today: today i went to church.  it's sunday after all.  i almost forgot my purse and had to run back in to get it.  thought i'd grab a mandarin on my way out and eat it on the way to church.  lost a segment or two into the mysterious depths of my car en route.

an elder and brother hutchinson greeted me with hand shakes as i walked in.  bro. h gave me a program as always.  i waltzed down the aisle to the fourth pew and sat right on the left hand edge where i always do--where there's a faint notch carved out of the pew back in  front. i was late and was waltzing during announcemnts.

sacrament meeting was same old same old--prayers, hymns, covenants, talks, hymns.  one of the primary teacher's spoke.  she's one of those filipino mothers who had to leave their family to come and work here.  she hasn't seen her kids in 10 years.  i couldn't imagine how hard that would be. i felt for her.  she said being in primary makes her feel like she's with her kids.

primary began with the usual craziness that has become our lot since the chinese branch started having sacrament in the primary room.  this time it wasn't so bad except there were two extra rows of little chairs which i had to remove and then get the kids to all move up to fill in the gap.

sharing time was fun.  we started out picking apart mosaiah 2:17 and discussing the meaning of the scripture and why helping others was helping God.  the wisdom that comes from children is pretty awesome.  teaching little children about service is like preaching to the choir.  they love to help and they are so full of ideas and experiences from their every day about serving others.

i wasn't going to go to choir because my voice felt thick and muted.  when i first arrived at church i could barely get to a c.  but singing in primary must have warmed up my voice.  so i stayed for choir.  it's fun learning all the christmas songs even though i won't be able to be there when we perform.  the least fun song is one where we have to go up to a high g.  at those parts i just take a breather and join in again when it comes down to a d.  g's are crazy high.

yesterday: yesterday i drove out to surrey to fatima and daman's new place.  it was moving day.  i was later than i was supposed to be but not as late as the moving truck was, so no biggie.  fats and i got shown around by the building manager who fatima introduced to me as "chris".  "hi chris." i said all friendly like.  he smiled kind of nervously.  then we went up to the new apartment.  it's pretty nice but even smaller than their last place.  fatima was telling me about the things that weren't cleaned and the whole in the bathroom door, not to mention the water squirting pipe under the kitchen sink and the whole time my stomach was saying "FEED ME or i will eat YOU."  i don't like to give in to threats but i was hungry.  i hadn't eaten breakfast and i even forgot the mandarins i was going to bring as energy boosters. fatima suggested mcdonald's.  we were going to walk but then changed our minds when we remembered the slushy sidewalks, so we drove.

 getting into the micky d's parking lot proved problematic and fatima was NO help.  as we were driving around i told fatima i was so hungry that i wanted to eat a two bacon cheeseburger meal with a large fries and a 20 piece chicken mcnuggets. fatima laughed nervously, "do they even have a 20 piece?" "oh yes they do." i said in an all knowing way.  in the end we had to pick our way over a snow bank and i didn't get the nuggets. but i did get a mint arrow mcflurry, which only made me cold.  be recently i'm totally into chocolate mint ice cream.  it's just so good!

we stopped at dollarama and canadian tire and the movers were still not around.  but we went back anyways.  i wasn't feeling that well.  i felt light headed and like i couldn't get enough breath.  in short i was feeling some long lost asthma effects.  i said "let's lay down in your bedroom and have a nap while we wait."  and did so promptly.  fatima opted for sitting in the closet which is one of her favourite places to sit.  she particularly relished it because she actually had a closet which was one step up from her last place.  then the movers came and fatima went down to let them in yadda yadda.  i lay face down on the carpet and tried not to drool.  after a while i got up and began texting karey.

so then we began the pattern.  movers come up the elevator with a load, drop it off in the appt., fatima and i stack and arrange it like a puzzle, and take off taped on blankets, fatima and movers go back down and i stay and keep doing things.  they have soo much stuff and a very small place.  so all the boxes and stuff i placed like a puzzle until some of the towers were close to the ceiling.  we used the balcony too.

once when fatima came up she told me there was a line up for the elevators.  and people were getting impatient.  the thing is fatima and d. had to pay 100.00 to reserve the elevator, which i thought was lewdichris.   other people were trying to move in without paying the price, which on one hand i don't blame them for but on the other hand they can't put the hate on for us because we had the elevator.  after a while "chris" came and softly told us that he was going to have to unlock the elevator for everyone to use because the other elevator wasn't working and he said he could do it because they were later than they said they would be getting here.  at this point old mover had a mini blow-up.  in the end they didn't do that.  in the end i pulled and pushed the box spring and mattress of the BIGBED into the apartment from the elevators myself.  proud moment.  pat on the ol' back.

older mover kept putting stuff where i was purposely clearing stuff for the couch.  then he said "hey we still have the couch!" after which i without thinking said "we know.  we've been trying to leave space for it."  fatima caught my eye, "you gave the mover attitude." she sing-songed softly.

in the end the movers started squabbling between themselves.  the job had taken a lot longer than they thought and i guess they were stressed.  after they left we took a breather.  i was still having a hard time breathing and developing a killer head ache.  we chilled on the couch and talked. daman was very doomsday about the whole thing so we tried to cheer him up. sometime  in our conversations when fatima was saying 'chris', daman said '\who's chris?".  "the building manager!" we said.  "isn't his name harry?" asked daman.  later fatima told me she heard someone else calling him harry.  so he became harry-chris to us although daman insisted on the politically correct harry.

daman decided he would set up his office first.  fatima and i decided to work on the clothes.  many of you may know that my best bud fatima has a clothes problem.  it is well known and well documented.  she basically has enough clothes to clothe a villiage very well.  what you may not know is that she married a man who arguably may have an even worse problem.  they packed their clothing in black garbage bags and when i was first bringing them in i was trying to leave room for the bed.  after the steady stream of bags kept coming and coming i gave up and the room became carpeted with bulky black garbage bags.  it was to this room that fatima and i retired.  i sat in the midst and began folding clothes.  if there was hangable stuff, i handed it to fatima on a hanger.  i discovered that daman has about 100 plain white t-shirts.  fatima has over 20 pairs of jeans.  the jean thing alone fills me with awe.  from the perspective of a girl who rotates 3 pairs of jeans the choiced available seemed mountainous.  i asked fatima some find out questions about how she choses jeans to wear from her 'collection'.  speaking of mountains, i soon had a mountain of folded clothes around me.  we teased daman about his underwear.  "i feel violated." he said from the hallway.  fatima made a lot of progress on her new and precious closet, periodically whispering sweet nothings to it.

then we worked on the kitchen which was unbelievably small.  there was just no room!

then we sat in a stupor. all through the night daman was very enthusiastic in his thanks.  moving someone else is way better than moving yourself.  it was no big deal to me.

then i went home and they went to fatima's parent's place which was just around the corner.

as soon as i left my headache fired up a notch.  my chest hurt.  got home fed the felines, made some lemon ginger tea, climed in bed and watched jane austen regrets.  then i went to sleep.  i still have a bit of a head ache to day but not as bad as last night.  it was one of those kinds of headaches that hurts more when you move your head in any way.  you know?

friday night: it snowed wildly outside while i watched mohabatein

one more day of work until i'm off for 4 days and until sarah comes!  wahooo!