When Eric picked me up this morning (I greeted him with "House of Arthritis - how may I help you?" on the phone!), I told him not to screw with me. I said that he could have his choice of moods: either somber or ranting. He figured that I was ranting on Friday, which was certainly true! Then he referenced PINKY AND THE BRAIN, GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, DARKWING DUCK, and other such things while I tried telling him that he was the craziest person I'd never met. He tried convincing me that he had a memory, told me that he was going to the volunteer dinner, and said that I needed to figure some stuff out - maybe! We got to the church about halfway through Phil's sermon; almost immediately after we sat down, Eric took a WELCOME card and wrote "Darkwing Duck... Address: Here!" I took one look at it, and figured he was being silly as usual. At one point, I looked behind me, and saw the elusive Dave Wong sitting by Wesley. I had to figure out what to do - I didn't want to avoid him (which is what Eric thought I'd do), but I didn't want to appear obsessed or anything. (trying to learn lessons)
After service, I was busy saying hi to Harmony anyway since I wanted to ask her who this Eugene Cheng was. Apparently, he's an introverted co-worker of hers; he knows that Harmony suggested Facebook people for him as a way to make friends. Oh good... I was like "Did Harmony click on the wrong person to suggest friends for this guy?!" Hahahaha... at least he knows, and won't be like "Who are these people?!" tomorrow! I can just imagine! "This is my husband, this is my sister-in-law, this is my other sister-in-law, these are other people I know from these things..."
When an old lady wanted to get into Harmony's pew, I took that as a cue to leave the room. Then I saw Lily, whom I wanted to talk to anyway because she'd told me that she could give me a ride to Karen and Jason's wedding. We were making arrangements (phone number / email / prospective plans to leave an hour ahead of schedule with the kids) when I saw my mother in the sound room out of the corner of my eye, trying to get my attention. HELLO?! I AM OBVIOUSLY BUSY WITH ANOTHER CONVERSATION! I largely ignored her since I was focused on Lily and what she was saying, haha. After THAT, I went to the fellowship hall to find some weak coffee and talk to Sonya, Emily / Nina / Carley, both Martins, Geoffrey, Mattias, and some others. I told Jonathan that I couldn't delete my triple-posted wall post comments for some reason, but he laughingly assured me that it was fine.
I saw Dave talking to Raymond (perhaps for too long), but figured that it would be okay. After a few more minutes, I decided to boldly walk up to them and say hi! Denise and Tracy side-tracked me by exclaiming that I was a traitor for wearing the hat which Candy sent me a while ago. (Geoffrey had commented on the NHL All-Star logo) Hey, SHE sent it to me as a surprise FROM the Toronto area... it's not like I had a say, haha! I said hey to Jeremy and Christon, who didn't really care what I brought to the dinner next week. Danielle came by and gave me a great homemade birthday card with a photo of us at Montana's on the front - I know she was probably going to give it to me at that dinner, but couldn't!
Finally, I got a chance to talk to Dave, with Raymond hanging out in the background at first. Too bad, you had your turn! Dave smiled when he saw me, said "Leslie!", and wanted me to give him a "pound" or fist-bump in other language! I did, and then wondered if he could consolidate his life in the past few months - nope, haha! Says he has a seasonal job at the Purdy's factory ("doing hard manual labor on those pallets!"), says that Kin's is still "balling," confirmed that
I did indeed see him at the bus stop that day Eric and I left church early in August (I told him what Eric had said about going back and saying hi), and says that he and I should have a coffee and chit-chat now he knows his schedule - FOR SURE!
Christon and Jeremy joined the conversation at various points; we discussed Dave's checking out other churches, the life of Paul, different perspectives on things with new leaders (Randal's taking over!), his still getting the small group emails, Facebook, Vicky, Uncle Sam, Pastor John, just visiting ours to see what was going on (he'd love to come out on Fridays and such!), Broadway Church's hip-hop ministry (now THERE'S something he would love!), and the surprise Facebook birthday wish on my wall. We also conversed about his NOT joining us for Sunday School or lunch (dim sum for him instead!), and the volunteer dinner on Thanksgiving weekend. "That weekend will be busy with the wedding and all..." "Who gets married on Thanksgiving weekend?!" "THOSE PEOPLE!" as I indicated Stanford and Calla behind us talking to Mike T. and Emily C.
After Dylan and Jon started talking to him ("show me some Facebook LOVE!"), I was going to go upstairs, but got side-tracked by Connie. She said that she hadn't seen me in a while, so (in rehearsal for what I'd tell Jessie in a few minutes) I told her what had happened in the past four weeks: Eric sick, us going to lunch for his birthday / brunch with his family, and Eric's car trouble. Apparently, she was going to ask Harmony, but SHE'S been away herself in Italy! (Harmony says they DID spend a lot of money on gelato, and she misses it!) Connie said that her dad had had a stroke, and is going to rehab care where it'll be better for him - I bet she and Jenny have been busy taking care of their mom, paying bills and suchlike! After 35 years, I'm not surprised that there are some things her mom has never really done before!
I finally went upstairs to find that the older kids (Harrison, Amos, Amanda, etc.) had apparently graduated in my month away from Toddler Sunday School. Doesn't mean that the remaining kids aren't rowdy, though... David and Evelyn greeted me by slapping me with long pool noodles, haha! Jessie says she's been teaching the kids, and that we can share teaching duties - sounds fine to me! Mattias liked the cars, Ashley liked the pink toy dishes, there was a new kid named Jasper who was VERY quiet, Arthur could name letters of the alphabet from his puzzle, and Shira seemed to accept me for the first time. It was nice just to play with the children, heh. I said hi to Rachel when she came in to find her grandma afterward, too.
Thank goodness I stayed in the room after Auntie Bessy came and left, because that meant I avoided my mother yet again! When I got downstairs, Jeremy asked me whether I was coming to lunch with them. "Les? Lunch?" Eric said that since he was going, that meant I was going - fair enough! He then handed me a bag, saying that I could moon people now - haha, no thanks! Apparently, my mother had handed him this to give to me... he said it was mooncake, which I guess was fine. Later, I learned that there would be mooncake at next week's dinner - yay! Grandma passed us on her way to the washroom, and greeted me in a normal tone of voice. Randal also wanted to come out for lunch, which Eric wondered about on the car ride over to Burgoo. According to Jeremy, they'd tried going there last week, but the group was too large and the estimated wait of an hour was too long! (we discussed the menu and other things, his vision, stupid drivers / traffic, a VERY SPECIAL RENDITION of DARKWING DUCK, and more)
We had to wait about half an hour, and Jeremy wondered why Eric didn't drop me off closer if he was re-parking the car! Hahaha, not sure! At the restaurant, we discussed computer stuff (which I didn't get, but I loved listening to Eric and Jeremy being geeks!), Steph's attempt at cooking bacon ("she should learn to cook it - it's the bachelor thing!"), Grandma making a beeline for the bar when the family was at Burgoo, Mr. Creep helping to make the coffee stronger (I'd rather have weak stuff in that case!), and Linux. We also talked about Windows 7, those stupid things where you have to put your phone right up to some coded picture to get an application (seen on cards / newspapers / magazines), Teunis, defragmentation, the computer Vernon built for me, the ages of our computers, some things being TOO OLD to give away to FreeGeek or whatever, chips, Athlon processors, LOUD computer fans (especially if you're trying to sleep in the same room!), laptops, 1 GB of RAM on a stick, Grandma drinking beer out of the bottle last week at the party where my mother cooked for people at my sister's, and more. It was an okay time, although Eric thought I'd be on edge for some reason!
On the way home, we discussed THE MASSIVE FAIL at slamming his car doors, my thinking / creative hearing, "pre-season games" not being "priest-abusing games," FRINGE having a full season, CAPRICA having a half-season (starts in January), lunch being better than Bible Study, cell phones, fearing the phone ("if I try to call you at a non-regular time, it's problematic!"), blogging, and more. I've just gotten an email from Raymond, who says he'll bring birthday cake to the dinner from a bakery which his friends recommend. If he thinks anything of me if I take a slice, I'm not sure what I'll do! Updated my sister briefly on things since she was at work, too. I got an email from Cindy asking what the group wanted to do for our Small Group Outing on Thanksgiving weekend... yeah, I'd say we ran out of time on Friday night to discuss this! *sarcasm* Mom sent us an email about "old support group" - I hope it's at Uncle Sam's place in October, though rides home will be interesting! Then there's the family dinner for Jon's birthday - yikes! We'll see...
Labels: arthur, christon, church, coffee, computer, connie, crap, danielle, david, eric m., evelyn, facebook, harmony, hearing, jeremy, lily, maxed-out tags limit, randal, twins, wesley
