A Night for the Books

As the title of this blog implies, this was in fact, a night for the books. Unfortunately, I do not write books so we'll have to settle for a night for the blogs. It doesn't quite have the same ring which is disappointing, but I'll sacrifice style for accuracy anytime. That's neither here nor there. What is here is a mind that is utterly boggled by the sheer absurdity of my evening. What is there is hopefully an appetite whetted for the riveting tales to come. Lest I digress further into nonsensical idiomatic trifles, perhaps we ought to move into a retelling of the events that have so tangled my brain.

Move with me, if you will, to an evening not so long ago - the fine latter hours of May 9, 2008 in which Emily Rose and I decided that we were going out. The pub was selected as the venue of choice, Carla was notified and thusly we embarked upon a venture of frivolity and friendship. That simple gathering started out in hilarity - obese children falling off stools and crying maniacally for days on end (ah, accuracy calls - there was only one obese child and he cried for a mere 20-ish minutes, but you get the idea); the carpet was christened with malt vinegar propelled inadvertently by some wayward elbow; dueling banjos echoed from the far reaches of the establishment. At any rate, we were having a grand old time, relishing the delights of being with only single people. All three of us. Carla let us know that she had invited OTHER friends who were all single and would be joining us at any minute! The pure rapture I felt at newfound awareness of other lonely hearts is inexpressible, and when the aforementioned individuals showed up and they were fairly congenial... well, I can hardly bear to remember the heights of my joy. Moving right along... we met Yvette who is friends with Dan, and Jessica who is related to Dan, and Jordan who is friends with Dan, and finally we met Dan the missing link between them all. I should note that we had a smashing time of it, spending no small portion of our fellowship rehashing coincidental stories of our past. Does this seem laborious? Forgive me, if so - you'll soon discover how vital this context is to the greater scheme of things.

In almost no time at all us new cronies were linked on Facebook and I had received a message from Yvette letting me know that every couple of weeks on Tuesday people get together at Dan's parents' house to sing hymns and I ought to come. Now, I'm no slouch when it comes to new experiences, but everything about this seemed peculiar to me. I just met this girl, I just met Dan, had never met his parents, never been invited ANYWHERE for the express purpose of singing hymns, and in addition - couldn't fathom a scenario in which it all made sense. So I decided to go. I rang up Emily and she was game - like-minded in that it all seemed far too bizarre to NOT go. And go we did.

As we drove up to the house, Emily commented that her parents owned the house on the corner & pointed out its next-door neighbor telling me that her parents and the kindly folks that resided in the neighboring abode had, at one point, conjured up the crazy idea that Emily should meet their son. We drove on slowly looking for our location and even more slowly it dawned on us that the house we had just passed was indeed the house we were seeking. Furthermore, the Dan we had just met was indeed the young man intended for Emily. Right about now is when the Twilight Zone theme song started to echo faintly in the recesses of my abandoned brain. We walked up to the front door, took a deep breath, and ... knocked. A lovely lady answered the door & we were introduced to the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet. Yvette was there along with Dan's parents & a couple who were peers of Dan's parents. Yvette swore that there were typically tons of "young" people there & laughing it off we began to chat. During the course of our chatting we began to unravel chains of connections binding us together. Emily found that she was inextricably linked to Dan's parents through a variety of connections whereas I had grown up with their son-in-law. Furthermore, two of the people coming were kids that I had known more or less since birth at my childhood church. People that I had worked with overseas were lifelong friends of others and so on and so forth. The point is simply this: call it fate or God's sovereignty - we were bound to each other in more ways than we could ever imagine.

I suppose it's really not such a spectacular tale when it's all said and done, which, to be perfectly honest, is a little disappointing. I may have failed to capture the increasing fervor with which we discovered our ties to one another, and the delight we experienced at each new find. All in all it was a pretty rockin' evening and I enjoyed it immensely.