Entries this day: Church Kangaroos SilentFootball zHappyTears

Church

11:39 am Sunday 18 February 2001

Beaner and I took the train to Jollimont and walked by teh botanical gardens to the Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church.

Small gongregation in this room that could seat 200 comfortably, though it would be hot.

Today there are two speakers who described the situation in Indonesia with East Timor becoming free and how to help facilitate the process so the residents can actually have soveriegnty and make decisions about things that actually affect their lives.

Now we are in questions and answer session.

19 people in the room here includng the young adult speakers and Bryn and I. about 10 people over age 60.

Bryn's nose is experiencing allergies and sniffles.

The members here seem much more aware of the situation than I am.

12:39pm

(this is being written on Thursday 22 Feb)

After the fellowship, Bryn and I joined them for sandwiches and conversation. We talked to a man named Bob who had been a professional lacrosse player and is now in charge of lacrosse stuff or something. He was part of the over 60 crowd at the church.

He described getting in trouble for unnecessary roughness at a game. Bryn and I wondered later about his grandkids all, "Grandpa, you're the coolest grandpa ever!" while he sat in the penalty box.

Kangaroos

8:39 pm

We just saw kangaroos!! In the wild even, right beside a golf course. We are at Joe and Mary's house, and went swimming (in their saltwater pool) and then had Aussie barbecue, which does not inolve barbecue sauce, or beans, or potatoes of any variety. Big cuts of lamb grilled with vegetables - red pepper and stuff.

At dusk we walked about a mile from the house, crossing a golf course along the way, and then saw a bunch (a mob) of kangaroos! Probably about 50 or 60 in a few distinct groups. Bryn got some pictures of me with roos in the background, and we got some of them jumping and even got a pic of a momma with baby in pouch. I'm not sure if they were close enough to discern it in the pics though.

After I ran out of film (1 roll only, doh!) we got about 6 meters from a couple of roos. So amazing!

10:07 pm

Mr Rob and Mss Bryn begin a game of Silent Football where we can each tattle and the other becomes dictator fo that moment.

"Miss Bryn is correct; Mr Rob receives one half of one sip of Miss Bryn's Dr Pepper."

10:35 pm

We stopped playing in order to look up how big is a mole (6.02 * 10^23) because that is how many penance point I awarded myself for something.

12:30 am 19 February 2001

Bryn and I have been talking heaps about YAC and YRUU and how to make them both better.

1:45 am

Brainstorming things I can do toward finding a different more perfect job for me:

• Look up rotary.org
• look up Youth for Understanding

3:11 am

Just had the most amazing conversation with Bryn. Our homework: I will contact rotary.org to see what they do, and Bryn will write a letter that she has needed to write for a while.

SilentFootball

10pm or so 18 February 2001

Bryn and I played the most awesome variation of Silent Football.

The football is moved using the normal rules, except:

• we can fwap to ourselves and through ourselves (as long as it doesn't go backwards through ourselves). Like I can fwap fwap fwap and it goes from me to Bryn, to me, to Bryn.
• we can fwap any number of times up to about 60.
• we can zoom to ourselves.
• if someone makes an error, the other raises their hand and the one who made the error becomes dictator:

  "Miss Bryn."

  "Mr Dictator, Mr Rob fwapped a fwap fwap."

  "Miss Bryn is correct; Mr Rob receives one 
   one hundredth(*) of a penance point."

  "Mr Rob."

  "Madame Dictator, Miss Bryn is a tattle tale."

  "False. Customary tip of the hat..."

It's tricky when we both raise our hands at the same time.

But so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(*) The game ended when I awarded Mr Rob one mole of penance points and we looked it up online to see how a mole is defined. (It's the number of hydrogen atoms there are in one gram of hydrogen (6.023 * 10^23))

zHappyTears

3:35 am 19 February 2001

Just now while in the shower, I was reliving our conversation. Bryn expressed how completely she wished I could know how much I helped her, and I cried happy tears, as named by Wende's and my marriage counselor a couple weeks ago.

Bryn, know how much I live and love to give this type of support.

Know how much you help me see my life path.