Tonight was the first of two planned events this weekend--the young adult get together at the Kawamotos' house. It's been a nutso weather week all week, and it rained again this afternoon and evening. I called to see what time the do started, and the word came back 4:30 if you wanted to swim and 5:30 otherwise. I didn't want to swim, but I did want to see who would, so I figured to show up sometime between the two start times.
Well, it rained, so nobody showed up to swim, and I was the first to show up. Guess that's a party foul on me. It turned out to be a good thing, though, because I get to talk to Darren, Al and Kathleen Kawamoto's son. He's a shooter and gun collector in the same vein as me, so we spent the first hour or so talking guns, ammo, and collections. Some others started showing up closer to 5:30, but Darren and I were pretty oblivious to them.
I finally had to break off and start talking with the others. All in all about fourteen people ended up coming. Working from memory, they were: Pat, a 2ndish year college student going to University of California San Diego, Pat's brother Em who is just out of highschool, Lauren who is out of high school and moving to Maine in about three-ish weeks, A. J., a student at Southwestern Theological Seminary, Michael, a high schooler and Lauren's brother (I think), Brian, also just out of high school, Doug and Dedra, a married couple who still go to the singles group, Ashley, who I didn't find out a lot about, and Michael (different from the first), apparently Ashley's boyfriend.
Al cooked hamburgers and hotdogs. I had my first hamburger in seven months. It didn't disappoint. I sat at a table with Pat, Brian, Lauren, Michael 1, and A. J. I carried the conversation for about half the time. I'm afraid it came off as five interviews. I'd ask questions, get a conversation going, and at some point shift over to another person. Eventually I ran dry of things to talk about, and the interview got shifted to me (after an awkward pause). They were all good conversations all around.
I liked talking with Pat best. She had the most mature conversation of anyone I talked with at the table, and she was in an interesting major. No sparks really flew--it was just a conversation, and it was clear that she had ambitions of staying in California for awhile.
After we all finished eating we ended up playing a game called Pente. I'll skip the rules for brevity's sake and just say that it's a strategy game that gets more complicated as the number of players increase. I was at a table with Bryan, Michael 1, Pat, Ashley, and Lauren. I won one round and made a few points, so I was satisfied I didn't completely bomb out. Ashley is really the outgoing type--always wanting things to move fast and interjecting random but related comments. Hyper isn't quite the right adjective, but maybe one below that. At the end of three games we all had had enough, and the party broke up.
I didn't get to leave right away. Bryan decided he wanted to leave ahead of me, but because my truck was blocking the driveway, he decided to go around. Unfortunately, he pulled into a grassy area that, due to the rains of this week, was as soggy as it could be. His minivan got stuck, and we had to figure out how to get him out. We discussed it and tried a few things, but ultimately we attached a two rope to my truck, and I pulled him out.
This is one of those nights that was just really good all the way around. Everyone was really nice. The conversation and food were both excellent. I met a fellow gun nut, and the Lord put me in the right place to help out a brother. It'll be interesting to see how the second half of this goes tomorrow.
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