Saturday, April 16

Oh, this was a great day. I should start from the beginning.
( Let me tell you all about it )

Sunday, April 17

John and I woke uo early this day, probably around 8:30 or so, planning to go to his and prester_scott's church. John was pretty sure there was a 10:00 service and we were aiming for that. We made it there at 9:50 and the service, it turned out, was 10:15, so we had plenty of time. We went to a meeting hall near the church where they had juice and donuts to chat for a bit and see if Scott was there.

The people were very friendly. At least a dozen different people, including the bishop and one priest, approached to say hi to John and be introduced to me. And I can't really remember any names now. I think the priest was Father Mark, maybe, and one of the others was Tim, whose name remains with me because John had been talking about his bachelor party earlier, and Scott's mentioned him before.

I've never been to a catholic service before; the closest I've come was a Roman Catholic wedding that included mass. But this service felt very different, because the wedding had a lot of people who weren't catholic. Being among all these people who knew the ritual and what to expect made me feel like an awkward tourist. It gave me a clearer perspective on why evangelists worry about how to reach the unchurched. Because it is rather alienating, when you're not sure how to find the right hymn, or when to kneel or stand or sit or say amen or cross yourself or even -- in my case -- how to cross yourself. I'm sure if I went to a catholic service every week I'd eventually pick it up. But at the time, even with all the very friendly people I still felt out of place and stupid and inadvertantly disrespectful.

Strangely, while I can still remember the sermon (which was about the value and dangers of theology) and that the music of the choir was very beautiful, most of the rest of the service is a blur for me. Except I remember the baptism: a little baby girl in a lacy white dress, whose parents brought her in late with what the bishop described as "the army of godparents". She must have had at least eight godparents. I found that endearing. The bishop cooed over the baby as he performed the baptism, which was very cute. ("Christ claims you for his own -- yes" *big smile, wiggling fingers* )

On the way out, the bishop and the priest said goodbye to everyone individually. They both gave me hugs, which was nice. We went back to the meeting hall to try to catch Scott again. After a little while, we ran into Tim and he told us Scott wasn't there, which surprised both of us. So I drove us back to John's place, where I took a nap. I can't remember if John napped too or not. Probably not; he does live in Orlando, after all.

Around 3PM or so, I woke up and John and I lazed about talking for an hour or so, still wondering what had happened to Scott. Finally, John got a message from Gen explaining he'd had food poisoning and she was taking care of him. Ouch. :(

At 4PM or so, John gave gwendelkitty and jordangreywolf a call to see if they wanted to play Robo Rally. They agreed and we persuaded them to let us come there, since they're much better set up for gaming.

I'd meant to set up a simple board, but completely goofed by using a mapboard that's fairly innocuous ... as long as it's bordered on at least two sides. And I'd placed it at one end of an L shape. Ooops. So that one game took most of an evening. It also had some other unusual aspects: Jordan actually blew apart one of Gwendel's robots with his laser. I've never seen one robot pour that much laser fire into another bot before in Robo Rally. But everyone had a good time of it, and John wound up winning that game. I was pleasantly surprised by how enthusiastic Gwendel was about playing the game, and about board games in general. I'm too used to being the one who always has to cajole people into playing games. :)

Jordan also cooked dinner for us during the game -- yay! :9 I am soooo glad I didn't have to eat at restaurants all the time on this trip.

As Jordan said, one of the best parts of the game was cracking jokes over it. At one point, after Gwendel had been knocked out, she was eating fried chicken while the rest of us played. Or rather, she was trying to eat fried chicken. We kept saying stuff that would make her laugh so hard that she couldn't eat. She threatened to retreat to the kitchen so she could finish her meal without choking on it. :D

We didn't stay too long after finishing the game, since John and Jordan both had to work the next day. Of course, John and I stayed up until two or three AM anyway because, you know ... that Orlando thing.