Mr. W and I compiled an earthquake survival kit over the weekend. I’d first checked with my parents and asked if they had one, and if not, if they’d like me to make one for them. My dad responded for me to go ahead, so Mr. W and I doubled everything we bought. Unfortunately, as Mr. W is a huge Costco fan, our earthquake kits came out to about $200 each. But that includes first aid kids, lots of food, and two new rolling duffels. We could probably feed the entire neighborhood from our survival kit, or survive a zombie apocolypse, provided we had a big stick to beat off scavenging neighbors in the second scenario. My mom called on Sunday and told me to skip the weekend visit as she was really sick. I protested I had to bring them their earthquake survival kit. She said if earthquakes happen, they will likely be at work, and our giant home-supply kit isn’t going to help anyway. Good point. She said ideally, we should have more portable survival kits in our cars because that’s something we’ll always have with us, no matter where we are. Also good point. Oh well.

On Saturday, we had our first official “event” with Daughter’s new beau. We’d only met him once before, rather recently, and rather briefly. This time, we invited him over so we could all go to sushi at a local favorite all-you-can-eat place. Turned out, despite his telling Daughter that he LOVES sushi, he’d really meant rolls and didn’t realize there’s a whole other world of nigiri. Son came over for lunch, too. So the 5 of us sat at the sushi bar and some of us had a ball. “Some” = Mr. W and Beau; Mr. W’s two kids, Son & Daughter, refused to eat anything out of their comfort zones so they just ordered a bunch of rolls, nothing raw for Daughter. She claims to “hate seafood.” Son did try spicy tuna and seemed to enjoy it. As for me, I was going to just avoid the high-mercury fish, but as soon as the sushi chef learned I was pregnant, he convinced me that I shouldn’t eat most of this stuff raw. He proudly announced that he has an 8-month-old at home, and that he had taken 5 parenting classes, one of which included nutrition for pregnancies. He had all the current info on how sushi should be prepared and limited for expectant mothers. I just deferred to him and let him serve me omakase style. He avoided all fish in the tuna family (ahi, yellowtail, albacore, etc) and did serve me several pieces of salmon, but he’d lightly seared the outer surface of the fish to kill off any surface bacteria, leaving the inside thankfully rare. He also made me special rolls with optimal nutrition in mind. I saw that a bunch had asparagus spears inside. Beau enjoyed everything, and kept trying to get Daughter to try his favorites — salmon and yellowtail. She refused. Hours later, when everyone was hanging out with us at our house and Mr. W took a nap in the La-Z-Boy as everyone else watched March Madness on TV and I played the piano, every few hours the silence would be broken with Beau sighing, “Ooooh, that yellowtail belly sushi!”
Soon Son and Mr. W left for a father-son gymming session, and Beau engaged me in a long conversation about religion. Not just about HIS religion, but about other religions, Calvinism, my beliefs, thoughts on predestination vs. free will, what personal experiences we’ve had in our lives that brought us to our specific beliefs. I respected much of his opinion. Although he is die-hard Christian (newly for a year, so he’s got that born-again conviction), he wasn’t pushy or preachy, and had an open enough mind to accept questions or suppositions I put up. For example, he brought up that the Bible says no woman should be a leader among men, and I said I had a hard time thinking everyone would be okay with that in this age. He said he has no problem with others not accepting this belief of his, and if he sees a woman leader leading men, he wouldn’t condemn her or say anything; if he decided it wasn’t for him, he just simply wouldn’t go to that service. But he doesn’t judge others who believe differently. I asked whether it was possible, in his opinion, that back when that passage was written, it was at a time when women were not allowed to participate in political events, talks, or even allowed to be educated. Clearly if they decided to incite a rebellion, these women would have a disadvantage in being informed, so maybe it was safer to tell people to just not allow women to lead. But that is not true today when women have the same access to information, education, and just about anything else. Beau acknowledged that this is possible, but because he doesn’t feel that he is qualified to start defining Christian rules as “cultural” vs. permanent, he feels it’s safer for him to not redefine anything personally. Because, he reasoned, what would keep someone from redefining all rules, and saying, “Oh, that no-premarital-sex thing? That’s old-fashioned cultural stuff that no longer applies to today’s culture. I don’t have to follow that. Oh, that love-they-neighbor thing? That was back then. Today’s world is different.” I get that. I can respect his logic. I also respect that throughout our discussions, he remained able to intellectualize his reasoning, he never blindly regurgitated Bible quotes or declared a defensive war with me on theology. We both just shared, and asked questions, and really thought about our answers before giving them. If there were something he wasn’t sure about, he’d either think and hypothesize, or say he simply didn’t know. At the end he gave me a hug and said he enjoyed our conversation. We also both seem to dislike the pushy “preachy” Christians who end up being more hypocritical than truly living the spirit of Christianity, as they judge negatively all the non-Christians around them and condemn everyone else’s behavior. Beau said that goes against the heart of Christianity; he believes in living in a way one believes is right according to Jesus, loving and praying for one’s neighbors through the neighbors’ decisions to do things contrary to Christian “law.” He says you don’t spout hellfire at them because you are not “above” everyone else simply because you are saved, and you are not “better” or “more deserving” in Jesus’ eyes. He says we’re all the same sinners, some have just found Jesus already. Again, I can respect that. The only thing that kinda bugged me was that he said he would have to ask someone like Rebecca who her Lord is, and if she gives ANY word response except “Jesus,” he couldn’t participate with her. I asked, what about “God” as a response? He thought and decided no, because “God” is generic and could mean any god, and he didn’t trust himself know whether he was following the “right” God and his intention is to stay on a specifically Christian path. So he wouldn’t take the risk of following non-Christian doctrine without realizing it. I understand that, it’s rather conservative and humble, but at least he’s open-minded enough to converse and learn about other religious views. Daughter, on the other hand, has a harsher more closed-perspective about her religion. She didn’t think she’d return to Rebecca because Rebecca had made a past-life reference in reading someone else, and Daughter said she’d discussed this with other pastors and they didn’t agree with reincarnation, so Rebecca must be — well, she didn’t use the word, but it’s implicit — “wrong” or “bad.” She says she believes in Rebecca’s accuracy, but was unsure of the source from which the information came, despite all of the references to the “universe,” “greater good,” “God,” “prayer.” But because Rebecca didn’t specifically say “Jesus,” that was the problem — she didn’t say the key word for the Christian community. Beau actually gently corrected Daughter, saying if Daughter didn’t know if Rebecca was Christian, she should ask Rebecca before deciding she must not be, and mused that the Bible doesn’t specifically condemn or deny reincarnation, although it addresses mainly specifically one’s current lifetime and one’s afterlife, and he mentioned some story about a woman at the well to whom Jesus said something about her having lived 5 lives. He said he simply didn’t “know” about reincarnation, but that he will once this life ends and he greets his Maker.

So anyway, Sunday was rainy, which was nice for staying indoors. Daughter disappeared early morning to church and didn’t return until about 10:30p (with Beau in tow). Mr. W and I spent the day being lazy. I watched a “House” marathon, read my baby book during commercials, and did a ton of laundry; he played a new game on his computer the entire day, stopping every so often when I would appear to tell him something funny I saw on “House,” something funny Dodo did, or needed a hug in between stupid loads of laundry. And he stopped at 8pm of course (after I yelled and yelled at him from the stair landing, because he played the game with headphones tightly plugged into his ears) to give me my Progesterone shot and massage the offended butt muscle. (Heating pads afterwards work WONDERS!) I also had a nice phone chat with my expecting cousin Jennifer. Her due date is the end of September, so she’s a bit ahead of me and shared some of her first trimester complaints of nausea and how “eating has now totally become a chore.” I shared with her what I’ve learned recently about epigenetics and proper pregnancy nutrition. (You’re eating for 1.1 in the first trimester, not for 2, so doubling food quantity is totally excessive AND bad for the baby.) She made a passing suggestion for going maternity shopping together. I’m still (secretly) hoping to get away with buying little to no maternity clothing. Why invest tons of money for a condition that only lasts a few months of my life? Besides, plenty of today’s fashion is empire-waisted and look like maternity clothes anyway. Much cheaper (and cuter) than ACTUAL specialty maternitywear.

I thought I was entering into the morning sickness stage of pregnancy this morning when I felt a little sick after drinking water this morning, and thought, “Oh no! I have dinner plans with Ann tonight to catch up over Japanese BBQ” But it passed, so I’m hoping it stays away a bit longer.