Roman cat of nine tails SCOURGE! / Chinese characters / Quinoa and flax

Henry called to make sure I was going to Awana today - with the last six weeks around here (including Christmas / New Year's break), I don't blame him! We listened to Pastor Greg Laurie's talk on how Jesus died on the cross - apparently, the Roman cat of nine tails whip was a really deadly weapon to scourge people with, and crucifixion was quite common in those times! I appreciate those bits of historical interest, hehe. When we got to the church, I said hi to Rachel's grandma / the kids / Golden / Daniel with his Acer laptop and wireless mouse (I might need one of those at some point!) / Chrystal - yeah, it's been some time since I've been at Awana! Melia was visiting and helping out, so I managed to talk to her a bit about Steph and Lisa - it's good that Lisa's family likes Steph, and our upbringing does make it hard to say certain things! Talked to Chrystal after we'd helped Daniel with the stuff on sale at the Awana store ("plan of salvation" was on bookmarks and NOT cards! / dinosaur sets!) - she'd had a bunch of family in town for Christmas. Daniel had just gone to Hong Kong, and he said that it was too cold there! I also officially met Hien's friend Hung K. - THAT GUY WHO LIKES ALL HER SAD / DEPRESSED FB STATUSES! Golden (who had stayed home on NYE) joked that Hung had a FB reputation now - hahaha, maybe! We talked about jewels, the Gordon Smith talks, the intern pastor doing a new Sunday School class, Fellowship, and more.

Julie C. was also there, and she needed help from Daniel / Eric T. / Auntie Vivian / Ada with her Mandarin homework and writing Chinese characters for a family tree / interests. Luckily, she goes to a Chinese church, otherwise she'd be REALLY screwed when trying to write such stuff as "engineer" and "walking"! Chrystal told me that Julie looked grown up now - I definitely agree, and she's in Grade 9 now! I spent the afternoon eating strawberry / mango / blueberry / grape / cola / apple gummi candies from Hong Kong, and some yok song (shredded pork) balls; those saved the day for me since I ran out of time to eat lunch this afternoon. I told various people about the dense chocolate ganache cake / raspberry-pomegranate Jello ATTACKS of last week, hahaha! (Youtube was also fun, as was seeing various people) Henry left early for a Starfield concert, so it was a good thing Ada was there!

On the way home, Ian asked me questions about the solar system, while Sean opined that he would rather be too hot than too cold. Ian said that he'd made a decision two months ago that HE would rather be too cold than too hot: "you can burn to death in the desert!" Well, you can also freeze to death! We also talked about names, mysteries, their Hong Kong girl cousin Hayden (I once knew a guy named Hayden), exploding in the bathtub (Sean), air-conditioning and butt sweat (TMI from Ian), the Titanic, and more. Once I got home, I quickly checked stuff before going to London Drugs for the second time today: I was out and back within about half an hour, which is always nice! Bought two 2L bottles of healthy Genesis Goji berry / Resveratrol berry juice (which I'd discounted as way too heavy when I was at the store this afternoon), a Chinese New Year rabbit card for Grandma, a three-pack of pink / white / green shower puffs, and two boxes of gluten-free Mesa Sunrise (flax / corn / amaranth) / crunchy vanilla Sunrise (corn / rice / flax / quinoa / buckwheat / amaranth) cereal with Omega-3. Not too bad at all! When I saw my cereal boxes, I noticed that the French word for flax is "lin," which makes me think of Kaitlin... WHEE! The juices each have over 4700 ORAC per serving, whatever ORAC is.

"I feel like an official Canadian now - the snow helps!" / Rye crackers!

John A. (snooooopy) finally emailed me back to say that the stuff arrived, and he feels like more of an official Canadian than ever. "The weather has helped out, too. Very brisk, fair bit of snow -- I thought I moved south to escape that." I'm glad, because I plan to send Julie S. (julie709) a personalized Canucks keychain as well! (and maybe Corey once he gets back to Fort Collins for good) I also plan to buy 15 Easter cards when it's time in late March, which is what happens when you have that number of Easter stickers! I'm going to London Drugs to get cough medicine in capsule form, two Canucks keychains, one or two packages of dark rye crackers, a toy car for Mattias, noodles, pens (if they have good ones), and maybe some other stuff.


Edit at 3: I got two packages of hearty dark rye crackers, a five-pack of cool-looking toy cars for Mattias, a ten-pack of Papermate pens (they seem okay from my testing them when I got home), a mango aloe vera drink, on-sale noodles (three five-packs for $4), two bottles of GINGER BEER, Buckley's 48-pack of Day / Night capsules (I justified this by figuring I wasn't spending money on the keychains - I won't care how much it cost when I need them!), a binder since one of my important ones is falling apart, and Neo-Citran since mine expires in two weeks! Got home and took a shower, and then discovered that MY SHOWER PUFF WON'T HANG FROM THE SHOWER HEAD ANYMORE! Gee, now I'll have to go to the store again... and I was trying to avoid a trip out in the dark tonight when I got home! *sigh* London Drugs didn't have Canucks keychains for a Julie or a Corey, but they did have Julia! So close, yet so far...

You Are Tea Tree Shampoo

You are a strong and powerful person. You are admired by many for your courage. You are totally no nonsense. You shoot straight from the hip and tell it like it is. You don't sugarcoat anything, but you are still a positive person. There's no room for negativity in your life. You are assertive and proactive. You can't just think for long... you have to act!

What Scent Shampoo Are You?

Blogthings: Waste Time at Work!

STOP BLOCKING THE ELEVATOR

For some reason, white Eric called me at 6 - he is CRAZY! He said the talk with Gordon Smith started at 7; at least that was a good reminder, as I never really read too many of the emails this week because I was TRYING to be hardcore while working! Then I tried calling Chinese Eric, but his mom said that the medicine made him sleepy - so of course he was sleeping! Ha, quite understandable... I helpfully provided my name when she seemed to be stuck on it! When white Eric picked me up, I ranted a lot about the usual subjects; he said that Randal, Raymond, and Mr. Creep were not in my small group this year. Well, good... but it was kinda fun ragging on Randal at least! Frankly, I wouldn't be a good congregational committee member, haha - when I told this to Eric, he listed off a bunch of excuses that I'd use on people. Purple, haha! I asked if I'd missed anything interesting on Sunday (his parents had apparently gone to service) - we apparently have a new interim pastor now by the name of Tom Ford. Hmm... I hope he speaks well! (Eric bugged me by mispronouncing "Joseph" - STOP THAT!) Eric also said that Randal had called Gordon Smith the "love doctor" - oh dear. :P

The talk on love itself was okay, and fortunately ended at 8:30 - I don't think he was serious about going up to everyone on a bus and blessing them for taking the bus with me since they helped pay for it! People would look at you like you're crazy, man! I had to choose my seat strategically after talking to Jon about the cinnamon and Teunis because Mr. Creep was a row away, so I sat near the back where Mike / Emily / Citrus / Victor / Cynthia / others were. Of course, I waved to Victor - it was good seeing him back from Hong Kong! Unfortunately, Mr. Creep had input on the talk - JUST SHUT UP ALREADY! Then he wanted to go eat with us... luckily, Eric and I had little cash on us (he had small coins while I had $10), so we just went home! (in the meantime, I talked to Vivian about her snow day this week and the rescheduled Committee Meeting / to Jon about Chinese Eric's apparent interest in SERVANTS / to Dianne about going home and studying / to Wesley about the South Edmonton Church, which apparently Enoch knows about; Christon would know about it, of course)

When Eric and I went out into the foyer, I was distracted by little Mattias clutching his dad's leg - he was actually playing with a green toy car. (I should get him one of those, haha...) I said hi to him, and asked if the car was his - dumb question if asked to anyone above the age of six, I suppose, but he's only two and a bit! Someone else decided to take the car for laughs while Mattias was distracted - it wasn't me, I told him. After he got the car back, I left with Eric via the elevator. That would have been fine (even saying hi to Auntie Catherine), but then MR. CREEP BLOCKED THE DOOR WHEN IT WAS ABOUT TO CLOSE! *unprintable language goes here* He just wanted to say that he wasn't sure whether they were going to Beefy Beef or e.tea / Oscar's / SushiHolic (in the old Mama's Kitchen location) - GO AWAY! WHEN WE SAID WE WERE GOING HOME, WE MEANT IT! YOU ARE NOT A SELLING POINT! UGH! Of course, the elevator door BEEPED after that... stupid person!

I managed to hold in any ranting tendencies until we got to the car since Auntie Catherine was still within hearing distance, but Eric commented quietly that I was agitated. YOU GOT THAT RIGHT! I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO ACTUALLY GET INTO THE ELEVATOR WITH US! HELLO?! ENCLOSED SPACES WHERE YOU CAN'T RUN OR HIDE?! After that, he said I should practice "love thy neighbor" and have a new project where I called Mr. Creep by his name... the last isn't going to happen, although he admits that "Nemesis" is slightly better. As for his being my neighbor, that would only be true in the vast global sense... NOT IN THE SEXUAL OR EROTIC SENSE! (and I wouldn't want that anyway because of what he did - and especially not after Bob sent me a message soliciting sex via FB chat [PATHETIC!] at 12:45 AM yesterday!) I happen to be good at loving my (metaphorical) neighbor, and I'm not being delusional when I say that! We also talked about bananas on bus stop ads, editing, typos, Toddler Sunday School, errors driving me crazy, honor and glory awaiting him in WOW when he completed cooking / fishing daily achievements while battling scarabs and such, Sunday, and more. When I got home, I had to block Connie Dennis because she was quite rude about my helpfulness in distinguishing between H20 and H20. (H2O is water, while H20 can be misread as H-20) No loss there, since she didn't comment on my stuff anyway!

College majors and wood floors

You Are Artistic

You are a creative and expressive person. You like to share your vision with the world. You are open to new experiences, and you would never want your life to be set in stone. You are a total non-conformist. In fact, you resent rules and routines. You are easily moved and inspired. You are convinced that you need to follow your passions.

What Does Your College Major Say About You?

Blogthings: Take a Quiz. Annoy Your Friends.

You Are Intelligent

More than anything else, you want to figure things out. You are a natural scientist. You are detail-oriented and a bit of a perfectionist. It drives you crazy to spot errors, especially your own. You know your strengths and weaknesses better than most people. You don't speak with authority unless you are sure about something. You are very self-sufficient. You've learned to rely on yourself because others are unreliable.

The Wood Floor Test

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

Word Facts for Jan. 8-14, 2011

Word origin for the weekend of Jan. 8-9, 2011: Birds Eye - Clarence Birdseye, a Canadian trapper, invented what he called the quick-freezing method in 1924. While working in the Arctic, he noticed that fish frozen immediately after being caught tasted better than fish that were slowly frozen. His quick-freezing process resulted in 168 patents, as well as the frozen-food company that bears his name in the form "Birds Eye."

Word origin for Jan. 10, 2011: pooh-bah - Not often heard these days but still eminently useful, the term "pooh-bah" means an official who has all the power to make your life miserable... and knows it. The word comes from the name of a character in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado, in which Pooh-Bah is a vain braggart who likes nothing more than adulation save for a handsome bribe.

Word origin for Jan. 11, 2011: Facebook - The social computing site known as "Facebook" began life as a literal book of faces (well, a loose-leaf binder, anyway) at Harvard University. This compendium included photographs attached to profile sheets detailing the interests of the students who signed up for the service. That information was transferred online in February 2004, still serving the Harvard community, but quickly extending to other Boston-area schools. It is now a worldwide phenomenon, with tens of millions of users.

Word origin for Jan. 12, 2011: mohair - Many fine varieties of wool are referred to as "mohair," particularly when they take the form of scarves and sweaters. The word has nothing to do with hair, despite appearances. Instead, it is an English effort to spell the Arabic word mukhayyar, which means "of the finest quality."

Word origin for Jan. 13, 2011: Frisbee - Time was, students in New England schools enjoyed flinging empty pie tins (which flew like flying saucers) back and forth, especially those made by a bakery called Frisbie's. On January 13, 1957, a company called Wham-O began to produce a similar toy that it called the Pluto Platter Flying Disk. Quite by chance, the Frisbie bakery closed that year; Wham-O acquired the name and began to sell its product as the "Frisbee."

Word origin for Jan. 14, 2011: mystical - One might think, given the hazy wonders of the magical world, that "mystical" somehow connects to "mist." It does not. Instead, it comes from the Greek verb muein, which means "to close the mouth or eyes," and is directly connected to the word "mystery." A mystery, by that light, is something that a mystic promises not to speak of, just as a thoughtful magician will never reveal another magician's tricks.

Danny's Wonton House, Greek creamy yogurt, health, and dark chocolate soy milk

Vanessa tried calling me at 5:50, but of course got no answer, so resorted to MSN. She was bored and wanted to get out to eat, as there's no kitchen where she is. Maybe Chinese / Japanese / Pho / Vera's / Lucy's East Side Diner / Wok Box at Walmart (since she has to get Wayne's birthday gift) / pizza... too many choices, haha. I'd just had pizza last weekend, so that's out for me! We considered the BAD parking near Lansdowne, veggies, and other things as well before deciding on Danny's at Ironwood. There's a Save-On in the plaza with plenty of parking, so that works! (she said stuff about banking and the tunnel, which reminds me that I needed to go to the bank with this cheque too...) I took a very quick shower (for me) before leaving, haha.

She picked me up a bit later, we did some banking at Broadmoor, and we had beef / veggies while talking about Wayne / family / disgusting habits / necklaces / hot pot / Krista / Teunis / meds / Christmas and New Year's / Ladner / earplugs / being cold / plug-in blankets / the snow / pudding bubble tea at Tapioca Express / cars / the Alice Cooper radio show / grandmas / cooking with too much sambal sauce / broth for wonton soup. Thankfully, the restaurant took debit! Later, we went to Save-On where she had to get earplugs and cereal anyway... since we were there, I got some Silk True Almond dark chocolate soy milk (she says it's SO GOOD!) / KREMA Greek-style yogurt (she got one to try as well) / four-cheese Alfredo pasta sauce / a 60-pack of Excel White gum. Talked about spelt, calories, natural foods, venting, arrangements, and more on the way home. Decided to do some laundry when I got in, and here's Chinese Eric on MSN now wanting to know about "any word"... haha, okay! :P

Hearts and musical notes tagging!

Got this "hearts and musical notes tagging picture" from Candace's friend Jackie:

Ian and smooth sacred stones (dream) / No lunch! / Breakfast Pastries

I had a weird dream about Ian M. going with a bunch of Harmony's relatives and our family to a place with a Buddha statue and sacred stones. He loved the smooth stones, but cried a lot when he couldn't find his mom - they were eventually reunited in a hall with flower decorations and tables with long white tablecloths. No idea why I had that one! My sister called to see if I'd like to go for lunch, then said that they were sticking to their original Steveston plan. No, I am not available to look after Big G if there's snow outside - Mom should KNOW this! *cough*shortchange*cough*

You Are a Donut

You are outgoing and colorful. You don't mind that people think you're a little zany. You hate rules so much that you refuse to write your own. You fly from the seat of your pants. You delight in all the whimsical things the world has to offer. Powdered sugar and rainbow sprinkles can make your day. You want to have as much fun as you can. You aren't materialistic... you'd rather have experiences than stuff.

What Breakfast Pastry Are You?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

Poopy Taking First Steps / NO GOING OUT DURING SNOW!

Found a new REJECTED icon:

Steph called to see if I wanted to go to the townhouse for the purpose of keeping Grandma company while everyone goes to the States: not during a heavy snowfall warning, that's for sure! (of course, Mom was behind this... I'm not really awake at 9:30 AM, even if Steph would drive me there and back) I asked how Lisa was at school; apparently, she's excited about this semester! Then I told her about Chinese Eric's throwing up, and about Teunis moving back in - she got it right when she said that maybe Teunis could cook for me! Yeah, that's happened the last few times he's been here, and it's all good! I do thank him and all of that, so there are no worries on that score, haha. She had to leave for a dinner - props to the organizers for planning it AFTER the Christmas season! The Canucks also won 4-3 against the Islanders, so YAY!

Green, brown, and purple tagging!

Got this "green, brown, and purple tagging picture" from Candace's friend Jackie:

1/11/11... yay for numeric coincidences! / Dylan showing sense in snow

Today is 1/11/11. Gotta love those numeric coincidences! :D

For once, Dylan showed a bit of sense - he thinks he should reschedule the Committee meeting for this upcoming Monday because of the heavy snowfall warning. If white Eric hadn't had this conflict (which he really should have thought about LAST MONTH!), this monthly obligation would have been DONE by now! At least I now know what the program is on Friday, thanks to actually reading the Committee email; I can tell Chinese Eric that it's a Gordon Smith talk on love. He can definitely go to that one without any serious reservations from me, haha!

You Are Outgoing in Real Life

You are modern and up on the latest trends. You resist getting stuck in a rut. You aren't sure of yourself yet. You sometimes envy people who are confident. You are very verbally adept. You love to talk, even if no one else is listening. You consider yourself to be a responsible person. You will do whatever needs to be done.

What Does Your Facebook Profile Say About You?

The First Rule of Blogthings Is: You Don't Talk About Blogthings

JESUS SANTA is a real name?! / Chinese Eric resting

I've heard about someone named Jesus Santa - WTF?! Chinese Eric said hi on MSN tonight, so I hoped his mom wasn't going to kill me because he threw up when he was here last week! He laughed and said it was just that night - sure, but I still worry about my friends anyway! Of course, he thanked me for caring! He'd spent his weekend resting a lot, and I told him about the birthday party in Coquitlam.

Teunis, no yelling, and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!

Found a post from Teunis saying that he'll give notice soon and leave sooner - not sure if it's legal to do that, but maybe it was just hyperbole. I do know that living in an environment where someone is constantly yelling at you for performing such normal tasks as cooking (and where you're allergic to the cute dog that you take for walks every now and then) is NOT GOOD! Accordingly, I left a comment to that post - yup, I do these things out of love! Good thing I saw the post today as opposed to yesterday afternoon at Billie's! Then, my primary objective was "scroll through / skim everything I missed in the past 24 hours - with HIGH SPEED INTERNET - since I was too tired to do so last night after everyone left the party!" I probably would have missed it otherwise, haha.

You Are Michelangelo

When it comes to your group of friends, you are the fun-loving one. You love to party. You can work hard when you have to, but you'd rather be taking it easy. Preferably with a slice of pizza. You are easygoing and carefree. Even the most dangerous situations don't stress you out. You are very outgoing, social, and popular. People love hanging out with you.

Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Are You?

Blogthings: Discover the Parts of Your Personality that Have Been Hiding

I'm having the three slices of leftover tandoori pizza from Friday night as a meal right now, actually!

I AM NOT A SLACKER, BUT I WILL BE VICTORIOUS!

Got home from Billie's at 5:40 (got on the C28 within a few minutes / the 160 and the Canada Line within a minute), which was about what I'd figured after getting distracted for an hour when I planned to leave the house! Thank goodness I can now use quotation marks, question marks, forward slashes, and apostrophes again... Billie's laptop keyboard was kinda confusing for a while! Saw some guy playing the bongos at the Canada Line in the cold, telling everyone about how Jesus Christ was the only way to salvation. I was irritated because it was cold (and he was saying stuff about how he hoped the bus didn't come), but the 407 luckily came in about ten minutes! I found two calls from Eric timestamped this morning at 8:56 and 9:01 AM, but was amused at what I thought was his force of habit on Sunday mornings. When I got to the computer, I found that he'd left me an MSN message at 2:06 saying "hello slacker." I TOLD HIM THAT I'D BE IN COQUITLAM! Before he signed off, he said that he'd thought THAT had been on Friday... hahaha, no. Good thing he didn't call me on Friday anyhow, as I had plans with Chinese Eric! (poor guy... I hope he's feeling better now!) Dylan later explained things via email, but didn't apologize - he said he didn't see me at church this morning, and thanked me for changing my schedule for Eric. HA, WE'LL SEE WHO IS VICTORIOUS! (perhaps I'm being petty...)

Cake and Jello defeating us, Dr. Tran, and much more epicness!

Got to Billie's almost without incident, and met Aaron (whom I'd just met on the bus from Coquitlam Centre - thank goodness I was friendly on the C28 to my fellow passengers) / Scott / his girlfriend Sara / Shawn / his girlfriend Samantha / Dorna / Patrick / Alana / Lars at the house at various times. Discussed Korean food, Australian accents, clubbing, walking to the restaurant (the walk uphill almost killed me and Sara - she and Scott were concerned for me!), grilling food, beef / chicken / pork, transgender people, various videos, pizza, wisdom teeth, Goatse (we advised Dorna NOT to look it up!), Rick Rolling, characters, animation, oral surgery, the Iranian education system (midterms and provincials from Grade 1 onwards...), GANACHE CAKE ATTACK (which defeated us), raspberry / pomegranate jello ATTACK (which also defeated us!), the non-pretty potato salad (nobody ate much of that for different reasons than last year) and more. We went into the basement, found glass in the couch, and spent time vacuuming it up and bandaging Billie and her finger up before opening presents. Toques and scarves and mittens from Aaron, a Coquitlam Centre gift card from Dorna, a lovely drawing from Patrick, and four pairs of lovely earrings from her brother Bahman being chief among them. We also watched Aaron and Lars do some tai-chi... and cracked some bad jokes about bromance and leaving someone for their twin!

I spent the night calling Patrick just Pat, which seemed to work well for non-slipup purposes! Yeah, the pronouns mix us all up - but he looks pretty good for a girl, for sure! Hugged a bunch of people goodbye, shook their hands, and generally added some to FB too. (and they have added me back too!) Aaron and Billie took the guestroom, which was fine by me - we talked about my mother, switching mothers maybe NOT being a good idea, work stuff (online gaming and billing is pretty busy!), Babak coming over later, blackened toast which reminded me of naan, sole fish and salad, tea, and more. Definitely was polite to her parents, for sure! Also caught up on more than 24 hours of missed stuff - yay for really speedy Net connections! Even though my Opera is fast-ish, I do NOT want to know how long it would have taken me when I got home!

Upon checking my email, I find that Eric wants to POSTPONE the Committee meeting we have scheduled for tomorrow since he agreed to pick up a friend from the airport before he realized the conflict. If this "friend" is who I think it is, then NO! DO NOT DO THIS! TELL HIM YOU CANNOT DO IT, AND SEE HOW HE LIKES IT! WE ARE MORE IMPORTANT ANYWAY! Then Dylan emailed us saying that he had just talked to EVERYONE (way to include ME since I am still in Coquitlam!), and Vivian just has to check her schedule before we AGREE to postpone it to this Tuesday instead. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. THIS IS VERY UNFORTUNATE! :(


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You Are Compassion

You are not a petty person. You truly want the best for people, and you feel empathy for them in their struggles. You believe that we are all interconnected. When someone is happy, it makes you more joyful. You believe that you have gained a great deal of freedom from not judging others. You don't believe that anyone should have to suffer. It pains you to see others living a hard life.

Which of the Four Divine States Are You?

Blogthings: Waste Time at Work!