his emoticon survey since he only needed eight more people to be one step closer towards graduation. Then he has to write about the findings - he showed us the demographics (white and Chinese were the first two categories), which included some write-ins of "Taiwanese." (Christon busted him on New Year's Eve at Anthony's when Nate was on Facebook instead of doing work!) That reminded Ray of a story: he'd been at some party where this girl asked two people where they were from. At the answers "Hong Kong" and "Taiwan," she said that those places were "China!" Then a prof suggested that everyone sing some Christmas carols as distraction, hahaha.

The dinner was self-serve, so Isabel and I only took one piece of chicken each when we could have taken two. Eric identified us as the people who'd only had one each, but we were too full at that point to eat any more, so didn't care if Jeremy put them away! Jeremy brought the whole discussion DOWN when he said that stepdaughters were good for SOMETHING! (earlier, he'd been referencing some girl who liked Woody Allen... not Soon-Yi!) Everyone was all "EWWWWW, JEREMY!" It got even worse when Nathan said something about putting "Take me NOW!" in his application - "your minds are all in the gutter, guys!" No comment! Reminded me of the news story my sister and I heard on the way home today about some woman who was in jail for larceny, and had to sign some documents. She did, but not before putting "Kiss My Ass!" after her name just for the judge to see. The judge was most decidedly NOT amused, and sentenced her to a further three months / ninety days in jail for this contempt of court!

After a bit of beer and juice, we decided that Jeremy needed to sleep early since he had to get up at 4... "This is how we tell time around here - when I'm up, he's just going to work!" After discussing Chris and how Carleton people wanted him to hook them up with pot (NO!), we left. Raymond asked whether Chris was a mutual friend of ours, and I said that he'd been the drummer this morning in service - he just doesn't see him often since he's in Ottawa much of the time for school! Eric, Jon, and I then briefly invaded Nathan's house to give him back the remainder of the pop - we can use it on Tuesday! Yelled bye to Isabel, and then we went home ourselves. Definitely good times, even if Eric does bug me about not actually taking me home! *shakes head* Crazy person!


Edit: Found out that both my parents emailed Korey back. That sounds good, and their replies are cool too... busy holiday season, calling her "mom" instead of her first name or "auntie," and #9! Thank goodness that he'll keep me posted! Apparently, I have a wedding to go to on July 28. At least this one is in Chilliwack and not in the boonies of Powell River? Hahaha.