Eggs and Blintzes!

1975.11.3

I meant to say so much more Saturday before we had to leave on our flower trip, but once we got started my responsibility of being Mitch's object did not stop. For one thing, I wanted to mention that it was All Saints Day.

I also wanted to mention that I'm really going to miss Reid and Jim. Reid is so innocent and childlike, and yet so deep and profound. He understands the deepest thinkers and has, from what I can tell, always led a very serious life centered on all the classics. He is so great, so different from anyone else I know. He is destined to be a teacher, I bet. Probably teach all about ancient Greece. He seems to really love Greek, even bought a Greek Bible from a Jehovah's Witness down at Powell and Market and told me he wanted to teach someone Greek. Of course I said I would, but of course there has never been any time. Reid even used to live in Atlanta for a while, I think up in Sandy Springs.

Jim Sanders it took me a while to get used to. His expressions are so intense. He told me his spiritual senses were open when he came to the Family, but he prayed that they be closed so that he would be able to hear the truth. Once I got to know him he was really great. I used to think of him as almost comical sometimes. He can see auras, which really fascinates me. They said that when he saw Father, he kept jolting like there was an electric current going through him. Both he and Reid are such perfect saints, objects of God.

The flower trip this weekend was pretty good, even though we didn't do so well monetarily. But it was a growing and learning experience. Unfortunately, as a team we weren't that unified, but I'm not really sure why. Besides myself and Mitch, there was Peter, Richard, Annette and Gay on the team. Annette did super well. She had Mary Jane's spirit with her. I'm sure she and Linda and Mary Jane were all friends back in New York.

Last night, Saturday, I got dropped off at the Refactory Restaurant, but I had hardly gotten through the front door before the manager gave me his song and dance about how I couldn't sell roses inside. He said that there had been some guy there before who came through the front once and through the back twice and that he never did find out who he was or what exactly he was doing. (It had to be a UC member.) But the manager was really pretty nice about it and I developed such a strong concept that I couldn't go back inside. So I stayed outside the door, but it spaced me out pretty bad because I really wanted to get inside. So I prayed I could pay indemnity for the team and straight away sold two-dozen for $16.

Mitch was about an hour late from battery trouble and we finally ended up parking the van in the Burger King parking lot and hitchhiking up and down the strip for our bar run. Gay and I teamed up. I said that HF would send us the perfect ride. Not only would we get where we were going, but they would buy some flowers. Then I said it would be just about two or three minutes.

About three minutes later a car stopped with three people in it who had obviously been smoking pot. The thought crossed my mind to get high, but I knew that those days were gone. Besides, they never even offered, not that it would have made any difference of course. They had already bought a dozen white roses. The girl said she had wished that they had had red. I said we had red and I sold them two-dozen.

Then inside the restaurant, a place called Dan's, the waitress or hostess said the rule was no soliciting. So I said my rule was if she was going to throw me out, she had to first buy some roses. She bought two.

We ended up staying up all night and caught a few hours sleep in the morning after our 5 a.m. prayer condition. We didn't sell too well on Sunday and Mitch felt we were paying some kind of indemnity. We did one last run on Polk Street in San Francisco. We were planning on staying out late, but for some special reason we had to be home. The reason turned out to be that the next day, today, is Children's Day. It is also October first, according to the lunar calendar, but nevertheless it is certainly Children's Day, which is one of four holidays celebrated by this Family. Children's Day means you get up at 2:45 a.m. so that we can be at Hearst Street by 4 o'clock for Pledge Service.

Since we were getting home fairly late, and by the time I could get to bed, there was about half an hour left before the Red Red Robin. So I stayed up again last night.

Pledge Service was really beautiful, with Omma and Oppa dressed in ceremonial white dress. A huge altar table was set for HF, laden with fruits and meats and nuts and COOKIES and CANDY! So much food all being offered up to HF. So beautiful, SO HEARTISTIC!

And this morning we actually had breakfast with solid food! Eggs and blintzes and sweet rolls and fruit, so good and filling.

We had great individual entertainment, especially Ellen Durkell, who was hilarious in her descriptions of Family life. Even Oppa got up and danced.

Oh yeah, before breakfast, after Pledge Service, we went to Lake Merritt holy ground in Oakland. Almost all of our Bay Area family, except a skeleton staff at Boonville, was there. When we cheered, it could be heard resounding across the lake. It was INCREDIBLE!

Then we came back for breakfast, then Oppa sent us to bed. But before I made it anywhere, David broke the big news to me and Tom that we were going on a ten-day flower-selling trip with Matthew to Phoenix and Dallas. Matthew, Jennifer and Kristina are physical brother and sisters and are really close to Onni and Dr. Durst.

Right now we are are waiting at Hearst Street and I think Onni is going to explain the mission. From what I understand, the trip is to help Father buy a seminary. There are going to be seven teams with seven members each. Anyway, this is unofficial and only what Tom told me this morning on our way back to San Francisco to get our stuff. Whatever it is, I think it is a first for the Family, which is hard to believe.

The story is that the church, through Father, is buying up most of the land around Barrytown, and they need $360,000 to set the material foundation for a university, which is one-and-a-half years away. The Bay Area is receiving the blessing by being asked to raise one-third, or $120,000 in 10 days.

We had a really gorgeous banquet, where we ate some of the food that had been offered up to HF. It was so great. Onni and Dr. Durst were there. The sharing by some of the older Family members was so deep that I actually cried, especially over Leal's sharing and Kristina's sharing and Oppa's prayer. I really felt God's love coming through. Kristina shared how the flower-selling company first got started when she and Juliette sold their first flowers, the whole bunch, on the holy ground. HF wanted to show them that the flower-selling company had His blessing and would be a great success.

Ours team was the first to be blessed by Omma and Oppa.