oh, what a day

little did i expect to do as much random stuff as i did today... it's sunday,... that generally means church + lots of homework and not much more... however,...

(1) went to church... so many people to talk to.... it was the 44th anniversary of my congregation so the NJ district president gave the sermon... paul came, but instead of needing a ride like the last few weeks, a friend of his was visiting him and gave him a ride... they got there late, so they sat in the row behind me with john, this older man (well 2 years older than my dad) who goes to the AA group that meets at my church and likes talking to me on sundays because "you [i] have such a pleasant way about you [me]... you [i] don't act all critical of people, you [i] listen so well, and you [i] make people feel like they're worth being listened to" i was surprised at the compliment, but touched. :-) talked with john a little... then the weiss's all came and sat with me... during the passing of the peace, a lady in the choir whose name i don't know and who i don't know if she even knows me told me my new haircut looked awesome :-)

(2) after church, paul was having brunch with his friend matt... they invited me and i was game... they also called up mike and annie (mike is a new student this year although he's been at other grad schools and transders around with his girlfriend whenever she decides to change schools)... apparently mike and paul and matt were all roommates at university of chicago and mike and paul and annie were all in budapest the fall before i was.... this made for quite the amusing mix of people, with me mostly as an observer.... paul has two stuffed animal elephants he bought in budapest and mike had stolen them, and bound and gagged them, and the first 15 minutes of lunch was spent with them negotiating across the table over the lives of the elephants... that gives you an idea of how that part of my day went :-P

(3) after lunch was the most boring part of the day... lots of time and energy on combinatorics homework, and solved only 1.5 of 7 problems... had to stay put at home b/c the landlord was in and out working on stuff we needed fixed (our hot water in the tub isn't working quite right and tony needs to get a plumber in... blah)

(4) much later, scott had IMed me last night that he never sees me anymore and we should have a margarita night, and so we did... we went to chiles for margaritas, dinner in general, and a good gossipy/sorting out life kind of chat... lots of fun... afterwards, we went by the grocery store to get ice cream, hot fudge, and cherries and ate sundaes and read books (stop that ball and green eggs and ham tonight)... thing is, when scott and me read, we name all the characters in the illustrations (in stop that ball for example, scott's the little kid who's chasing the ball and always losing his pants, eric's the dog with cool hair following scott around, and i'm the little girl following them both and being secretly helpful)... in green eggs and ham sam is the great sam-i-am of course, and tonight we made the guy he's trying to convince to eat the freakin green eggs and vegetarian ham to be ben... however, if you look at the pictures, the characters are furry all over and not wearing clothes (they're cartoon dr. seuss animals, you know?),.... so scott, on a high on life whim, calls ben's cell phone and leaves the simple voicemail "ben, seriously, you gotta get some pants or start shaving down there or something" and hangs up... we finish the book, and scott's all like "i didn't really leave that message, did i?"... heh... i give my impression of what i think ben's reaction will be, and we let it be...

just now, scott's IM update of ben's response: :-)
smswtshnn: hey, guess what!?
smswtshnn: guess who just called me??
smswtshnn: BEN
lkp 42 42 42: and...?
smswtshnn: you were exactly right
smswtshnn: he made the same face and noise you said he would
smswtshnn: (i could tell the face from the noise :-))
lkp 42 42 42: lol
lkp 42 42 42: any coherent words after that?
smswtshnn: we had a good laugh for awhile
lkp 42 42 42: nothing else juicy?
smswtshnn: he said he knew it was me from my voice
smswtshnn: and figured there was no way he'd guess what it was about unless he called
smswtshnn: so he did
lkp 42 42 42: and what did he think of your explanation?
smswtshnn: once i explained it was from one of the books, he seemed to understand pretty well
smswtshnn: he thought it was hilarious -- we'll have to show him the page sometime soon
lkp 42 42 42: ok good
lkp 42 42 42: most excellent story :-)
smswtshnn: yes, absolutely
lkp 42 42 42: see, it's worth leaving crazy voicemails :-)
lkp 42 42 42: to appropriate people of course
smswtshnn: too bad there aren't more appropriate people....oh well, ben's a good sport

in conclusion, top two other scott quotes of the night?

"yeah, she has less than no game... she has negative game"

me: "so did you ever figure out what the utility workers were tearing up your road for for the past month?"
scott: "no... well, actually, i think they were trying to get a concrete proof of the banach tarski paradox, but obviously they failed since the road's the same size as it was before"

(if you're not well read on crazy math theorems, banach tarski says you can take a ball, cut it into 5 pieces, and rearrange them into two balls of the same size as the original... this was proved in 1924, and before you go saying "impossible!" note it's called the banach tarski paradox and so proven true, but living up to its name of paradox ;-P ... we'll leave it at that... if you want to learn more: this site will get you started)

i'm done being rambly and/or educational... night y'all.