Random nudity in magazines? Oh my!

Steph picked me up to go to church, and we talked about Chinese Eric for a bit. Got dropped off in front of the building, where I had to tell Mom where the steps were - fair enough, since she wasn't familiar with the front area. Emily and Chrystal had watched CORALINE yesterday, and they said it was quite good! Had some time to prepare myself, and talked to Raymond for a bit too about movies and such. Reminded him that JACK BAUER is on for TWO HOURS tomorrow night! Shared a bunch of amusement, and his Bible - this was after I found that the Bible I used was missing most of the New Testament from Matthew 18 to 1 John. Pastor Edward said that his sister was a lover of Obama (um...), and that she'd been stopped in traffic once last September - turned out that Obama was the cause of it, and he'd waved to her. Andrea mentioned Daylight Savings Time to us, so Raymond and I both made a note to not show up for church at the wrong time! WE WILL KEEP EACH OTHER ACCOUNTABLE, hahaha.

Followed Hannah T., Hannah W., Priscilla, and Natalie out of the sanctuary while waving to Danielle and Michelle, and went into the fellowship hall. Said hi to little Keenan, who seemed shy - his older brother Joshua just wasn't too talkative, heh. Greeted their mom Maxine, who said that their Saturdays are quite busy: swimming, Awana, and other things all conspire to make it so. Eric said he forgot to pick me up yesterday for the Open House (Jon, on this: "Hahaha, what a guy!"), mentioned that Teunis and his friend Jordan had showed up there, and said that he wasn't going to Jeremy's later. Meh, I didn't mind staying out with Jon! Of course I'd let Mom know later, but I didn't know what was going to happen at 9:30 AM in the car. Oh well. Talked to Hannah L. about her lychee jelly - so good!

Talked to Jen, Raymond, Cordia, Henry ("the popcorn doesn't STINK!"), Sarah ("I could smell the butter from the STAIRCASE, man!"), and others before taking some butter cookies and heading upstairs. Auntie Fonda gave me a rice cooker: believe me, I tried paying her back for it, but she wouldn't hear of it - fine by me! We had a new kid with no English name, so I just called her "kid," haha. Watson actually held my hand when we went on the floor without shoes on - it is slippery! Amanda's big sister Hannah S. came in for a while, and constructed a Mega Block horse with eyes - kids are so cute!

Went downstairs to see what people were doing: Sam was leaning against the $10,000 wall and said that it made him feel wealthy. Mike said that the wall wasn't an extension of him, and told me that he'd had no clue what Candy was talking about in the Facebook conversation on the Diver photo - Sam had read it, he said. I knew what he'd meant ("snarky" referred to my own comment and not hers), and I reassured him of that. Mike said he'd had to Google a few words that Candy had used - heh, it happens! Eventually, my brother and I went to the old Green Village with our parents' friends Alan and Polly - good times, including a couple dishes which we'd never had before.

After that, Jon and I left (Dad told him to look after me, heh) and went to Donald's Market to buy veggies. Then we bused it to Elysium coffee shop (by the Cactus Club on Broadway / Ash) in the rain - we tried clover coffee from Ethiopia. (the blueberry-lemon one was a free sample), and I looked at HOBO magazine. The magazine smelled good, and featured Nick Cave plus random nudity in the photos - not something you'd leave lying around for your kids to find, for sure! Coffee came in wide mugs, plus some in Pyrex beakers with sturdy handles: NICE! Then we went to Mount Pleasant Cheese Company, and tried a lot of different cheeses (creamy! salty! gritty! really blue! rind-y!) while waiting for Nathan to pick us up. There were spices, cutting boards, wine jelly, olive stuff, many kinds of cheeses, crackers, bread, and plenty of other things to look at which went with cheeses.

When Nate finally showed up, we paid for seven different kinds of cheese before heading to the Whip to meet Jeremy: they were celebrating their third anniversary, so it was VERY PACKED AND BUSY! (Jon's seen it busier, though!) Jeremy got there just in time to hear some president dude give a short and LOUD speech thanking various breweries and such. We were wondering about cake, so Jon got us some - we saw sparkling candles, which was cool. Listened to Jeremy's ideas about water and good causes: the man has more sense than some other people I used to know: I say intelligence is definitely a good thing! Talked about people we knew in the context of wedding managerial duties - Nate definitely has the insight! Noticed some Obama paintings, which Nathan thought were initially of Will Smith, haha.

After trying some cider, yam fries, and cheese squares, Jeremy went back home while the rest of us went to Congee Noodle House to get some BBQ pork and white chicken. I was dead on in what I thought Jeremy meant when he mentioned the plain chicken; it was indeed the steamed chicken with ginger and green onion! Jeremy told us some backstory on why the restaurant had been closed for a while - our food inspector friend Kevin would have a heart attack if he ever went there as a customer, heh. Stopped in at Cuppa Joe to see if Nathan could find his Strong Bad hat: no luck! Jon had to do a LOT of convincing to Jen over the phone to get her to even make it out, but she did upon learning that Nathan would give her a ride. Then we finally went to Jeremy's, where Jon talked about frying the kale in rum or Scotch... oh dear! I saw the keys for the beer cellar, and checked some stuff on Jeremy's computer while the guys cooked a simple dinner. Looked up "Palliser" for the guys since I was on the computer anyway - and now I'm getting called to dinner. NICE TIMING!