1223 sunday

My father dropped me off at SBCC today around 10:20am. I was meeting my friend, Kathy, on the patio, to talk and catch up. She needed some advice and a shoulder to lean on.. I hadn’t expected first service to already be out, but the patio was crowded. Fortunately, Kathy found me and we had 30 minutes to chat before second service began.

After Pastor Nathan and the worship team opened the service, KidzKrew bounded onto the stage and performed three Christmas songs, complete with coordinated hand movements. There was one boy in a green shirt, who appeared to be lost, as he walked back and forth across the stage, either in front of or in back of the rest of the kids.

The rest of the service was the same as Saturday’s (see yesterday’s blog entry for details), but I sat in and listened to it anyways.

After, the service ended, I met up with members of my Koinonia lifegroup, as we planned a Christmas luncheon. I had pre-arranged transportation with Sheri, so we all headed off to Moo’s Chinese Restaurant on Torrance Blvd, just west of Anza. It was a nice lunch as it was one of the few times that we were all present at the same time. Sheri, Liz, Sam, Wendi, Stephanie, Eric, Jennifer and myself. We invited Anjie to join us, plus Liz had told Chris and Sunny about it; they were already eating in a booth when we arrived.

The nine of us filled up a round table and decided to order family-style to share dishes, which was fine with me. Sam had some favorites in mind, so he took care of the ordering.

Gifts were exchanged. I had distributed my gifts to the group three weeks prior, as I was uncertain if I’d be able to make it today. Most of them said that they would honor my wish to not open the gift until December 25th, but some of them accused me of torturing them by giving the present so early. I found out today that one of them couldn’t stand the torture and opened the gift. I asked her to keep it a secret, since everyone received the same thing from me. I hope they all like it.

We played a word game from Jennifer and Eric, where you guess words to fill-in blanks with clues, then collect specific letters from each word to spell out a sentence. I got most of the words and extrapolated the rest, and basically Eric is pregnant with a 2009 due date. I might have to go back over it, but that’s the best-guess I could come up with. Sam’s effort came up with a “monkey”, so maybe something happened on their Uganda/Kenya trip that they are just now telling us about. Hmmm. Maybe Eric’s luggage wasn’t the only thing that was “lost” during their two weeks over there.

The food arrived and we all dug in. I asked the server for a fork, since chopsticks are still a challenge for me. Stephanie must have overheard me, as she was asking Sam how to say “fork” in Chinese. Sam just looked at her and said, “fork”.

It was around 3pm when we finished up and made our way outside, stopping by the Christmas tree at the door to take a group photo. As I got up out of my wheelchair to pull myself into Sheri’s Sienna, I felt the elastic waistband of my sweatpants slip a little. I figured that I would adjust myself once I was seated. Suddenly, I heard a sigh of exasperation behind me as Wendi’s OT-training kicked in and she reached out to pull my waistband up. I couldn’t help but start to laugh, which made the climb into the Sienna much more difficult. Wendi commented that she sees it happen all the time to her patients when they do transfers out of their wheelchairs.

The drive back to SBCC to drop off Wendi and Stephanie was uneventful, other than the fact that Sheri doesn’t like making left turns. So instead of turning left onto Torrance Blvd from the restaurant parking lot, we made three right turns, going past West Torrance High in the process.

After dropping off Wendi and Stephanie, and making sure that they got to their cars okay, Sheri drove me home. When Sheri backed down the driveway, my mother commented on how nice it was that my friend was able to drive me home. I responded that she hasn't left yet. Sure enough, Sheri pulled forward and then made a second attempt at backing out. Only when my father closed the driveway gate did I know that Sheri made it to the street.