another Monday, another post about the weekend

So, as is usual on a Monday morning, I'm posting a quick summary of my goings on over the past weekend.

I don't remembr what happened Thursday night, which means that probably nothing did.

Friday morning I slept in nice and late, and then did a bunch of work on the book. I went through all of the small- to medium-sized edits my pastor suggested, and just have a few fairly big ones to do. Then my wife made me help her clean the house, which really had to be done, so I'm glad that she did. The house now looks pretty good, and will probably stay that way for a couple of days.

Friday afternoon, about 4:00, just as I was getting used to the idea of having a nice pleasant evening of doing nothing, I remembered that it was Friday, not Saturday, which meant I had to go to Youth Group. Whoops. I hadn't properly planned for it, but that was okay, because it was our year-end BBQ, and I planned to order in pizza or something instead of grilling burgers and dogs - mostly because I dind't know how many people would show up, so I didn't know how many burgers & dogs to buy.

Anyway, here's how the evening went down:

• 5:00 or so: I tell my wife that if nobody shows up, I'll be coming back home, and when she asks me what the cutoff point is, i tell her 7:15. HA! This is the biggest joke of the night, and at numerous times throughout the evening, I think back on this prediction and laugh sadly to myself.
• 6:55: I'm in my car, just about at the church. I'm supposed to be there for 7:00, so I'm doing fine. But my cell phone rings; it's one of the other leaders, telling me that he forgot about Youth Group too, but he's on his way now. He'll be about 20 minutes late. I said no problem, and I'd meet him there.
• 7:10pm: I'm sitting in the church by myself, reading The Nation, and 3 of the kids show up on bikes. They tell me that they'll be "right back".
• 7:30: The other leader, who had called me on my cell, arrives.
• between 7:45 and 8:00, or so: The 3 kids on bikes come back, as to one or two other kids, and one of the leaders shows up. "Aha!" I think, we can leave now. But no; the leader who has just arrived lets me know that another of the leaders is on her way. So we wait for her.
• 8:30: Why isn't she here yet?
• 9:00: Hmm. Still not here. I should call her.
• 9:01: I call. She's on her way.
• 9:20: She gets here - finally, we can go!
• 9:21: Hmm. It's 9:21 on a Friday night; where are we going to go, that will let us in on this late notice?
• 9:30-11:30: We have a very nice dinner at a restaurant, and a good time is had by most.

So that was Youth Group Friday night.

Saturday started off disappointingly, because I woke up at 5:00 in the morning for no good reason, and couldn't get back to sleep. Finally, after waking my wife up probably half a dozen times, I went downstairs to read, and then added some more pictures to the choir web site. Later in the morning, after my wife had woken up, her cousins called, and let us know that they were going to the Harbourfront, and did we want to come? I grudgingly accepted. (I wasn't grudging about it because I didn't want to go - I like the Harbourfront. But since I'd woken up at 5:00, I was hoping to get a nap in the afternoon...) Before we left, we played around with my sister-in-law's iPod Shuffle, trying to get it to work on my computer, which was a problem because apparently my computer's USB port is slow, and the iPod prefers a fast one. But we got it connected, and got a bunch of music on there for her.

We went to the Harbourfront in the afternoon, and had a great time. (I wasn't even tired, despite my lack of a nap, so that was good.) Most of the time spent was waiting for a couple of people who were shopping at the booths, but it still wasn't too bad. I saw some insane person in high heel flip-flops, which I thought was ridiculous. But I won't go on and on about it here, because I'll probably devote an entire post to it...

We went out for supper at a place on Front Street, right around the corner from Metro Hall that had a patio, which was nice. It was the perfect weather for it. But on our way in, this couple walked out, and told us that we shouldn't bother going in - which dominated our conversation for the rest of the evening.

"Why did they say that?"

"Was the food bad?"

"Do you think they saw rats???" (On a side note for this one, my wife, it turns out, does a pretty good rat impression.)

In any event, the food wasn't too bad, and a good time was had by all.

Sunday was fairly uneventful, except that we went to evening service, which we don't normally do. But I was asked to play guitar, since the usual guy wasn't there. I played some songs really badly, but nobody seemed to mind, because my church is full of nice people.