Sunday 18th December
As the title suggests, this is my last full day in California before I go home. Naturally this started by packing for the trip home, I’d actually started this the night before and just needed some washing that was going on overnight. Chrissy was very insistent on going to church today, and to be fair; why not?
In hindsight, I’m glad I did. The church was full of singing and scripture-related comedy: a truly brilliant service. But just as my mind is being blown, I’d told that Lisa’s husband Craig actually wrote one of the songs. Simply amazing, enough said
My last night in California would be a big one, since Chrissy and Greg were playing host to the neighbors. We drove around several different food stores to gather the right ingredients for the meal. We first hit Trader Joe’s, an exotic food specialist, followed by Target and Costco. While at Costco, picking up 2 huge bags of shrimp I picked up some packs of 5 hour energy as gifts for my friends back in the UK.
We had to make it back in time to watch the football, with Chrissie’s idol, Tim Tebow. Unfortunately his team lost 41:23, which was good news for Greg, who needed Tebow’s team to lose and his San Diego Chargers to win to stay in the playoff places. Luckily, they did which improved the mood for the rest of the night :)
At the same time as the game, we prepared the food. While Chrissy cooked and Greg set up, I was put on salad duty, cutting up, mixing and marinating the salad, and helping in any way I could. I even researched a quick method of napkin origami which I applied to the table.
6pm came and we welcomed the neighbors in.
Roll Call:
o Reuben, Gaby,
o Lisa, Craig, Emily, Nathan, (15 yr old twins)
o Henry, Dorothy, Lily, (16 month old)
o Michele, Rudy
o The last family in the group couldn’t make it
At first, everyone was asking “who’s this then”, but this quickly turned to amazement when I told them ‘my story’. During the meal, the food went down a treat. Shrimp Pasta, Lasagna and my fresh salad…yum yum. The neighbors had brought desserts, which we split between everyone: Cheesecake, brownies and apple & pumpkin pies!
While most of the conversation discussed family life and work, the rest focused on me, particularly the differences in accent/ words, the different culture and why the hell I was at Cal State San Bernardino. As soon as Chrissy mentioned that I used to host a radio love show, we all pretended to have problems, which I’d have to solve using my best radio voice.
BY 9pm, everyone had enough of teasing the Brit and slowly filtered out. Only Lisa stayed behind to help with the cleaning up, despite our protests. Between the 4 of us, we managed to clean the entire dining space, Lisa could retire to the joys of the teens and the 3 of us got our fill of Fox news. I had to get an early night since the next 2 days would be huge…huge…HUGE I TELL YA!!!
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